Outlaw Ranch, 05/31-06/01, 2007

The last stop on my visits to the South Dakota camps was Outlaw Ranch. It is located a few miles out side of Custer. This camp captures a different aspect of South Dakota’s geography in its location. It sits amongst rocky forested hills and is surrounded by lands containing a deep history of the Western frontier.



When I arrived staff training was still in full swing and both the staff from Outlaw and Atlantic Mountain Ranch (another SD camp within a half hour of Outlaw) was on sight. My thanks to Pastor Jeff Rohr, director at Outlaw, for giving me time to share with the staff about discernment and church vocations; always a delight for me.

I do truly enjoy having some teaching time with the staff on my visits, but my favorite thing to do is just to hang out with them. It is during meals and in between activities that I am able to engage with staff more one-on-one and where they have time and opportunity to approach me with their questions about discernment or seminary. I hear many stories of how the Holy Spirit is at work in the minds and hearts of these young people and though they have not yet figured out how or where it is that God is calling them vocationally, doing ministry (in some capacity) is in the mix.