School's Open

 

These 21 students are in the Stam Library, taking in the daily news as part of their study. Twelve students are part of a home school cooperative, the other are full-time students under primary teacher Rebecca Gojda (pictured below). For a full description go to cono.org Here's Rebecca Gojda (below), one of six staff members. Becca is a licensed Iowa 6-12th grade teacher. She was born and raised in and around Augusta, Georgia. She has been a faithful and exciting part of our summer team at Cono for the last four summers and became a Walker resident last August 2020 after graduating from the University of Georgia in May 2020. Letter from the Director:   It has been wonderful “watching” the Lord revive Cono here in the Midwest. I would love to tell you sometime how we feel the Lord literally forced us here and how now we could not be more excited. Saying “excited” says a lot since in the last year we have two grandchildren born near us in North Carolina! It’s been hard being away, but so worth it.   Ridge Haven had been considering opening another campus out West (I actually had my eye on the Colorado Mountains and a camp there) but the Lord had other plans, as Cono came on our radar. I have known about Cono and I was a recipient of its ministry when I worked both at Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, and Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. Then my wife Paige reminded me that she came to the Lord at a church camp in Iowa. She is from Rochester, Minnesota. Next, our President of our Board was born and raised in South Dakota and reminded me of his love for the Midwest… so it seemed the Lord had all the “pieces” of the puzzle already in place.   We love it here. We love the people. We also see firsthand the huge need. We want to be part of the transition that the small farmers are going through, and we pray that the Lord will allow us to be part of a renewal. Churches all over the country are losing youth right and left, and it is even more acute here where the churches are small. And the school system is challenged, as it is everywhere. “But God!” It’s my favorite phrase in the Bible as it assures me “but God” is working. As we know, the Lord has a plan and He always has His remnant being prepared and preserved. Our pilot program is a hybrid of homeschooling with regular classroom instruction – so that families are involved – but we also have teachers. So many homes these days have both parents working, and many homes are single parents who can neither afford private school nor have the ability to homeschool. I firmly believe that we must go after our young people full force. Currently we are losing them, and we cannot continue to sit back and let that happen. Ten years ago, we complained that we were losing our kids and their faith when they went off to college… then we realized how few high school kids were in church, and now you hardly find any junior high kids attending. In our communities around Cono, there are simply no youth groups at all.   So along with having camp, retreats, and restarting the small school here at Cono, we started a youth group each week by opening up our gym. We consistently get 15-20 kids. This year we are also having youth group on Saturdays. Youth groups were important with my three kids growing up. Having a slghtly older young adult to be able to speak into our kids’ lives was amazing and helpful. Just having a safe and controlled space for them to hang out was so important. I hope that the churches in the area will begin to see the benefits and fruit of such youth ministry, but for now, Cono can fill the void. It has been neat to see kids coming from three different school districts and four different churches around Cono… plus we have several kids who have never stepped foot in a church…   I am just excited with a new year ahead of us. The summer was so great and now we get to build on that. There are certainly a lot of obstacles for sure. Satan and his minions certainly don’t want us here, “but God.” We barely made it during the pandemic. It was so hard and so there were so many unknowns. Yet, the Lord allowed us to stay open at both locations (North Carolina and Cono) without missing a week. We had some really small weeks, but the ministry continued. God indeed provided and through it all we were able to restart the school. And this summer was our best ever at both campuses. So the Lord has “restored the years the locust have eaten.”   Wallace Anderson Ridge Haven Camp and Retreat Center Brevard NC – Cono IA Donate online HERE to keep Cono serving young people. Designate for Ridge Haven Cono.   Mailing address for checks written out to: RH Cono, 215 Ridge Haven Road, Brevard, NC 28712 Donate op Cono serving young people. Designate for Ridge Haven Cono.   Mailing address for checks written out to: RH Cono, 215 Ridge Haven Road, Brevard, NC 28712

82 Kids on Campus This Week!

 This week we have 82 on campus for camps … next week is only 53, but hey, we love it. The picture below is from one week ago, our first week of full summer camp. Kids had just played "The Greatest Game Ever."

Please pray as we are meeting with new families re: their kids joining us this fall. We are not going to do elementary school this year as we have a group of 4-5 families that are going to use our campus for a homeschool coop. In exchange, the leader who was a science teacher is going to teach our science once a week.

 

This summer has been amazing… the Lord has so provided.

Thank you all again for your prayers, vision, support, and care, 

Wallace Anderson, Exec. Director, Ridge Haven Cono

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Workers Volunteering

Volunteers in the last weeks have been insulating the camper cabins. These folks are from a group called "Sowers." What a blessing they are.

