Resources

FAQs

Is this a “regular” servant event?

Well, yes, and no! Idaho Servant Adventures is a Servant Event, adventure week, and work camp all rolled into one. As many as fifteen or more Servant Teams head out each morning for a day of outreach and service, then gather back at the base camp in mid-afternoon for awesome recreation options, personal time, dinner, and evening programming.

Engaging Bible studies, new friends, dynamic time in God’s Word—everything combines to make this an affordable, relational, everything-included summer week for your youth group!

How old do participants have to be?

Participants at most weeks must be entering 8th grade and may include junior highers/middle schoolers, high school youth, college-age young adults and adults. Our middle school week is open to 6th thru 9th graders, with upper class high school teens coming as peer mentors.

We can even talk with you about ideas for a Family Servant Adventure.

How many participants come to an Idaho Servant Adventures week?

Each week is open to a hundred or so youth and adults—big enough for some serious fun, small enough for everyone to know everyone else and be known.

Where do participants come from?

Idaho Servant Adventures brings in groups from as far away as Texas and Florida and from throughout the mid-west, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific coast states. Each week as many as five or six states can be represented! In the typical summer, more than 30 congregations from 15 or more states travel to north Idaho for an Idaho Servant Adventure.

The Typical Week

Participants join with 5 or 6 teens and one adult and work four days together on a service team project.

Youth and adults are placed on Servant Teams based on a pre-event survey of skills and interests, as well as our weekly list of community needs and service projects. You may be pounding nails, building trails, scraping and painting a house, leading a kid’s club, or working at a senior center, all based on your talents, skill levels, preferred interests, and community needs.

• Participants serve alongside members of their own group.
• Youth serve on the same Servant Team all four days, seeing their project through from beginning to end.
• Adults can generally expect to be driving their assigned team each day. Only adults may drive!
• Service teams head out each morning for their daily projects, returning to camp in mid-afternoon for leadership connections, great recreational and relaxation options, and fantastic evening programming.
• Friday is reserved for add-on Adventure Options

View our Shoshone Sample Schedule and Champ Camp Schedule Sample for more details.

Is there an adult to youth ratio requirement?

Yes. We require one adult for every six youth participants. An adult is someone 21 years and older.

Will we be working with youth from our own group?

Yes and no! Each day includes Servant Team Time, Leadership Team Time, and Family Group (youth group) Time. Our program allows for significant relationship-building between the most number of youth and adult mentors. Youth  serve alongside members of their own group, and make new friends from other youth groups from around the country.

What kind of work will we be doing?

Servant Teams typically work on the same project through four days (Monday through Thursday.) Some teams may work in a community in the region, others may be working on projects at the camp.

You may be pounding nails, building trails, scraping and painting a house, leading a kid’s club, working at a senior center, roofing a garage, cleaning a back yard, leading a sport’s camp, or rebuilding a porch. It’s all based on your talents, skill levels, and preferred interests, as well as the varying needs in the area communities we serve.

This much is guaranteed: your project will help to address some very real needs in the community, you’ll get to work with and meet some incredible people, hear some life-changing stories (and maybe get to tell yours,) and engage in simple, significant service with and to others.

What exactly will you be doing? That’s honestly hard to say, right up until a couple days before you and your group arrives.

Here are some questions we ask ourselves each week, right before you arrive:

• What are the skill resources available during any particular week?
• What did the servant teams accomplish last week?
• What supplies do we need/have on hand?
• What are the greatest needs of the moment in our communities?
• What’s the weather going to do?
• These are just a few of the factors we weigh in assigning our projects to Servant Teams.

Keeping that in mind, any general supplies you can bring would be helpful: work gloves, paint brushes, scrapers, cordless drills. Thanks!

Do we need a tetanus shot?

We strongly urge your group participants to have a current tetanus shot. Contact your family physician or local public health department for more information.

What’s a Servant Team?

Youth and adults are placed on Servant Teams of 5-6 youth and one adult, based on a pre-event survey of skills and interests as well as our weekly list of community service needs and projects.

Your Team mates will be made up of members of your own youth group. You’ll work together all four days, seeing your Team’s project through from beginning to end. Teams head out each morning Monday through Thursday for their daily projects, then return to camp in mid-afternoon. Some projects are right on camp.

