First off, as I, Andrew, write this, my mind is flooded with all of the incredible memories my wife Lori and I have made at Camp Hammer.  I say that because this summer will be our final summer at the place we love.  Last fall Lori and I felt that God was calling us to step out in faith and leave the place that we have called home for nearly 5 years, as well as 2 summers before that.  In August, the Bradford’s are headed to Portland, Oregon.  It will be a crazy transition to say the least, but an exciting one as well.   Lori and I are expecting a new addition to our family this summer, and that is a big reason we decided to move.  We want to be near family as we start this new chapter of our lives, and Portland will allow us to do just that.  Please pray for us as we pack and plan over the next few months.  We are confident in what God is doing, and feel unbelievably blessed by the time we have been able to spend in the redwoods.  Also, we are so excited for one final full summer here at Camp.  We are determined to make it the best ever!

Ok, so enough about me.  Let me tell you about three amazing people who will be joining us in the next few weeks!  First, coming back for his seventh summer of service at Camp, and his 2nd summer as the Apostle Director is Will Witt aka “Noobie.”  Will is going to be running our Apostle program which is our two week discipleship program designed for high schoolers.  We are incredibly blessed to have him back for another amazing summer in the redwoods.  Apostle will continue to foster authentic growth in our campers with Will heading up the program!

Working alongside Will beginning in May is Rosemary Conn aka “Okra.”  Rosemary is joining us as the Apostle Female Lead.  This summer will be Rosemary’s 5th summer on staff at Camp.  Last summer she served as an Apostle Counselor, and we are so glad she will be coming on board to work with Will to make this the best summer of Apostle ever!

Finally, I wanted to let you guys know who will be taking over for yours truly.  Starting next Tuesday, Jeff Neckers will be coming on full time at Camp to train in as the new Program Director.  Jeff is a dear friend and will be an amazing person to fill the Program Director position.  Jeff has spent the last few years working for Twin Lakes Church, more specifically 2701, the High School group at TLC.  It is always a scary thing turning over something you love to someone else, but I am confident that Jeff will do an amazing job and that Camp will flourish with him serving here!

So, needless to say there is a lot of transition happening!  With all of that in mind, please take time to pray for all of the people coming and going!  We are excited for what God is doing, and hope you will share in that by praying for camp!  Thanks for reading.  Check back next week!

Peace.

Andrew aka “Liger”

For the past 4 years Camp has been working incredibly hard to improve our internet capabilities.  For those of you who remember a little thing called “dial-up,” which was what internet was before Cable and DSL, we have had something like that, except worse.  For the past several years our internet has been via satellite with a company based across the country.  Although the word satellite may indicate some kind of decent signal, do not be fooled.  Maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but in reality, internet has been spotty and slow at best over the best few years!  With all of that in mind, Camp Hammer is happy to announce that we currently have a T-1 line up and running!  The speed of our internet has increased dramatically, and our internet has been incredibly reliable the last week or so!  Again, this may not seem like a huge deal to all of those who regularly enjoy relaible internet, but for us, this has been a long time coming and is an incredible blessing.  Not only does this new line improve our internet, it also improves our phone system which has also been a thorn in our side for the last few years.

Believe it or not, this new improvement will benefit all of you as well!  How you ask?  Well, with these improvements we will be able to manage more from Camp.  Online registration issues will be easier for us to tackle, and less time consuming.  In all seriousness, it was not rare for Camp staff to wait minutes at a time for pages to load.  You can imagine how frustrating that can become!  With our phone issues worked out and internet capabilities surpassing our previous state, we are excited to see Camp continue to move forward!  This blessing will also give us the capability to serve you better through our website.  In the near future we will be improving our website and our plan is to update it regularly (not just when the internet will allow us!).  Make sure to watch out for all of those great changes!

Much of the credit must be given to Faye Malone, who has worked tirelessly with many different companies to try and make this happen for Camp Hammer!  What a blessing she is to Camp!  We are also incredibly thankful to Barry and Jeremy who work for Twin Lakes (the church that owns Camp), and their commitment to helping us figure out all of the little kinks!  Lastly, we are most thankful to God who loves Camp Hammer and has had his hand on Camp with or without great internet!

Thanks for reading!  What a blessing you are to Camp!  Be sure and check back next week at this time!

Andrew aka Liger.

In other news, it is MARCH!  Which is insane!  As cheesy as it sounds, I just don’t know where the time goes!  March means that summer is only a few months away.  If you follow our Facebook or Twitter page you can track our countdown to summer.  At the beginning of every post we post how many days are remaining until our first week of Summer Camp.  We are almost down to double digits!

With all of that in mind, we are wrapping up interviews for Summer Staff 2011 in the next 2 weeks.  We have received over 100 applications this year, which, if I am correct, is the most EVER!  What an amazing thing to see so many young men and women interested in serving at Camp Hammer.  We could certainly use your prayers and thoughts as we attempt to hire the staff that God is going to use in 2011 here at Camp.  We know that wherever these men and women spend the summer of 2011, God has some incredible things in store!

