Roll out the Red Carpets, Get your Cameras Ready!

Can you hear it?  There’s a buzz humming through the Kanakuk hills.  Kanakuk Kamps is rolling out a brand new look this week—online, that is.  We think you’re going to love the changes you see!  From easier-to-access parent information to a more streamlined registration process, our brand new website has turned out a lot like many of the people who work behind the scenes around here:  friendly and engaging.

We think you’re going to like our new look.

Let’s explore some of the exciting details about our new website from a couple of the people who helped develop it.

First, let’s hear from Jay Holden, Marketing Director of Kanakuk Ministries:

Rebuilding a website the size and complexity of kanakuk.com is a big undertaking. Why did Kanakuk choose to make this change?

Cleaner platform, easier interaction.  We rebuilt kanakuk.com to provide Kamp families a cleaner platform to learn about our ministries, and make improvements to the tools families use to interact with us. Web technology develops quickly, and the new site is more flexible and faster to develop on. We are excited about the features we have provided--and the ones being developed later this Spring.

Quicker registration, easier access to photos and email.  The new website also leans heavily on the latest version of CircuiTree 5.0, camp and conference software provided by CircuiTree Solutions, a division of Kanakuk Ministries. CircuiTree is a powerful database-driven registration and camp management solution that Kanakuk has relied on for 15 years. Kanakuk parents are thankful for the ability to quickly register their children, and have access to photos and Kamper emails while their child is a Kamp.

It’s all about logistics.  Providing an Exciting Adventure in Christian Athletics for over 9000 children each summer is a lesson in logistics. Many Kampers take advantage of Kanakuk charter buses and airport shuttles to get to Kamp. The new website provides ways to register for those transportation options and communicate special requests and changes directly to the transportation department. Sharon Smith, Transportation Manager at Kanakuk Kamps, knows that parents appreciate the transportation functions. "Kamp parents will find tons of information about transportation options, and the new web tools will make it even easier to provide us all the important information we need to make all those connections!"

Next, we’ll hear from Jeff Schneider, Executive Director/CTO of CircuiTree Solutions:

Why did the Kanakuk registration process need to upgrade to CircuiTree 5.0?

Deeper connections.  Kanakuk's upgrade to CircuiTree 5.0 will provide parents, families, and administrative staff the ability to provide better service and a deeper connection to their Kampers during the summer. Kanakuk is a great partner, helping us bring the best camping management practices to many of the biggest camping organizations in the country.

You, yes you.  The last group of people who helped develop Kanakuk’s new website…is YOU, our Kamp families.  YOU’VE played a huge role in this enormous undertaking.  We’ve listened to your suggestions, and have tried to make this new website better and easier to use for YOU. 

So, now we’d love to hear from you!  What are your favorite things about Kanakuk’s new website?

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New Summer Camp Web Features

Two Great Ways to Learn What Summer Camp is Like

If you are looking for a way to learn more about summer camping for your child there are two new resources at www.kanakuk.com.

The first resource is a "Video Wall". In 18 minutes you can see a typical day at summer camp, see the counselors in action, see the positive impact summer camping can have on a child, see the touching story of one counselor and a camper, and here from one mother what camp was like for her child. In the next several days this video wall will also have links to comments about Kanakuk from Chuck Swindoll and Gary Smalley.



The second resource is a video from Joe White regarding the importance of making memories with your children. This is the first video edition of the popular "You and Your Child" series. There are three steps to making memories with your kids and stories from Joe's time growing up at Kanakuk. You can see the K-1 counsel ring teepee and fire in this video.




We hope you enjoy these new resources and can share them with a friend.


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Web Error You May Be Getting

Hit continue if you see this temporary error at Kanakuk.com.

FYI – When individuals try to login to Kanakuk or visit a secure page they may receive an error. It’s not a very fun error, either.

[edited]We have asked our Network Engineer here at Kanakuk if he would be willing to help us with our problem, and hopefully with his expertise on the job we can get it fixed soon.

