Backpacking
Yeah, I'm finally back. I've been all over the place the past few weeks, but I'm finally back home for a while. Where have I been? I'm glad you asked.
When most volunteer teams come, they want to hang out in a big city, stay at a posh hotel, and enjoy the finest cuisine this country has to offer. Not this group. They wanted to drive to the middle of nowhere, walk the kilometers and kilometers back to civilization under the hot sun, sleep outside on the rocks, and eat whatever they could find or carry. Sorry girls, this one's just for the men.
The plan was to hike an old trail people used to walk in Biblical times and witness to whatever people or villages we came across, and also to not die in the process.
I had never been backpacking before, but I had been wanting to try it. Plus, it's not every day you can call a backpacking trip "work". So with that in mind, I went to the market and bought a bunch of camping gear and stuffed my pack with peanuts, raisins, peanut butter, ramen noodles, plenty of water, and a few Bibles.
Since we would basically be risking our lives, we thought it'd be a good idea to pray first.
The Boss Man had a GPS, and after a few false starts we finally hit on the right direction. Unfortunately, that direction was straight up a mountain. Not a hill, not a bluff, a stinking mountain. After a good hour of climbing up with giant packs on our backs, we began to reconsider the value of backpacking for Jesus. But since no one wanted to go back down the mountain, we decided to press on.
Fortunately, the terrain got a lot more forgiving after that first mountain. We even found a natural fountain, which turned out to be fairly common in the area. We made good time walking through rocky valleys, and met our first shepherd after a couple of hours.
Since we didn't have a lot of time with each shepherd, we had to get to the point pretty quickly. The conversations usually went like this:
Me - "Hey, God sent us to you."
Shepherd - "Of course."
My partner - "[He quotes Psalm 23 in the local language by heart. Yeah, he's hardcore.]"
Me - "You know, according to the Bible you're going to hell."
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "[I give the gospel story, using the Romans Road as an outline.]"
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "Here, you should read this." [I hand him a Bible]
Shepherd - "Of course."
Me - "Well, we're gonna go walk over there now, have a good day..."
For whatever reason, the shepherds always said "of course." It didn't matter what we said. Literally, I told them they were going to hell, and they said "of course." They heard the gospel, they have the Word of God in their hands, but a different response would've been a little more encouraging. But, the response is not up to us, we're just responsible to share.
So the first day passed pretty much like that. We walked, talked to some shepherds, and walked some more. That night we found a nice grassy area between some mountains and made camp. Fortunately for me, the guys from the states brought these backpacker food pack things, and after boiling some water, we were eating beef stew and cajun chicken. It was a good night.
The pictures of the red x's are especially enlightening!
Posted by
Polarbear |
12:23 PM