School will be opening for a second straight year in the fall.

Donate online HERE to keep Cono serving young people.

Designate for Ridge Haven Cono.

 

Mailing address for checks written out to:

RH Cono, 215 Ridge Haven Road, Brevard, NC 28712

Why I Still Support Cono

 Mary Anna and I still love to support Cono because kids are still the focus. This is a picture of the day camp kids during the month of June. Praise the Lord for each one of these young souls, hanging out on the rock that I climbed as a kid over 60 years ago. And THANK YOU to those are already supporting. - Andrew Belz

And I loved this one I got from Cono, with this caption:

"Day campers learning what a testimony is..."

and workers still volunteering...

Ed and Linda Comers building a pallet shelf for the campus. They are one couple

of several traveling volunteers who come to help.

This is our first summer having eight full time Camp Summer Interns (CSI) at Cono for all eleven weeks of this summer's day camp and full camp. Here are the interns at Colfax Center PCA Church's 150th Anniversary, also with Wallace and Paige Anderson, and J Abels, a friend of Cono.

 

School will be opening for a second straight year in the fall.

Donate online HERE to keep Cono serving young people.

Designate for Ridge Haven Cono.

 

Mailing address for checks written out to:

RH Cono, 215 Ridge Haven Road, Brevard, NC 28712

A Hopeful Word from Ridge Haven Cono

We waste our quarantine if we think that

“beating” quarantine means staying alive

rather than cherishing Christ.

 

Satan’s and God’s designs in our quarantine are not the same. Satan designs to destroy our love for Christ. God designs to deepen our love for Christ. Quarantine does not win if we die. It wins if we fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean us off the breast of the world and feast us on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help us say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8) and to know that therefore, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

 

— adaptation of chap. 6 of “Don’t Waste Your Cancer” by Dr. John Piper (Crossway), using the word quarantine for cancer

Today at Ridge Haven Cono

Dear Friends, 
 
While the normal everyday ministry looks different right now, we are excited to have discovered the ministry potential of utilizing social media to provide focused encouragement to our Ridge Haven community.
 
We've been connecting with campers virtually by hosting live online camp sessions for families at home. These sessions include games, worship, and a message from “Uncle” Pastor Archie Moore. (If you have a moment, check out our YouTube channel!) We are grateful for the opportunities to bring hope and joy as so many are experiencing fear and loneliness.

An exciting virtual offering for our campers is the introduction of video “jam sessions” for kids interested in playing music together. These sessions will be led by our staff member Wesley, who's been a camp leader at Cono, started playing guitar as a summer worker and now leads worship at his college campus ministry. From his own experience he sees the value of introducing campers early to how music can minister to others.

We are grateful for the signs pointing to our campus ministry resuming soon—we know that gathering in Christian community will mean all the more after this season of isolation. In fact, please pray with us that our churches will once again become the center of family life—rather than school and sports. To support this opportunity for priority shifts within our church families, we are making Ridge Haven available to the needs of church youth groups in any way we can. Hopefully this time of crisis will bring us back to what is really important, our kids and their spiritual growth.
 
In the meantime, we are pleased that we have been able to maintain our full-time staff. We've been hard at work on all the many maintenance projects that kept being pushed the back-burner. 

As you can imagine, this has also been a challenging time financially in the wake of losing the entire spring retreat season. It has been a focused effort to make it work – we have taken pay cuts, put a spending freeze on non-essential items, and cut costs wherever possible. If you are able to give a gift to support us during this time, we would be incredibly grateful.
 
To continue partnering with Ridge Haven Cono:

Give online at www.ridgehaven.org/donations
Call us at (828) 862-3916
Mail a gift to 215 Ridge Haven Rd. Brevard, NC 28712

We also ask that you join us in prayer for our summer camping season. As expected, some adult groups have chosen to postpone their events. We are now eager to see how this opens up the ability for us to host even more youth groups. As mentioned above, we think that this season is providing an opportunity for the church to regain her place in the center of Christian life.

Lastly, please read the amazing letter (above) we received  from a camper recently – it gave us such a boost.

In the unknown, we are finding rest in what is known! We are in our good heavenly Father’s hands and each passing day is part of His perfect plan. May He use this to restore His church.

Gratefully, 

Wallace Anderson   
Email: wallace@ridgehaven.org | Cell: 828-577-7295  
www.ridgehaven.org | www.facebook.com/ridgehaven

Donate online HERE to keep Cono serving young people.

