Leg 2 of the trip

For pictures and more information on what we've actually done, check my Facebook pictures.

Tyler and I have been on the road for 18 days now... Feels like it's been forever since I've seen my family in Bloomington and so much longer since I was still in school for the year! It's been a trip, that's for sure! And we have another week out here!

Anyways, I've still been in awe of how big our Lord is. Since we last talked, I hiked the rim to rim trail at Grand Canyon (21 miles in two days with over a mile of elevation change down and up again), we saw the Hoover Dam, the instant gratification of Las Vegas, the amazing diversity of Los Angeles, a couple of baseball games, and the beautiful Bay Area in "Nor Cal". It's been a long week to say the least.

A few words on the Grand Canyon...

It was amazing. It's so vast and incredible. To see a mile straight down and such incredible design around everything in the area is unspeakable. The climate changes so immensely in this small 21 miles. In our time there it was 80 degree high with a FOREST (yeah, we didn't know there were forests around the Grand Canyon either) on both rims while it's 105 (120 in the sunlight!!) in the bottom of the canyon. God is so freaking creative... I, nor anyone that I know, is smart or cleaver enough to create something that functions in this way. He is truly a God worth worshiping!

The hike was incredible as well. The views were what kept me going on our 14 mile hike out of the canyon. The difficulty of the hike out was way too hard. It was almost difficult to enjoy what I was doing because I was in so much pain. We finally made it out though and I was so happy that I gave complete strangers high fives.

Contrast

In the last week we've done a lot of things. It was so interesting to come from being in the wilderness, camping for two weeks to being in such populated areas. I have a little more of a perspective and curiosity about why things are the way they are. I've enjoyed seeing what is natural in nature. When I'm in nature, it's so quiet. I'm able to hear things that I don't in the city. I can feel things I don't feel when people are around. When I'm in the wilderness, the natural comes... well, natural. It's not a challenge to force myself against what needs to get done that day to read my Bible or to meditate on our Lord's vastness. I love it. I think that the pleasantness of people on the trail is due to this. There is no one saying who you should or should not be out there. It's just you, me, and nature. There's no need to be someone you're not or to impress anyone.

Coming to the cities of the west coast, I've also noticed that so many things are man-made in this world, too from dams to buildings to culture to racism. We make the way that we interact with each other. My interactions with people on the trails in the wilderness are much more pleasant as a whole than mine with people in the city. Why? Do we have so much going on in the city that we forget what is important? When we're in the wilderness among Creation, is it easier to see what's important?

If there's so much tranquility where there is nothing but God and Man while so much pain where there is Man... I don't know. Something that I've been losing sight of while living in Milwaukee is finding God in the City. It's totally different than in the wilderness... Jesus says that when we serve the least of these, we're serving Him. That means that when we see the least of these to society, we are experiencing God. They are something to respect just like we do the nature in a national park... In what ways can we see God in the city or everyday life? He's everywhere all the time. We just need to find Him sometimes...

Zion National Park

Hey y'all! We got to Grand Canyon yesterday afternoon. We're currently resting up for our big trip through the canyon! We're going to be taking a shuttle from the North Rim to the South Rim in a couple hours and then set out on our adventure tomorrow morning. We will be back in civilization on Saturday late morning/early afternoon. Just an idea of what we're going to be doing, check out this site... http://www.everytrail.com/guide/hiking-the-grand-canyon-rim-to-rim. The only difference is that we're going from the South Rim (4300 ft elevation change) to the North Rim (5800 ft elevation change). So, the way we're doing it is the unpopular way to say the least.

Anyways, we just got done with Zion National Park in Southwest Utah. It was beautiful. Check out my facebook for pictures. We did two famous day hikes here: Angel's Landing and The Narrow Straights. Angel's Landing is a 1500 foot ascent through 2.5 miles whilst part of it is more like climbing than hiking. Don't worry... there are some chains for us to hold onto for the real cool parts. :)

Tyler and I's favorite part in this hike was a section that was about 7 feet wide and 1200 feet straight down on either side. It was a blast. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the hike up...

This is the first ascent at the beginning of the trail.

A view back towards the beginning of the trail... The trailhead is by the road in the left side of the valley. 

A picture at the top! What a view!

