No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
A Look Into the Future of SWO with Hank, Isa, and JB
In this episode of NSR, Brody sits down with Hank Parker Jr., one of the executive partners at SWO, to share exciting projects and updates at camp! They talk about growth at SWO, including new infrastructure projects like water lines and fire systems that will make way for more cabins and activities. Hank also shares how the Lord has been faithful to SWO through the support of donors and how things have really taken off in recent years.
Brody and Hank reflect on how far SWO has come, especially after the pandemic, and what’s coming next, including WinterSWO and Summer 2025 staff selection.
Later, Isa and JB join in to catch up on ministry highlights. Isa shares how she’s using her bilingual skills through the Pinwheel tutoring program, and JB talks about the changes SWO is going through this fall. This episode is a big thank-you to all who’ve supported SWO. Tune in to hear about all the exciting things ahead!
SWO1 Fund and Next 12 Information
Be Strong Men’s Conference
Respond Women’s Retreat
Apply for SWO25 Staff
Winter SWO Youth Retreat
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Welcome to no Sanity Required. This week we're back on the stage at the Super Coop. I'm excited because for a couple reasons. One, we're going to bring Hank Parker Jr on the show. He's one of my executive partners. We're going to just kind of look at some year-end updates as far as donor dollars, fundraising, development, master, development of SWO A lot of exciting stuff going on here. We're in a really cool season. Also, we have I'm on stage, I'm in front of the new LED screen that we're going to start using that and recording NSR and video recording it. We've kind of tested that. Y'all's response and feedback has been really good, so we're going to start doing that. We're kind of hodgepodge right now but we're going to come up with a better set utilizing the backdrop of the LED screen. So that's going to be cool. Let us know what you think about that. And then also in this episode I'm going to sit down with Issa and JB and we're going to talk about just sort of where we are coming to the end of the year in terms of ministry highlights from the year.
Speaker 1:In terms of ministry highlights from the fall, we did some highlights from the summer. We're gonna do highlights from the fall, looking forward to, um, the upcoming winter swow stuff, which is going to be awesome. Everybody's excited about that. I'm really excited about the teaching content for that. We're going through the book of philippians. We're basically going to do an overview of phians and Winterswo.
Speaker 1:And then I did want to talk a little bit with them about the up-and-coming staff selection, because it's such a big deal the way we select our staff, train our staff, prepare them and then partner with them for the summer Talk a little bit about that. So I'm excited this is going to be a good episode, excited for you all to hear what we have to say. It the summer Talk a little bit about that. So I'm excited this is going to be a good episode, excited for y'all to hear what we have to say. It's going to be a little bit different, a little different feel. It's Christmas week, thought we'd mix it up a little bit, do some end of the year stuff, and I think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 2:So thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters a podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to talk about typically over the last few years we've done an end of the year campaign and the. The way that people have gotten behind the direction and and the momentum of what's happening at SWO has been like I've never seen anything like it. Um, and so the the last couple years talk a little bit about what those last two campaigns have looked like. So people know kind of where we've been, where we are, where we're headed. That's what I want to accomplish here.
Speaker 3:But the last couple of years, those campaigns- Okay, well, you know I've never worked in camp ministry. I came to work here four years ago, been involved with Snowbird for 10 years. A way different background, way different background. So you know, know, that's not a, that's not really a part of my past. And as I go around and travel to different camps and see different things, what you see is a lot of these camps were started in the 50s, 60s, 70s, when land was a lot cheaper. It was a lot cheaper to build things. You know, I'm sure there were obstacles, but snowbirds in a unique position where we're at a place where it's, we're in a season where we can grow exponentially and and there's the opportunity, we've got a waiting list right right now of about 2 000 people in the waiting list, which you well know. But with that it's you've got the difficult challenge of how do you expand, how do you grow, and this camp was started in 1997.
Speaker 3:Our cabins have been grandfathered in with fire suppression system rules and all that. So anything that we build over a certain size and that's new has to have fire suppression and so for the last couple years we've been working to to get get that uh brought to camp enough water. So there's several different options on how to get water to your, your campus, uh, so that you can have fire suppression. So for us, uh, we're, we're, we're having a water line that's brought in, a four inch or six inch water line that's brought in so that we could sustain the amount of water that it takes to have fire suppression. But before that we didn't. Everything on campus was septic systems. So we've got the city, you know, sewer. That was done several years ago. So all these big projects have been building blocks to get us to a place where we can expand. And so over the last couple years just here's the need that we have before us and here's where we are and people have really stepped up.
