Exploring the World

Defense of Manhood and Crocheting

Garrett Boon to KP: I don’t have written instructions anywhere. I learned from someone showing me. Basically you start with a chain of 4-6, connect the ends, and then crochet around the circle. You have to “add stitches” a ton in the beginning to keep the circle getting larger. As you go, you add less and less stitches otherwise it will get wavy. Then, you reach a point when you don’t add any more stitches and it will curl down all by itself. Maybe that helps?

Zach…. why are you sowing/crocheting its not MANLY….. its a girl thing. its not for guys. i mean really would you ever get your nails done? no cause its a girl thing, like sowing/crocheting…

Garrett Boon: It becomes a manly thing when I crochet a target for my SKS rifle. Yep. And I trim my nails with my bowie knife. I cut my hair with the teeth of the cougar I killed with my moose antler spear. I hunt wearing the skin of the grizzly bear I tracked and lassoed using rope from the hide of an antelope which I ran down in my snake-skin moccasins. You question my manliness? I challenge you to a duel riding buffalo fighting with horns from a rhinoceros. And guess what, I will be wearing my crocheted toque with tassels and ear muffs. I AM MAN!

Zach: im sorry i have to be bad for this one part but rhinoceros are not in Canada

Garrett Boon: I carried one from Africa on my back walking across the ice bridge between Russia and Alaska.

Zach: hahaha, ah, so that was you i was wondering who that was some guy carrying a big stuffed animal rhinoceros

Garrett Boon: Stuffed? Yes it was stuffed with all kinds of fully automatic weapons, ballistics, and 3 tons of c4’s.

Zach: must have been heavy

Garrett Boon: When it got too heavy I rounded up a herd of 53 wolves to help drag it along with the sled I carved from a single tree.

Zach: thats totally amazing that they teach that at bible college!
how did you manage to kill it?

Garrett Boon: This was a part of my Judges class. We had to act out a judge and I picked Samson. But I skipped the whole Delilah part.

Self and Leadership

Gain an understanding of self:

A. Describe your style of leadership: personality, communication and leadership style and spiritual gifts.

I have taken a lot of different personality tests over the last three years. I typically place in similar categories throughout all the different types of personality tests. Usually I end up as an introvert and a thinker. In the Myers Briggs I am an IXXJ. I have tested as a Rational, Guardian, and Idealist. In other tests I have been a Melancholy-Choleric, Steady/Conscientious, Beaver, and Process/Product.

I tend to be concrete in thinking. I don’t do well with abstract ideas or concepts, especially in class. I want to know the practical, hands-on, how do I do it. Similarly, I don’t naturally think in analogies. It is difficult for me to come up with them, and I don’t relate to them super well. Over time I have come to appreciate people who can think abstractly, but it still remains a foreign concept to me.

I prefer to work within lots of structure. I work best when I can watch someone do something so that I am able to copy what they did exactly. If someone gives me the big picture or idea, I don’t know how to proceed. I need more instruction that is broken down into concrete steps. I can follow detailed outlines really well, but when only given a couple large points, I am not able to make sense of it very easily.

In addition, I concentrate on the process in order to get a quality product. This is more important to me than the idea or the people involved. When invited to a game, I tend to go play always concentrated on winning. I don’t usually care as much about whether people are having fun, including me, but I want the end product to be good. When I have a goal, that is the most important thing to me. This plays into my greatest spiritual gift, which is craftsmanship. I want to do the best I can, and love to do it to the glory of God.

Other spiritual gifts I have are Helping and Giving, as well as Pastoral and Administration. I have always been keen to give to the Lord’s work. When a missionary comes to visit my church, I typically feel as if I should give. Yet, it isn’t out of compulsion, but rather conviction. I usually enjoy giving to support people in ministry.

B. Outline the Biblical values you hold as a leader that you would use to build a healthy team.

Reflection is a major value of mine. In high school, I was assigned to write a paper about a quote from Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Ever since I wrote that paper, I have placed a high value on reflecting over life in order to rightly process what is happening. This value has only been made more articulated through my years in Explore. As a leader, I think that it is imperative to a healthy team to incorporate reflection. I would use my position to structure times for reflection, both individually and also as a group. This would give the team a tool to use for processing and ultimately growth.

Another value I have is integrity, which comes from the lives of older men I was able to watch while growing up. I observed several men live out their lives with such strong integrity that the value became ingrained in me. The idea of integrity, to do what you will say you will do, is very much Biblical. As a leader, I would hope to be living my life in such a way as to be a good example. Also, I would encourage my team to also live lives of integrity, both in word and deed. I would do a combination of subtle hints and also outright encouragement on the behalf of integrity, because it is something that I value so much.

