Exploring the World

God

Posted by Garrett on Oct 26 2007 | General, Life, Prairie

Did God know mankind was going to sin?

God used the flood to cleanse the earth and start over, right? But it didn’t really work. The state of mankind after the flood was not really any better. So why did God even do it? It seems as if God failed in His attempt. If he knew that the Flood wasn’t going to work, why did He even bother? And why did He wait so long to send Jesus to the earth?

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Don’t do it

Posted by Garrett on Oct 21 2007 | General, Life

If someone asks you to play sting ping-pong, don’t do it. It hurts like mad. Plus it will look like you played paintball without protective gear.

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Glorifying God

Posted by Garrett on Oct 21 2007 | Life

What does it mean to live your life so that at any given time people have absolutely no doubt that God is being glorified by you?

I suppose the first thing is to identify what exactly it means to glorify God. And here I am stuck for now.

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More of Last Night

Posted by Garrett on Oct 20 2007 | Prairie

Actually this is not about last night. Last night was fun too, but maybe another time I will tell about that. This is about the train night.

So we got our bags, and then headed down to the bass pond to make a fire. This is one of those ponds formed when a river takes a shortcut and cuts off a meander. Oxbow lake is what they are called. We gather dead bushes as there isn’t much real firewood and build a fire. Joel got some nice photos of it. We sit there and talk around the fire and have a really nice time. This is when Jason has another idea.

“I wonder what would happen if I threw my lighter into the fire?” Joel and I enthusiastically encouraged him to do it. Finally he got over the fact that he would have to buy another lighter (college students are broke, remember) and tossed it in. We are backed up about 20 feet and waited. We waited more, and nothing seemed to be happening. Then everything happened. Jason’s lighter exploded and shot fireworks in a circle for about 15 feet. It was so cool to watch. Joel and I then decided to throw both our lighters in at the same time. My lighter was free, and really didn’t have much fluid left in it. Joel’s wasn’t new either. Still, the next two explosions were sweet. Joel even got a movie of it.

So, I am asking for donations for a new lighter. Maybe several of them. Thanks, you guys are great.

After that, we piled a ton of leaves on the fire and watched them blaze in glory. It was a sweet fire. Still the people didn’t come to the fire, which we all thought was odd. After the fire died down, we headed back up to make our camp inside a train car. We had seen one with the door half opened that looked like a perfect spot. When we got there, I shined my light inside and quickly scanned the entire car. It was clear. We climb in and make our bedding, get a few photos, carve our names in the side of the car, and then go to bed.

About two hours later. We are all awakened by a deafening noise and the violent shaking of the train car. We see lights scream by through the open doorway. The sounds of the other train just reverberated around the car. It was amazing. This happened three times throughout the night. We get up the next morning, pack up, and head back to camp. We are early for breakfast, which is my trademark.

This was probably the coolest night I have ever had. Rafting in the dark, sleeping in a train, being stalked by unseen people, incredible. The noises actually were probably just an animal. The voices we heard probably traveled across the river from camp. So there weren’t really any people over there besides us.

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Explore Tshirts

Posted by Garrett on Oct 19 2007 | Prairie

We got our Explore tshirts yesterday. They are pretty sweet. Sweeter than the Discover shirts.

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Last Night

Posted by Garrett on Oct 15 2007 | General, Life, Prairie

What I am about to tell you never happened. See, it was the 2nd to the last night at Camp Bighorn and some of us guys wanted to do something fun before we headed back to Prairie. Oops, it is time for chapel I will have to continue later.

CONTINUATION:

Across the river from camp is a pair of train tracks. On one set are a stretch of train cars with no caboose or engine. They evidently have been sitting there for 6+ months. I thought it would be so sweet to swim the river and spend the night in one of the cars. Like my life wouldn’t be complete unless I did this. I mentioned it to a couple people, but found not much shared interest. Until I talked to Buckmaster.

Jason is a cool guy. From the start of Prairie he and I hit it off through frisbee. His skills and height make him a key player in any game. We are usually split off, much like Noah and I. In fact, we have only played on the same team once. We won. Jason is 24 and from WA. Old enough to know better.

Jason took care of getting the drybags and I readied the raft. We got to use the “reject” raft of camp. It was missing a tharwt and wouldn’t pump up all the way, but it was RED. I was cool with that. We checked out PFD’s and paddles. Joel had joined out expedition. I knew it was going to be a sweet night.

We loaded everything up and headed off. We were being dropped off above the Rock Garden and Cascade rapids. We would raft down them and then head over to the train. By the time we got there, it was getting dark quickly. Dusk does not last long in the valley. We didn’t bring helmets because camp policy does not require them on class II rapids and we didn’t expect any swimmers.

But in the dark everything changes. Our headlamps didn’t do anything so we just left them off. This is when Jason named our raft, the “Devil’s Advocate”. We sang hymns down the flatwater, and then made it to Rock Garden. Rock Garden is named so for obvious reasons. Plenty of rocks make passage kinda difficult, even in daylight. We made it without hitting a single one. Then we approach Cascade. The roar is loud, but we have all rafted this one before and know to stick to river right.

Man it was awesome in the dark. We almost got flipped on the last of the big waves because we hit it broadside, but we ended up making it just fine. Then we head over to river left and look for a spot to beach the raft for the night. Right as we find a good enough spot and are about to get out of the raft, we hear this loud splash. It is the type of splash that happens when someone throws a large rock (BFR) into the water. We stop and look around, but don’t see anyone. We then hear a couple more similar splashes in different spots. We think it must be people from camp who came over to mess with us.

Jason yells up, “What’s up homies?” After getting no answer, he then yells, “Chupp, we know you are there.” Still no answer, but we are sure we hear voices. and there are no more splashes for a little bit. We get out of the raft, grab our stuff and head up the bank to the tracks. We hear a couple more splashes but we still can’t see anyone nor see any lights. Jason suggests we wait them out on the tracks. So we set our stuff down on the empty tracks and climb to the top of the train cars right next to us. However, I make the suggestion to move the bags off the track just in case. At the top, we still don’t see anyone. Then a train comes by at a fast rate of speed. We lay down on top and try to act invisible but it doesn’t work, as we find out later.

After the train goes by, I look down and only see one dry bag in the dark. The other two are missing. The thought crosses my mind that the people could have come by and taken the two bags while the moving train hid them from our sight. However, we climb down and start to look for the bags. Joel’s is 30 feet up the track. Mine is even further up and actually rolled down a hill. I was incredible relieved to find it as it had my rented sleeping bag inside.

More later.

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