Speaker 3:It's been amazing to see my background's not camp ministry, my background has not been in capital campaigns. I'm not sure how this is all happening, but it's the way the Lord has worked it out and I think the heartbeat of it is. I think people see what the mission of Snowbird is right. The teaching, the expositional teaching, is the center, focus and relationships pointing kids to the gospel, pointing students to the gospel and seeing them grow in their walk with Jesus, and people get behind that. You can put a lot of fancy frills and bows and things on a package to try to make it look good, but at the heartbeat of what we do is to see kid students. Let me say that. Let me say students, not kids, but come to know Jesus and grow in their walk with Jesus, right.
Speaker 1:And so I think people have gotten behind that and over the last few years we've just been building on the things that we need to get to a point where we can build to get us to where we are today. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and without going into the weeds for our listeners 2019 um was the construction of a sewer line that ran from our property all the way to the town of andrews. Over a mile of sewer line that was the majority of that project was paid for by this, by grants, um, essentially through the state of north carolina, rural development grants, tobacco, old tobacco money, endowment money, um, um or not endowment what? Foundation money through Golden Leaf, and so basically, we were able to expand with the blessing and the momentum that came from the state of North Carolina, from Cherokee County, commissioners getting behind it. So a lot of people followed that. 2019, 2020, we were able to put the first sort of building block to what it was going to take to build and grow to the next level. That went in place. Now we've got to bring water from the town of Andrews onto our property at a high enough volume that we can service maybe 1,000 people living on site for a week at a time. So all that's just.
Speaker 1:It takes money, money, but it's not fun. People don't like giving to stuff like that. People want to buy. People want to give their money to a new, really cool building or new really cool wreck, um component or you know, swimming pool, water slide, um, a new worship facility, a new dining hall and all that stuff's coming. You can't put a new dining hall in if you don't have enough water to fire, suppress it and run the dishwashers and like. You can't do it. So we're gonna put water lines in the ground. Water lines cost half a million dollars by the time you get them from town, get them to our property, put them spider web them through our whole property, um, between water and sewer, we spend half a million dollars. Well, that's not fun. People don't like to give money to that. But people have given money to that. That's right and I think God is.
Speaker 1:People are giving $20, $50. People are giving $50,000. Somehow I never thought I would see something like this, but since COVID, the Lord's faithfulness, this ministry has been crazy. So this is kind of an episode to say thank you and to tell people what's happening, bring people up to speed. I'm going to sit down with Joy, beth and JB and Esau. We're going to sit down and talk about, like, with programs and retreats and events, what's going on where we are with staffing.
Speaker 1:But I want to bring Hank in just to talk about okay, why is there no new dining hall? Well, in the last five years we're at about a million and a half dollars in developing infrastructure so that we can build a dining hall. You can't just, you can't just put a 20,000 square foot building out on the dirt and start cooking meals out of it. There's so much red tape, so much developmentally. And then the other thing that that maybe you could explain is we have hired and worked with over the last couple years a company, very construction, that does master development plans, so they take a maybe you could explain is we have hired and worked with over the last couple of years a company, ferry Construction, that does master development plans. So they take a property like we have. God gave us expanded property in 2021 that is paid for 30 new acres. That's paid for that's adjacent to our existing property. So we have our existing property, now 30 new acres. So how do we develop all of that so that we don't have 2,000 students on a summer camp waiting list? But also we've got, as this drops, we've got winter SWO. I had a guy call me yesterday and said can we please bring 50 kids to winter SWO? I'm like I'm sorry, man, we don't have beds, we're full. Nobody's seeing this happen. We do winter SWO 1, full. Winter SWO 2, full. All of our winter conferences are full with waiting lists. God's just pouring abundant blessing on this ministry.
Speaker 1:In terms of who we're ministering to, people are flying here from Denver, from Oklahoma City, from Kansas City, from Canada. Churches from Ontario are using passports. All their students got to come to camp on a passport. And when you talk to those people and you say why do y'all go to Snowbird, like when they're telling us when they're pastors or like other leadership in the church or other pastors in the community or some parents whose kids haven't been yet will say why do you have to go to North Carolina. They say no one in America is doing what Snowbird does. And we've even had student pastors say if you'll find us somebody that does what Snowbird does, it's closer to Denver, we won't fly across the country. It doesn't exist. And so that's why we're just blowing up while camps. That's why we're just blowing up while camps.
Speaker 1:Since COVID I had a phone call with a guy, one in Texas, one in Louisiana this past week who were saying we've got to figure out how to revitalize this 75-year-old camp that stopped during COVID and has not started back. And now we don't know how to start back. And one dude sent me a drone footage video of this facility. It's way nicer than our facility. I mean, it's a phenomenal facility on 500 acres. They got nobody coming. You went to a camp in missouri nobody's coming we, we are.
