Happy New Year!

This is a picture from the Battalion 3739 Alumni night. They invited our grade 11 and 12 guys so Luke, Matt and Jerrod went down with me, we had a fun time.

Just wanted to wish everyone who is part of Battalion a very Happy New Year! May God bless you in the new year.

I hope to see most of you next week for Battalion.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I guess by the time you read this the presents are all opened, and you have gone on with your day. Hopefully you will all be having a wonderful Christmas.

At our Christmas Eve service we were reminded to remember the story behind the story, the one that needs to be read between the lines so to speak. Christmas is all about Christ coming to us here on earth, and that is a great thing but unless we think about the reason why he came, which was to ultimately die on the cross for our sins, then Christmas doesn't mean much.

Way to go Stephen!!

For the guys who don't know, Stephen was baptised this past Sunday. Baptism is something that Jesus taught us goes together with becoming a Christian. It is a symbol of us dying with Christ and being raised to a new life in Him. Way to go Stephen, we are proud of you.

Creation Fest 2010

So I just saw the first listing of some of the bands that will be at Creation Fest next summer. Anyone who is memorizing, check out the site here. Bands to definitely look forward to: Switchfoot, Skillet, Toby Mac, and Thousand Foot Krutch!!!

Don't forget about tomorrow, last one 'til January!!!

One Battalion Left!!

Yep time sure flies, I can't believe that we are halfway through the year already. The first half was good but I predict that the second half will be even better. Some things to look forward to in the second half are: Winter Camping, Tower of Babel, and then there is Father/Son campout, and possibly a few other good times. I also get to hear more memory verses being said which is a huge highlight for me.

Anyway don't forget next week. Bring a friend, the more the merrier.

First Battalion of the New Year is January 5!

H2O Center

So we had a good time at the H2O center tonight, except for the lifeguard who figured it was appropriate to scream at us at the top of her lungs. Anyway it was fun trying to make the water slide rain on her. The flowrider was cool although Nik was the only one I saw on there. We will have to rent that thing sometime. Back at the church next week, hopefully you will all be there.

The picture I posted is a sketch that Simon drew. I saw him drawing one day and thought maybe he could design a shirt for us for next year, and this was an idea he came up with. Thanks Simon, I love it! Anyway if you have any ideas about this design or ideas for some other kind of a design, talk to Simon about it. Maybe he can do up a couple different ones and then we can vote on them or something.

November 24

Just a reminder that next week we are heading to the H2O centre. Same time 7:00 to 8:30, if you come to the church you will be sorely disappointed. This should be a fun time.

MAKE SURE YOUR PARENTS COME IN AND SIGN A WAIVER IF YOU WANT TO GO ON THE FLOWRIDER!!!!

Switchfoot

So I did two things yesterday afternoon. 1. I had lunch with a friend of mine, and 2. I went to look around at the christian bookstore. At lunch my friend and talked a lot about church, and youth group and stuff. One of the things that came up was how churches deal with conflict and how sometimes little things cause big problems in churches. This seems strange to me because as christians we have a lot of scripture telling us to avoid those types of things and when we can't to deal with them in love.

Then I went to Bell Tower and was looking through the music section. There are a number of new CD's out right now. Kutless has a great new worship album out, KJ-52 has a new album out, The Almost has a new disc out with a new full band, this is probably my favorite from the listening I did. Flyleaf also has a new disc out, and Switchfoot's new disc Hello Hurricane is also out.

Anyway by now you are probably asking yourself why I am telling you all this. Here is why. I know that most of you are Switchfoot fans, and because of my recent thinking about the importance of love in the church I decided to make a little challenge for you. So, the first person to memorize 1 Corinthians 13 is going to get the new Switchfoot CD. We also handed out the memory work sheet last week so you will also get the points for it, 26 if I remember correctly. If you are reading this then you have a head start, I will make sure everyone knows on Tuesday. See you then.

Memory Work & Captain

If you were at Battalion last week you were given the Battalion 3445 Memory Verse Challenge meaning that if you memorize enough points you get to go on a trip.... Thats right, an unforgettable trip which truly worth memorizing for.... Start memorizing!!

As a tribute to our Captain and Leader of Battalion 3445 we want to wish him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Sunday November 8th

Hey guys just a reminder that we are going to be having a bit of a special event at church this Sunday. If you can make it please come out. Church is at 11:00am, DON'T FORGET TO WEAR YOUR SHIRT!!!!

