One thing I’m not proud to admit about myself: I get very impatient when things don’t work the way that they’re supposed to. I should clarify (to save some face) that I specifically mean technology.

Of our fore core values, this one might seem, at first, the most nebulous. Our first three core values (God Matters, People Matter, and Team Matters) are all pretty straightforward and immediately understandable, but what exactly does it mean that Ministry Matters? What exactly does “ministry” mean?

Lent coincides with a major time of anticipation for us Echo Ranch Bible Camp staff. Spring fever is in the air as we get longer, warmer days in Juneau, and it makes something click inside us that says it’s time to move out to camp and begin the season.

You don’t need us to tell you that good things happen on teams. Isn’t that what we’ve all been learning since preschool – “teamwork makes the dream work”? But for us, the staff of Echo Ranch, functioning well as a team isn’t just important, it’s crucial.

Have you ever read through the entire Bible? Several years ago, I sincerely tried. It seemed to me back then that the only option was a “read through the Bible in one year” plan, so I dove in and diligently attempted to read several chapters a day… and failed miserably.

We believe that People Matter because all people have inherent worth and dignity – far more worth and dignity than anything else in this world. In fact, the Bible teaches that human beings are the pinnacle of God’s created works, the only part of creation that He made in His own image (Genesis 1:27)…

A few months ago, during the fall at camp, I got a call from one of our in-town support staff telling me that the brakes went out on one of our new-to-us vehicles, a Chevy Tahoe. Thankfully, they were able to park it safely and get a ride home. However, the Tahoe was parked down by Twin Lakes, which is about eight and a half miles from our in-town mechanic shop in Auke Bay…

Throughout our newsletters in 2025, we want to highlight some of Echo Ranch’s basic operating principles. In any organization, fully committed teams can get so caught up in what they’re doing that they forget – or never even work out in the first place – why exactly they’re doing it…

There’s an old hymn that goes: “Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your many blessings, see what God has done!” As we come to the end of 2024, Echo Ranch is counting our blessings, not only from this year, but also reflecting on decades of blessings, tracing back to our founding in 1964 – sixty years of God working in and through His people at camp!

Our tour through the decades of ERBC history has brought us all the way up to the recent past. Although the 2020s are still in progress, just the past few years have been studded with noteworthy milestones that are worth recounting…

Colossians 3:12-17 gives a great picture of camp life. Years ago, I highlighted in green these six verses as an important “what to wear” section of Scripture. As God’s people, we are commanded to daily put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, just as we get dressed every day.

As our recounting of Echo Ranch history draws closer and closer to the present, we find ourselves with more and more sources that we could draw on to retell events, and more and more events and innovations seem to rise to the surface…

I know it’s repeated often by our staff, but I can’t believe we’re already at the end of another summer. This year was my sixteenth summer at camp, and every summer seems to pass faster than the one before it.

Time and time again, it seems the Lord likes to call people to Echo Ranch who would otherwise absolutely never think of coming to serve in Alaska. That pattern continued with the next two camp directors after Gary Lidholm left Echo Ranch to take on a pastoral position in Haines.

As the month of August begins, so do a lot of transitions! For some, it may be that the summer months and vacations are coming to a close as we head into another fall season. Maybe for you, a new school year is starting, whether you yourself attend, your children, or someone close to you. For us here at Echo Ranch, August is also a time of major change.

Gary Lidholm followed a path that’s been traversed pretty commonly by many of Echo Ranch’s full-time staff members: he initially came to camp just to volunteer short-term, and came back again and again, but never thought that camping ministry would be a full-time occupation for him.

Our family has had the privilege of serving in many areas of camp over the last seven years. In our little corner of the southeast Alaskan wilderness, it never ceases to amaze us how God utilizes the beauty and majesty of nature to bring glory to His name. As we drive or hike around the cove, share meals in our crazy noisy dining hall, hear the Gospel laid out in our volunteer-built chapel and gather around campfires, we are reminded of God's presence in every aspect of Creation...

Have you ever stayed up all night talking to someone? I remember back when I was a counselor at Echo Ranch spending weekend nights hanging out in cabins with fellow counselors, talking for hours in the dark about every topic imaginable, often until the summer sunrise would start to light up the world outside. It’s striking to me how it can be so easy to talk with another person for such a long time, and yet often when I try to spend extended time with God in prayer, I find myself completely distracted or out of things to say after five or ten minutes…

The 1980s were a decade of continued growth for Echo Ranch; as more features were built and added, the camp began to more and more resemble how it looks today.

Orientation – the two weeks we spend training our summer staff before we start summer camps - is a highlight of the year for a lot of the Echo Ranch staff as we get to welcome in the new batch of summer staff, hear the testimonies of what God has done in their lives, and spend time walking with them very intentionally as they prepare to be at the front lines of the camp ministry.