Speaker 1:We are putting thousands of kids on a waiting list and so we're close to getting everything put in place with water and sewer, to then start building. And one other thing before I want you to talk about the construction that we're in the middle of right now and what that's going to do for us. But the other thing is this I had a guy I was talking to this past week that said he gave a substantial financial gift to the last two decembers and he's like giving that to the water and the infrastructure so we could get this water line. And he's like where's the water line? We are waiting on the state of north carolina, that's it. We're dealing with government red tape, yeah, but I got a call from the mayor yesterday yesterday as we're recording this, so as you're listening to it a week ago, um, saying hey, it's a go, the water project's going to bid, which just basically means companies are going to start construction, companies are going to start placing bids on this. Um, the town will take those bids.
Speaker 1:Once it's determined who's going to get the project, we'll break ground. We'll start running water lines. That should happen once it goes to bid. Now, it's actually going to get the project. We'll break ground, we'll start running water lines. That should happen Once it goes to bid. Now it's actually going to happen. So we're getting ready to put water lines in the ground. We've already got sewer in the ground. We're going to have all of the infrastructure in place to now just build on top of that off of this master development plan. So we've got some stuff going on right now to try to eliminate some people off of the waiting list. What is that? Could you talk about that?
Speaker 3:yeah. So the next 12 months is is this going to be critical for us? And so, looking back, you know, not only are we trying to connect from the town to camp but, like you said, under the ground, under the roads, in on our campus now, so that we can connect to these things. And that's so that what we want to be is we want to be aggressive, but we also want to be calculated. We don't want to make a bunch of big, expensive mistakes, like putting a building where that doesn't need to be there five years from now. So we want to be smart about what we're doing, but we want to be aggressive about what we're doing. And so this year, what we're doing is we're putting up six cabins. Three of those are going to be for staff, three of those are going to be for staff, three of those are going to be for students. Um, we've put people in cubby holes. We we pack people in there. You know that. And so we've, we're we're going to be able to have 50 more students a week, which will allow us to have 500 more students. We're going to be able to come to camp and hear the gospel and be discipled and be with their groups, and and that's that's the main point it's not about just the number of 500 kids getting to be here and whatever that may look like, but it's the fact that 500 kids are going to be here with that kind of impact. And so we don't want to sit on our hands and wait until everything's perfect and have it worked out. But there are logistical issues that come up with, say, 50 more kids a week. We don't have enough buses. Right now we move people from our main campus to about how many miles is it to this campus? Four miles, so, like four or five miles to the north campus where we have worship twice a day, and so there's a logistical issue there. There's issues with the things that it's going to take to have those guys there, and so, as we continue to expand you know, our cafeteria is only so big, our worship facility is only so big what we would like to be able to do is to build that over at the main campus, and you've already mentioned Ferry Construction's in.
Speaker 3:We've worked with another company, so we've got one master development plan laid out where we can look at it. Now we're building another one. So we're doing our due diligence. We're not just willy-nilly, you know, running purely on emotion. This is the list. We have a waiting list of 2,000 people. Let's just do this. So we're trying to be calculated, but at the same time we're moving forward aggressively by getting these plans, laying out a strategic plan and then moving forward.
Speaker 3:So the kickoff to that this year will be these six new cabins. It doesn't fix the problem, but it will help a little bit and if we can continue to do that, we can ramp up to where we need to be. And our goal is to get to where we can have 800 students here a week and, just like you said, if we're going to have the ratio that we carry in the summertime, that'll put us a thousand people on campus, over a thousand people on campus every week. When we get to that point, yeah, so these next 12 months it's it's going to be exciting. It's going to be good because and the reason that it's exciting? Because we're getting to see that stuff that everybody wants to see. It's not a pipe that we're going to put dirt back over. Nobody knows, it's there. We're actually putting cabins up and and they look beautiful.
Speaker 3:That look awesome getting assets and we're going to see new people here. We're going to see, you know, bigger groups get to come to camp because of the work that we're doing this off season. Yeah, so I think it's, it's going to be beneficial. And then in these next 12 months, I think that we'll have a plan that we're going to be able to roll out to everyone and say here's what we think the new campus should look like, here's how much we think it'll cost, and we'll be able to take off with that and and and hopefully be able to put a timeline on that when we think we can complete it.