Pines Report / November Birthdays

So I had a great time at the Pines last weekend. I hope you all did to. For those of you who weren't there you can check out the pics HERE. As usual we arrived Friday night, pretty much just got the hot tub started a bit and that was it for Friday, oh yeah and a Mars bar war. Saturday we did some shooting. Check out the picture of all the targets!! It was insane, and we had to set up more a couple times. Charlie came out with us and brought his rifle. We had some good fun shooting Phil's steel plate target with the big gun. We also did a bit of skeet shooting again which apparently isn't as much fun as the target shooting. Saturday night we lit the camp's big brush pile on fire. Most of the guys headed to the hot tub after a couple hours. Phil and Charlie and I watched the fire a bit more until it was under control. Then we headed to the hot tub as well. Sunday we went to church in Grand Forks, and then had lunch at DQ before heading home.

I decided that the guys at Battalion 3739 had a pretty good idea to share who had birthdays each month. This way we can pray especially for these guys in the month. So here are the birthdays for November. Happy Birthday guys, God Bless you.

Dan - November 9
Braden - November 21
Matt - November 28
Stephen - November 28

See you tonight!!!

Pines!

So I managed to keep my eyes open long enough to get one pictured posted tonight before I get to bed. I will try to get the rest up ASAP! Fun weekend, again!

Shirts

So the shirts have been here for a while now and I didn't post any pictures. They turned out pretty sweet this year. This could be my favorite so far.

On that note if you are coming to the Pines this weekend make sure you bring your shirt to wear to church on Sunday morning. We are meeting at the church at 6:30 tonight.

Also next Sunday, November 8th our church wants to have an emphasis on CSB. So if you can come to the 11:00 service, WEAR YOUR SHIRT!!! We would like to get as many guys out as we can.

We are planning the PINES trip, if you are coming make sure you let us know. All the same as last year but hopefully bigger and better, hope you will all be able to come.

There will be more shooting, branding, hottubbing, and eating of food then most people will be able to handle.

Make sure you bring warm clothes it will be cool out there, or you will be looking for other ways to stay warm.

Well for those that found the Geo Cache, we got the new Thousand Foot Krutch CD and Snickers. Since we're so grateful we like to thank Dan and Phil for it again! For those that haven't found it. FIND IT!

Also don't forget about our friend Archangel! Let's keep donating and praying for him!

For those of you that didn't bother to find it, the chance is over! So no Cd or candy for you! Well apparently the next time we do this, chances are it's not going to be as easy. Gotta find it next time.....

Bible Study

Well last I heard two guys had found the cache and a couple more were trying to tell me that I hid it in China somewhere. I guess it wasn't as easy as it sounded. Anyway if you weren't told the first number should be 49 54.960.

This week we are going to be talking about 1 Timothy 3. If you want to read it ahead of time that would be great. I would also encourage you to read all of 1 Timothy if you get the chance. Anyway we will do a bit of a review of chapter 2 and then we will talk about how chapter 2 and chapter 3 relate to each other and what we can learn from chapter 3. See you all tomorrow.

NEW INFO Geo Cache #1

It seems that the guy writing down the numbers on your paper wrote down the wrong Latitude coordinate. I appologize for that, anyone looking for the cache enter 54 degrees instead of 59 degrees, same decimal places. Sorry guys see you this Tuesday.

Well this is a new idea that Phil and I came up with this week. Geo Caching is a new thing that some people are into. The basic idea is that you stash a container somewhere and fill it with something, then you post the location on a website and other geocachers can find the coordinates of your cache and go find it. Once they find it they will take something out and leave something else in place of what they took out. We figured it would be more fun to limit our cache to only Battalion guys. So as you can see from the picture above we have stashed a lock box out there somewhere and are waiting to see if any of you find it. The way our cache will work is that there is something in there that you can bring to Battalion and exchange for a prize. I will give you some more information on Tuesday night and then let you go to it. Happy hunting!!!

Well at Phil's request I am posting up some "outtakes" from the pictures that we tried to take last week.

You may also want to check out the Grand Forks site for some pictures of the kick-off with the Lions this past weekend. There was actually a football game between the Battalions played this time so that was pretty cool actually.

Last but not least if you want to bring your $35 this week that would be great, looks like the t-shirts won't make it by Tuesday but I should have them next week. See you tomorrow!!!

A new year starting

So summer is over, school has started and it is now time for Battalion to get going again. What will happen this year? Will Jerrod be able to take the olympics for the third time? How many guys will finish the memory work this year and go to Creationfest? Who will bleed first? We will have to wait and see. Sept. 15, which is tomorrow is the first night, hope you can all make it.

