"24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."
Matthew 16:24-25
Last weekend I embarked on a trip with three other brothas to complete a mission of two parts. Our first always the same, on a personal level: To take time away from our regular routine that is our weekly practical life, and rest. The second always the same theme: To provide a means for the unknowing to know the God we worship and love. This we call our "Two Birds" Mission, being that we vacation with a double intent, killing two birds with one stone if you will. More so, as a symbolism of our individual partnership with the Holy Spirit, going to great lengths to bring the Gospel to the world, like a pair of birds in flight. Ok, so before I get too cheezy heh, this was our last mission:
We travelled about 8 hours north, to Yosemiti National Park, prepared (As much as we knew how) to hike the treacherous Half-Dome peak. The hike normally taking the experienced hiker about 10 hours round-trip, turning out to be 17 hours worth of more than we expected, both good and bad.
No, we're no THAT out of shape, but we did make lots of picture stops. Anyhoo, back to focus ... Our "Two Birds" mission was to carry our crosses up to the peak, with the expectation of leaving our crosses at the top, along with the burden of our past lives, our struggles, and baggage. Our crosses covered in scripture, and personal messages for the curious climber to see, hopefully be blessed by, and spark an interest in them to investigate Jesus Christ, and come to know Him. We fashioned up wooden crosses, about a foot by a foot and a half, nailed together and shaved down to be written on. We then strapped them onto our backpacks, for all to see, and started our journey 8,000+ feet up. The conversations we had with passing hikers encouraged us to keep moving, when they would ask what the crosses were about, and we would get to witness to them. The funniest part is that the most questioned we were asked were from others climbing up the last leg of the hike with us, up the verticle climb via cables to the very top of Half-Dome. You would think they would be caring more about risking their lives, but I guess what better to distract them from their fear then to tell them about Jesus.
We wanted to symbolize "Carrying our Cross", as Jesus calls us to do, and in the very least experience how it is to bear our burdens through our long journey, to finally be relieved of it when our mission was done. The physical Crosses themselves didn't matter, but it was what we left with them that counted. We prayed together at the top, holding our crosses up to the Lord, and then took individual time alone with God. We left it all behind on the mountain, and NO it doesn't mean we came back down perfect, or any more spiritual or better than we were, but that simply we came down cleaned of what God took off our shoulders, knowing that what we had been "Carrying on our Own" we "Left on the Mountain". We asked for God to take our burdens, so that we may be used to His will, in carrying the burdens of his Children. Little did we know that only an hour later, barely off the Half-Dome rock, did God already have a plan for us to serve one of his daughters.
Her name was Megan, and she was our true test. Our perspective of patience, physical stamina, and service were all shaken up, and stretched farther than we knew. As we walked by her, we heard, "Do you guys have lights?", and I knew what that meant. See, at the point we were at, being about 5:30 pm, you expect to be back at the bottom of the trail by about 10:00 pm. So, not having lights meant hiking in the pitch black, and probably getting rescued by the Ranger. It's a lot worse than you think, at least it was for us, knowing how bad it was even with lights. So, it turned out that Megan not only had 5 knee surgeries, but she wasn't exactly light, or swift on her feet, and ended up rolling both her ankles, and hurting both her knees again. To make a longer story shorter, we hiked a total of 17 hours, getting her back to her family at the bottom at 2:30 am, with parts where we had to literally carry her down the side of the mountain.
We ran out of water, out of energy, sometimes getting very close to running out of will power and patience. There was a point where we rested on the last leg of the hike, and she fell asleep on a rock, and was mumbling about just leaving her, and that she had her tiny light on her keychain to make it down. That only motivated us to stick together, and God blessed us with an extra boost of energy to carry her down. The whole experience was a definite trip, but only afterward when we talked about it, did we really realize how worth it the whole ordeal was.
We couldn't imagine what would have happened to her if we weren't there, and though it was the hugest struggle for us, it was such an amazing blessing. God had a great plan for us ready to go, and we couldn't help but connect the fact that we just released our burdens only right before to be ready for God to use us at His will, and he definitely did. during the experience we got to know her very well. We found out she didn't have much of a solid Church experience in her life, and was pushed away from the church by judgement, selfishness, and religion. I think the experience we had together really opened her eyes to the truth of the care that the Church should have for others, as God shined that through us to her, and the realness of all of our imperfect brokenness, both in grace and acceptance of each other as is. We found her thanking God by the end of the Hike, and we got to pray for her and her family.
We still lift her up, and pray she finds Christ. Hopefully when she goes through struggle, she will remember the experience she had with us, and know that there is a God that wants to help her. All she has to do is ask for "A Light to shine upon her, and guide per on her path."
I hope you were blessed by this as much as we were, and that you will take away the fact of knowing that even in our worst struggles, God has a plan, and is blessing you, and will bless you still. God Bless you all, and thank you God for an amazing testimony.
Peace,
jiFi
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