Speaker 1:So, for people, that come to SWO in 2025, you're going to see construction. You're going to see development, new dirt being moved and you know we've been frugal but not fragile for a long time. We've repurposed one building Like this building used to be storage, now it's housing. This building used to be a worship facility, now it's an overflow dining facility. We put offices in cubby holes and we're at a point now where we're going to grow and and in order to grow, we want to grow the right way and be efficient, be effective, and I don't know where you people come from that give us money, but it's crazy to me and it's humbling, and we take it serious and we have the tightest tolerances of accountability for what we do with that, and I think that's why God keeps blessing it. It's stewardship, it's accountability, it's gospel impact. You want to give to a ministry that you believe in and that you can come and see and take part in, and Snowbird's a ministry like that. I think that's what we've seen, and so, as the year comes down, I want to say thank you, give you an update. Money is coming, people are giving. End of the year, we always see donorship go up and the the next 12 campaign um, if you're not signed up for our email, be sure and sign up for the snubbered email we'll have. We'll have the link in the episode where you can do that. Um, so you can stay caught up, not just with what we're putting out on nsr, but so you can stay caught up with how we're developing, what we're developing at slow. Um, it's exciting times, so hope everybody has a Merry Christmas. Thanks, hank, for the update. Appreciate it. Yeah, all right, I appreciate Hank coming on, and before we get into this next part of the episode, we're going to be talking with Issa and JB.
Speaker 1:I did want to make you aware of a couple of opportunities that we have in the spring. Every year in the spring we do in March, we do our men's Be Strong, our spring men's conference, our Be Strong conference for the spring. We still have spots. It'll fill up, but it's not full right now. So if you haven't been to a men's conference here, you need to come to one. If you're a dude, and I would just say we get a lot of guys that ask uh, can I bring my 12 year old son? Absolutely. Can I bring my eight year old son? Yeah, bring him. Um, the sessions are not that long. The content is for men but might create some great uh, talking opportunities, teaching opportunities for you as a dad, but as partner with you as a dad. If you've got a son you want to bring, it would be awesome. If you've got sons who are teenagers or young men, that's an incredible opportunity for you all to come and just spend that time together, have that shared experience worship with a bunch of brothers it's awesome. So we do have spots available. They will fill up. So get that done now. And if you've been in the past and you've just kind of dragging your feet a little bit, procrastinating, go ahead and get registered, because those spots will go away. That's an awesome weekend. It's one of my favorite weekends.
Speaker 1:The next adult conference we have after that is our Respond Women's Conference. Same deal, there's availability right now but that will fill up. Every spring. That fills up to capacity with the waiting list. And so if you're a mom, a wife, a sister, a gal that's listening to this and you have not attended a Respond Women's Conference, go ahead and get on over there to SWOutfitterscom and register for that, because it is a phenomenal conference. The teaching content is awesome, all that goes into that. The ladies team here at SWO puts so much into that and it's a phenomenal event.
Speaker 1:Listen, it's Christmas week. You last-minute Christmas shoppers husbands go right now. Go to our website and buy your wife and a friend a registration. Just buy them. You don't have to register them, but go ahead and get set up to send them to the Respond Women's Conference. It will be incredible, ladies. Same thing for your husband. It will be a cool gift, last-minute gift. Get him signed up. Those conferences will fill up and it will be too late, but now we're still far enough out.
Speaker 1:The Be Strong Men's event is in March, the women's event is at the end of April, and so you've got time, but you don't have a lot of time. So now is the time. So do it All right, a lot of time, so now is the time. So do it all right, cool, um. So with that, uh, we're gonna jump into this next segment. I'm gonna bring isa and jb in. I'm excited to sit down and talk with them about what god's doing at swo through conferences and retreats. Okay, we're back, we're back, we're back. Um, we all think. What do y'all think about the potential of the setup?
Speaker 5:I love it. I think it's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 1:When we have, we put whatever we want to on the new LED screen.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The new LED screen is impressive.
Speaker 5:It's phenomenal, very impressive it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for people to be in here. Which is coming up in just in a week. We'll see when this drops.
Speaker 4:No, yeah, when this drops. Oh yeah, drops when this drops.
Speaker 1:As people are listening to this and watching this.
Speaker 5:We're less than a week.
Speaker 1:That's true. This building will be full, this room will be full, and y'all's team has some cool stuff.
Speaker 5:We sure do. I'm looking at the Gaga ball pit. They're not ready.
Speaker 1:People are not ready. People that came to the fall retreat the Indiana Jones deal with JB that was one of the best things we've ever done. It was phenomenal. So I just want people that listen and watch this to know how much goes into doing something as simple as a single game or skit before a single service at a winter retreat. It takes so much, so much.
Speaker 5:Meetings approving brainstorming. We like sit like a month or two months before a fall retreat or a winter retreat and we sit down down our whole team, which is the media team, the marketing team, the production team and some of the teachers, and we're like okay new ideas come on and then we'll sit down and we'll brainstorm off of each other and we'll pick at each other's brains and then, you know, bad ideas make good ideas and we get there.
Speaker 5:You know it takes us a minute, but we'll. We hope for the best. And then all of a sudden they're like oh yeah, we're doing this and we're like wait, what are?
Speaker 2:we doing.
