Trusting in God makes dying more fun
This is the account of our "orientation" backpacking trip. It was a lot bit scary. We join the story at the height of the adventure. Enjoy:
The big drops of rain were cold and nothing on us was dry. Hannah, Ali and I had finally found Randy, Jon and David again and we were at the base of a steep mountain of unstable shards of black rocks. They were topped with slippery snow like melting frosting on a cake. I could barely feel my feet. Randy had said, once we get over that saddle back at the top of this mountain, we will find a lake. Randy was a great guide but because of the weather conditions he had been wrong a couple times about how far we would get how fast. We couldn’t see anything in the fog. And now we found ourselves at a place where he hadn’t been before. David and Jon had hiked ahead to scout it out and as they yelled back, we realized they didn't see the lake. We all felt that we couldn’t hike another valley and mountain. Too cold, too slow, and too tired.
What I saw happening would be, the coldest weakest member of the team would stop and say, I can’t go any more, I’m too cold and too tired. We would push them and say we have to keep going. That would happen a couple times until they really couldn’t go any more. A couple might stay with that person and try to keep them warm. But they would just get colder because they stopped moving and the water would begin to freeze on them as the sun set. The others would go on for help until they couldn’t go anymore. And if anyone ever found us they would find a few hunched, frozen bodies littering the landscape, covered in snow.
I hiked alone now. I was the relay between the two scouts and the other, slower three that were too far apart to yell back and forth. I climbed the sharp rocks with my hands and feet thinking to myself, “We may die here. All of us. How will that story look to the rest of the world? This is going to be painful. Oh no! My novel will never be finished. But it probably wouldn’t have really been anything special anyways- unless, I guess, it was really God’s plan for me to write it. And maybe this, here on this desolate mountain, is part of God’s plan. God probably isn’t even real. People do freeze to death sometimes, lost in the mountains and God doesn’t save them. But maybe that is God’s plan somehow. Maybe if we died, it would be the trigger for someone who heard about it to step up and carry out God’s plan. Maybe God can work a miracle and get us out alive.”
I was confronted with a decision. Do I believe in God, or not? Do I trust that we are in his big hands and in his good plan? I stopped on the side of the mountain and took off my backpack. I looked up. I remembered the words on the back of Hannah’s shirt. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” The joy of the Lord is my strength. My eyes got wet, from the inside out. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I praise you God. You have a good plan. We may die here, but I will abide in your plan.
I felt joy. I was filled with energy. My body was cold but my soul was warm and that joy melted away everything else.
“Ross!” Randy yelled up to me. “Can you come down to carry one of these bags?” Randy had taken one of the girls backpacks on top of his own and was running out of energy below me. I hopped down the mountain to meet them. Grabbed the bag and continued up ahead of them. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my other shoulder and continued ascending, powered by joy.
Randy had communicated to Jon and David that they were looking in the wrong spot. So Jon, I found out later, though he was dangerously cold and in desperation got a second wind and ran all the way to the peak for the new lookout. When he got there he yelled back to us, “Here’s the lake!” We all continued upward on the slippery, sharp rocks, in the cold rain, now with hope pulling us and the end in mind.
We summitted and saw a beautiful lake appear as a break in the clouds below us passed over it. We continued down. Jon and David had gone ahead to set up the tent. Soon it was in view and the other four of us pushed our way down the trail. Praise you God. Your plan is good. There was a rumbling somewhere in the valley. A rock slide. Even the rocks will cry out and sing of your glory.
We got creative on ways to feed ourselves and to keep ourselves warm that night. Jon had a fever and could hardly speak. He huddled in the sleeping bag as the others tried to get him warm while keeping ourselves warm. Our clothes were wet and as we opened up our sleeping bags we realized they were wet too. We each got a couple hours of cold sleep and we hoped, above anything else to wake up to clear weather and sunshine so we could get dry and warm and survive the next day.
We woke up the next day and the tent had almost collapsed on us because it was covered in snow.
This three day trip was full of adventures. Hannah’s lack of depth perception was a constant challenge to her and along the way she always had one of us guiding her steps. Her toe nails were pushing against the edge of her shoe so much as she hiked, several of them fell off. Jon seemed to have gotten a slight case of hypothermia. My heel is still sore, 5 weeks later from so much frozen hiking.
The last day we sent David and Jon ahead to finish the trail and send back help. But we came upon a couple places where the road divided and the way we took seemed to go on ten times as far as it should have. We finally found the town we had planned to meet at and Jon and David weren’t there. There was nowhere to stay in this small town so we broke into a deserted school building and were planning to sleep there. Randy and Ali went to go find a telephone (I was very hesitant to split up the team again).
One time I peeked out the school house window I saw a van backing down the road, its lights illuminating a couple figures walking down with it. I ducked away from the window so we wouldn't be caught trespassing. Then there was a knock on the door. Randy's voice was behind it. He said, "We're going home." They had found Jon, and David and a van that would take us back home.
The van had taken us 10 minutes out of that town and into the wilderness when the driver stopped the van. He hopped out in the rain and rummaged around until he found something. He crawled under the car and jacked it up. We thought, “of course, our adventure couldn’t be over yet.”
We got home late that night with sickness, injuries, exhaustion and a grateful spirit. We had almost died, but that had provided the stage for a deeper level teamwork and team bonding to grow.
