owyhee

yesterday afternoon i returned from the eight-day Owyhee River Kayaking trip!  myself, four adults, and eight kids had an amazing week travelling fifty miles on this river in the middle of the arid desert climate of southeast Oregon (close to Idaho and Nevada)...

Highlights from the week:
*spending lots of time in conversation with the three teen girls on the trip.  one of them made a commitment to Christ this week!
*learning how to maneuver my kayak--the first few days i was terrible...i had to use my scrawny arms to paddle me, my boat, and a hundred pounds of gear down the river, without a current sometimes...eugh...but i'm very muscular now.
*getting horribly defeated in a water fight by two of the teen boys.  keep in mind it was two against one.
*having time to read by Bible and journal and sketch in such an isolated place.  we didn't see any other people, roads,  houses, or power lines, for six days
*making some great friends in ministry, with both my Youth Dynamics counterpart, Bronco, and the three staff from Reachout Expeditions, who led the trip.
*singing about every song i've ever learned while paddling down the river....sometimes the kids enjoyed this and joined in...sometimes i used this as a humourous tactic to annoy them.  it was fun either way.
*surfing and swimming in the rapids!
*sharing the "question of the day."  one night, i was the adult leader for the evening Bible study, and our question of the day was "If you could change a year of your life, or a day of your life, what would it be, why, and how would you change it."  for the first time all week, everybody, kids included, got really vulnerable, sharing about struggles with addictions or broken relationships or poor choices...and at the end of the talk, i shared about the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 (our theme for the week), about "Blessed are the Merciful, and Blessed are the Peacemakers..." and I was able to share about God's characteristics of mercy and peace with the kids....it was a great time of connection and sharing...and it was so good to see the kids open up and share....
*the van ride home--in spending more time with conversations with the eight teens who went on the trip, i was excited to realize, i will see them again...around town, in school, at Bible study....i've built relationships with them--and those relationships are going to continue...