Speaker 5:So sometimes we find out the day of that retreat that you're going on stage and you're going to be screaming at Dawson, like I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then everyone loves it and it's great. It's just awesome so much. I think so much goes into anything production related and y'all both have a big hand in that, and I'm very excited about the winter swow. So we have winter, we have five winter swow conferences I think four in the spring in the spring, when we sort of overlap those a little bit.
Speaker 5:I like President's Weekend. We have one.
Speaker 1:So we have two next week between Christmas and New Year's Into New Year's Fireworks on New Year's.
Speaker 5:That's going to be so fun.
Speaker 1:Yep, and then we have MLK Weekend.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's a winter SWO. President's Day Weekend that's a winter SWO. And all four of those are maxed. President's day weekend that's the winter swole and all four of those are maxed. I mean they're so full, yeah, and then spring first weekend in march I think, but anyway, it's, it's. It's like an extension of those. In the middle of that we have the pure and holy conference february, february college retreat, yeah so what are you almost excited about?
Speaker 1:going into the winter isa? What are you most excited about I into the winter isa. What are you most excited?
Speaker 5:about. I think the college retreat yeah, it's just always just brings back good memories from my first time it snowed, so I've been hoping for snow for this college retreat that's coming up. It'd be so great to just roll around the snow. Um, and like it's an inside thing that everyone knows that works on staff, that the college retreat is like a staff reunion in a way, because a lot of people after working their first summer or however many summers they've worked they'll come back to the college retreat and then that's when you'll see everyone and catch up. But it's also a time where we can recruit for our future summer staff and really, you know, show them our mission here and, you know, persuade them to work and be a part of the mission with us. So I'm really excited for the college retreat. It's my favorite.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I am excited for people to be back on camp. It's been like what, like a month and a half, two months two months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been two months.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So like we kind of had a dead season, which is nice and refreshing, we can like catch up on work. But as it's coming closer I'm just excited for students, a lot of anticipation, like our skits and everything like we were talking about, and it's just camp's not the same without you know people coming in and out. So I'm really excited for that, for just students to be on campus and also I'm done with school guys.
Speaker 1:I submitted my last assignment so now I feel like I can focus, don't have to juggle with school anymore.
Speaker 4:What was your final GPA? Uh, I don't want to talk about that?
Speaker 1:do you have honors C's get degrees. C's get degrees and I passed and she's gonna get one.
Speaker 4:Amen and I got a degree.
Speaker 1:And nobody cares.
Speaker 4:Maybe my parents care a little bit, but thank you, Mom and Dad, for putting me through school you got a degree, Thank you. Mom and Dad, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they thank you for getting a degree. I know them good enough to know that they thank you for finishing.
Speaker 4:You know, literally it was pulling teeth at one point.
Speaker 1:Come on, you're so close, just do it, just do it, yeah and lots of miles driving from here to school and back and commuting back and forth Carson Newman.
Speaker 4:Yep, talons up, talons up what is it the Falcons Eagles? Eagles.
Speaker 5:Eagles, not me roaring Issa roared. Roar roared talons up. You know the universal sound of an eagle. When I got back from guatemala, we like landed in miami and it said us citizens go straight. And then the other part where it's like um visitors or you know people with like a green card or whatever. And I was just walking under the us citizen and there's this one trending Instagram audio where it's like rev your engines and it's like the eagle screeching that was playing through my head the whole time.
Speaker 4:I'm walking through, I was like America yes, it's a good feeling.
Speaker 1:Speaking of why don't you welcome our Spanish-speaking audience?
Speaker 5:Bienvenidos. No standard required. Hoy Este es mi amigo Brody Y JB Joy Beth.
Speaker 1:It's awesome because Isa does in the pinwheel program here. I'd like to talk a little bit about this too, like what this semester has looked like, kind of a year-end kind of cap. After summer we talked a lot-end kind of cap of we talked after summer. We talked a lot about the summer on NSR. But looking back over the fall, jb pointed out that after at the end of October when we did that last marriage retreat, we haven't had any more retreats. But one thing that's wonderful is the ongoing ministry of Penwell Tutoring that we're partnered with.
Speaker 1:Love it and you have had incredible ministry opportunity because there's so many Hispanic kids families where the moms are not bilingual. Little said that the benefit of having you and Marco in that program to be able to communicate with those moms has been unbelievable.
Speaker 5:It's awesome in that program. To be able to communicate with those moms has been unbelievable. It's awesome, and I was telling Little that sometimes I just like. Growing up I didn't realize what a gift it was to be bilingual. I think I shied away from it a lot of times of just like I'm different from everyone else because I speak Spanish Anytime, like my mom would call, I'd always like, oh, let me step outside because I don't want people to hear that I speak Spanish. But now I take such a great pride in it because now I realize, oh, it's such a gift, like to use it as ministry opportunities and through the last, like through this fall, I have just seen the Lord work through me in this gift.