A picture from the road to the peak that we hiked to... The one on the far left.

The final ascent to the top...

I don't have a lot more time to talk about the Narrow Straights but here is goes. It was BEAUTIFUL. For those of you that don't know, it's a 9.4 mile round trip hike through a slot canyon. So there's a river through it all. We took a small canyon off of the main trail to a water fall that added around 2.5 miles to the hike so together, we hiked around 12 miles that day... mostly walking through a river. The river is mostly around a foot deep and at points it got to 10 feet deep. Tyler took every chance he could to jump off of rocks into the river while I joined him every now and then... I was too cold as the water was a whopping 56 degrees! My camera died about half way through the hike so here's some pictures and videos of the canyon from what I had it for.

Week 1

This first week has been quite an eventful one! We arrived in Moab, UT in hopes of adventure, fun, and beautiful scenery. All of these things occurred and more! It took us a little longer to get to Moab because of the Chicago Blackhawks game 7. We stopped for a few hours in Des Moines, IA to watch the game and then continued on our way. We drove through the Rocky Mountains in the early morning and through the dessert of western Colorado/Utah in the afternoon arriving in Moab around 2 in the afternoon. We attempted to try and find a place to stay for a couple days while we went on day hikes at the national parks around the area. For those of you that don't know, there are 2 large national parks (Canyonlands and Arches) around Moab and a few state parks as well.

It took some frustrating conversations and multiple iterations to find an open campground. We eventually did and it was beautiful. It was on sand (this was the first time I'd seen sand outside of a beach or body of water) with a sloped rock behind it perfect for climbing and watching the sunset over the miles of desert. (pictures below)

The sand was the loosest around our campsite (of course). We were probably the only people at our campsite that did not have a 4-wheel drive car and thus we got some friendly help from the locals pushing our car out of this sand. :)

This is the wonderful sunset and some of the only clouds
we saw in our entire stay in Moab

Dead Horse Point State Park

This was our first park that we stopped at. We spend the entire afternoon here and it was wonderful! The canyon size is half the size of the Grand Canyon in both depth and width. This canyon is unique because it's in a number of different movies. Most people will mistake this canyon for the Grand Canyon.

We enjoyed a lunch at an overlook of the canyon (shown below). Tyler and I had a good time walking around this park learning about an environment that we've never seen before.

Canyonlands National Park

This was my favorite national park in Moab. Canyonlands is the largest national park in Utah separated by the Green and Colorago Rivers into three sections: Needles, Islands in the Sky, and The Maze. Canyonlands is the national park in the area for the adventurer. There is not much that you can see without walking at least 3 miles out. They have many awesome multi-day hikes. Canyonlands has a rule that you have to carry out all poop. We were able to avoid having to follow this rule. :) Also, the hike that we went on didn't have any water sources so we had some heavy packs for a 2 day trip. We brought in five gallons of water.

We spent 3 days, 2 nights in the Needles District. Unfortunately, my camera died during the first day. There were numerous fields of mushroom shaped rocks that roll throughout the entire park. The needles are the walls that shape these mushrooms. 

There was a point in one of our hikes that we were in a fracture of a canyon (similar to a slot canyon but it doesn't flash flood). It was so beautiful going through these tall formations. About two times a day on these hikes, it would open up into a field and we were able to see for miles again until it closed up into a narrow tall canyon. Below are some pictures from the first day. The second day was by far the most spectacular.

This view is similar to our first night's campsite. We had miles of view with
needles forming the walls around that view.

On our hike out, we started before the sun rose to beat the heat of the day and to conserve water. We walked for about 30 minutes in the dark under the stars. This was a humbling experience. It's hard to not feel small underneath the stars like this. We made it out to our car by  7:30 in the morning.