C. Explain how you see yourself serving your team as their leader.

The position of leadership I am in currently lends itself with many opportunities to serve my team. I serve by giving them my time, by preparing impact group meetings, by praying for them, by leading them through skills, by offering general college assistance, and many other things. But the action of doing these things isn’t where the heart of serving is. The heart of serving is what is in the heart of the man. I must examine my heart and motivation behind doing these things in order to be a true servant leader.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, Paul speaks about love. He says that if someone doesn’t have love, then it doesn’t really matter what they do. I could spend 15 hours planning a 2 hour group meeting, but without love, it is essentially worthless. Unless my motivation is completely pure and selfless, my actions as a leader are in vain, and certainly not effective. My team could easily see through me if I were to have a selfish attitude about leadership, and that is not going to give me a good witness.

When I do have the right motivation behind my actions, then I can truly start serving my team. My motivation will shine through eventually in my actions. Thus, when I operate out of selflessness, the time I spend with individuals becomes a blessing to them. That time will build trust instead of destroying whatever trust they might have had in me. This will in turn, allow time spent to be a service rather than a disservice.

Furthermore, when as a team we go through skills, my leadership won’t be about what I can get out of the skill for myself. I will be there for my team, to do whatever is best for them, regardless of what I might think would be the most fun for me. I see this playing out during winter skills, because I know some members of my team are not as physically able as I am. Therefore, we will not get as far in distance, and may not be able to get to some places that I would like to. But if I am really committed to serving my team, it won’t matter, because it isn’t about me.

Qwest Pay Phone Ripoff

I was at the Spokane International Airport last month trying to get a hold of the person picking me up. I don’t own a cell phone, so I decided to use a payphone. I should have known better not to insert my credit card into the machine, but I didn’t have any coins with me to pay for the call. I was pretty sure that the phone said it would charge 50 cents per minute for a long distance call. It is possible I read the sign wrong, I am sure it was meant to be confusing.

I couldn’t reach the person I needed to, and didn’t have any alternate numbers for them. After a while, I began to get worried that maybe they forgot and that no one was coming to pick me up. So I decided to call the only numbers that I knew by heart, my home which was on the other side of the country. I hoped that they would be able to help me find a number that I needed. No one answered, so I was out of luck there also. I tried several other numbers, all with no answer. I think I made 10 calls total.

Eventually I was picked up and made it back to the camp I am working at. However, after looking at my credit card statement I saw I had been charged an arm and leg for all the calls I made. Even from the same payphone, I had charged totaling $180 from two different companies. These companies were NCIC and Qwest. Each charge was no less than $15 even for a call that lasted less than 2 minutes. The highest charge was for $19.72 for a call that lasted less than 4 minutes. This is very different than the rates posted on the machine.

I called up the numbers on my credit card, 877-7937728 and 800-5959694 to ask for a refund. One of the companies, NCIC, actually refunded almost all of their charges. They gave me $50 back from their total of $55 charges. It only took one call and they were very nice about it. Qwest, however, was a different story.

I have called Qwest a total of 3 times and have not gotten any of the charges rescinded. The person I talked to told me that they would submit a ticket to another department and let me know within 30 days what their decision was. Now I guess I have to play a waiting game to see what they end up doing. I certainly hope that Qwest doesn’t rip me off of that much money. They have ridiculously high phone charges for pay phone usage.

Life Lessons:
Never put your credit card into a pay phone.
Get backup numbers for people you need to reach via phone.

Tracking

One of the reasons I came back to the second year of Explore was to improve my outdoor skills. One of the skills I wanted to work on, which actually was not part of any class in Explore 2, was tracking. However, throughout the year I had the chance to work on my ability to track both in the back yard of Camp Bighorn, and also on the various trips we took.

In particular, our 21 day backpacking trip in central Oregon provided some really good opportunities to practice tracking. One day, I was in the position of pace setter. This meant I walked in front of the group and controlled the hiking pace. The only people in front of me were the scouts, who provided the practical navigation. My job was to follow the scouts at a decent pace. Everyone else just followed me.

The ground was slightly wet that day, which made for really good tracking. The terrain was fairly rugged. The grass was pretty high and there were tons of bushes and some trees scattered around. These provided just enough of a challenge for my skill level in tracking.

So I decided to track the scouts. I could still see them, which helped me travel in the correct general direction. I would walk for a ways with my eyes glued to the ground watching for footprints. Then I would glance up and make sure I knew where the scouts were. I was having a lot of fun.

I was having fun, that is, until one time when I glanced up and the scouts were no longer in sight. My heart skipped a beat as I realized I had no idea where they had gone. My duty as pace setter was to follow the scouts, and now that just got a lot harder. I didn’t know where they were. Everyone was trusting me to lead them in the path of the scouts. I didn’t like the way this situation was shaping up.