Speaker 5:And like with the tailors in their optometry office you know they're my eye doctors, but I go in there and one day I'm just trying to go pick up my contacts because I get a text from their office and I walk in and there's this grandmother and her granddaughter and I can tell they're Hispanic. But I don't pay mind to that. I'm just like oh, I'm here for my contacts. The receptionist, miss Lucy, is like we're so glad you're here. We might need you to translate for us and she's like, do you have time today? And in my mind, oh, of course I have time for this. Like Austin's going to be understanding People in the office are going to understand that these people need me to translate for them so they can go and, you know, get their eyes checked and being thankful for that ministry of like that's not part of snowbird, that's not part of pinwheel, but the lord's using me, being able to speak spanish, having a great relationship with dr lynn and um dr jeff and helping them.
Speaker 5:But also at the pinwheel, like some of these families, like, how did they get here to a place where a lot of people just speak English? Well, the majority of people here only speak English and you know, ramiro is my pinwheel kid. I love him, he's so great. His mom was like, can you come help me with Miss Frischetti, which is his third grade teacher? Now I just need to ask how I can help him. You know, advance to fourth grade because you can tell this mom wants her kid to do better, but she just there's that language barrier. So I go with her and we talk to Fosho and just hey, she needs a few tips of how to help Romero. You know do better in school, and it's just been such a like a blessing to watch that, and having Marco here is also just like a lot more assuring that this is a gift to use for this ministry and for Penwell. So it's been great.
Speaker 1:Marco is one of our Institute students who is also bilingual, so it's been a blessing. It's good for people to. So I'm going to have Little's going to be on soon. We have an episode that that we have planned to record soon where um just to focus on the pinwheel tutoring program, so I'm looking forward to that. We'll talk a little bit more about it so people can can sort of understand, um, what that is, and it's such an incredible ministry opportunity. So, snowbird doesn't, that's what we don't only do college retreats and student ministry events and summer camps, we do local ministry. Penwell is a big part of that. Everyone that works in our ministry, who's in the Institute or as an intern, works in this afterschool program two days a week and it's incredible ministry opportunities. So highlight for you from the fall JB. What's a highlight from the fall as far as retreats, events, a memory that stands out, something cool.
Speaker 4:Kind of like jumping back to you and Hank's conversation.
Speaker 4:I feel like this fall was just very eye-opening of like Snowbird is growing and changing so much and like even just production quality and like everything like that.
Speaker 4:It was just so exciting and I was just kind of reflecting, even when you and Hank were talking, like when I came as a camper like 2014, just like how much has changed since then, and I was getting like fired up and like excited and like of what's to come.
Speaker 4:And I often have to like remind myself and like kind of an exciting way of like this is such a transition period and it's so cool that I'm able to be a part of it and I'm like in Snowbird during this season and I'd even just think of like okay, when I come back for the Christmas party in 10 years, like what's gonna be new and what's gonna be different, and so I feel like that was really cool just this fall, just seeing like a lot of the behind the scenes work, because I was an intern, then I took a couple years off and now I'm an FT3, like full-time in the media office. So it was really cool and really humbling to just see a lot of the behind the scenes and just kind of get thrown in to like an office, where that is our job is very behind the scenes, very like getting programming everything like that and just seeing how hard everyone works. It was just really cool, really eye-opening. So not necessarily like anything specific no, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that because I think about I often think about um Steph Gatton. Do y'all know Steph Gatton? I love her so I'll introduce you to steph, because they're here right now for the holidays they.
Speaker 4:Is it um jobs? Yeah, jobs, I know job.
Speaker 1:There's something so they have five, I think six kids five kids five kids, steph and oliver um met and married. Here he was. He came later. She came to work here on a summer, for summer, I think, in 2002. I mean this was over 20 years ago, early SWO that's when I was born and the year you were born.
Speaker 1:So she came the same way that y'all came. She came to do a season, to work a summer, and then she ended up being my admin and basically right hand, right arm of SWO. Like was just vital to that early growth. And then, uh, oliver, her husband came in 06 and was a student in the old, the old, old school program we used to have, and then he stayed and worked here in media. Um, they, they got engaged, got married and eventually, um, he went to school for welding pipe fit and stuff like that and he's a mobile unit like, he works all over the country. And they made a decision to buy a big travel trailer like one of these huge fifth wheel driver travel trailers. They have five kids, they homeschool them and they just go wherever dad's working. They go around the country. Well, they base out of here. So, like, like their mail comes to to Andrews, so they're here right now for the holidays.
