Upgrading HoneyRock’s Equestrian Facilities and Programming

A Q & A with Executive Director Rob Ribbe

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

November 22^nd, 2021

HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development Executive Director Dr. Rob Ribbe shares why HoneyRock has launched a fundraising effort to upgrade their current equestrian facilities and transform the space into a full-service Equestrian Center.

What is the vision for the Equestrian Center at HoneyRock?

With its programming and facilities, the Equestrian Center will stand as a remarkable space for encountering God through horses and the people who work with them. This isn’t new—it’s always been true of the HoneyRock barn. We have decades of wranglers who list specific horses and people they encountered at the barn who significantly altered the trajectory of their life for the better.

By growing the Equestrian program to be integrated into every level of HoneyRock, most recently our gap year and graduate program, we’re deepening the barn’s ministry impact.

As in many places at HoneyRock, we bring on graduate students to assume responsibility—under our expert professional staff—for a program or operational center of HoneyRock. The barn at HoneyRock is no different. By improving our facilities, we’ll attract more applicants to the graduate and gap programs. Their training over the school year improves their leadership capacity so that when summer rolls around—and the barn is full of campers—they’re ready to lead all the while making disciples of Jesus who will influence their world for Christ.

That hands-on experience in running equine programs is invaluable for their personal development and as preparation for a career—if they so choose—in the equestrian field.

Why focus on the Equestrian Center now?

The facilities we have right now are in bad shape. If you came down to walk around, you’d see standing water, sagging foundations, and a site design that doesn’t facilitate true year-round programming.

We have a high-caliber program that’s already ministering to campers, students, and staff but our facilities are almost working against us. This project isn’t a “build the facility and then figure out what to do with it” scenario. We’re already doing the programming we want to do—by improving our facilities, we’ll only deepen, expand, and enhance that work.

Upgrading HoneyRock’s Equestrian Facilities and Programming

Who is currently running the Equestrian Center?

We just hired Melissa Hougas to serve as our full-time Equestrian Program Manager. She will oversee programming for summer campers, Vanguards, graduate students and build towards impacting the larger camp-based horsemanship world through running clinics and workshops as we did in the 1990s.

Can you describe how HoneyRock’s equestrian program fits into the rest of HoneyRock?

Our mission here is to use transformational outdoor experiences—both with people and the created world—to develop youth, emerging adults, and those who work with them to be contributors to God’s mission. The barn plays an integral role in that. With their particularities, personalities, and herd dynamics, horses provide a powerful teaching tool for every age HoneyRock serves. Our barn, along with wilderness, youth programming, gap year, college student leadership development, and college transition programming, is one of our areas of specialty and expertise. We’re developing exceptional emerging and established professionals through this work while providing transformational experiences for campers and young adults.

What programs specifically benefit from the Equestrian Center improvements?

This is the beauty of the work on our Equestrian Center—all programs benefit. Campers, Vanguard Gap Year students, Passage participants, graduate students, and even our retreat and cabin guests. Let me share some examples.

At the summer camp level, campers engage with horses as an activity and pursue the activity progression through their Basics, Intermediates, and Masters. We just opened summer camp registration, and within about 15 minutes, we had a waiting list for horsemanship. But the impact goes beyond those directly involved in the activity area. Beyond that, I’ve seen cabin leaders use trail rides and even the feeding facility as grounds for powerful Cabin Impacts.

For Vanguard, we recently grew our gap year to include an equestrian track. Vanguards who choose this track spend three days a week fully involved down at the Equestrian Center. They’re seeing all sides of the equestrian industry—from equestrian care and training to site upkeep to how we can work can with horses to learn about our relationship with God and facilitate that for others.

We will continue to offer an undergraduate Wheaton College course in ministry skills using the Equestrian Center as the context. Passage: The Orientation Experience of Wheaton College, features an Equestrian track to introduce incoming students to life at Wheaton.

Finally, our graduate students who are getting an M.A. in Outdoor and Adventure Leadership have the opportunity to specialize in equestrian training. They’re equipped to lead equestrian programs and facilities in other camps and similar organizations when they graduate. They’re the ones leading—under the guidance of our Equestrian Program Manager— the programs I just listed.

All in all, our horses and people who work with them are serving the mission on a year-round basis. We need to give them the facilities to fulfill their calling and purpose.

The work on the Equestrian Center has three phases. Where is HoneyRock now, and what is left to be done?

We’re currently in the construction phase of our new hay storage and feeding facility for the facilities work. For programming, we launched Vanguard Gap Year’s Equestrian Track, hired our full-time Equestrian Center Manager, and accepted two equestrian-focused graduate assistants.

That was Phase One and Two. Now, we’re launching Phase Three, which on the facility side, looks to design and build an indoor riding arena, classroom, office, tack storage, box stalls, and equipment storage. We’re raising $950,000 to fund the extensive site and facilities work required. To date, about $220,000 has been raised. We hope to begin construction in Fall 2022 but need full funding by that time to start work.

As far as the programming work, we’re landing the plane on an equestrian program leadership concentration for our M.A. in Outdoor and Adventure and looking to develop partnerships with colleges and organizations for student recruitment and placement.

What has been an unexpected blessing as a part of this project?

I have seen God’s hand in every step of this process. One of the blessings has been hearing stories of God working through the barn over decades of Wranglers. I hear about people who came to work in the HoneyRock barn because they knew they loved horses and wanted to pursue it as a career. Yet I also hear about people who just kind of found their way to the barn one way or another and left profoundly transformed in their relationship with God or having found a clarity in their life’s callings. It’s a beautiful thing to hear those stories, and I feel tremendously blessed by them.