Arches National Park

We did this trip yesterday somewhat unexpectedly. We got out of our trip in Canyonlands and we wanted to get a hotel room for an evening. We were tired and wanted a break. When we got in Moab from our trip we tried to get a hotel. This didn't work out too well as it was the weekend in a small town living on tourism and, to our luck, there was a marathon in town! Yesterday was quite a rough day. Here's the breakdown:

• We weren't able to find a hotel.
• There were no campsites available at Arches National Park thus leaving us homeless for a night.
• We attempted to backcountry camp here but ran into complications as this park "is not built for backpacking" (said by the park rangers)
• We gave up on staying in Moab so we drove over by our next stop in southwest Utah. We got a hotel for the next day (today) but didn't have one for last night still. We thought we would try to convince our hotel for the following day to let us in for a discounted price as we were getting into town around 3 in the morning. They were booked.
• We tried virtually every other hotel in town and the next town over. All booked or over priced.
• Finally found a good deal to stay at a hotel for a "day rate" from 5 am to 5 pm (which is where I'm writing this now) and poked around town till 5 am to check in.
• We finally got to go to sleep at 5:30 after a shower and 25 hours of being awake since we hiked out of Canyonlands the morning before.

So, the time before the hotel debacle, we spent in Arches National Park. This was a gorgeous park. Check out my Facebook for pictures as there are too many awesome ones to post in here. After spending 48 hours in Canyonlands, it was hard being in Arches. We had not seen a person in 40 hours coming into it and there were tourists everywhere here. Needless to say, we got frustrated fast but we still enjoyed ourselves on our longest day yet of hiking! Total we hiked 10 miles of hilly terrain.

Delicate Arch is the most famous arch in Arches National Park. It's in the picture below. We heard it's best to see at sunset. Well, we weren't able to start our hike until around 30 minutes until the sunset was complete. We booked it. We finished a 1.5 mile hike that goes 500 feet up with some extra hills in there in 20 minutes. We made it up in time to see the beauty.

















I succeeded at making a fool of myself. I got there before Tyler did. I was expecting an arch that did not look like delicate arch (to the right). That looks pretty delicate, wouldn't you say?! Anyways, I got up there expecting the arch to look like this, not what is shown above. So I got up to the arch, and everyone is looking the other way! I saw this wonderful arch but I didn't know where the "real" delicate arch was! So I rushed around looking for it and was very frustrated, tired, and annoyed from everything else that went on that day.

I run up to Tyler and I say, "Where is the arch?!?" He points to the giant one that is right in front of us. "Duh, Donnie." Well, mark that one up to Donnie being an idiot. We sat for another 30 minutes enjoying the sunset and the view of the beautiful arch in front of us.

How am I like a fire ant?

So this is the part on where I'm going to share what I have learned and how I've grown so far this trip.

Hiking through the Lord's creation has been an extremely humbling experience. I remember when I was 10 years old and going to Chicago with my parents. I would stand at the then Sears Tower and would say to my parents "I'm so small, mom!" I've had those same thoughts as a 22 year old the last 6 days. Walking through canyons that are 2,000 ft tall and go on for tens of miles is super humbling. It makes me feel insignificant. 

When I was reflecting on this at our campsite one evening in Canyonlands, I couldn't help but notice these ants around my feet (fire ants to be more exact). They were super busy getting food, building things, doing any kind of things. I really have no idea what ants do... I just know they're always moving. I was watching them and realized that I was like an ant in my everyday life. I couldn't help but relate to them... If we take this metaphor as me or us as a human race as ants, then I was kind of like God when I was sitting here in the middle of the wilderness (although I'd be a terrible god and I'll tell you why later...) 

I felt as though if I were one of those ants I would be curious as to why this sandal was in this familiar landscape that I called home. I would want to explore my surroundings in order to do whatever I was doing as an ant. And, that's what they did. They climbed up on my sandal. I don't have a personal liking to fire ants so I kicked them off of my sandal. And that's when I started to relate to them. I can be a busy-body trying to get done what I needed to get done and search every avenue to get there, especially God (my gigantic foot in the ants' case). 

What if they were just curious? What if they just thought that there was something on my foot for them to eat or to build with? I think that when we explore our curiosities in God, he will do the exact opposite of what I did. He lets me and you walk around on hit foot trying to find whatever we're going to find. He says "...search and you will find, knock and I will open" (Matthew 7:7). Even if you bite him (although He probably prefers you don't), He will still respect your curiosity. He will not shut you down. So, I'm spending my time with God this trip being curious and not being afraid to ask potentially weird or hard questions.

Adventures Galore!