Speaker 1:But I always when, like, when you're talking, I think JB is like, jb is a Steph, like she was here for several years, like, literally, if snowbird carries on until Jesus comes back, her imprint here. I always think about man, what a cool season. God brought her in and used her and now when she comes back, she doesn't know a lot of the people that are working here, but she can look around and remember. I remember, like she can remember, when we planned and built the coop. She was in those meetings and conversations and y'all are having a similar experience this season of ministry. Whether you're here long term or not. This is an exciting time and it really does it all triggered with covid that the covid year, where we grew when everybody else closed the doors and we said let's circle the wagons, let's get in here and figure out how to make this work. And we got access to this building and renovated it in 10 weeks, used it that summer.
Speaker 1:People knew we were forward thinking and they knew we weren't. No one expects Snowbird to sit back and let anything come to us. We're always our hands on the plow. We're charging, we're running forward, we're plowing straight rows, we're building the kingdom. We're always going forward. We're never going to wait for it to come to us. And yet we were overwhelmed by the growth that came out of that 13% growth in 2020. Every camp shut down. We grew by 13% and it's not stopped. And out of that we got this facility. We bought it, we own it. It's debt-free, it's paid for, we own it. It's ours the new yates property. We got that. Just the momentum that came out of that.
Speaker 1:The lord used it and y'all are like that's y'all season yeah y'all are here, and the guys that that aren't on camera, that are sitting behind the camera right now, are part of that. God brings austin, austin Scott, here to build a team and an office that we've needed but never had. We've always hodgepodged it. Austin's in the room right now. It is exciting to think about what the next five to ten years are going to look like. Somebody asked me the other day they're like hey, man, you're in your 50s now what are you going to do? What's your plan? What's your exit strategy? What's your plan for? I was like what are you talking? I'm not thinking about that. We're in go mode. I'll die when I get there, you know, and then I'll go see Jesus, but for now I'm not wired to think about how am I going to transition out of here.
Speaker 1:This is not the time to talk about those things. If God calls me home next week, snowbird's going to be fine, but my brain right now cannot go to. How do I hit the brakes and ease out of this? It's like, oh no, we keep shifting gears and building momentum, but we're doing it the right way, because you see ministries that grow like crazy, really fast. We've grown over three decades, yeah, but like we're growing and speeding up at a rate right now that we couldn't have handled 20 years ago. It ruined us. We have the team, and so hearing you say that JB is really encouraging and exciting to me, like everything about this is exciting. So we got the college retreat coming up. Y'all talked about that. We talked about Winter SWO, which is student ministry events. We have staff selection. Is there anything that y'all think would be helpful to say about um? When will we put our summer staff in place?
Speaker 5:I think they're sending out emails and accepting people now okay and just taking interviews and reading through applications. But I was talking to Jakeake austin and I and I think in february we'll like close the application. Um, yeah, both the summer staff and then the element. Which element has been going great? Everyone's been.
Speaker 4:I think I was talking to morgan, one of the other element leaders. She said I think a total of 83 element applications have come in and we can only take 40. So 20 girls and 20 guys. So that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because more will come in.
Speaker 5:That's what's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, super competitive, we're in the middle of the selection process and we're already more than double what we need.
Speaker 4:And me and Morgan were talking like she, she's like all of these applications, like I want to hire them all, like they all just seem like great kids. So I'm really excited to.
Speaker 1:And you and JB you work in that program. That's a big part of what you do here. You do NSR. You work directly with me on NSR, with Austin, with ESO, with the media, marketing folks, marketing folks. And then you are one of the team leaders with element. Yes, there's three of y'all you, Morgan and Nikki, and Nikki has been promoted. Nikki is now over all of element guys and girls. So we're. We haven't even rolled that out in any formal way, but I guess we have now.
Speaker 5:So on NSR welcome to the team.
Speaker 1:Nikki. So Nikki has overseen the girl side of Element for a long time. She's now over the entire program and we'll have a team working with the ladies, a team working with the guys. And it's great because if a parent, if you're a parent listening to this and you've got a kid that has applied or is interested in being, that program Element is an acrostic, it's L-M-N-T.
Speaker 1:It stands for Leadership, mentorship, training. Yeah, um, and it's. It's a program that's designed to to prepare students to serve at SWO but also just to develop them in terms of to make them leaders at school, at church, back home. It's an awesome program and, uh, and, and it's also a great feeder program to our year-round staff opportunities and it has blown up. It used to be called Servant Team, but we've expanded it, intensified it. There's more going on in that program now and it's kind of one of those lifeblood programs to what we do here. Yeah, and I'm excited I have a, I have a niece that's going to be. I don't know if she's been accepted yet, but, um, we'll be in the program this year. I'm excited about that. To have a family member in it, that's going to be cool. Um, niece, yeah, my sister's kid yeah, that's my niece.
