Trek Miracles

We've been back almost two months from Trek.  Time for the event to seep into my heart, my soul.  It was glorious! Trek is a role-playing experience focused on the youth in our church.  They act out roles as children in a pioneer family, pulling a handcart over rough terrain and through close woods.  Married couples serve as the "Ma and Pa" of these ad hoc families, and for three or four days, shepherd the cart and family along the trail.

One of the women who was responsible for organizing the Trek asked all of the participants for some stories from Trek, the miracles that we experienced.  Part of it is after-action review, part of it is celebration of a successful event.

Four of our Trek Family, ready to pull the cart.

I suppose, when you come down to it, everyday is a miracle.  The Sun continues its ballet of fusion, and the earth keeps going around it.  We wake up, and our hearts continue beating.  But for miracles on Trek, as I ponder what happened, it's a miracle that we made it onto Trek in the first place. When we heard about it months ago, I immediately wanted to go, but Jennilyn didn't.  We discussed, even joked about me partnering up with another "Pa" whose wife wasn't interested (because how funny would it be to be on Trek with "My Two Pa's"? But that's not in the script; married couples only).

One afternoon in March, while we were finishing up an afternoon worshiping in the DC Temple, we ran into a friend, Tina Hartman, that we had only seen once in the past fifteen years.  Last Summer, Jenni drove up to the camp where our regional church group was holding a camp for the 12-18 year-old young women.  As she was setting up, another congregation's Pioneer Trek group came by, and Tina (with her husband) were the Ma and Pa of one of the carts/families!  A brief, thirty-second reunion, quick hugs, and the Hartmans were off into the woods.

So when we ran into her in the Temple, it was a miraculous reunion.  Jenni and Tina talked about Trek, and Tina was unequivocal in her praise for it.  The joy she felt doing it.  The instant love she felt for her Trek kids, the permanent bond that formed.  It was that short meeting that tipped Jennilyn towards going on Trek.  A strong impression during our time in the temple and a strong endorsement from a trusted friend.

Our Trek Family, pushing the cart over a HUGE BOULDER!

Months earlier, a couple of days before the previous Christmas, Jennilyn and I started walking five or six days a week, two or three miles a day.  A small miracle forecasting that four months later, we'd sign up to be a Ma and Pa.  Daily walking was the most fundamental thing stressed in our training to prepare for the Trek; it builds up the callouses and lowers the likelihood of blisters.

You can see all nine of our Trek kids in this photo, plus a few more.  I loved the smiles.  If you look close, you can see Sam 

(he was in the Orange family) in the background on the left, photobombing with a happy face.

The morning Trek began was a blizzard of activity.  We drove two hours to the camp, about 15 miles West of Gettysburg.  Once there, dozens of people were busy working, assigning carts, collecting gear, stowing it in too-small Cart bays.

But the greatest work was the kids.  Slowly, over the course of the morning, the kids assigned to be in our family (the "Brown" family, designated by our brown handkerchiefs) trickled over.  We introduced ourselves ("I'm Pa.  That's Ma.  We are simple folk" in a Pennsylvania Dutch cadence, to match my Amish Black Hat).  Jennilyn prepared (she says over-prepared, but it was perfect) a handful of get-to-know-you games.  It worked; in the moments that we played, I learned their names.

And this sounds corny, even to my earnest self, but we fell in love with those kids.  They were ours, our family.  I wanted them to be safe in the days to come.  I wanted them to have fun and learn from the experience.

I wanted them to embrace the opportunity that we were going to share together.

And they were AWESOME!  They totally bought into the premise. They were earnest, sincere, and guileless.

At our first break, Jenni got out a quilt and immediately began teaching the kids sewing skills. 
I think I was teaching the rest of the kids apple core-throwing skills...

If you've never role-played, it can be hard to imagine doing it without feeling an overwhelming self-conscious urge to giggle, or at least step out of character and make fun of everything.  I was cheered, grateful, and amazed that none of the kids in our family did that, not even a little bit.

So we spent the Trek really experiencing trail life.  When we gathered after dinner, the first night, my heart stirred with emotion, and I felt great parental affection for each of them. I shared King Benjamin's counsel to "Teach your children to walk in the ways of truth and soberness, teach them to love and serve one another."  I meant for it to be a clever play on words, about the walking, but I was overwhelmed with love for each of them, and a keen desire for them to really think of one another as brothers and sisters.  My words caught in my throat as I read that verse and struggled to express my deep sincere love for each of them.

Everybody pulled. Everybody worked. Everybody cooked! 

It is a common thing in our culture today to tease.  To be sly, clever, and quippy.  It's a way to seek attention in a crowd.  The novelty of being the first one to make a joke about something.  I'm a big fan of light-heartedness, but I am sometimes weary of how insincere communication can be.  Being open about sentiment is perceived as a weakness, and consequently, I see a lot of teen-agers who are very closed, very cagey about revealing their feelings.

So the last miracle of my Trek experience was how open I felt in our little Trek family.  Not once did I feel sarcasm or irritation from any of them.  It made it easy to fall into my role as their Pa.  I hope the kids felt it.

Because that is what I imagine our relationship with God is like.

Of course, everybody played, too. 

The men-folk got to pull the cart by ourselves to remind us how much the women were helping.

 

Suzanna on the women's pull

Here's the whole Trek Family at Kevin Ly's baptism.  A week after we got home, one of our Trek sons got baptized.  I am grateful for the miracle of trek, and the glorious good time we had being a Trek family.

And again! Somehow, wonderfully, our trek family had two young men in it that were not members of the church.  Felix Melendez joined the church Sunday, August 18.

We love those whom we serve.