River of God Kayak Kamp: Day 1

Today we began the third year of River of God Kayak Kamp with 11 young people: 4 girls and 7 boys. Eric White & I are the directors and our volunteer instructors are Mrs. Alisa Englehard & Ms. Jamie VanBuiten. We began with our Bible Lesson today from Genesis 1 on God's creation of the world. Our memory verse was Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  It is our goal to help everyone to experience God's revelation not only in the Bible but also in the BIG BOOK of Creation.

Getting to know our kayaks and paddle strokes

We went to the Monksville Reservoir  in West Milford. Everyone practiced floating in the life vests or cannonballing into the water from the dock.

Mrs. Englehard helping Jahod get used to his life vest 

Getting ready to paddle

 We paddled across the northern part into the Wanaque River where it flows into the reservoir. This is the site of the Long Pond Iron Works. Its named after the "long pond" aka Greenwood Lake that the Wanaque River flows out of.

Lunch at the edge of the river

 We hiked up to a falls on the river and enjoyed the beautiful view. However the beauty was tarnished by all the trash, cans, bottles and clothes that others had left. Out environmental lesson today was about caring for God's creation. We did this by picking up all we could and bringing it back to put in the trash.

Wanaque falls above the Long Pond Iron Works.

 After lunch we paddled under the bridge into the bigger part of the reservoir. Our goal was to find the secret cove where the Pirates of the Monksville hide out.

Zy'Nasia & I paddled the canoe today. 

Maliek coming out of the "secret cove" !