It will affect Internet Explorer 8.0; Mozilla Firefox 3.5, and Safari 4 users. Which is a lot of you, so hang in there. It's OK to hit continue on this screen and everything should work fine from there.

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What Changes are Coming to Kanakuk.com?

Jeremy our web development guru has a lot of projects on his list! Besides putting out fires here on a daily basis he's working as hard as he can to get through a bunch of this by summer. There's just one thing in his way...



This chart (meant to be somewhat humorous and a tiny :-) bit exaggerated) tells the tale of the pain and agony of web developers the world over. If everyone in the world would upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer (Wait the beta of IE 8 is so far worse than 7) or better yet upgrade to Firefox the web world would be a better place for all.

Here are some of the projects on the list of changes that are coming to kanakuk.com:
Kamp specific Kamper pages
Legit Alumni pages
Ajax based Daily Photo viewing application
new myKanakuk.com user interface
Kanakuk Resources Pages
kanakuk.com site wide search (Powered by Google)
Kanakuk Radio
Sayso Upgrade
Error handling
K-Kauai Kanakuk Family Kamp Registration process and content
New Flash Doc for Home page
Games for Kampers
Facebook Connect integration
Upgrade all Staff sections
Integrate video content from iQuestions.com
Kanakuk Blog Page

That list is in no particular order and there are lots of little things that we are working on. If you have suggestions or ideas for the Kanakuk website we would love to hear them.


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Monthly Payments Extended for Kanakuk families

Calculated monthly payments has been available for Kanakuk families for a couple of years now but not much has been said about it. Quite a few families use the option and it sure does make paying for Kamp a lot easier.

A friend of mine on twitter and a Kamp mom said: "After 8 years of coming up with mega $ on April 1 to send multiple kids to Kamp, I am loving the direct debit pymt plan! Good mktg tool too"

I took that to heart and worked hard over the Christmas break to put together a way to soften the payments even more. What I came up with was extending the payments all the way to May 1st. You can now login at www.myKanakuk.com, choose a child, choose this summers term and then click on Monthly payments. After that you just follow the steps to set-up a calculated monthly payment it defaults to adding one last payment on 5/1/09. That's 5 payments instead of 3. Could make a difference for you or for that friend who might be thinking about Kanakuk this summer. To extend the final tuition due date to May 1st you must set-up calculated monthly payments. The sooner you do it the lower the payments!

Let's be real, it doesn't take any less to provide the absolute best summer camping experience for Kanakuk kids, but we're all being just a little more careful with our money. It's a wise thing. Thanks for making the spiritual, social, & physical life of your kids a priority this summer by sending them to Kanakuk.

Side note: 2009 Summer theme has been picked. "Dare to Dream" You heard it here first.

Side note #2: Thank you for all the feedback on the new website! So much of it is positive that we feel like we are headed in the right direction. Some of you have expressed disappointments with one or more aspects and that is easily the most valuable input we could get. We are working on making improvements based on your feedback every day.

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New Kanakuk Kamps web site launches today!

Today the all new www.kanakuk.com is going live!!

We are excited to present it to everyone and hope that you find the "Merry Christmas" dressing fun and appropriate for the season. After the first of the year we'll be changing the look of the website again, but you'll always find the navigation, the content, and functionality in the same familiar places. It'll be fun to watch the creative team here "dress-up" the website frequently and one of these days maybe we'll give you a chance to do the same. There's lots of new stuff to see...

Don't know the first thing about Kanakuk Kamps? Discover it!
Wonder what the hype is about? Feel The Impact!
Need a new friend? Meet The People?
Want to see Joe White in a suit? Drink in the "Unquenchable love"!
Want to ask a question or tell your Kanakuk story? Why don't you Sayso!

We've hidden a treat on the new www.kanakuk.com. Just type the letters "JOY" on your keyboard to find it.

Share any of these pages with a friend! Just click on the little envelope at the bottom of the website.

