Hiking for miles with 50+ pound packs.
Learning to cook an entire meal in one pot over a tiny stove. Climbing a
13,0000 foot peak. Hiking over a mountain pass in a howling windstorm. Learning
to keep walking even when cold, wet, and hungry. Struggling with altitude
sickness. Discovering giant seesaws made from fallen trees. Worshipping
together under a blanket of stars. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Learning to
trust. Becoming vulnerable. Letting go of burdens.
These are a few of the many adventures the
EMH team experienced on The Great Sand Dunes backpacking course, August 18-28.
Ten juniors and seniors, three instructors, and one instructor-in-training
spent ten days in the wilderness in the first of their four core courses.
“This is the foundational course for the
year, and we went into it wanting to establish what kind of community we are
going to be,” said EMH Director Ben Little.
“We want to be intentional in creating a community centered on openness,
trust, growth, and encouragement. We want the students to see themselves as a
family.”
Every family faces challenges, and living
together in the wilderness is one way to bring those challenges to the surface
very quickly. Along with sickness, cold and rainy weather, and the dynamics of
a new group, the students faced the everyday reality of different and sometimes
conflicting personalities.
“The students handled the challenges well,”
said Mr. Little. “It can be difficult to be patient when living that closely
together and learning to be vulnerable. When you are a family and you let down
your guard, that leads to conflict, and that is where growth often happens.”
Growth did happen in many ways. Kate, a
junior, commented, “I learned that strength can come in many different forms,
vulnerability being one, and that it is okay and sometimes good to be
vulnerable.” Hawk, a senior, added, “I learned that we all can be put in
situations we don’t like, but it’s how I react to those situations that really
changes the outcome.”
The theme of the course was trust: What
things are we trusting God for? How do we trust God with our identity? How do
we trust him with our burdens? “We had some really meaningful spiritual
conversations and good prayer and worship times,” said Mr. Little. “As we
identified our burdens, some students really wrestled with that. We talked
about the identity of a “son” versus the identity of an orphan, and how seeing
myself as a son changes how I see life. The word Paul uses for “son” is a place
of position. For some students that concept was really significant. Being part
of a family can be difficult, but having that identity of a son is very
important.”
Deanna, one of the instructors on the course,
saw students grow in this area. “I watched as students learned to trust each other on an emotional level
throughout the week. Each day they seemed to grow in their vulnerability with
one another both on individual levels as well as communally. I listened as they
grappled with the theme of trust. They shared with me the struggles they were
Sarah,
a junior, agreed. “I learned a lot about myself through this course. God
reminded me of several areas he wanted me to grow and develop in as a daughter
of God, such as my true identity, my dependency on Jesus, and how I need to
work on putting Christ first in my life.”
One
evening the instructors told the students to pick up a palm-sized rock and
carry it with them throughout the evening. They were not allowed to put it
down, even while cooking and eating. If they dropped it, they had to pick up a
bigger rock. Later the group discussed burdens and named the burdens they
carry. They were challenged to take their rock and throw their “burden” off the
side of the mountain.
Deanna
commented, “In a conversation the next day with a student, he said he was still
thinking about his rock and wasn't ready to throw it; he wanted to be sure he
was really entrusting it to God before he did.”
She
continued, “I had a burden attached to my rock as well. I've had a difficult
time trusting God with certain areas of my life, and throughout the week it was
pretty heavy on my heart. In throwing my rock, I surrendered a part of my heart
that I hadn't before, and it was profoundly freeing and peace-giving. That was
a pretty powerful night.”
Another
student reflected, “My biggest challenge was confronting my past, coming
face-to-face with mistakes and memories I thought I had buried deeper and then
having to confront them.”
In the
midst of challenges, there was a lot of laughter and fun. “The group really
just enjoyed each other,” said Mr. Little. They practiced many of the skills
they are learning, such as map reading, route finding, and cooking in the
outdoors. They crossed a mountain pass, climbed to the top of a peak, visited
beautiful lakes, and hiked off-trail for several days.
A big
highlight of this particular course was having Evelyn as the
instructor-in-training. Evelyn came to EMH from Louisiana in the very first
year of EMH three years ago. This year she will be returning to participate in
courses as part of her training to earn a wilderness EMT. “It was really cool
for me to be back on the first trip, the start of my journey,” she said. “I
think great relationships were started, hard questions were pondered, and walls
kind of opened a little bit. Overall it was a great trip.”
Ekklesia Mountain High is a boarding and
day-student program for high school juniors and seniors at Darren Patterson
Christian Academy, in which approximately forty days of wilderness experience
and leadership training is integrated with rigorous academics in DPCA's
Biblically-centered environment. To learn more, please visit the school's
website at www.dpcaweb.org, and
the EMH program's website at www.emhweb.org.
