The Big River

We went on Niko last weekend. Niko is the Greek word for ‘overcome’ (and the word from which Nike gets its name, for you trivia buffs out there). We overcame a LOT. What, you ask? Well, I can’t tell you that, or I’d have to kill you. : ) (Ok, it’s not QUITE that strict, but they do ask us to keep the Niko secrets so that people who participate in the program after us can have the same experience-and part of it is not ever knowing what’s coming next.) What I CAN tell you is that it is a great program and I would highly recommend it. As you’re about to read, God really used it to work in my life. And, from the stories I’ve been hearing since we got back, in everyone else’s lives as well.

I was actually doubting, halfway into the weekend, if God would be able to teach me anything through Niko—I was blessed to go to the mountains in Colorado with DSL (the youth group I left to come here) last summer, and this trip was shaping up to be similar to that one. I was actually thinking, by the middle of day 2, how far I’d come since then—I only had to stop my team once so I could breathe (it seemed I had to stop constantly last summer) after a steep climb; I was enjoying the beauty of God’s creation around me, instead of focusing solely on putting one foot in front of the other and I was even able to look outside of myself at times to encourage my teammates. Sure, I was tired, but nothing like Colorado.

Toward the end of our hike, we came to a river. The crossing looked pretty easy, which was good because my oh-so-experienced feet were starting to kill me. As I crossed, though, I slipped off a rock and got my boots completely filled with water. I got to the other side and found myself trying not to cry-what happened to my triumphant, if tiring, hike? I held it in and we started back on the trail. I told God that I would be fine as long as He didn’t make us cross the river again (famous last words, anyone?). When we turned a corner on the trail and saw the river, wider and faster and deeper than the last time, looming up ahead of us, I was just SURE the trail would turn downstream until it came to a bridge. After all, it was getting dark and I had just prayed, so surely God was going to spare me, right? Not when He had something to teach me, apparently-when we got down to the bank, we could see where the trail picked up directly on the other side of the river.

At this point, it was all I could do to keep from sitting down on the trail and crying. I did sit down, but I focused on taking my boots and socks off to prepare for the crossing. While I was doing this, one of my teammates, Jesse (who is also in DTS-directly left of me in the picture), was wading out and testing rocks. He came back and reported that it would be rough and we’d get really wet, but he thought we could do it. We tried to confer as a team, but I was working too hard to maintain control to be able to speak, so he reported our decision to the staff. They replied that this was not a safe place to cross-they would allow it, if we insisted, but they did not advise it and encouraged us to find another way. Controlling my tears became even harder at this point-I was tired, hungry, sore, cold and now, afraid-I had been assuming that everything we would face, while difficult and uncomfortable, would be, in reality, risk-free (a silly assumption, since nothing in life, especially in the wilderness, is completely safe, but there it is). Needless to say, I was even less help to my team now as we discussed our options. In the end, Jesse and our other male team member, Byrd (from Thailand, here for the PCYM School-left of Jesse in the picture) decided to scout a route to a log bridge we could see a few hundred feet upstream. I had discouraged this route earlier-I had slipped off of a similar bridge the summer before, and though I wasn’t hurt, just shaken, knew the likelihood and the terror of feeling your feet slip out from under you. The water under the bridge last summer had been calm and shallow-this was deep and rushing, with more than a few ugly rocks waiting to greet anyone who fell. But, since we really had no other viable options, the log bridge it was.

Byrd went ahead to test the bridge, and Jesse started leading us upstream. The river bank was steep and rocky, and as I followed him, my foot slipped and I almost fell. That small drop, in light of the possibility of a larger one in my future, was the last straw-I broke down and sobbed like a child for at least a minute. I can still see Jesse’s face, unsure of what to do with this grown woman weeping and holding on to a tree root coming out of the bank. I motioned to the girl behind me to go around and told him I just needed a few seconds to get myself together. By the time he came back for me I was calmer and ready to go on. I will never forget his compassion and patience as he led me up the bank, nor that of Byrd as he talked me across the bridge. I got to the other side safe, tired and incredibly humbled. I apologized to my teammates for abandoning them. They graciously accepted, and we continued our hike.

My experience by ‘the big river,’ as I’ve come to think of it, was good on a bunch of levels. Of course, it wasn’t good in the moment-but God used it to burst the pride-bubble I’d been inflating all day, about ‘how far I’d come.’ He used it to teach me to allow others to help me-something I’m not great at, as a recovering achiever and perfectionist. He showed me that being vulnerable and weak before people does not always result in rejection, but sometimes compassion and deeper friendship. And He showed me, in the hours following when I did not spiral into the pits of shame where I would have been a year ago had this happened to me, how far HE has brought me on the road to emotional and spiritual health. Yea God!