Shirts

Hey guys, I just looked at the final revision of our shirt for this year. I have to say this might be the best shirt yet. I think it turned out better than I even expected. Anyway I am trying to figure out what sizes to order. If you guys could leave a comment or call me and let me know what size you will want then I can try to order appropriately.

First Battalion night will be on Tuesday September 15th. Looking forward to catching up with you guys. See ya soon.

Ammunition Box

Hey guys.... The Battalion 3739 had a really neat idea to place items like memories, photoalbums, stickers, old stuff to remember the good past years of Battalion in an aluminum ammunition box. Now the box was catching my attention and it be really cool idea to do our own thing at our group. The fact that its an ammunition box made it look just cool and suits Battalion theme... so if anyone had an idea were they could find such a thing that might look similar to the Image, don't hesitate and offer it to Battalion. Thanks for looking!

Places where box could be found:

Attic

Retired Soldier

Some guy you might know that has it

Good offer on Internet

More Pics

Here are a few more pictures. It looks like Lance posted a bunch of his pictures up on the 3739 blog so check them out if you want to see more.

It's a Beautiful Thing!!!!

I will have more pictures later but here are a few of the best ones. Just to give you an idea of how much fun Matt and I had at Creation. We left Kelowna on Tuesday afternoon and drove to meet up with the guys in Grand Forks. Wednesday morning after a minor passport incident we were off to Washington. We arrived Wednesday afternoon in time to get setup and head over to see Hawk Nelson and Skillet kick off the week. Skillet turned out to be the stand out concert of the week. It was a great show. Anyway I compiled a list of reasons why it was a beautiful trip. I am sure I will miss something but Matt can chime in with more. I will try to post some more pictures to when I get a chance. So anyway, reasons for you all to do the memory work next year in no particular order.

1. 16 concerts in 3 days
2. Hawaiian Punch
3. $10 CD's
4. Red Robin's
5. Free Hugs
6. Mosh Pits
7. Suicide Frisbee
8. Bacon
9. Mosh Pit Girlfriends
10. Uncontrollable Laughter

Sarg!

Just wanted to say congratulations to our Sargent, Lukas who was playing in the Kelowna U-18 soccer finals this past weekend. Although his team looked like the better team to me they lost the game 2-1. Luke, you played well and we are all proud of you.

Well if you missed the campout last weekend you can see some pictures of it here. We had an awesome weekend of eating bite size fish, biking, hot tubbing, and lots of eating. As you can see we had steak night again on Saturday and even had Chief Ranger Laird show up for the afternoon and have dinner with us. Once again the Stockaders out numbered the Battalion guys which was a little disappointing but we were excited to have everyone who made it. We had a total of 22 guys this year. Can't wait for next year.

PS. stay tuned for more events this summer.

Campout

Just a reminder our campout is coming up in a couple weeks. We had an awesome weekend last year, even though not many Battalion guys came. Hopefully we will see more of you there this year. Phil and I and sounds like a few more will be there on Friday night. If you need a ride let me know early and we might be able to arrange it.

Memory Verses

Here is a photo of Matt reciting 1 Corinthians 13 for us in church this morning. Great job Matt, you did awesome, I talked to several people after who said to tell you that you did a great job. One lady said she kept thinking you were going to stop and you always kept going. Just a couple more and you are done!!! Better start deciding where you want to go.

POUTINE!!!

Well the poutine turned out to be awesome. I wasn't sure what to expect but it was great and I ate way too much of it. I didn't even eat breakfast this morning I was still full.

Phil also shared a little bit with us about the definition of a man. We talked about R - rejecting passivity, and how as men we need to step up and do what is right even when it is easier to stand back and not act. A - accept our responsibilities, we talked about Adam and how when Eve gave him the fruit from the tree he had two problems, one he needed to act and he didn't, and second he needed to be responsible for his wife and he was not. L - lead courageously, we talked about how God has appointed all men to be leaders, whether it is of their family, or at work or in the church, and how we need to lead and stay the course of righteousness even when others around us doubt. And E - expect God's greater reward. We don't know all the details about how God will reward us but we can see from the Bible that God promises rewards in heaven to those who are faithful to do as he wills.

We also read the requirements for deacons in the book of Timothy and talked about how deacons are to be the examples to the church and so we as men should all strive towards those requirements even if we are not deacons.