During the beta testing many of you took the time to give us feedback and we spent time making the site better in those ways. Thank you!!

Once again we need you to check out www.kanakuk.com, kick the tires, try to find problems, and let us know. When you find a something on the new website that could be better just click on the ladybug at the bottom of each page and send us a short description of the change and we'll fix it. Include your name and email address and we will enter you in a random drawing for a $25.00 iTunes gift card.

Also, the www.kanakuk.com web store will be down for maintenance from Dec 19th this Friday at noon until January 5th. The store guys tell me that there is still time to get things ordered and to you for Christmas, just order soon.



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Can you help us test the new website?

This is the BETA release of the new www.kanakuk.com

Don't know the first thing about Kanakuk Kamps? Discover it!
Wonder what the hype is about? Feel The Impact!
Need a new friend? Meet The People?
Want to see Joe White in a suit? Drink in the "Unquenchable love"!
Want to ask a question or tell your Kanakuk story? Why don't you Sayso!

We've hidden a treat on the new www.kanakuk.com. Just type the letters "JOY" on your keyboard to find it.

Share any of these pages with a friend! Just click on the little envelope at the bottom of the website.
Today, you get a sneak peek at the nearly ready, all brand new, www.kanakuk.com. We need you to check it out, kick the tires, try to find problems, and let us know. When you find a flaw in the new website just click on the ladybug at the bottom of each page and send us a short description of the problem and we'll fix it.

Some known problems:
Internet Explorer(IE) 6.0 looks bad, messes with our flash content, doesn't like going places, etc. If you are running IE 6, upgrade to Firefox or the latest version of IE. We'll eventually work all the IE 6 bugs out.

You can login (single login for everyone in the top right corner! Way to go Jeremy!) with your regular Kanakuk id (probably your email). You don't need it to get around most of the site but if you want to track your Sayso conversations or get to any of the personal stuff you'll need it.

Forgot your password? Click on the green "Login" button and follow the links so we can send it out to you.

Thanks for helping us with this. This has been a huge project and we really have poured ourselves in to it. Our vision is that you find it easy to use and a place that has a lot of value for your life and your Kanakuk experience. Today we lay the foundation for that.

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How do you pronounce "Hallelujah"?

Laura Lee and Callie share God's gift of laughter. See video below to accept the gift for yourself.

Wheww! It has been crazy-busy and to get a break from the hectic days and focus on my family I haven't taken my computer home for the past few weeks. That's cutting down on the posts. I so appreciate ALL my readers. Thanks for your candor and your encouragement. During the winter months you'll definitely get a mixed bag of posts here.

Here are the things that are coming up with Kanakuk from my vantage point:

The new kanakuk.com is coming! I know I've been saying that:-) It has turned out to be a real challenge to give you something radically different. We are getting closer to having it done and readers of this blog will be the first to know when it's ready for a test drive.

I'm collecting three amazing stories to share with you:

• A young Kamper who came to Kanakuk for the fun but left with so much more. We captured highlights from her whole term. I think she even figured out how to say "Hallelujah"! (See Video teaser)

• A mom made a flippant decision over 20 years ago to attend a Kanakuk Movie Night with a friend. That moment has changed her family forever and now she wants to share it all with you. (Hot of the phone lines last night!)

• Normally a fatal blow to a Kanakuk counselor's summer, an emergency appendectomy couldn't stop Jenny from following God's plan. The outcome surprised even her as she witnessed God's hand at work.(Video to come! Thanks BHill.)

During the summer months there will be much more specific about Kanakuk happenings here at Inside Kanakuk, but I'm looking out ahead at the horizon and there will be much to share between now and Summer 2009! Check out the blogs on the right for different little windows into the Kanakuk family.

Look at the heart.

Have a great day!

If you enjoyed this post would you be willing to share it with your circle of friends? Just use the "email a friend" link below (the little envelope).

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Are You Like Sarah Palin?

