We started a new initiative this year - backpacking trips. I had the priviledge of being on the last of 3 trips, which started out not as we had hoped - all 4 of the teens scheduled to go, cancelled. It took 2 hours of going through lists and calling teens before we found 3 who were awake and wanting to come with us. We had to ask ourselves many times that morning: is this still worth it? Or are we just "filling up a program"?
We packed our bags, with those questions still in our minds, and headed out to the wilderness. One of the teens could not get over the fact that we CHOSE him to come. We picked him - we actually called him up and personally invited him to come. He was amazed and kept thanking us and asking us how many others got "picked" like he did. Another boy asked if we could please tell them a Bible story each evening before bed, because that's what they had done at camp and he liked it that way. (We were more than happy to oblige). After telling the story of Elijah and Mount Carmel, one of the boys prayed that God would "prove he exists, like he did with that fire" by helping him find a turtle the next day... he found three. "See! God proved it to me!" he exulted.
The hiking itself was hard work, and it was rewarding seeing them help each other (and me!) along the way. The times at campsites were so much fun watching them hunt for turtles, squirrels and whatever else they could find and asking a million questions about everything they could see. Object lessons along the way, like filtering lake water for drinking water became an obvious lesson about the difference between pure and impure, or wholesome and unwholesome (this came up on the topic of bad language, and God's instructions to us not to let unwholesome talk come out of our mouths). We left the trail after four days, smiling as they congradulated themselves on their new muscles, on keeping their language clean for 24 hours straight (that earned them a coke), on all the cool things we had seen, and on a promise that we would all get together for supper next week to look at pictures and to give each of them a Bible story book for their own nightly devotions.
Looking back, it was well worth it!
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