Most students try to get internships for summers... especially their final summer in order to get as much experience as possible before graduating. I'm not most students. This June, I've decided to go on an adventure. I'm going to be roadtripping with one of my good friends that I met at MSOE, Tyler. We're going to be driving thousands of miles, backpacking, camping, and hopefully meeting a whole lot of new and interesting people along the way.

What spurred this on?

Well, I had a stark realization about 6 months ago that I'm going to be making money for the rest of my life. But how many times am I going to have 3 months to do whatever I want? More than likely, never. So I'm taking advantage of this and somehow I drug someone into it with me. I have one more year of schooling left while Tyler has recently graduated and is starting his job in July. Together we are going to be driving out to California and back while seeing some incredible sights along the way. 

It's honestly a once in a lifetime trip and I'm looking forward to experiencing lots of God's creation. While talking to a lot of friends about this upcoming adventure, I've received a lot of requests to blog about my experiences. So, here it is. I don't think they have a wi-fi signal in the middle of the Grand Canyon, but I will be blogging whenever possible in order to keep people up to date on our adventures and exciting activities! Pictures will also be included, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks. 

Peace and Blessings.

Love, Jesus, and Christians

Coming into this summer, I didn't have any idea what I was getting myself into. Driving into the SOS parking lot for the first time on May 25th was probably one of the more overwhelming experiences of my life. About a dozen people waiting for me at the gate. Once my car was in the lot, they ruthlessly welcomed me by pounding on my car and screaming "DONNIEEEEE!!! Welcome!!!" They then proceeded to take all of my stuff out of my car and move it up to my room that I would be staying in for the summer. This was my first time in Memphis. I didn't know what to expect with SOS. I was nervous. I didn't know anyone. I just wanted my space. But this was them saying "We are your family. We want you to feel welcomed and loved. And we will show you you're loved by serving you over ourselves." Little did I know that this was going to be a theme throughout the summer. That I was going to learn how unconditional God's love is for us and what it looks like for His love to spill from our lives into everyone around us.

I met so many Godly people throughout the summer. People with so much wisdom, joy, love, and contentment from up above. People that gave and continue to give their lives for the gospel. People that live so counter culturally that others around them have no response other than "You're insane."

Love.

That's what made this community and the people different. Love that put others in front of themselves. Love that said "I just got done with a long day of work. I want a nap. But you're my brother/sister. You need help. I'll put aside anything that I want right now to serve you and help you out." Love that put comfort aside and said what needed to be said regardless of how I or others may feel. This love transformed the way that I saw God and the gospel. The verse 1 John 4:19 states "We love because he (Jesus) first loved us." I thought this was a nice concept before the summer but never really understood it... The more of the summer that passed the more I understood how life changing this verse is. 

Gospel.

God's love was ultimately shown through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the sins of the earth. Jesus had everything in heaven. He had nothing to gain. Yet he came down, gave up everything that he had in Heaven so that we may be made perfect in him. (1 Corinthians 8:9) This sacrifice and the grace involved in this sacrifice is completely free to you and me. However, it cost Jesus everything. He gave up everything so that we can be with him in Heaven eternally. That is love. Giving up everything that you have, even the right hand seat to God Himself, so that the poor in the world (us) can be made righteous. When we see how much was given so that we may have a relationship with God, we should want to love people in the same capacity! Obviously, there will always be holes in said love (because we live in a broken world that won't be made right until the day Jesus comes back). But that doesn't mean that we can't attempt to love people the same way that Jesus loved us. 

This is the type of love that I experienced in Memphis this summer. People that saw the sacrifice that was so huge in the gospel of Christ crucified and wanted to in turn love people sacrificially. This is something that I will be trying to incorporate into my life at MSOE in the next school year in a few different ways. I'm not completely sure what those ways are yet. Prayers for wisdom and discernment are appreciated. 

Looking back, I have seen the ways that I have treated others in the past year and have been convicted of the ways that I haven't been loving them. I feel that the gospel is starting to come alive in my heart and show itself. I have a feeling that God is going to do awesome things in MSOE and Milwaukee this coming year. 

All glory to God.

"If the Lord says so."

There are multiple reasons that I want to tell you the stories of my home owners. One is that I believe that anyone can learn something from anyone. It doesn't matter what socioeconomic status they live in, race they are, or neighborhood they live in. This has been exemplified in many ways this summer through my first homeowner: Pearlie Dotson.

