Have you ever hiked up a mountain? Do you remember when you started at the base and looked up at the distant summit and maybe felt a little intimidated by the task before you? Did you perhaps take some of the pressure off yourself by saying, "I'll just climb until I get tired, then quit and come back down"?. Well if you have answered yes to all three of these questions, you will appreciate what I'm about to share. For those of you who haven't,...I;ll try not to ramble too much and I promise, I will eventually get to the point.
Having lived in Alaska for 20 years, I often took advantage of "The Great Lands" majestic solitude by climbing in the Chugach and Brooks mountain ranges. On one occasion, while working for Alyeska Pipeline Company (the company that operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline) I was working at Pump Station #3 which is located 103 miles south of Prudhoe Bay near the northern base of the Brooks Mountain range. It was early summer (July) and since the sun never sets in the summer time at that latitude, there was plenty of daylight left after I got off work every day around 5PM. My work required frequent travels along the entire length of pipeline. During this particular tour, I had driven the haul road between Pump Stations 3 and 4 quite often and was impressed by some of the rugged foothills at the base of the Brooks range. I had often thought, if I ever find the time, I would like to see the view from the top of them. Sound familiar?
Well, I finished up work a little early one afternoon and decided that was a good day to make the climb before winter began to set in. I drove about 10 miles south of Pump Station 3 to an area the locals (three guys who manned the Dept. of Transportation outpost in Chandalar pass) called slope mountain. I parked my truck on the pipeline right away and began hiking towards the base of the mountain around 5:30pm. Although the ground was relatively flat, it is extremely difficult walking through tundra which is like walking across a 2 foot deep, wet sponge. Each step would sink down into the tundra and suck at your feet when you pulled it out. After 30 minutes of steady slogging, I was surprised to find a creek separating me from the base of the mountain. Having already invested an hour of my evening into this effort, I was reluctant to turn back. I took a long hard look at the width, depth and the speed of the creeks current. It appeared to be only knee deep with a moderate current and it wasn't more than 30 feet across....and thought to myself.."that doesn't look so bad". 10 feet into my creek crossing effort, I suddenly reached several startling conclusions. First, the water was actually about waist deep and second, the water was so cold, it felt like I was being stabbed by a thousand ice picks. I had never hurt so bad in my entire life, and only one time since then...but that's another story! By the time the icy water's message had reached my brain, my forward momentum had already carried me to midstream...the point of no return. Not wanting to turn broadside against the current and go back, I made a quick decision to keep plowing forward and hoped the water didn't get any deeper.
Einstein once explained his theory of relativity by saying a minute sitting in a porch swing with a pretty girl seems like a few seconds...but a minute sitting on a hot stove might seem like an eternity! I can relate to that because according to my recollection, it took me three weeks to cross the last half of that 30 foot wide creek. My watch said it was only a few seconds....but I KNEW BETTER! The last few steps weren't so bad because my legs had already tuned to wood and I couldn't feel them anymore anyway. When I emerged from the other side and started up the base of the mountain, my blood finally started circulating again and the feeling started to return to my frozen limbs. That hurt almost as bad as the first time and all I could think about was I still had to cross that creek again when I came down off the mountain.
An hour later, I reached what I thought was the summit..only to discover another peak just beyond it that wasn't visible from the base of the mountain. After enjoying the view from that vantage point for a moment I pondered whether or not to continue climbing. Before I could make a decision, my body had already started pressing on toward the new summit. I justified this mutiny between mind and body by attributing it to my strong desire to see the summit but in reality, I think my body was just wanting the delay my second creek crossing for as long as possible. Another 45 minutes of steady climbing finally brought me up to the summit....or so I thought! There to my dismay and disgust was the most beautiful meadow I had ever seen and it stretched several hundred yards beyond right up the base of another summit! By now its almost 8PM I still had a two hour climb back down the hill and still had to cross that 400 foot wide, raging, freezing creek before I could walk the half hour to my truck and make the 30 minute drive back to my warm bed in camp.