Speaking of Camp staff, yesterday morning the current year round staff attended the annual board breakfast at Twin Lakes Church.  If you are unfamiliar with Camp Hammer, Twin Lakes Church in Aptos owns Camp Hammer, and has helped it run since 1965.  Anyway, we all went and had breakfast with the other members of the Twin Lakes Staff as well as the Board.  It was a great morning filled with encouragement, great food, and great company.  It is always a blessing spending time with so many men and women who love Camp and Jesus!  Not to mention a large portion of the Twin Lakes Staff have worked at camp over the last 45 years and have some incredible stories!  It was a great morning!

Thanks for reading, and we all hope you have and amazing week!  Check back next Wednesday for a new post!

Peace.

Andrew aka Liger

The first piece of news, and in my opinion, the most exciting is that registration is up 700% from where we were at this time last year!  Camps are already filling up and it is only February!  Needless to say, the energy here at Camp is amazing in light of this great news.  A big reason why registrations are up has to due with our 2011 Early Bird Discount.  We offered $50.00 off the cost of registration to anyone registered before February 15th.  Because we had such a positive response we have decided to extend an Early Bird discount of $25.00 off to campers registered before March 1st!  Take full advantage of these discounts!  We would love to see our registrations continue to grow over the coming months! And don’t forget, scholarships are available on a first come first serve basis, so register today!

Speaking of scholarships, we have another amazing praise story.  At a meeting yesterday morning, our book keeper let us know that an amazing organization has just gifted Camp Hammer with a sizable donation to our scholarship fund!  What does that mean?  It means that 2011 is looking like it will be a year similar to 2009 and 2010 where we were able to give scholarships to all of the campers who needed them.  We still could use the help of those who would be willing to donate, but what an amazing blessing this gift is!  God is good, and this is an incredible answer to prayer!

This past weekend we had an amazing time hosting The Well Student Ministries from Fresno, California.  We had all sorts of former employees and campers on the grounds and it was an amazing time of reconnecting and growing together!  Some of the old staff gathered together on Saturday night and watched lots of old Cabaret videos from previous summers.  Amazing memories were remembered and it truly was an incredible weekend!  One last highlight from the weekend was that it SNOWED!  Yes, you read right, it snowed here at Camp.  What an amazing sight it was.  For about an hour on Saturday morning we had sporatic snow showers, and I think the flakes were the size of  golf balls!  It was truly incredible.

Thanks so much for your support!  We look forward to seeing you in the near future!  Check back next Wednesday for the a new post!

Peace and Love.

Andrew, aka Liger

It snowed on Saturday! So much fun!

Eric and myself (Andrew), will be traveling to the Northwest next week to begin our first recruiting trip.  We will be visiting George Fox on January 18th, and will be at Seattle Pacific University on January 19th, and 20th.  If you will be in the area, stop by and say hey!  We’d love to see you.  If you live in either of those areas, and are hoping to interview, make sure you get your applications in!  Also, we have already recieved an amazing amount of summer applicants for this summer!  What a blessing!  We are excited to see who will be here in the summer of 2011.  We will be accepting summer applications until March 15th, so if you haven’t applied yet, and are hoping to, the sooner you can get it in, the better!  We will also be traveling to Southern California before too long, and will be visiting: Azusa Pacific, Cal Baptist, Point Loma, and Biola.  I will provide dates when they get closer!  In addition, we are hoping to be able to spend a day at William Jessup, and Simpson College in a few weeks!  It is going to be a fun year for recruiting!

Also, I know we have posted a lot about this, but don’t forget to register for camp before February 15th!  You get the great early bird discount, and won’t have to worry about registering in the spring!  It is a very sweet deal!  Alright, well, that is all for now.  Have a great week!  Hope to see you all soon!

Camp Staff.

Staff.

Camp has undergone some staffing changes, and we would love to let you know who has left and who has arrived.  Our Office Administrator, Michelle (Picadilly), has moved into Santa Cruz to intern at Vintage Faith Church, begin a Master’s program, and work with the Youth Theater.  She was an amazing blessing to Camp, and we are sad to let her go, but are confident that God has some amazing things planned for her!  Taking over for Michelle is our new Office Administrator Andrea!  Andrea joins us with an amazing background in camping ministry, and a heart to serve!  We are beyond excited to welcome Andrea to our community, and believe God will do amazing things through her!

In the Maintenance/Guest Relations departments, we welcome Tim!  He will be assisting our facilities director Dennis with general Camp maintenance, and will also be hosting for our weekend retreat groups!  This is Tim’s first year at Camp, and we are excited to have his fresh perspective and willingness to partner with Camp!

Lastly, we want to welcome back Katie (Copper), who will be a Kitchen Lead for us this year.  Katie has been around Camp for years, and we are excited to welcome her back in a year round position!  She is an amazing addition to our kitchen staff and camp community!

