So after Training Camp I decided I needed to buy a real camping backpack. My parents had bought me a half-backpack/half-suitcase type deal that is actually a pretty sweet piece of luggage, but once I wore it on my back for a while and lived out of it for ten days and talked more to some former World Racers, I decided to go another direction.
So I went to our local travel store rather than simply shopping online because I knew I wanted to make sure I got a pack that would fit me well and serve all the purposes I needed it to fill. After I made my way to the section with the packs and stared at the wall of gear for a few minutes I decided to walk back up to the front and ask for help. The friendly girl behind the counter volunteered.
As seems to be the case at most of these outdoors places, my new travel friend was all about customer service. She helped me try to find something in a price range that I termed “affordable”, but came to find out was just way under realistic. She loaded and unloaded weights from the pack like a champ a few different times and explained everything she knew about packs and whatnot to me very patiently.
I later learned that the friendly girl behind the counter had a name – Rhoda – which I thought was a pretty cool outdoors-people name. I found out she grew up in Ocala in a church of the same denomination in which I grew up, and that has a husband who is attending Seminary in Central Florida. She said the backpack specialist who also helped us out at the store was a “friend” of she and her husband’s, which in the context of the conversation I took to mean he was a Christian too. Later, about half-way through our backpack adventure, a dignified-yet-adventurous looking man came in with his hiking gear ready to load it all into a pack he had been looking at the other day. My new friend Rhoda immediately recognized him as a pastor who had helped teach a class her husband took. I was flabbergasted by all the Christian hikers who converged on Travel Country today.
Yesterday my Dad preached a sermon on what the Church should really look like and even used a portion of my account of Training Camp to paint his picture (I thought that was pretty cool). As a took yet another step towards making the World Race real today, it was really fun to be surrounded by believers. I got to share with them the reason I was buying the pack and they were all pretty excited for me. Rhoda told me that she and her husband work with the high schoolers at their church who have just returned from a missions trip to London. She even, in the course of our conversation, invited me to come talk to them when I get back, saying they were hoping that the kids didn’t lose their newfound heart for missions. I did give Rhoda a couple of my cards with the blog address on them – so Rhoda if you read this know I would love to talk to your kids about missions, which really just means you need to be keeping in touch with me on this here blog so I can visit your high schoolers when I get back from my adventure.
I kinda wish we could do all these little life things in a community of believers, because it makes it so much fun. I guess, though, if we always stayed in our fun communities we’d never get to show anyone else how awesome the Christian community can be. Alas I will go to 11 countries looking for those who haven’t heard and try to show them just how joyful life can really be. I’ll tell them that Jesus loves backpackers and Jesus loves them too.