 

Palin family minus new little guy, Trig.

Ask anyone, I vote, but I'm not political. I figure God already knows who's gonna win, so I spend my energies on other things, but Sarah Palin's explosion into the national spotlight has made me think.

If nothing else it seems to have highlighted the intensely diverse roll of women. Maybe you can relate. At 44 years old Sarah Palin is a self proclaimed "Hockey mom", mother of 5 in a 4 bedroom, 4 bath house, wife married for 20 years, small town church goer, oh, and Vice Presidential candidate! 

It made me think of the many Kanakuk Kamps moms who drive the kids to school, work a job, do the family "books", attend church, serve on school committees, coordinate soccer teams, and lovingly tuck their little ones in bed at night. It's not so different from Sarah Palin's life really. Maybe you don't have handlers (maybe you wish you did?). Maybe you aren't scheduled for a national televised debate tonight, but standing before the school board fighting for character training funds is pretty big. Especially impressive when you spent the 4 hours prior closing a real estate deal, making dinner, and solving pre-algebra problems! What guides you through all that?

We are getting close to rolling out a new kanakuk.com; A foundational start to a new experience for our whole Kanakuk family. My dream of kanakuk.com becoming a "resource for your life" makes me want to stop and consider your diversity. What you are doing, what you are dealing with, what questions do you have, what connections do you want to make with us, and each other? How can we come along side with encouragement for your family throughout the year?

You may not be preparing for the Sarah Palin v. Joe Biden debate but, if you can relate to the hectic life of Sarah Palin, we are right there with you. We all need a solid foundation to stand on. Something absolute to cling to when the pressures get overwhelming.

Consider this today as you spread peanut butter: Psalms 119. It is 176 verses on the importance of relying on God's word for our every need. At least take with you the familiar verse 105: "Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path." Take time to read God's Word you won't regret it.

Can you relate to Sarah Palin today? How?

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Sayso - Kanakuk Parents Online Forums

 

Artist rendering of the new "Sayso" online forums area being planned for the new kanakuk.com 

In the 8+ years that I have worked at Kanakuk Kamps I have been most impressed by the parents, Kampers and staff that consider themselves part of the Kanakuk family. Never having been on staff or a Kamper myself I didn't know the depth of your passion, loyalty and strength. I've been blessed by parent's words of encouragement and wisdom, inspired by the stories of Kampers and sharpened by the dedicated service of the staff. It's a shame we haven't had more time to talk, to share, to connect and more closely live the Christian life together.

Sure we bump into each other at closing ceremonies or our kids drag us together over the years, but it can be so much more. I have a vision that Kanakuk Moms will trade life's moments, that Kanakuk Dads will give each other inside tips on making an impact, that our staff can keep us all fresh and encouraged, that kids can entertain us and more of it all the time. What a great community we have! You have so much to offer. 

When we roll out the new kanakuk.com we'll have online forums; connecting points, discussions, and yes, connectersations! This area for Parents, Staff and the public will be called "Sayso" after a traditional camp meeting time where kids will share their experiences, stories, testimonies, often around a campfire.

So pull up a chair and prepare to share and connect with someone just like you, someone who gets what it is to be a part of Kanakuk. You'll help us all become better people and shine a light for the World to see.

Can you share this blog with someone you know today? Let them know that the Kanakuk forums will be for them too.

This is getting long but I just have to check with everyone and see how the school year is going. Leave a comment about your favorite school start-up story. Let's start to share today!

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Fall projects list in the Kanakuk marketing department

Here is a partial list of projects that we are working on in the Marketing Department at Kanakuk Kamps.

