Wonder Voyage 2008 Summer Blog

Today we received a special treat: we slept in this morning. After a quick breakfast, we loaded the van and started for the river. It was White Water Rafting day! The drive took about an hour and a half, and the scenery was spectacular. We arrived at Echo Canon White Rafting Tour Company and drove to the launch site.

Once at the launch site we divided up the adults from the teens, met our guides, and got in the freezing cold water. We started down the river and right away the water was flying…some crazy guy in our boat started splashing the cold water on the kids and any one else in close proximity. As you can imagine the kids began to splash back. Before you knew it we were wet. We splashed anyone that was within our reach.; as we rowed in candance to the commands of our tour guide Jared. Claude led our group in song, as we all held on for dear life through the class 3 rapids. There was a point going down the river that we were allowed to go swimming in the river. Rachel, Mia, Ben R, Ben B, Jason and Claude all took the plunge. We really enjoyed that immensely.

It was a great day for rafting. The weather was great, the scenery spectator, and kids, young and old had a wonderful time.

Ben is a student on the pilgrimage voyage.

Today we spent another 2 hours finishing the service project we started yesterday. The result was a giant mountain of black trash bags full of pine needles. The nuns were very pleased with our work, as were we.

After cleaning up and eating lunch, we headed out to Woodland Park area to explore a small section of the Pike National Forest. After a very short hike, we came upon huge red rocks. It was a challenge trying to find the right way to go about climbing the rocks, but when we finally found the way up, the view was spectacular! Some people found there own way to the top, while others needed a hand. After a bit of contemplation at the top, I realized that the rocks were like our faith, it can sometimes be a challenge to truly believe, but if you do, life will truly be spectacular.

We finished off the evening by grilling hamburgers and playing some games before heading off to bed.

Our tiny team from Church of the Redeemer started off our week in Colorado by serving the nuns at the Benet Pines retreat center. We raked pine needlesand put them in large trash bags. Kristy said it was a never ending job of cleaning the forest floor! Claude and Jason, our Wonder Voyage guide, lucked out and got to use chainsaws to cut up logs for firewood. The nuns said that they were very impressed at how much we got done in such little time. We had fun working together but I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow!

After lunch we headed up to the 14,000 foot summit of Pike’s Peak. We were all a bit nervous as we drove up the steep one lane dirt road and I could feel myself getting short of breath as we neared the top but the view was totally worth it. On the way down, we stopped at a cool rock formation to write in our journals. I really enjoyed that time and the scenery was amazing! I felt like a tiny ant on this world as I stepped on to a rock that overlooked miles and miles of Colorado. It was very peaceful and an amazing feeling looking upon God’s awesome creation.

I am having an great time and I want to thank the people that helped us to get here and everybody praying for us.

Our last full day in Colorado Springs began with worship at St. Matthias Episcopal Church. We enjoyed taking communion with other believers while we overlooked the scenic Rocky Mountains.

We went back to Benet Pines to eat lunch and change clothes and began our trek towards the Arkansas River. Most of our team had never been white-water rafting before (including myself!), and all of us were a little anxious as we suited up and prepared for the 50 degree natural roller coaster that was before us. The amazing thing was that although many of us were a little apprehensive at first, by the time we finished the trip an hour and a half later, we were completely different – excited and smiling from our adventure. 

That night we concluded with “Pass the Candle.” As each person got a chance to share something that they had discovered that week, we all began to see how different the team had become. They had each learned something different about themselves, about God, and about the others in the team. The team that left Benet Pines on Monday morning was a New Creation.