At this point, I decided I had to go on, and the only way to do that was to continue tracking them. However, now it wasn’t just for fun. I had to track for real. Still, because the tracking conditions were very favorable, I was able to follow the scouts’ trail fairly well. Eventually, we caught up to the scouts and successfully finished our hike. It ended up being a very valuable learning experience and increased my confidence and skill level.

January 25

I once asked a friend how to harness inspiration. I have tons of inspiration now, I just need to find a way to store and save it for when I begin to be distracted. I recently came up with a picture of what I want to be, as far as a person. Yol Bolsun.

Tomorrow we start our WFR class. Wilderness First Responder. After that we have two class of Group Facilitation class. Then comes four days off. Then the next 3 weeks will be spent in Murder Creek Wilderness, Oregon.

Prayer

Most merciful God, we confess we have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed. By what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole hearts, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us. That we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your name. Amen.

From the Book of Alternate Services

Hard

What is hard for me
Dying
Dying to myself
For a greater cause

I don’t have to face
Danger
Danger because my faith
Is not popular

What is hard for me
Giving
Giving up my wants
To help another

I may have to face
Rejection
Rejection of friends
They don’t understand

What is hard for me
Loss
Loss of what could be
For a greater cause

I don’t want to face
Confusion
Confusion of ideals
I don’t understand

What is hard for me
Focus
Focus on the goal
To honor the Lord

Give me the strength to face
Life
Life brought by my death
Your death on a cross

Joy

OR

Yeah.

October Update

It has been a while since my last real update. This is partly due to the fact that I have been staying busy. It is also partly due to various amounts of processing I have been doing in my life these past couple months.

The semester is already half over. It has really flown by. The weeks seem to come and go as quickly as the candy I get from the ARC. I just finished a major step in this semester, a 19 page paper for my Old Testament class. I had a 30 minutes presentation with a friend to do in class, as well as a group paper of 2500 words on open theism. Group papers are so difficult to write.

Coming to this year, I was excited for my classes, but not in the same way that I was excited for what we will get to do second semester. It has taken all this time for me to shift my attitude to greatly appreciate my classes for what they are, and try to take full advantage of them.

Team Sherpa, the name for the 2nd year Explore team, definitely has created opportunities to grow in many different ways. Most of us know each other really well from last year. However, two people, in particular one of the guys, did Explore two years ago. This means I do not know him very well. Because he is a 3rd year student, he is in completely different classes and has a completely different schedule than I do. So it was naturally harder to establish a friendship. This created some conflict within the group. Some people were feeling left out, almost rejected by the others, some really didn’t know where they even fit into the team. This is something we had to deal with (and are still dealing with) as a team.

Coming into Explore, I had to deal with a lot of uncertainty in my previous choice of career. At the end of last year, I had thought I wanted to become some sort of camp director. However, I began to question that after coming back this year. So then I had to wrestle with the question, “why am I even here at Prairie and in Explore?” If this has nothing to do with what I am going to do for a career, then it almost seems like a waste of time and money.

Part of why I wanted to figure out what I wanted to do with my life comes from my goal of someday being the head of a family. I had to resettle my convictions on starting this process. Now I have come to a place of peace, and am patiently (for now, at least) awaiting a day when it will be right. It is funny though, how God sometimes answers prayer. His knowledge is above mine, His thoughts higher. Still it is funny when God doesn’t answer prayer the way you think He would.

Throughout it all, I have felt a much deeper connection with the LORD God. At times I cried out to Him in desperation, and He was faithful to comfort and calm my weary soul. I praise God for He truly incredible greatness and goodness, that His lovingkindness endures forever. That He is a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness. His love endures forever.

Perhaps tonight, the first fruitset with the 1st years, is a good picture of what is happening in my life right now. A fruitset is where we go out to the train tracks and watch the sunset. We all have a piece of fruit which we eat in unison. These sessions are rated on four separate, 1-10 scales: the beauty of the sunset, the uniqueness, the group (attitude), and the fruit. This one was rated 8, 5, 8, 9 respectively. That brings an average of 7.5, which is decent. The group was Dustin, Beth F., Anna, Samantha, and I. Hopefully more of the first years will join in later.

Living in the Present

I wonder how many valuable experiences are lost when I don’t allow myself to become involved in them. Especially right now. I had a wonderful year at college, and am looking forward to going back in the fall. I spend so much time looking forward to it that I sometimes check out of my present life.

Even while I am doing something, my mind wanders to the exciting future. I lose focus on what is in my hands and dream about what can happen later. I am especially prone to do this when life isn’t easy and I don’t like what I am doing. This is a bad habit to get into. I don’t want to train myself to simply skip out on the hard stuff. Doing hard things is when you learn.

Live now. Take advantage of everything you are doing today. There are many lessons and skills that can be learned by what is happening right now. Why short yourself on life? It only happens once.