Hello Friends of Camp Anderson and Life for Youth Camp It has been an incredible year and I wanted to reach out with our annual ministry update. The past 24 months have been the busiest and most productive in the history of our ministry. We have renamed our ministry from Camp Anderson Ministries, Inc. and Life for Youth Camp to ‘Realife’ and have changed our domain to www.realife.org. Our goal with the rebrand is for our name to better represent our mission. With all of our camps, outreach events, retreats, and foster care ministry, our goal and mission are that every person that we meet would experience ‘Realife’ that can only come through faith in Jesus Christ and His Gospel. We have gone from being tenants in Old Town Florida, to now being owners of three campuses! God opened the door for us to purchase the Blue Springs Convention Center in Marianna that had been ravaged by Hurricane Michael. With the help of many donors and missionary hands and hearts, we were able purchase and repair this facility and we moved our headquarters to Marianna FL. We held our first summer camp at this new facility in 2021 (which has 2 camps on the same property). Shortly after summer camp season of 2021, the Board of Directors for Life for Youth Camp (in Vero Beach Florida) approached us and offered to donate a camp property if we would implement the same Gospel centered ministry program as was present in Marianna. Our board believed that this was the will of God, so we took on this new campus and began a second summer camp location this past summer in Vero Beach. Our Marianna campus staff divided, and we sent in a mission team to Vero Beach on this new mission. All three of these campuses are staffed year-round for summer camp, outreach events for foster children, and retreat rentals. The ministry growth has been exponential! In 2020, while at the Old Town location, our capacity was around 2,500. In 2021, when we moved to the new Blue Springs facility, the summer camp ministry doubled to over 5,000 students, but our ministry growth didn’t stop there! Now in 2022, with the addition of the Vero Beach campus, we saw almost 10,000 students over the course of 9 weeks. This past summer we witnessed over 588 young people put their faith in Jesus Christ and 550 were baptized. The Stillwaters campus in partnership with FCA and other churches, saw over 200 students come to Christ. Also, through some of our other outreach events in Vero and Marianna, we have seen another 200 + students saved. For all three campuses, we have seen a total of over 1000 people saved and close to 600 baptized in 2022 as well as countless lives changed to the Glory of God! We are so thankful to God for His continued blessings, and to all of our missionary partners and donors that help to make this possible. Indeed, the fields are white unto harvest and our prayers are to the Lord of the harvest that He would send laborers into this field. Below, you can see the Campus Maps for each of the three locations. The Blue Springs and Stillwaters campuses are on the same property in Marianna, Florida and the Vero Beach campus is in Southeast Florida. Click Here for Realife
Vero Beach Video! Click Here for Realife Blue Springs Video! Click Here for Stillwaters at Blue Springs Video!
Currently we are entering a construction cycle to build a new foster care landing camp at the Marianna campus. This has been a calling and a dream of ours for many years to provide a Christian landing camp for kids that are coming into the foster care system. We believe that these kids in the foster system are the neediest in our society as they are what the Bible calls the ‘fatherless’. We know that they are closest to the heart of God, and we are compelled to reach them with the Gospel and the absolute best of everything that the Christian community can provide. It is our vision to help connect these kids with Christian ‘Forever Families’.
We have prayed over the years that God would use us to reach multiplied thousands of people and we are thankful in this season that He is answering our prayers. None of this would be possible without the obedience of many to join us as missionaries to help provide the finances and the hands of labor to build this mission. It is incredible to see how God has moved many to provide the funds to purchase and to donate the properties, the funds to rebuild and repair, and the funds to reach the masses of people that God is bringing our way. Cindy and I feel so inadequate but thankful and excited that God has allowed us on this journey. Thank you for your constant support, as your rewards will be great in this life and beyond. Our ministry is Gospel centered and evangelistically focused. The investments here are purposed to reach the unreached of this generation and beyond. All donations are tax deductible and 100% of the proceeds go directly to the specified project or mission outreach. Here are a few projects that we are working on that you may be interested to invest into…. 1. Christmas Camp- Click Here for Christmas Camp Video! for about 250 foster care children. A 3-day camp in which students will have Christmas with us in Marianna. The event will cost us well over $50,000 including the Christmas gifts. Click Here for Christmas Camp Flyer! a. You can go online and purchase gifts for these kids from their wish list. Click Here to Purchase a Gift for a Foster Child! (Last day to purchase is December 16th) b. You can donate to sponsor a child for $129 (this cost does not include the gifts above) Click Here to Donate or Sponsor a Foster Child for Christmas Camp! c. You can donate or come and join us as a volunteer for the event December 27-29, 2022 Click Here to Volunteer! d. You can also sponsor a foster care child to come to our week long Spring Break Camp or Summer Camp program for $250 per student.
2. Stillwaters Foster Care Landing Camp This is an ambitious project in which we currently have two 4-bedroom houses to be remodeled! They are 3,000 square feet each for a total of 6000 square feet of space, and they need a complete remodel. It appears that this cost will be about $85 per sq. ft. for a total of $510,000 for the two homes. Not only are we building homes, but we are also remodeling the cafeteria and the worship center for this child welfare landing camp. This makes the total current needs for this project in excess of $750,000.
3. We have several other major project needs, this includes: a. Roof repairs and replacements for cabins and buildings at Blue Springs and Vero Campus. b. Major underground plumbing infrastructure repairs at the Marianna Campus. c. Funds to hire a full-time bookkeeper that will serve all three campuses. I know that this time of year you are looking for ways to give, and I cannot think of a better investment into the Kingdom of God than the ministry here at Realife! Please feel free to call me 770-598-6896 (cell) or email me if you have questions or need additional information. If you would like to donate, you can make out checks to “Realife” and mail to 2650 Lakeshore Drive, Marianna, FL 32446 0r you can click on the link below and donate by credit card Click Here to Donate by Credit Card! William Bloodworth Camp Director Realife Blue Springs, Stillwaters, Vero Beach 770-598-6896 wbloodworth@realife.org