Designate for Ridge Haven Cono

Mailing address for checks written out to:

RH Cono, 215 Ridge Haven Road, Brevard, NC 28712

70 Years Ago

70 years ago this month, Cono started

in a fierce theological storm

It was the spring of 1948. Iowa farmers were still uncertain about the impact of a wet season on getting the last of their seed corn planted. But a few of them, along with their young pastor, had other concerns as well.

My dad, Max Belz, had served this rural group of some 50 Presbyterians (known as the Cono Presbyterian Church) since 1946. A few of them were brand new believers, part of what they themselves called “a revival at Cono”—just like the revival that had taken place there half a century earlier. The saints were excited.

Together, all these folks had grown in their distress over the liberal direction of their denominational affiliation, the Presby­terian Church USA, a denomination that had said that a minister did not have to believe in a literal virgin birth, a literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead, or a literal understanding of Jesus' miracles. In fact, they (pastor, elders, and congregation) had voted a few weeks earlier to leave that denomina­tion and seek some other more fitting tie. Two or three of them had traveled to Nashville to observe the annual synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church—a young “funda­mentalist” and “separatist” denomination. They liked what they saw there.

So the little church at Cono issued an invitation to Carl McIntire, a fiery leader of the Bible Presbyterian denomination, to come from New Jersey to Iowa to spell out the issues in a public gathering. McIntire was also editor of the Christian Beacon, a weekly tabloid with a national distribution. The meeting was set for June 7.

I was six years old that June, closing in on seven. I remember standing under the creaky windmill just outside the home of Herb and Norma Arnold early that afternoon when a car drove in, the doors opened, and this very famous man got out. He was weary after flying all day from Philadelphia, and said he needed a nap before the evening’s dinner and gathering at the church just a mile and a half north on the dusty gravel road. The Arnolds had a room for him.

I recall this as an especially festive time. It was exciting to have an out-of-state VIP visit us, whether or not I understood it all. The Cono church had just been significantly renovated, relocated by the Amish house movers to a new foundation and new basement and fellowship hall. All that was already paid for, and the church still had $600 in its treasury.

McIntire was half way through his nap when another car drove in. It was the official squad car of the Buchanan County sheriff, a big but friendly looking man. He was there to serve an injunction on behalf of the Dubuque Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA, who claimed to be the owners of the Cono church. The injunction said that neither McIntire, nor Max Belz, nor the elders and offi­cers of the Cono church could set foot that evening on the property they thought they owned. The injunction argued that those parties all represented a point of view different from that of the property’s owners.

The sheriff, whose name was Emory Hart, apologized for inter­rupting McIntire’s nap. He said he was obligated to follow the law. He also said that the Presbytery’s officers had asked him to serve the injunction just as the group was sitting down for the evening meal. They wanted the most disruptive effect possible. But he reminded us he was a believer, a Pentecostal, and that the legali­ties didn’t require him to be that mean-spirited. By serving the injunc­tion earlier in the afternoon, he would give the Cono folks a little time to make other arrangements.

Max Belz’s “other arrangements” proved startlingly media-savvy. They included getting in touch immediately with Associated Press, the Des Moines Register, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, etc. As many as 150-200 people gathered that evening at the town hall in nearby Rowley. That included a remarkable cadre of reporters, whose headlines the next morning set the stage for a whole summer of follow-up stories about the bully tactics of the presbytery against the little country church. It was soon a state-wide firestorm.

All that thunder and lightning, however, was just a precursor to the front-page headline in the following week’s Christian Beacon. McIntire invited his readers to a detailed account of his Iowa visit under the banner: “Meet the Sheriff.” And then, for the next several weeks in the Beacon, he hammered away at the evils of the liberal denomina­tions.

In a court case later that year, the Cono congregation lost its property to the PCUSA presbytery. The Arnolds made one acre available, just a few hundred yards south of their home, for what came to be a new church and school campus. In the one-room school house at Cono, a collection of newspaper clippings recounting these days is still on display.

                                            —Joel Belz, founder of WORLD, June 2018

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From Wallace Anderson, Executive Director of Ridge Haven Cono

I am happy that we can continue the life-changing ministry that Cono has been known for. We expect, by God's grace, to see Him work. Thank you for your part in Cono historically, and for watching this ministry unfold and make a difference for young people again.

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Our Contact Information
Ridge Haven Cono
3269 Quasqueton Ave.
Walker, IA 52352
828-702-9510