Recruiting/Summer Camp Jobs.

Like I mentioned above, we are beginning summer preparations, which means recruiting and interviews!  If you are interested in working at camp, make sure you check out the link on our main page for working at camp!  Applications must be submitted by March 15th, so don’t wait!

Registration.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!, and you know what that means!  Summer is just around the corner!  Although it seems a bit far off, we are beginning summer preparations already, and cannot wait for all of the amazing things that will take place here in 2011!  If you haven’t already, when you are finished reading here, go back to our main page and begin the registration process!  If you register by February 15th you receive $50.00 off the cost of registration. High school students, you can get a total of $200.00 off the total cost of registration if you register for Apostle and High School Camp before February 15th!  That is the biggest discount we have ever given!  Take advantage now, space is limited!

Once again, all of us here at Camp Hammer hope your new year has started out well, and if it hasn’t, remember that each day is an opportunity to begin fresh.  We look forward to seeing you soon, and hope you will continue to pray for our ministries here!  Much Love.

Andrew. aka, Liger.

The air is cold and fresh at camp, and it is not uncommon to see a group of wild turkeys or deer roaming the field trying to soak up some sunlight!  What an amazing place Camp Hammer is!  It is almost as if December is a month where not only camp’s employees, but camp itself gets a bit of a breather.  Don’t get me wrong, we all enjoy it much more when the forest is filled with kids laughing and playing, but it is nice to allow things to slow down and recuperate from an amazing year filled with the work of God!  We are currently working on some new ideas for the blog, so whether you are a parent, camper, or just a lover of Camp Hammer, let us know what you would want to read about!  We would be more than willing to have multiple feeds for different topics if people were interested!  Some examples are (Apostle, General Camps, Facilities, Daily Bible Verse/discussion, Projects, etc.).  You are our audience, and we want to write about things that you would love to read about!  So let us know!

Ready for Summer 2011,

Liger.

Also coming up we will begin our Future Life Season!  “What is a Future Life?” you might ask.  Well, let me tell you!  Future Life Retreats are basically a mini-summer camp for schools or youth groups.  This fall we will be hosting schools from all over the Bay Area, and Santa Cruz County.

Camp Hammer also hosts weekend retreats for all kinds of groups (Church, Mens, Womens, Youth, etc) during the year.  We would love to host you as well!  We are an exclusive use retreat center, which means you get all 99 acres of these Redwoods to yourself for a few days!  We also offer some of the best pricing options around!

If you are interested in hearing more about these kinds of retreats, call our front office! (831.338.3200)

Lastly, we are still raising money for our Apostle Lodge Deck.  The project has been completed, and was used this past summer, and will continue to be used for years to come!  We are Close to having the funds to pay for it completely, and would love any support you can offer!  Thanks so much.  Check back for another blog next week!

Sincerely,

Camp Hammer Staff

Over 700 campers came and spent time with us this summer.  Campers heard from amazing speakers, played crazy team competitions and night games, ate the best cookies on the planet, were loved by an amazing staff, and many met a savior for the first time!  Our Apostle (High School Program) campers learned what it is to serve others, and who they can be when living a life consumed by their creator.  Camp Hammer is this incredible haven in the Redwoods that staff and campers get to come to and experience a little bit of what heaven might be like; a body of believers loving each other because of the love they receive from God.  For a few weeks a year these Redwoods are filled with laughter, and the sounds of people living and loving amongst God’s creation.

I truly wish I could convey just how amazing this place is, and specifically how incredible the Summer of 2010 was, but like I mentioned before, there just aren’t enough words.  If you spent time with us this summer, we miss you already, and look forward to seeing this year, or next summer!  If we didn’t see you this summer, and you just happen to be reading this blog, we hope to see you in the future, but only if your ready for the time of your life!  Praise God for Camp Hammer.

Truly,

Liger.

Skit Set.

As many of you know we are very serious around here about our night games!  With that in mind, we have been working tirelessly to get our set built for this summers skit.  I cannot tell you exactly what it is, but let me tell you that it looks great!  We have had all kinds of help from old and new staff members, as well as high schoolers from Twin Lakes High School group!  From painting to building and everything in between, we are almost done!  Get ready for one of the best summer skits in history!

Bridge Project

We are in the process of putting in a brand new bridge down by the fire circle and it looks amazing!  We had the Mens Ministry from TLC here last week, and they did some incredible work.  It is going to be a great blessing when it is finished!

Other Stuff.

We are ordering all of our summer merchandise, prepping the rest of the grounds, and gearing up.  The pond is full, the sun is shining, the set is nearly finished and we are beyond excited for staff and campers to arrive.  Thank you for all of your support and prayers.  We love and value everyone who supports our ministry!

Love,  Camp Staff.

PS.  If you are interested in supporting Camp financially we are still raising money for scholarships!  We want every child interested in Camp to be able to attend, and you can help that happen by donating financially!  Check out the “Give” Section on our website, our call our front office for more information (831.338.3200 x10)!