Speaker 4:That's how it works. I get niece and nephew confused.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a to right to yeah, to brody, to to translates to uncle, to the listeners.
Speaker 1:How about mo? When, uh, when kilby and greg got married, mo said told kilby man, I can't wait for y'all to have a kid. We all have a kid to make me a grandpa, right? So then, finally, she gets pregnant, everybody's talking about it and he says now that he's gonna be a grandpa, he wants to be called funkle mo because he's gonna be a fun uncle, like. Well, you know, uncle and a grandpa is two different things which makes sense.
Speaker 5:He would be a fun uncle. He would be a fun uncle. He's a fun, uncle.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine having an uncle mo?
Speaker 5:most of our people know my uncle mo yeah um like kevin hart being your uncle yes.
Speaker 1:So, looking at the spring, anything else that y'all think would be worth, it's just kind of this update, end of the year update we've got. The only thing we have space left for is if people wanted to come to be strong or respond. Every winter swole is full. There may be a little space left on pure and holy. People could register. Summer camp is like hank talked about waiting list. God is blessing this ministry. Anything we open up and do, it fills up and we're just grateful. Y'all excited about the new master plan.
Speaker 5:Yes, I'm so excited. Oh, I can't wait. I went into that meeting to take some pictures and it was so cool to just be sitting there and watching you guys just talk through things and like, oh, but we can make this restroom here and then here. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool. Or like we can have an office space in this building, and just seeing the whole layout, I'm like trying to picture it and because I can't, it just makes it all the more cool. I think it's going to be great and like a reminder just to myself and like people who aren't here 24-7, or even for our staff, that this isn't going to be an overnight thing. It's not going to happen tomorrow. It's like something that we have to remind ourselves, like a master plan five, 10 years. Sometimes it can become discouraging to be within this ministry and all you hear is expansion, expansion, expansion. And you're like when is it happening? No, it is happening.
Speaker 5:There's meetings going on that we're not a part of and we're not sitting in. Or you are in a meeting or on the phone with someone and the people with the construction company they're doing their own thing, trying to figure things out. The architectures with TAC, they're figuring things out on their own and those little things we don't see. But we can never say expansion isn't happening, because it is and it should just make us excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's exciting when that covered bridge is down there on Minna Farm. For people that have been here, come on to the Minna Farm road exit. There'll be a new entrance to SWO. That'll come up through the Yates farm into a big loop where the super coop will sit. This building will no longer be using it when that, once that's in over there, we'll turn this into some sort of a rec center or something off campus rec center. There'll be a big drop off and then and that's facing the creek, you see where we cleaned up along that creek and all down through there will be just a real scenic overlook from that building. Across the creek will be the dining hall That'll be kind of the hub of camp. It's exciting.
Speaker 5:All the hammocks. I can just picture them.
Speaker 1:And there's 60 acres. That property is to the east of that that we're going to own, so cool, yeah.
Speaker 4:I don't know when and I don't know if the owners know that we're going to own it, but we will the lord gave us the eight property after 20 years of praying over it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm pretty excited yeah well, thank y'all yeah, y'all have a good christmas yeah, I'm excited tamales tamales, you're gonna have some good, good christmas y'all got some good traditions we do what's that? Um? What's the warm drink that?
Speaker 5:makes oh or atole which one? They're both great the drink yeah they have in the morning sometimes champurrado, which is like a chocolate, like flavored atole okay and then we have atole, which can come in like strawberry flavors.
Speaker 1:Is there one with cinnamon?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's champurrado.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's the one.
Speaker 5:It's so good.
Speaker 1:So good, some fresh pan you can have a good time.
Speaker 5:My mom makes this dessert. It's called a buñuelo, and different Hispanic countries call them different things, but we in Mexico call them buñuelos and it's like a, a big flour tortilla. It starts off as a thin flour tortilla and then they fry it like deep fry it, and it just gets all like crunchy. And then you get cinnamon and sugar and you mix it together and it's this like like powdered flat donut and then you can drizzle, like like this, caramelized syrup on it and then it's like this big old thing and then you just eat it with your champurrado.
Speaker 1:I would eat that right now.
Speaker 5:I know If I had it Merry Christmas everybody. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1:Feliz Navidad.
Speaker 5:Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo. Aquí nos esperamos otra vez con no Sanity Required.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all for coming on.
Speaker 5:Can we all dab?
Speaker 1:Why don't you just gritty right on offstage and dab as you go? You kind of blend it you know Okay. Merry Christmas, everybody. Have an awesome week.
Speaker 5:And.
Speaker 1:Lord willing, we'll see you soon Adios.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