The big drops of rain were cold and nothing on us was dry. Hannah, Ali and I had finally found Randy, Jon and David again and we were at the base of a steep mountain of unstable shards of black rocks. They were topped with slippery snow like melting frosting on a cake. I could barely feel my feet. Randy had said, once we get over that saddle back at the top of this mountain, we will find a lake. Randy was a great guide but because of the weather conditions he had been wrong a couple times about how far we would get how fast. We couldn’t see anything in the fog. And now we found ourselves at a place where he hadn’t been before. David and Jon had hiked ahead to scout it out and as they yelled back, we realized they didn't see the lake. We all felt that we couldn’t hike another valley and mountain. Too cold, too slow, and too tired.
What I saw happening would be, the coldest weakest member of the team would stop and say, I can’t go any more, I’m too cold and too tired. We would push them and say we have to keep going. That would happen a couple times until they really couldn’t go any more. A couple might stay with that person and try to keep them warm. But they would just get colder because they stopped moving and the water would begin to freeze on them as the sun set. The others would go on for help until they couldn’t go anymore. And if anyone ever found us they would find a few hunched, frozen bodies littering the landscape, covered in snow.
I hiked alone now. I was the relay between the two scouts and the other, slower three that were too far apart to yell back and forth. I climbed the sharp rocks with my hands and feet thinking to myself, “We may die here. All of us. How will that story look to the rest of the world? This is going to be painful. Oh no! My novel will never be finished. But it probably wouldn’t have really been anything special anyways- unless, I guess, it was really God’s plan for me to write it. And maybe this, here on this desolate mountain, is part of God’s plan. God probably isn’t even real. People do freeze to death sometimes, lost in the mountains and God doesn’t save them. But maybe that is God’s plan somehow. Maybe if we died, it would be the trigger for someone who heard about it to step up and carry out God’s plan. Maybe God can work a miracle and get us out alive.”
I was confronted with a decision. Do I believe in God, or not? Do I trust that we are in his big hands and in his good plan? I stopped on the side of the mountain and took off my backpack. I looked up. I remembered the words on the back of Hannah’s shirt. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” The joy of the Lord is my strength. My eyes got wet, from the inside out. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. He gives me living water and I thirst no more. The joy of the Lord is my strength. I praise you God. You have a good plan. We may die here, but I will abide in your plan.
I felt joy. I was filled with energy. My body was cold but my soul was warm and that joy melted away everything else.
“Ross!” Randy yelled up to me. “Can you come down to carry one of these bags?” Randy had taken one of the girls backpacks on top of his own and was running out of energy below me. I hopped down the mountain to meet them. Grabbed the bag and continued up ahead of them. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my other shoulder and continued ascending, powered by joy.
Randy had communicated to Jon and David that they were looking in the wrong spot. So Jon, I found out later, though he was dangerously cold and in desperation got a second wind and ran all the way to the peak for the new lookout. When he got there he yelled back to us, “Here’s the lake!” We all continued upward on the slippery, sharp rocks, in the cold rain, now with hope pulling us and the end in mind.
We summitted and saw a beautiful lake appear as a break in the clouds below us passed over it. We continued down. Jon and David had gone ahead to set up the tent. Soon it was in view and the other four of us pushed our way down the trail. Praise you God. Your plan is good. There was a rumbling somewhere in the valley. A rock slide. Even the rocks will cry out and sing of your glory.
We got creative on ways to feed ourselves and to keep ourselves warm that night. Jon had a fever and could hardly speak. He huddled in the sleeping bag as the others tried to get him warm while keeping ourselves warm. Our clothes were wet and as we opened up our sleeping bags we realized they were wet too. We each got a couple hours of cold sleep and we hoped, above anything else to wake up to clear weather and sunshine so we could get dry and warm and survive the next day.
We woke up the next day and the tent had almost collapsed on us because it was covered in snow.
This three day trip was full of adventures. Hannah’s lack of depth perception was a constant challenge to her and along the way she always had one of us guiding her steps. Her toe nails were pushing against the edge of her shoe so much as she hiked, several of them fell off. Jon seemed to have gotten a slight case of hypothermia. My heel is still sore, 5 weeks later from so much frozen hiking.
The last day we sent David and Jon ahead to finish the trail and send back help. But we came upon a couple places where the road divided and the way we took seemed to go on ten times as far as it should have. We finally found the town we had planned to meet at and Jon and David weren’t there. There was nowhere to stay in this small town so we broke into a deserted school building and were planning to sleep there. Randy and Ali went to go find a telephone (I was very hesitant to split up the team again).
One time I peeked out the school house window I saw a van backing down the road, its lights illuminating a couple figures walking down with it. I ducked away from the window so we wouldn't be caught trespassing. Then there was a knock on the door. Randy's voice was behind it. He said, "We're going home." They had found Jon, and David and a van that would take us back home.
The van had taken us 10 minutes out of that town and into the wilderness when the driver stopped the van. He hopped out in the rain and rummaged around until he found something. He crawled under the car and jacked it up. We thought, “of course, our adventure couldn’t be over yet.”
We got home late that night with sickness, injuries, exhaustion and a grateful spirit. We had almost died, but that had provided the stage for a deeper level teamwork and team bonding to grow.
posted by Ross at 8:49 AM
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