As I sit to write this blog, there are so many thoughts in my mind, so many things I want to share, so many moments experienced in the last week that I want to relive with you.
I've just had a shower for the first time in six days. I spent the last week carrying a 35-pound, dreadfully over-packed backpack through the Ukrainian wilderness with 28 other college-aged people, the large majority of whom did not speak English, actively hiking a total of 22+ hours according to my stopwatch over the course of four days in the Ukrainian springtime sunlight that provided us with temperatures in the 80's for the duration of the trip. It's the most I've sweat and the least I've showered the entire World Race.
My back hurts in places I didn't know backs could hurt.
My feet have under-the-skin blisters from wearing the same pair of dirty, smelly socks and shoes for a week while scaling mountain and forest inclines that would've given any skilled hiker breathing problems.
The smell of my clothes could disrupt a person from the deepest of comas.
My pack is covered in dirt, my hair turned the water brown when I washed it and my belly hurts from eating spreadable, canned meat and cheese.
And yet I find that I am indescribably content. Peaceful. Constantly smiling.
After a 27-hour trek from Bucharest, Romania to Kiev, Ukraine, the new Arise&Go (minus Jolene and Jan, who are now assets to new teams) had about seven hours to shower and re-pack to get on a 21-hour train to the Crimean peninsula to accompany the college campus ministry we'll be working with – CCX (Intervarsity in the States) – on an annual hiking trip they take with their students.
What we did not know going into this backpacking trip was that by "backpacking" they meant traversing approximately 31 miles in four days on foot up the side of literal mountains and down slopes of loose gravel where one misstep ensured certain death with our packs weighed down with all the necessary food and camping supplies we'd need every night when we set up camp in different places in the woods. This was a trip for professional hikers. It was exhilarating on all levels, even down to water – we were filling our water bottles from questionable sources left and right but dying of thirst enough to make us willing to drink anything.
Want to step out in faith? Fill up your Nalgene from a river you just saw a cow sitting in and drink it. It'll take your prayer life to a whole new level.
The first day alone we knew we were in for it when we woke up at 4AM to head out to the train that would take us to our starting place and were already sweating by 6AM. My pack seemed like it weighed over 50 pounds and I immediately regretted bringing anything more than a change of underpants when I realized the trip that lay ahead of us – almost as much as I regretted eating only half of a rotten mandarin for breakfast with no lunch break in sight and only uphill climbs before us.
We began in Bakhchisaray (pronounced something like buck-cheese-and-rye) and hiked five grueling hours of steep uphill inclines with no stretching or warm-up included. Over the course of the week we continued on, hiking between 12-15 kilometers a day and stopping each night to make camp in a wooded area where we'd make a fire, eat dinner, and have a devo-type session around the campfire. We finally made it to Sevastopol, a coastal town on the edge of the Black Sea – a total of nearly 50 kilometers – after four days, and took a train yesterday from there back to Kiev, where we are happily resting and recuperating after arriving this morning at 7:30.
Anything like hiking that involves physical effort and pain naturally lends itself to spiritual parallels. We discussed many things over the course of our hikes that I will be blogging about all week (my brain is filled to the brim with everything I want to write about), but I believe what I'll take away most immediately from the trip as a whole and for this particular blog is this.
Can I really get through this? I remember asking myself.
On aching calves and sore feet I recalled thinking similar things toward the end of Ecuador and in Trujillo, Peru, not even certain I wanted to make it through at that point, not valuing the reward of the mountaintop more than enduring the emotional pain of dealing with myself or my process, not sure that I wanted to be different or change in the first place. Mountains are especially hard to face when you don't even have the will to climb them.
Toward the end of steep inclines I remembered Bolivia as I told myself to keep going, to fight through the cramps and dehydration as I finished off the last droplets of cow-water, remembering how I entered into self-discipline and made myself get up at 6:15 every day to read and pray, how I fought through tough times but still felt overwhelmingly sad most of the time at the loss of the person I had been for some time when I still wasn't sure I was ready to become a mysterious new person who felt entirely too vulnerable for me. It's difficult to push through situations when you're not sure what awaits you on the other side or if it'll be better than what you've always known.
On the first morning we reached our first tremendous view and Steve enthusiastically said to me, "See Mere, the views are totally worth it!"
I threw a casual glance at the picturesque scene, but it meant very little to me. It looked like Alabama, something I'd seen my whole life, so I answered curtly, "No, no they're not," and continued grunting and huffing and puffing my way up to the plateau where I could give my tiny legs a break from all the weight they were bearing. I had already begun thinking of this spiritual parallel and found myself fairly bitter at the way it was ending, mad that the payoff at the top did not fulfill me in any way and show me that enduring the difficult two hours beforehand had been worth it.
I felt empty all the way until our first campsite. Exhausted, I pitched my tent and lay down on my sleeping pad, hastily retreating into my iPod and the comfort only music can bring, and I let a teardrop fall as I fell asleep for a nap. I cannot do four days of this, I thought. This is not worth it, this sucks, and yet I have no choice. I cannot do anything about it… I'm trapped on this hiking trip. I'm trapped into hiking for the next three days.
Something about that realization made something inside of me snap.
It was similar to the realization I had in a blog from Ecuador where I had three choices – to go back, to stop and stay, or to keep going – and I began to giggle to myself. The situation was hilarious. We'd lived completely sedentary lives for four solid months and had been thrown into this trip designed for experienced hikers, having overpacked and underestimated what it would require of us, and yet we were stuck. We had no choice but to finish the hike.
I wish I could say that I was immediately happy, but mostly I was just laughing in delirium. What did happen, though, was that over the next three days, after accepting my reality for what it was, I had more fun than I've had in a long time successfully doing something that, had I seen it on paper, I would've told you I could never do.
It made me wonder how much energy I waste telling God what I'm incapable of while God is flailing his arms pointing to all the areas where he's made me more than capable by his strength.
After considering this, the mountaintops didn't get more beautiful or more fulfilling, but my outlook on life did. The people surrounding me did. The moments around the campfire did. My attitude did. The entire experience did. I was looking in the wrong place – at the top of the mountain – for fulfillment for my hard work when, in reality, the fulfillment came from a different place.
What makes the long hike worth the energy isn't the summit at the end.
What makes the trip worth the arduous effort, worth the sweat, the tears, the cramps, the hunger, the thirst, the desperation – is the journey itself.
The laughter along the way, the moments when you think you can't go on, the help you receive from a brother or sister, the sip of water from a stranger, the two-language renditions of Amazing Grace and Mighty to Save around a campfire with an out-of-tune guitar sporting nylon strings… all of those things combine to form an experience that is itself a greater reward than any view from the top of a mountain could ever be.
It gave me new eyes to see the World Race not as something to get me somewhere, but rather as something to be enjoyed and taken advantage of as I'm along for the journey. Sure, it's hard, but it's so worth it.
We are so much more than capable of everything God has called us to.
And it's just so, so worth the effort of the uphill hike.
m