Matt also recited 1 Corinthians 13 for me before Battalion and is planning to say it in church on Sunday. That will put him 17 points short of finishing and maybe he will have another passage as well for us Sunday morning. Anyway I am confident that Matt will indeed be the first one to finish the memory work, and so we gave him a Buck knife that had "R.A.L.E. 3445" engraved on it. If you need to know what that stands for see above what Phil shared in squad meetings. Pray for Matt this week as he keeps memorizing and pray that he wont be nervous on Sunday.

Anyway I hope you all had a good year at Battalion this year. Don't forget our campout at Arlington Lake June 12-14.


As you can see we also gave Jerrod the trophy for winning the Olympics last week. That makes it two years in a row, although it came down to one game of basketball this year so it was close. Nice job Matt on scaring him.

Last Battalion NEXT week!!!

Ok so I was told this week that on May the 5th we cannot use the gym at the church because there is advanced voting for our election. This means that we have to move our last night to this coming week. Hopefully you guys can still all make it. If you are reading this make sure you tell the other guys you see as well so that everyone knows. If anyone has any board games that we can play that they want to bring, go for it. Hope to see you all Tuesday.

Olympics - Today!!!

So Olympics are today and then we have two Battalions left before the end. Jerrod is the Champ from last year, so make sure you show up for a chance to get your name on the trophy.

Swimming

Just a reminder to everyone that we are going swimming this week. We will meet an get picked up at the Y in Rutland.

Foosball

So we are going to be having a Foosball tournament this week so get ready for that. See you all there, except for Luke.

POUTINE!!!!

So I guess everyone gets busy on Spring Break. We had only 2 guys at 7:20 last night so we decided to call it a night and go catch the third period of the Canucks game. I always love just hanging out because you never know what might happen and last night is a classic example. I don't even remember how we got talking about poutine but we decided that we must have a poutine night at Battalion. This is a genius idea, I can't wait for May 5th!

Hockey Night in Grand Forks

Well Lazer Tag was awesome last night. Thanks to Jasen for bringing his friends otherwise we would have had a bit of a small group. Hopefully we see you guys again. Next week we are back at the church. Check your calendars because Olympics are coming up and so is the Branding weekend. If you didn't get a permission slip for Branding this week then talk to me on Tuesday, I will have more.

Also coming soon is HOCKEY NIGHT IN GRAND FORKS. Battalion 3739, plays hockey for their Battalion night one of the weeks of Spring Break. Hopefully a few of us can get there for that. It should be the second week of spring break, which would be WEDNESDAY MARCH 25, we are waiting final confirmation on that. This will be a quick trip there and back in the same night. Don Cherry won't be there unfortunately but maybe Todd Bertuzzi.....

Talk to Dan if you want to come.

Lazer Tag

Well another night of Battalion is over. We had a bit of a small turnout last night as only 6 guys showed up. Charlie made a guest appearance as well so that was pretty cool. Our bible study was on faith and how faith includes believeing, trusting, and action.

We read in Hebrews 11:1, that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

We also read in James 2:19 "you believe there is one God, Good! Even the demons believe that" so we know that believing is not enough.

We also read about Abraham and Isaac and how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son even though God had promised him many descendants. We talked about how his faith required that he trust God that he would do what he promised even though it seemed impossible.

We also read in James 2:17 "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead." So we know that faith also includes action on our part. We talked again about Abraham, and Noah, and Moses and others who had faith and acted on it even when people considered them to be crazy.

Remember, next week is Lazer Tag. Meet at Planet Lazer at 6:45pm, bring $5. We will be done at 8:30pm and you can get picked up there as well. Some of us will probably go to Boston Pizza after as well so plan for that if you can. Make sure that the guys who didn't make it this week know, tell them if you see them. We should have some extra spots as well if you want to bring a friend. See you Tuesday!!!

P.S. I posted the Bible reading for the month of March. I know that some of you guys said that it was too much to read in one day. I was thinking that if that is the case then pick either the new testament or the old testament and just do one. Don't forget to post up here or tell me at Battalion, it encourages me to keep reading if I know that some of you guys are doing it. Also don't forget to think about whether you would like to say some of the memory verses in church, talk to me next week about it.

BRANDING

Well we have a problem, there is too much snow at the ranch to start branding this weekend. We are having to rebook this trip till the middle of April, we are thinking of leaving on the 17 and coming back on the 19, more info will come later. Any questions, please ask.



We have talked to the ranch and we will be going to brand some cattle. This will be a weekend that you will never forget. Al said that he could set up some cow wrestling for us as well for something else to do. I didn't get a chance to ask him but we could probably play slap the bull, and do some cow tipping if we wanted to as well.