The most important thing: show up flexible, ready to serve, and willing to work hard at whatever God has called you to do this week!

What’s a Leadership Team?

Leadership Teams are one of the best and most unique things about Idaho Servant Adventures. Every Servant Team member (youth and adult) is given one of six important leadership roles, based on their individual skills and interests. Leadership Teams gather together daily to debrief the day, plan for the next, troubleshoot issues, and sharpen their leadership skills through great study and conversation. Team leaders include:

• The Chow Hound: Takes care of the food and beverage requirements of their Servant Team
• The Fire Starter: Leads their Servant Team in the daily devotional Bible studies developed for each lunchtime
• The Guidebook: Leads their Servant Team through the nitty-gritty daily details of the project
• The Map & Compass: Takes care of details like directions, maps, names, contacts, phone numbers, health forms, hospital information, the First Aid Kit, and neighborhood hospitality
• The Quarter Master: Pulls together all the tools and supplies for each day’s project
• The Chronicler: The team timekeeper and photographer

How is daily transportation worked out?

All groups are on their own to get to an Idaho Servant Adventure. Some groups bus or van to north Idaho. Others fly or train in. Those groups arriving without their own vehicles rent vans from national agencies (we can help arrange this).

Each day group leaders provide daily transportation to and from the off-camp work sites for the total number of participants they bring, generally in mixed teams of servants. If you came with six participants, you’ll be transporting six servants. If you came with 26, you’ll be transporting 26. Adults serve as daily drivers for as many participants as they came with, but typically not exclusively for their own group. 

A chaperone (21 or older) will be driving youth from different churches. We strongly urge the adults on your team to be background checked before the trip.

Where will we be and how do we get there?

Camp Lutherhaven is located on Lake Coeur d’Alene, a beautiful destination resort lake in north Idaho. Programs there are conducted in a traditional camp setting (with younger campers sharing camp with you). Recreational opportunities include the climbing wall, zip line, giant swing, waterfront blob & swimming, canoeing, and high adventure course. Round out your week with dynamic Bible study, campfire devotions, big ball field games, and great new lifelong friends!

Shoshone Mountain Retreat is located in the middle of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests, 35 acres surrounded by two-and-a-half million!  Work projects are either on or off-site; daily off-site projects are located 30-minutes to almost an hour away in historic mining towns scattered around Idaho’s Silver Valley. Recreational opportunities include the zip-line, 40-foot natural cliff face climbing wall, tubing the Coeur d’Alene River, biking, swimmin’ in the swimmin’ hole, Ultimate Frisbee, horseback trail rides (for an additional fee) and other active games. Bible study, riverside campfires, and life-long friends complete your week!

All groups must arrange their own transportation to the ISA base, including ground transportation if flying or taking the train. Daily transportation to off-camp work sites and add-on adventure options is also the responsibility of the groups. We work with your group leader to coordinate how best to get each weeks’ work groups to the daily servant sites.

How to Get to Here

Getting here is half the fun, really! Idaho Servant Adventures take place in the 60 mile-wide panhandle of North Idaho, along the Interstate 90 corridor, sandwiched between Washington and Montana.

Getting to an Idaho Servant Adventure is Easy!

• North Idaho is serviced by Amtrak’s Empire Builder and major airlines into Spokane, Washington, an easy drive away.
• Airlines servicing Spokane include Delta, United, Alaska, Horizon, American, and Southwest.
• Both camps are located just off Interstate 90. Camp Lutherhaven is about an hour east of Spokane and 3 hours west of Missoula, Montana. Shoshone Mountain Retreat is about two hours east of Spokane and 3 hours west of Missoula, Montana.
• Spokane airport and downtown Coeur d’Alene also serve as the hub for most car rental agencies. 15-passenger and mini-vans are readily available with prior notice.
• View Shoshone Mountain Retreat and Camp Lutherhaven on Google Maps.

We are happy to assist your travel needs. Contact us!

Local: (208) 682-2267
Toll Free: 1-866-729-8372 x 114
Email: meggie@lutherhaven.com