Please praise God with me:
+For an awesome and growth-filled Niko for me, my class and team mates.
+For all but roughly $1500 of our lecture fees being paid-I wish I had time to fill you in on all the details, but God is so good! Only $22,000 of outreach fees and airfare to go!
+That He has given me the opportunity to be the student leader for our outreach to Amsterdam, and for the encouragement and practice He gave me this weekend on Niko
+For my friend Bobby All (Nashville)’s progress on the road to recovery (he’s been in the hospital for several weeks)

Please pray with me:
+For God to provide the remainder of our outreach fees and airfare-He graciously provided mine through you, my supporters, before I left, but as a team we still owe around $22,000, roughly $10,000 of which is due to the travel agent by June 10.
+For God to equip and prepare us individually and corporately for our outreach to Amsterdam, especially to unify us as a team (we have some interpersonal conflicts growing-we need God to nip them in the bud and give us His love for each other)
+For God to provide housing for the first part of our outreach to Amsterdam (as far as I’ve heard, we’re still double booked for the first month)

God is SO Good!

I’m here to tell you that God is good. He was good before the story I’m about to relate, and He’d still be good if it hadn’t happened, but this is just one of the many instances through which I’ve witnessed His goodness lately.

I had a crazy weekend. To make a long story short, I had two days worth of homework to do and chose to spend what I thought would be part of my day Saturday but which turned in to all of my day Saturday, helping some friends. Sounds like a good, Christian thing to do, right? Except I forgot one major step-ask God first! Just because a thing is worth doing doesn’t mean I’m supposed to do it. (This has been ‘Life Lessons from The Overbooked DTS Student’) God is good and used my mistake to teach me that lesson and to give me practice, the next day when they needed more help, at saying ‘no’ even when I think it will make people unhappy with me (a tough thing for us people pleasers).

The point of all of this is, I started Sunday with two days of work to do and only one day left in which to do it. I spent the whole day Sunday and part of Monday morning getting my work done. I reached a point of utter frustration and panic around 10 pm and walked down the hill in front of the Inn (you can see part of it in the picture on my first post) to meet with God for a few minutes of crying and pleading for help before I resumed my labors. When I finally crashed into bed in the wee hours of Monday morning, I was pretty sure of 2 things – I was going to need one HUGE cup of coffee to get me going in the morning, and I was STILL going to struggle to stay awake in class. My biggest fear, though, was that I would wake up with a migraine or develop one at some point in the day, from the stress and lack of sleep. And my Monday schedule left no room for napping-be at class an hour early for worship practice (to which I had to walk, because I had just made a no-driving-in-good-weather proclamation to my classmates, to save gas and prepare for our wilderness challenge weekend-how much I regretted my burst of responsibility at that point, I don’t think I need to say :)), help lead worship, 3.5 hours of lecture, walking home for lunch, 2 hours of work duty, dinner and walking back for 2 more hours of class before I could even think about returning to my bed.

With all of this swirling in my brain, I prayed again as I finally laid down for that catnap before breakfast. When I got up a few hours later, I was amazed at how awake I felt. I got ready and went down for breakfast, remembering just in time that I COULDN’T have that huge cup of coffee I’d been betting on, because I was in the process of kicking my caffeine habit in preparation for Niko (the wilderness challenge camp I mentioned earlier). I thought about throwing in the towel and suffering through the caffeine headaches next week, but decided headache now was better than headache in the woods and went outside to start my walk to worship practice. I ran into Jesse (the guitar player for worship, who is also the Brazilian ELC student I told you about in my first post) and was given my second gift of the morning (the first, in case you weren’t counting yet, was waking up and not wanting to die on the spot from exhaustion) when he told me that the base worship leader was giving him a ride to class and would have room for me, too. If I hadn’t been holding my breakfast awkwardly in both hands and carrying all my books and laptop for class, I’m pretty sure I would have jumped for joy.

My morning continued with more little gifts…I knew all the worship songs we were leading, so I could relax and even got a chance to lead two of them. Our speaker this week is pregnant (with twins—how exciting!), so she took several short rest breaks during lecture, during which I was able to walk around and wake up a bit—I didn’t nod off once during class. The biggest gift of all, though, came during work duty when my fellow Hospitality worker, Christiane (picture above, right-she's the one who's not me ;)), offered to cover the rest of our day’s work by herself so that I could take a nap. A GLORIOUS, 1.5 hour nap, to be exact. And, no migraine!

So I’ll say it again…God is SO good! He takes care not of ‘those who help themselves,’ as the saying would tell us, but of those who, not having helped themselves, having, in fact, found themselves in horrible positions all of their own making, cry out to Him for help. Yea God!

Praise God with Me:
+For my unexpectedly wonderful Monday (described above)
+For His provision for my teammates, Tamika (picture above, below Christiane & I) & Christiane who heard from supporters that some of their lecture fees will be covered.
+That our outreach airfare cost, which was supposed to come to $1400 a piece, could be as low as $1019 because one of my teammates has a friend, who is a travel agent, working on our behalf.

Pray with Me:
*That God will prepare and equip us for our Outreach to Amsterdam
*That God will provide us housing in Amsterdam (we had a place lined up, but it’s been double-booked)
*That God will continue to draw us closer to Him that we might know and serve Him better
*That God would continue to raise up people to provide lecture funding for my teammates (As a team, we owe over $6,000)
*That God will provide funding for our Outreach fees and airfare (over $17,000 for our whole team, if we get the deal I mentioned above…but it is time sensitive and we are waiting on some passport info on two of our teammates, so please pray for that, too)