Up and down, up and down. Seems like life right?
This month we have a relational ministry where we work with college students, some Christian, some not. We go to English classes, meet them for coffee, host movie nights…anything to create relationship and share the love of Christ with them. We then invite them to the Christian college ministry we are working with this month: Ukraine’s version of Intervarsity.
I spent the last week with 28 of these students on a 50km backpacking trip through the Crimean Peninsula. This trip gave us a basis for students to reach, and given the situations, it was certainly an opportune time to bond. After 6 days without showers, we were the only ones who wouldn't run in the other direction when coming within 30 feet of our stench. But add to that stories around the campfire, encouragement and helping each other along the route, and we had some solid bonding time.
Everyday we hiked up and down, up and down.
See this mountain?
Yup, up and down.
For a brief moment as I turned back to take this picture, I was frustrated. Why would I hike up and down THAT when I could have just hiked around it? It would have been so much easier to stay in the valley.
But isn’t this what we do with our lives?
Forget the bad times, it’s easy to stay there in a slump, in the valley. It’s the climb out of it that’s the hard part (ok, maybe as a rock climber I’m a little biased). We look up the mountain and it seems so far away, and impossible. That mentality happened several times on the trip. Had you told me the week before what I'd be doing, I would have told you it was impossible. Oh how quicky we limit our abilities. I can tell you I would have never made it up without God's strength. And when we do finally muster up the energy to get up, we are rewarded. When we reach those highs, life is good. It’s better than making half the effort and staying there. And at the top, there is also a better vision of what lies ahead, a future path.
If we hadn’t made the climb, we would not have seen views like this:
We wouldn’t have been able to visit some
of the most unique monasteries and churches in the world, built into caves.
And you want to know what was in my valley?
It's time to climb the face.
Facts and lessons learned on this trip:
– No shower for 6 days
– God can give you stength you never knew you had
– With the exception of a 10 hour introduction, it took us over 53 hoursof travel on hot trains and a van to get to our camp site
– While washing one’s underwear in the river, one should hold them tightly…I learned my lesson after running down the river chasing them down
– I watched Steve take a bight out of a bar of butter, thinking it was cheese
– I learned that some Ukranian women believe that you can get sick if windows on the opposite side of the train are open at the same time (one is ok), so even though it is 90 degrees inside and half the train smells like they haven’t showered in days, it’s better to keep them closed
– Wind, at just the right angle, is strong enough to blow toilet paper back up the squatty potty hole
– The men on my team look good in dresses
