Dear Friends and Family,

 

So, as many of you probably know by now, I’ve taken a full time position at Hickory Cove Bible Camp! It’s a very exciting/different/stressful time joining the staff here, but mostly exciting. Or should I say it was? I’ve actually been working here since March now and trying to find time to write letters to let you all know about what is going on seems to be a rare commodity. Because, as you might be able to imagine, if you’ve ever volunteered at a camp before or even just attended before, things tend to get pretty busy. Even after summer ends we’re still going strong, because pretty much every weekend we have groups here. However, unlike in the summer we usually don’t have nearly as many staff! So it can get even more chaotic around here than you might expect.

 

I realize now as I’m finally writing this that, most of you probably don’t know what I actually do here. And that’s probably alright, to be honest, as I’m still growing into my role. Right now, my title is “Program Facilitator” which has always sounded pretty vague to me, but that’s probably because it is. I focus mainly on the activities side of things and making sure that our equipment is working, but I also lead, or facilitate as you might say, the activities when we have groups here. I also build things to help optimize some of our different activity areas, and help with the general cleaning around here. And I help in the kitchen sometimes. And occasionally, I help with some of our computer problems. And, well, I’ll just stop there, because I’m running out of room. To sum it all up, I guess I just do whatever needs to be done to help keep things running smoothly and for everyone to have a good time while they’re here. And while having great activities isn’t necessarily our main focus here, they do help bring people to us so that we have more opportunities to share the gospel.

 

I’m not actually paid for things I do here though. None of our full-time staff are, actually. Which can make this whole thing seem kind of crazy to some people. I mean, who wants to go work long hours somewhere doing things that most people don’t even realize need to be done for no pay? And I guess if you put it that way, it does seem pretty ridiculous! But what you need to realize, is that we’re providing a place for kids to come and learn about Jesus, make friends, and make memories. It might be that they haven’t heard the gospel before, or it could be that they’ve been saved for most of their lives. Regardless of the situation, we’re committed to helping them grow in their faith. And that goes for our volunteer staff too, actually. I’ve always found that in some ways, you grow even more in your faith when you volunteer. So, we meet as staff in the mornings for a bible study and a time to pray together. We also have a program for those that aren’t old enough to volunteer yet called our Leaders in Training where they do bible studies and work on projects around camp. Whoever you are, when you come to camp, we want you to be able to grow in your faith, and I think that is worth all of the potential problems, like not always having much money.

 

That being said though, I have to have a little bit of money in order to eat, etc. So for the last couple months about half of my monthly budget comes from full-time staff’s general fund which is made up of donations that are split up between all of our staff and the other half comes from 1 week of work at Phillips Scientific a month, which is owned by my Dad. I’m lucky that I’ve worked there off and on for the past 6-7 years, because they allow me to come back when possible and work as much as I can to help cover my living expenses. When you get down to it, though, I’d like to be able to stop commuting an hour and a half away and giving up an entire week every month just to make some money to live on. Specifically in the fall and spring, everyone here needs to fill lots of different roles to keep everything running. I doubt anything is going to explode or fall apart for that week I’m gone every month, but it never really sits well with me having to pile on my responsibilities on someone else while I’m gone. If I need to, I’ll keep doing going and back and forth, but I’m praying that that won’t always be the case.

 

If you’d like to help me while I’m working here at camp, please pray that I continue to adjust to living up here, as well as that I’m able to handle any more responsibilities that I take on. I can kind of see the horizon and I know there’s a couple new things coming up that I’ll need to learn in order to be better do my job here. Also, if you’d like to help support me financially, just go to hickorycove.org/staff/joe-hansen. We have options our website for both 1 time donations and monthly donations. Monthly would be preferred just because having any kind of stable income would help me budget things out, but any kind of help would be great. Or if you’d prefer to mail it, just send a check made out to Hickory Cove Bible Camp with “For Joe Hansen” as a note (address listed below). Also, feel free to email me if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them (email listed below also).  I’m generally not the best at keeping everyone in the loop as to what I’m doing, but I’ll try to write at least two or three of these letters each year to keep everyone updated from now on!

 

 

Sincerely,

Joe Hansen

Hickory Cove Bible Camp
170 Ferguson Ln.
Taylorsville, NC, 28681
cell: (704) – 460 – 9862 • email: joe@hickorycove.org
website: hickorycove.org/staff/joe-hansen