News
Celebrating the holiday
Scott Wagar
01/02/2013
The lights at Lake Metigoshe’s Christian Center were heavenly in more ways than one Thursday, Friday and Saturday during the 2012 Nights of Christmas festival. The event brought celebration of Christ’s birth alive through thousands of Christmas lights on the Center’s ground, stage appearances by a number of musicians and loving fellowship by those who attended over God’s gift of the baby Jesus to bring salvation and peace to the earth.
“One Lord, One body. We gather to celebrate our one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” stated the staff members of Camp Metigoshe during the Nights of Christmas’ prelude. “We celebrate at the beginning of His life just entering a world that would forever change because of Him.”
THURSDAY
After the prelude on Thursday evening, the Nights of Christmas was kicked-off with the bluegrass band Heart River Child from Mandan along with Amanda King, a harpist from Princeton, Minn.
The Heart River Band is made up of young musicians who began playing together in Sunday school at the Heart Lutheran Church in Mandan. The group members, with talent in a number of different instruments and vocal ranges, is gaining recognition in the local music industry and are being heard in a number of venues.
King is a senior in high school and is known as being one of the best harpists in Minnesota and beyond her state. She started playing the harp at age 10 and has fine tuned her talent on the instrument with true grace.
The performers brought two great performances to the Christian Center and entertained hundreds of concert-goers.
FRIDAY
Friday evening was Century III Night, which is a special evening for a group of individuals who pledge $100 or more each year to grant kids the opportunity to attend Camp Metigoshe.
The evening also brought Ryan “Fiddling Lefty” Keplin of Belcourt to the stage showing his talents with a fiddle for the Century III guests and the general public.
Keplin is no stranger to the stage. He has performed in the Metis Festival at the International Peace Garden, the Boatoche Festival in Saskatchewan and The Festival of American Folklife at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he was inducted into the International Fiddler’s Hall of Fame.
SATURDAY
On the last evening of the Nights of Christmas, Mile Uhrich, Cory Driscoll and Jaque Marum entertained the guests.
Uhrich and Driscoll are students at the University of North Dakota. Urich, a Bottineau High School graduate, is majoring in music, while Driscoll is working towards his Master’s degree in trumpet performance.
Marum is the choir teacher for Bottineau’s middle school, junior high and senior high students and summer staff alumnus of Camp Metigoshe. She spent 18 years in Arizona teaching vocal music, which included conducting the Phoenix Children’s Chorus.
Uhrich and Driscoll presented a Jazz concert, while Marum performed a vocal and piano recital.
Outside the guest musicians at the Nights of Christmas, camp counselors from the 2012 season performed each evening and coffee and cookies were provide by Metigoshe Lutheran Ministries.