Mike’s Meanderings New Tribes Mission of Canada

313363 Highway 6 South, PO Box 707 Durham, ON N0G 1R0

Canada

June 2010 Michael_Myers@ntm.org

Imagine you’re out in the woods, living for weeks with no refriderator, no computer and no television. All you have is what you’ve been able to carry. Your walls are made of plastic and your house is held together with bailing twine and duct tape. Welcome to Jungle Camp!

Jungle

Camp

Jungle Camp is something all first year students must do! It’s basically camping on steroids! Every family and every single must design and build a house using nothing but wood poles, duct tape, bailing twine and plastic. We are limited to a 16 foot by 20 foot space. Only four nails are allowed in the whole structure, those that hold our table top to its legs. There is running water to all of our properties via a water tank filled with city water and hoses run to each lot.

I will be living with Daniel Laubacher, a single guy who has been my roommate for this past year. It has been such a fun experience as we have worked together on building our house from the ground up. We will move up on June 12th and move down on July 9th.

How do we cook? So you may be wondering, how in the world do we cook our meals? The answer is with a wood stove. But not just any wood stove, a modified 55 gallon drum with a cooking surface and an oven welded onto it.

What I had to do was build a cradle for the

drum. This is done by constructing a wood structure for the drum to sit in, lining it with plastic and filling it with roughly 4 inches of dirt. The drum is then set into the cradle, leveled and more dirt is added to the sides. Then we coat the entire drum with wet clay for insulation!

Electricity? Obviously there are no electric lines run to the Jungle Camp lots so you may assume that we have no electricity at all. If you were thinking that then you would be mistaken. One of our classes taught us the benefits of using solar technology on the mission field. Now we get to use this technology in a practical way during Jungle Camp.

NTM has provided a set of solar panels and a charging station for our use. We only have to bring the battery which convienently can be found in our

car. We are able to charge our batteries on the solar panels every other day for use in our house. Practically what can I do with this? I can run lights to various parts of my house and I can run a battery charger for my camera off of my car battery!

Visitors Weekend You can have the opportunity to visit me during Jungle Camp! There is a visitors weekend, July 3rd and 4th, where anyone can come and see how we live in Jungle Camp. Anyone who wishes to visit is more than welcome! The address of the school is at the top of this letter. You can camp out in tents on the lawn if you wish or can find a local hotel to stay in. I would love for you to come and see me!

Thank You! Thank you for your interest, your prayers and support greatly encourage me!

Training in Canada for the Mission Field

- Michael A. Myers

Prayer Requests • That Jungle Camp will be a good

experience for all involved • For my personal study time during

camp • For time management

• For my personal growth in Christ

during this time. • There are two families expecting

children during Jungle Camp, pray for their health when they have to deliver.

(Just so you know, they are allowed to leave for the hospital should this happen during camp)