Grand Forks 30th

The Suburban is going to Grand Forks on Sunday afternoon to celebrate with the Grand Forks crew 30 years of CSB at the church, if you want a ride with me to go, let me know as soon as possible. There are only limited number of spots so call me or Dan if you want to come.

30th Anniversary

Events of 1978

• January 1 - Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes into the ocean near Bombay, killing 213.
• January 9 – Birthday, Chad Ocho Cinco, American football player
• January 12 – Birthday, Jeremy Camp, American Christian guitarist and singer
• January 24 - Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering debris over Canada's Northwest Territories.
• February 7 - Christopher Ashton Kutcher, American actor (That '70s Show)
• February 11 - Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, crashes in Cranbrook, British Columbia, killing 44 of the 50 people onboard.
• February 13 – Birthday, Niklas Bäckström, Finnish hockey player (Minnesota Wild)
• February 15 - Serial killer Ted Bundy is captured in Pensacola, Florida.
• March 1 - Charlie Chaplin's remains are stolen from Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
• April 22 - The One Love Peace Concert is held at National Heroes Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. Bob Marley unites 2 opposing political leaders at this concert, bringing peace to the civil war-ridden streets of the city.
• May 5 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds gets his 3,000th major league hit.
• May 25 - A bomb explodes in the security section of Northwestern University, wounding a security guard (the first Unabomber attack).
• May 25 – Birthday, Brian Urlacher, American football player
• June 19 - Garfield, which eventually becomes the world's most widely syndicated comic strip, makes its debut.
• August 23 – Birthday, Kobe Bryant, African-American basketball player
• September - Christian Service Brigade Unit 3739 begins operation in Grand Forks BC.
• November 18 - Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand.
• December 2 - Nelly Furtado, Canadian-born singer and songwriter

As you can see it was just over 30 years ago that CSB Unit 3739 was started. On Sunday March 1st, they will be celebrating 30 years of CSB. For me this is awesome to see and especially cool because of what God has been doing through Battalion in my life and others in the last 15 years. I am planning to go to Grand Forks for this Sunday to join in the celebration. If any of you guys are interested in going to support our brothers in Grand Forks let me know and maybe we can get a bunch of guys together to go.

Winter Camping

Well the weekend was a blast. Sleeping in a snow cave is definitely an experience. The weather was awesome, great sun and warm both days. We even caught some fish. Anyway I posted some pictures on Facebook and HERE as well. The pictures from last year are in the same folder so you can compare if you want. Check it out. See you all tomorrow. Hopefully some of you have some verses to tell me.

As of right now Nicholas has 107 point and Matt has 105. Nice work guys, keep it up. You other guys get moving, you can do it.

Tuesday night

Well last night was a good night, after we all got over Dan not being there. We played some hand ball to start the night, my team seemed to be dominating Bobs, the teams looked very fair but the game didn't play that way. At the end we played some soccor for Luke so he would be happy. Matt put an amazing header in the net that wowed everyone. The teams seemed very fair for that and at the end we firist pulled the goalies and called next goal wins. Nobody could still score, we were running out of time and then went to a shoot out, everybody got one shot on net, and nobody could score again, so it all ended in a tie. Luke then talked to us about how Jesus showed compasion and love for his friends and other, and how showing how you feel is OK to show.
If you are coming camping let me know, and start packing you stuff. Do not forget to bring food, I do not want you to have to depend on catching fish and rabbits to eat while you are out there, but if you want to that would be cool to see!

WINTER CAMPING

Well time to sleep in the snow is here again, Start getting ready for it. We are going February 7 and 8, we will leave Saturday morning at 9 and should be back on Sunday around 4, this is a change from last year to give us more time to build our shelters and ice fish. We want to go earlier in the year but it did not work out, hopefully there will not be water ontop of the ice this year. I will be adding to this more information and ideas as it gets closer so keep an eye on the blog. Any questions, leave them in the comments and I will answer them for you.

I HAVE CHANGED THE DATE THAT WE GO CAMPING!!!!! FEB7 AND 8, I FEEL THAT WE NEEDED TO MOVE IT UP A BIT TO AVOID TO MUCH WATER ON THE ICE. ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS CHANGE LET ME KNOW AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!

Well this was the tallest tower last Tuesday. Pretty sure that the rules say you can't use a step ladder to construct you tower though, hang on I'll check that.... yep I was right no step ladders. So I guess they were disqualified. That would mean that Matt's team won. You can see the other towers and some of the construction HERE. Looks like we may have to switch up the building materials a bit for next year just to keep you guys guessing.