I looked up at the summit, and then looked down the mountain. Looked up the at the summit again...then down the mountain again. To this day, I don't know why, but for some reason I couldn't turn back. I turned back towards the summit and began climbing again. It took an hour to cross that meadow and reach the next summit. Just before I reached the top, I was almost afraid to look over the top for fear of finding another peak just beyond it. Just before I crested the ridge, I felt a cold wind hitting me in the face and I knew that had indeed reached the summit. I stood on top of that mountain for what seemed like seconds but my lying watch said it was more like half an hour. Turning slowly in a circle, I could see for miles in every direction. I could see the permanently snow capped peaks of the Brooks range to the south of me and I could see all the way to the far northern horizon where the arctic tundra meets the Beaufort sea. The view was breathtaking and I'll never forget the majestic solitude of that moment. The pain of crossing the creek and the disappointments of all the false summits were temporarily forgotten. All I could think of at that moment was that all my efforts had afforded me a view that few, if any had ever seen before.
I wish I could say the warmth and splendor of the moment made me forget all about the long difficult climb back down and the pain of crossing that 2 mile wide, freezing, piranha infested creek..but it DIDN'T. I reached the creek just before 1AM and it seemed twice as cold, twice as deep and much faster than the first time I crossed it! I was still shivering by the time I reached my truck 30 minutes later and with the heater cranked up on high my teeth had barely stopped chattering by the time I pulled back into Pump Station 3 around 2AM.
Okay..so what does all this have to do with Maely? I'll try to explain. When Pat and I first found Maely hobbling along that dusty trail high up in the remote mountains of interior Honduras, we saw one of God's beloved children who was suffering un-necessarily. We saw innocence held captive by a physical deformity that was unable to quench her spirit. We saw in her eyes maturity beyond her years, born of a lifetime of rejection and hardship, yet her smile towards us as strangers was genuine and instantaneous. In essence, we saw a summit that God wanted us and Maely to climb. God put a burden on our heart to start the wheels in motion that would lead to her being healed of her deformity. And now...a year and a half later, that miracle has come true. During this time, Maely overcame numerous false summits to get here. More importantly she has successfully crossed the first creek of culture shock in transitioning from the primitive conditions in her village into the ease and comfort of our modern world. By God's power and grace, Maely has crossed that creek and crested the mountain, but her journey if far from over. She has many months of painful healing and physical therapy ahead of her. Her mobility will be greatly restricted and she will still be away from her family for a long time living in a foreign land. And the....she has one more creek to cross and that will be to transition from our modern world back into the world she was born and grew up in. I fear this will be her biggest struggle and her greatest challenge.
As she convalesces under the loving care of the Morgermans, Pat and I will be seeking God's will in what HE would have us do to prepare Maely for this final leg of her journey. We will be looking at means to improve the conditions in her village in order to lessen the impact upon her. We have discussed commissioning local builders to add on to her family's two room house to allow her family more living space. We have also discussed means to set her family up with a small "tienda" (store) by which they can earn a better living and perhaps have electricity run to their house. We are also discussing having The King's Storehouse fund a teacher for the small school in Potenciana and set up a program to encourage parents to send their kids to school. We deeply appreciate your prayers in regards to all of these matters as we seek to manifest God's will for this child whom HE dearly loves. Please be lifting Maely up in your prayers as she gets closer to crossing the final creek in her journey.
We will keep you posted on these and other efforts God has under way in Honduras. We will be returning Maely to Potenciana as soon as she is released from the Doctors care in approximately four months. God has also opened up the door for us to coordinate a mission team of about 20 college students to spend 10 days on Roatan in late March meeting the needs of the HIS people in Colonia. in addition to these two trips, Pat and I were just recently asked if we would coordinate a second mission team to Honduras in July or August 2011 and we would probably take this team into Potenciana.
In the meantime, remember that Life is short, and we must make it count for eternity. This world, and all that is in it, is just rental property. Our permanent homes (mansions) are in heaven so we should be about doing the Father's business while there is still time.
Please feel free to share this blog with your networks of friends and family so they can see what great things our God is doing to meet the needs of "the least of these" that Jesus refers to in Mathew 25:40
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