THE OCTOBER RECAP The Fall Review Winter is coming! I hope this isn't a shocking revelation; in fact just this morning I was walking to work in a slight bit of snow. What's more, it isn't the first time I've walked to work in snow! Winter is coming. However, in an effort to hold winter back just a little bit, let's takes some time to celebrate some of what happened this past summer at camp and a few things God has done throughout the Fall season.      I am often asked what my job looks like throughout the year and every time I take the question as an opportunity to speak of how Cedarwood is in fact a complete year round ministry! Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but we do camp all year long!      Well to be honest, things do look a lot different from the sun, fun and activities of summer camp, but it is no less impactful in the lives of the teens we minister to. Around the Cedarwood community we call this season 'follow up'. Others may use the term discipleship, but that seems to assume that we are focusing exclusively on the teens who made a faith commitment over the summer. Discipleship is in fact something we take very seriously, and already in the past few months we have seen many campers begin attending churches (Grant Memorial, Nassau Street Church, The Meeting Place, North Kildonan MB and Awaken Church just to name a few). Yet to focus exclusively on these campers would neglect the scores of campers who left Cedarwood still not ready to make a faith commitment. For these campers we offer genuine friendship, mentorship and an authentic community through weekly events, one on one conversation and giant retreats back out to camp! At Cedarwood we are committed to ongoing, long term relationship with our campers and to live this out we need to be there for them throughout the entire year. The summer staff get this and passionately live it out even in the midst of their busy university lives.     To date we have hosted 6 weeks of events and one mega Fall Retreat and we're just getting warmed up. Just this past Monday we were at the Youth for Christ building with about 35 teens hanging out, doing crafts, playing video games and shooting some pool. What was cool about this was that we had some campers out who we haven't seen in a very long time. I recognize that to some, playing video games may not seem like ministry. Yet connecting with a camper who we haven't seen in over 4 months and having conversation about how life has been going for them, is ministry.      Please pray for us as we continue to meet with our campers over coffee, video games, volleyball games and craft tables. Please pray for us while we listen to them, pray for them and with them. Please pray for them as some begin to explore what church community can look like for them.     Here is one story we showed at the recent Youth for Christ Banquet. This is Ryan Murray and his story of how the follow up ministry of Cedarwood has impacted him. Click here to watch Ryan's story THE FAMILY Rhonda and the kids are in full swing with school now. Caden and Annabelle are in piano with Ben Sellick; all three are in dance classes at Masterworks Dance Studio and the older two are in a children's choir. Just the other day Rhonda told me that she had wanted to read some books to Coralise while the others were working on their assignments. She held up a library book and asked Coralise if she wanted to read it with her. Coralise replied that Caden had already read it to her! Rhonda held up another and got the same response. Then another, and another! It just blew both of us away that the kids were doing this on their own! It certainly isn't smooth sailing all the time, but the kids are learning so much so fast (I think it's because their teacher is so amazing ;)  A special thank you to the folks who joined us just last week at the Youth for Christ Fundraising banquet. This yearly event can be a wonderful way to celebrate the work God is doing through YFC. If you're interested in coming next year just drop me an email and we'll make it happen! PRAYER ITEMS Please pray that campers would continue to open up the to the follow up staff and volunteers, embracing the good news of Christ. Please pray for continued wisdom for our team as we begin planning ahead for upcoming events and summer 2015 Please pray for our family as we balance our life and ministry on multiple levels. That we would find joy in each and lead our kids to love Jesus. Praise God!!!! Just take a few minutes to praise Him, because He is really, really, REALLY GOOD!  THE FALL RETREAT The major Cedarwood event in October is our Fall Retreat. Registrations for the retreat this year poured in faster than we had ever seen before. We had been averaging about 65-75 campers, but this year we were blessed with 106!!!!!! This meant that we had the opportunity to meet and reconnect with a huge pile of our campers while having fun, loving life and learning about God! The theme for our retreat was 1 Corinthians 13:13, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." Each day we tackled a different element of the verse and pointed things back to how Christ offers us hope for our lives here and into the unknown future. Campers responded with the heartfelt affirmation that these are themes which matter to them... right now! We had dozens of campers stay back after the Saturday and Sunday evening programs finished and pray with staff. Some of these campers had never even been to camp before or heard the message of the gospel! Praise the Lord! Watch the Fall Retreat Video FINANCIAL UPDATE Since sending out my last letter in September I received several specific questions regarding the state of our financial support. Let me say that Rhonda and I deeply appreciate each of you who have been our ministry partners through prayer, encouragement and / or financial support. The response to our September update was encouraging with a few people committing to increasing their monthly contributions and for this we can not say thank you enough. The flip side of this though is that we are still short on what we require every month.     When I started at YFC we had only 2 kids who were both under 2 years old. Now we have 4 kids and all the expenses that go along with a bigger family. Yet we have not received a raise of any kind in all my time at YFC because our monthly support is still below what we require. I'm not writing this to garnish your pity, just to merely answer the question many of you had been asking. Thank you for your care, concern and prayerful compassion in this. Our goal is to meet our monthly salary requirement at YFC by the end of 2014 and you can partner with us in this! We are looking for some you of you to commit to $100 a month, at least another 10 people to commit to $50 a month and several to commit to $25 a month.  If you feel like this or another amount is on your heart and within your means you can: Give YFC a call to sign up. 204-669-4205 Mail a cheque or void cheque for monthly contributions to 333 King St. Wpg. MB. R3B 0N1 (Just include my name in the memo) Click below to donate through Canada Helps DONATE ONLINE HERE Thanks for all your prayers & support!!! (And thanks for taking the time to read this CRAZY LONG EMAIL!) THANKS FOR READING!!!! CHECK OUT MORE CEDARWOOD PICS AND VIDS ON FACEBOOK! Next issue: CHRISTMAS with the Cattani 6!