Pearlie is a 70 year old woman that was born in Whiteville, TN on October 22, 1941. Whiteville is a small town in the country of Tennessee that most of the land, at the time Pearlie was growing up, was owned by white men. Growing up, Pearlie's father was a sharecropper. I had never heard of the term "sharecropper" before I talked to Pearlie about this.

A sharecropper is a black man that essentially works on a white man's property. He gets a stipend throughout the year (every three months). The amount that this particular white man decided to give was $105 per three months. With inflation, this balances out to roughly $1500 in 2012 money. This money was to provide clothes, food, and, if money left over, entertainment for the family. The household that Pearlie grew up in has 13 people in it (2 parents and 10 siblings). $1500 was not enough in and of itself to provide the basic necessities for these families. The owner of the land would say that he would pay the sharecropper if they provided "x" amount of product by the end of the season. Say the number was 200 lbs of cotton. The owner would then say that they would get half of the product that was picked past this amount. Oftentimes, however, the number would "magically" shift upward throughout the crop picking year. At the end of the season, the sharecropper would turn in the final product and, most of the time, the owner would say that they didn't meet the standard that was set at the beginning of the year. One bail of cotton typically went for $500-600 on the market. And on an average year the sharecropper would pick 15-16 bails of cotton. Most of the time the owner would go on the entire year just giving the sharecropper the money for the stipend all year long.


Pearlie talks about the difficulties of racism growing up. She says that black men had to worry about getting beaten and killed if they talked back to a white man. For all of the sharecroppers this was difficult because they had to work for them. When a white man would verbally assault a black man, the black man really couldn't do anything about it because of the fear of getting hurt. Pearlie also talks of times that she stands up for herself in situations where she gets cursed at by white men. She recalls one situation where she reminded a white man that respect is generally a two way street, we need to treat people the way we want to be treated, and that we this is something we should all live by. The response was drastically different than if a man were to do it. She says that the man tended to stay away from Pearlie for the next couple of weeks.

Pearlie's father, Hubert, was killed by a robber while he was on the way home from work one evening when Pearlie was in her late 20's. He was asking for a ride to his home and the man that picked him up robbed him and killed him. No one was ever convicted for the murder.

There was another woman on the porch while Pearlie was telling me her story. Her name was Louise. In response to hearing the story of Pearlie's childhood, she said "We had problems but God brought us through them. If it wasn't for our problems, we wouldn't know or have the belief in God we had." Pearlie agreed with this statement and the faith that it took in her childhood is still present in her life to this day.

I found it interesting that, even though there was so much darkness, racism and violence that they still found that respect for women in the society (even though in an "inferior" race) was still important.

Pearlie didn't have very many friends growing up. She found herself playing and socializing with family all the way growing up. She still values family greatly. She moved to Memphis in 1964 from the country. She got married to a man named Milton and he wanted to move to the city. At first, Pearlie didn't like it very much. She visited home every weekend like a homesick college freshman. The reason was that she loves the country. She loved the wide open areas and how "freeing" it is. The city is closed and impersonal.

Once she spent more time in the city, she started liking it a little more. Her favorite part was that she felt like she "was working for herself and not a white man."

Now, Pearlie enjoys whenever her family gets together again even if it's just a few of her sisters. She values family immensely and loves talking to new people. When asked what wisdom she wants to share with anyone, she said, "Be good, be kind, treat people right." and "Be strong. Stick with it. You can do anything that you put your mind to."

Everyday when I leave Pearlie's house after a long day, I say "I'll see you tomorrow Pearlie!" Her response, everyday, is "If the Lord says so." This exemplifies the faith that was instilled in her at a young age by her parents and a trust that the Lord's timing is perfect. That is truly what a life glorifying God looks like. Putting yourself behind for the glory and will of God.

Coming Soon...

This summer one of my favorite things about my job is that I have the privilege to build relationships with the owners of the homes that I'm working on. I'll be starting a short series on the home owners that I've been developing relationships with this summer. I'm going to "interview" them about their lives, what they've gone through, struggles they've had, and pieces of wisdom that they want to share with the world. Keep posted and pay attention on these posts coming!