1. 2009 Staff Recruitment video
2. 2009 Staff promo commercials 
3. 2008-09 KanakukLive! Movie (A Tim Oliphant video experience)
4. The new kanakuk.com rollout (leave a comment if you are willing to beta test the new site for us sometime in the next several days)
5. Coffee
6. KanakukLive! event print and digital materials
7. Hershey, PA Men at the Cross Stage Management
8. Hershey, PA Kanakuk Kamps booth (Any Lancaster County Kanakukers out there? We could use a local volunteer to help with the booth.)
9. 2010 concept research
10. Director blogs (see sidebar)
11. 25 Days of Christmas mailing
12. Kanakuk Kamps Term Videos (out in early January)
13. Tons of other small stuff 

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Big Change Coming on Monday

You've never been able to do this at Kanakuk!

For over 85 years Kanakuk Kamps has provided an "Exciting Adventure in Christian Athletics". Over 85 years of impacting kids in a way that shows them the love of Christ. For all those years Kanakuk has lovingly and caringly placed kids of the same age in cabins together with 2 or 3 of the best counselors we could find in the world. It's worked great and kids always leave with friendships that can and often do last a lifetime. More choice is coming!

On Monday we are launching Bunk with a Friend!  Parents and kids will have the opportunity to choose one friend that has a birthday within one year of the Kamper to stay in the same cabin with them. All of this will be done online through Parent's Place. You can make a request and approve a request online. Then manage the request as needed.

This new feature is a great opportunity to invite your friends to Kanakuk or just make sure you stay with that Kamp friend you made last year.

We'll be sending out an e-mail on Monday (unless there's a glitch:-)) that will explain it all in detail.

I'm in Omaha, NE and I'll be back in Branson on Sunday. Joe White has begun a new ministry this year called Men at the Cross that seeks to reach men with the vision of the Paul/Timothy Discipleship model given us in the Word of God. It's a message that men are hungry for; God is blessing these events. You'll see me sharing more about it in the weeks to come. Next week is Forth Worth and then Hersey, PA the following week.

Heather Headley sang this morning and it was just amazing! I've never felt someone sing with that much emotion in my entire life. She has an amazing talent and heart for worshiping God. I can't begin to describe it but I'm glad I'll hear her again in Hershey.

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The Joe White Kanakuk Kamps Booth at Men at the Cross

 

Kanakuk Kamps just purchased this new display booth for the Men at the Cross conferences. We also purchased the TV, DVD player and the stand for the TV. You might notice in the picture that the TV is not on the stand. Well, we shipped all the parts for the booth to Houston and one of the boxes, the one with the bracket for the TV, got lost in the Toyota Center. The Toyota Center is where the Houston Rockets Play. I finally found the stray box late the second day and had no time to put it together. The Omaha, NE, Men at the Cross event will go smoother in that department. The TV made a huge difference in the number of people who stopped at the booth.

As proof I looked at the web stats for the weekend and Monday before and the weekend and Monday after the St. Louis Men at the Cross event and the number of page views in the St. Louis metro area were exactly the same. We had no decent booth, no TV, etc. at that event. Then I looked at the page views for the same time scenarios in Houston and the page views for the weekend of the event were almost exactly double. I also so an increase here at Inside Kanakuk. So it seems to me just looking at the surface that the booth upgrade was well worth it. It was also fun to get the word out about Kanakuk and to meet some of the Kamp Dads that came to the event.

We had some great volunteers at the booth too. Meredith and her husband (I drew a blank on your name!! So, sorry.), and Kelly helped during the two day event. It was a huge help having people who know about and love Kanakuk and have experienced it. I saw them sharing the Kanakuk story with a lot of Dads. I was running in several directions that weekend so I just didn't get pictures of the volunteers. I'll do better in the future.


Mollye will go to the Omaha event to help with the booth and we'll have some more great volunteers. Special thanks to Brian Mitchell from Kids Across America for helping us newbies get the booth set-up, a couple times :-)

If any of you were in Houston and have any suggestions for the booth I'd love to hear them.

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New Web Address for Inside Kanakuk

If you attend the Houston Men at the Cross event on Aug. 22nd you might see one of these cards. I'm going to let people that I run into there know that my blog is here and active. I'm going to do my best to cover the event for my readers so that employees, kampers, parents, staff and the world can have a better picture of Joe White's ministry work.

