From Naomi
We’ve been
here attending educational workshop training at GVSU with other presenters from
MSU & GVSU. It has been a very busy two weeks. The first week we went to
MSU each day & this last week, we have been at GVSU each day; now we are
getting ready to go back to our home office in the State of New York. Then I
will go back home to northern Maine where we live completely off grid. Before,
retiring last spring from the university, I would go into a nearby town and
work from the educational center there, so had access to the internet, although
I was too busy with my job to contact all of you much. We stayed with some
great new friends who work at GVSU and live on a lake near Fremont. They took
us on some road trips around the Newaygo and Oceana Counties where we got to
see your area; we stopped in a few places, but as we didn’t have that much free
time, we were not able to see the ones that we had hoped to; hopefully next
time. We hope to get back when you have the pre-ordering event that Toni Rumsey
mentioned wanting to have for the Volney & Surrounding Area History Books.
We are also, hoping that we will be able to take in one of Shaun’s ancestry
tracing workshops; I have never been able to find much out about my ancestry,
both my parents came from the back woods of Canada. We did get to visit the
Newaygo County Museum and the Oceana County Museum; I can hardly wait to get
copies of your books. My professor friends who are helping you put your books
together were with us at these educational trainings. I found a couple of other
professors that will collect the materials for your third book. I will set up
an email for that soon. By these professor groups collecting the materials for
you, they can have their assistants and interns get it together for you with
the most updated software. We also were able to visit several nature &
historical educational sites in the area while we were here. You live in such
an unique area! There is no place on earth that has as much in such a close
area; Michigan has such an geographically and historically rich environment! We
were also able to visit the property sites and meet with the ones working on
Camp Dream. The sites are perfect. I know Nellie hoped to have them closer to
Hesperia, but large corporate farms and developers offered more money for the
property; things always work out for the best when God is in control. Although,
the places that she was looking at were great (we drove past them from the list
also), I think these others are better. Everything is closer together, inland
lake (for wilderness camp with historical farm next door), creek (for
historical village), & river (for nature center) all right together and
Lake Michigan property a short distance away. Perfect! Nellie, it has been
about 50 years since we first met in Florida at the Christian Crusade where we
both attended with other students from the Bible Colleges that we attended at
the time. One of these days, we will meet in person again. I have to go, we
have to get to the airport.
Naomi
Attention,
Volney Group & Nellie
Hi again,
While in
Michigan, our host & hostess took us out to different restaurants, etc.
This was so much better than staying in a hotel in Grand Rapids. We stayed at
their place on a lake near Fremont. We visited the neat shops in Fremont &
Newaygo. We went to Bitely & Woodland Park and seen where Old Denver was
located, they took us on back-roads all around Volney. We got a lot of nice
pictures; the weather was nice while we were there. Training sessions at GVSU
were done at 3 each day so it gave us some day light hours. The week of
trainings at MSU, it was late when we got back to Fremont, so we only went out
to eat some evenings. Several times we just had our meals at their place on the
lake. Our host should open his own restaurant. They have their own small farm
there and grow almost all their own food except for what they get from the wild
(meat & herbs). Another road trip took us to Walkerville to Hart & to
Lake Michigan & the sand dunes. Some places were not open when we could be
there but our hostess contacted different ones to open places up so that we
could visit them. One Saturday, we drove on up north along the coast of Lake
Michigan & visited many unique places. We also stopped in Hesperia for
lunch the day we went out to see the property that Bethany’s friends are
looking at for the wilderness youth camp, which started as Nellie’s Camp Dream.
We stopped at Nellie’s but they were not home. On one road trip, we went north
of Holton to Joseph & Leah’s, Michael & Anna, and Vinny & Sannie’s.
Joseph & Leah have a large group youth foster home on one side of the lake
and Michael & Anna run a woman (with their children) shelter on the other
side of the lake. They were going to sell their properties to buy the camp
property, but they can’t have potential buyers visiting their place as it has
to be kept private and it is a perfect place for what they are doing, so they
decided it best to keep doing what they are doing where they live. They are now
looking for other ways to pay for the property. PLEASE, PRAY FOR THIS. God can & will provide the money
to make this camp with so many services for so many people, but He does need
YOUR PRAYERS, He always needs our prayers. They said that they also need good
people to help with the camp, once they buy the property. They have their hands
full with their own ministries. Please, pray that the right people may be
found. If anyone is interested, they should contact Bethany Jordon who used to
live in Muskegon Heights. Sorry, I have to go again, but I will try to write
more later.
Naomi
No comments:
Post a Comment