You'll also notice that my blog now has it's own domain. Just put "insidekanakuk.com" or "www.insidekanakuk.com" in your browser's address bar and you'll get back here. Cooler - Easier. All the old links still work.

When the new website rolls out. You'll be able to easily find Inside Kanakuk there along with the other Kanakuk blogs.


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Scary Steps and Powerful Skills

Scary Sketches from Jay

Even resorted to some cut and paste on this one!

I seriously don't know why I'm doing this. Now you are going to know how terrible an artist I am! I've done a lot of graphic design in my days, made a lot of pretty logos, and all that. Yeah that's right, not a single ounce of sketching skill. I do sketches like the one above so that the graphic designers, in this case Jessica, can have a ROUGH idea of how I want a piece laid out, and what content goes on it. I occasionally throw in a little Marketing Director humor just to keep it lively. So this is the first step of a print project here at Kanakuk. That's the scary part.

Not so scary. Great job on these! Upper: Jessica. Lower: Lindsay.

The second part is when the graphic designers take the works of "art" only my mother could love and turn them into real art. Doing that is no small task. Jessica and Lindsay both have some seriously mad skills. Not only can they play Adobe InDesign and PhotoShop like a finely built violin, but they are super smart about what helps you enjoy and get a lot out of the things we send out in the mail. Not only on paper but the web too.

We met twice the end of last week to cover more of the new website and I couldn't be prouder. We may not be the smartest, most experienced web team in the world but there couldn't be a more pleasant group of people to create with. They are passionate about creating a web experience for www.kanakuk.com that will make life faster and more enjoyable for everyone.

The rollout date for the new website is currently Sept. 30th. We might go beta as early as the 15th. At the rollout it will clearly be a work in progress but I think you'll like the new foundation. I promise more screen shots before the 15th. I look forward to getting your input as we move forward.


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2008 Summer Music at Kanakuk Kamps

Christian Rap artist Lacrae performing for K-2 Kampers

Music is such a big part of a summer at Kanakuk Kamps. From the worship music at K-Life events to the fun music at the parties those words and tunes are forever a part of Kamper's memories. Over the years our summer theme has been written and performed by some of Christian Music's greats. Michael W. Smith, along with his wife Debbie have written and performed 10+ years worth. Steven Curtis Chapman has contributed, along with Chris Davis and Billy Sprague. The last few years Christian rap artist Lacrae has put the beat in the Kanakuk summer. I'm working on getting some of those songs ready for download on the new www.kanakuk.com. The projected date for that roll-out is Sept. 30.

Some of our Kampers are talented musicians as well. K-2 Kamper, Seth David, is a rapper with some talent. He was gracious enough to lend us one of his songs (Fresh) for use in the Original Clean Team Resource Kit. You can download the mp3 of Fresh at the The Original Clean Team website by registering for the Free Resource Kit. You'll also enjoy the short documentary produced by Tim Oliphant entitled, Unlikely Messenger: The Clean Team Story. One Kanakuk Kamper's mission to escape the party scene and share Christ with those in his school. It's not what you'd expect and the website is a great resource for youth groups and Christian teens.





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Promises

Rainbow over Kanakuk from the gate of Grant* Holcomb's Farm.

Yesterday I made a to do list, promises to myself that I couldn't keep. In contrast...

God said, Genesis 9:13-15 (New American Standard Bible)

13I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

14"It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud,

15and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Tomorrow is "change over" day at Kanakuk. The last term of 13-day Kampers are packing their trunks and fighting over which seat they get in the car on the way here. It's rained nearly every change over day and lots of days in between :-) It's been a wet summer.

On my way to work this morning as I pulled out of my driveway about 9 minutes from K-1 and K-Kountry I could see this rainbow (sorry for the bad picture, laptop cam). I thought about all I have to do today and the poor performance of yesterday. The overwhelming nature of the Fall months to come. About the "rain" that seemed seems to be flooding in at the moment.

It might have been a wet summer, but as I drove the windy road, getting my bearings, I could tell that rainbow sat right over the Branson Kamps including my office. I took it as a promise of a dry arrival for Kampers tomorrow and no more than I can handle today at work.

Are you struggling today, overwhelmed, wondering when the next rain is going to pummel you? Be encouraged, as I have been, that the promises of God control this Earth and all that is in it. That's you and me friends. Fear not the rain. Thanks for the prayers for Kanakuk. Pray today especially for the Staff, they are incredible, dedicated to service. They are relying on the promise too.

My "To Do" list for today:

1. Blog Post
2. Finish Cleaning My Desk
3. Meet with Kanakuk Ministries Board Member Tony C.
4. Fax the confidentiality agreement to BroadRamp
5. Finalize the concept for the Kanakuk Display booth
6. Write content for the "The Story", "The Kamps", "The People", and "The Impact" pages of the new website

Whew...that's enough. Just typing that list I think I felt a drop of rain in my office. I may not get it all done and guess what, it's OK. It's more important that I surrender it all to God. He knows what of that he wants done today, it's His work to do through me. What a relief.

I have two blog post ideas going for tomorrow. Talking about the new website. Or defining the word "connectersationalism". Which would you prefer talking about? Something else maybe?

Now Playing: Out Of The Woods by Nickel Creek

*Grant Holcomb lives a couple of miles from my house and runs a Bobcat, excavation service in addition to his farm work. He's pushed some dirt at my house.

Update: Meeting with Tony C. moved to K-Kauai (lose 30 minutes), not having to finish my desk (gain back 15 minutes). Coffee with JGM (gain back 15 minutes)

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Facebook Connect and You and Me

There is much about the new Facebook Connect that I don't understand. Thankfully Jeremy works here. He gets it.

What I do understand is that with a little effort on our part you can login to Facebook on kanakuk.com and let your friends know what you are doing. Here is an example of a site set-up to demonstrate how it works.

While I think what they did with the demo site is pretty cool, I'm not sure that's the way we would want to implement it on the Kanakuk Kamps website. It feels like the connection is pretty loose and the lack of information about exactly what will be shared would make me hesitant. How would you feel about letting your Facebook friends know that you just registered for next summer, or posted to the Kanakuk "Sayso" forums area, or just commented on a Director's blog post? If you get a chance to check out Facebook's example site, please let me know what you think.

Whatever we do it will be with your permission. You'll have total control over how Facebook connects you with your Kanakuk experience.

Yesterday I posted about the Ricky Jimmerson and Tracy Ashcraft taking on Director roles at the new KAA facility (this year's Kanakuk Klassic). If I had been thinking I would have asked you then if you would be willing to give those two a word of encouragement. Can you jump back to yesterday and post a comment?


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Facebook Changes

Jeremy our Web Programmer just got back from the Facebook Conference F8 in San Fransisco. This afternoon we are meeting to go over everything he learned about how we can connect the people who come to www.kanakuk.com with their Facebook profile.

I promise I'll get back to you on what I find out.

Are you on Facebook?


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New I'm Third Movie

I am absolutely busting at the seams! Our Media Director Tim Oliphant, also of American Gladiator fame, just finished a new short film that communicates the I'm Third philosophy.
The I'm Third life philosophy has been a foundation of Kanakuk for so many years and a vital part of the growth that Kampers experience during a term here. One of Tim's strengths is Communication and he does such a great job of piecing things together so that you and I can feel it too.

Enjoy this short film and please leave your comments about it.

This is a preview. We'll eventually have a fully credited, high quality version available over at www.kanakuk.com. While I'm at it I'll leak something about the new website: We are planning special "easter eggs" on the home page of the new site. The first one will be typing "JOY" on the keyboard then you'll get a surprise. New www.kanakuk.com coming in September.

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