Home
Forty-eight hours ago I was just pulling into Azusa, CA, ready to unpack my far-too-full car. Since then, I met back up with my staff after the summer apart, went to a wonderful and cute dinner on Shire Lawn with all of ResLife, then spent the night catching up with Chelsea, Josh, Carissa, Eryn, Anneke, Morgan, Katie, Natalie, and one of the Pauls. We all dispersed to our rooms, bonding over the creepiness of sleeping in an empty dorm building where all the doors to each room sit propped open just waiting for freshmen bodies.
Centerpieces
Welcome back dinner.
The next morning we all met for an early breakfast, marveling over all the changes to Cougar Walk and the new food places, and proceeded to the Cougar Dome. We met as a whole, and the president of the school talked with us and prayed for us as we began preparing for Walkabout. The boys then left us for our gender-specific talks (let me tell you, backpacking is intricate…) and when they came back we found out our teams! And I pretty much love mine. We’ll see eleven days from now… Just kidding, pretty sure they will still be awesome. We then began to rotate through various stations all over campus that educated us on the basics of backpacking, and what we needed to know about lighting camp burners, pumping water, orienteering (yeah, that’s not gonna go well), getting fitted for packs (thanks Matt! he let me borrow his!), etc. After having lunch in our teams, we were free for the day to go shopping. And let me tell you, APU took over Walmart, Target, REI… You couldn’t go to a store without running into 50 people with their Walkabout shopping lists.
Being prayed for by JW.
Learning to use camp stoves.
Learning orienteering. (Clearly I was really paying attention…)
Later we had dinner in the caf (that’s three meals in the caf for me yesterday, and two today; the most I have ever eaten in there) with my RD, his wife, adorable baby, and new friends. We then spent the whole evening preparing our stuff and making duct tape bags (erg…), to bring it all this morning for a packing party! This morning we met, had a talk, and spent some time in worship and “surrendering our summers”. The ResLife theme for this year is Choose Joy, which I find really cool because that was a large theme for me in this past summer, or at least an attempt. I don’t know how good I am at choosing joy, but I hope that this year I can learn to choose joy because of the cross; Christ paid it all. After worship, we broke into our teams, and went through all of our food for the trip. The food is provided for us by ResLife, and it is a ridiculous amount of stuff. Then, all of our bags had to be approved, including all of the items in them, and then all of the food needed to be put in bear cans and stuff sacks to be tied up in the trees during the night. Then, all that food had to make it into our packs. Finally, our packs were complete, and we put them on and walked a bit. It’s going to be a long heavy week, believe you me. Today a group of us went and did some more last minute shopping, basically buying out REI and Target. The rest of today is ours to do what we want with it, especially unpack our rooms and rest. We meet tomorrow morning at 5 AM, right outside my building actually, to load up into our vans and drive up to the Ansel Adams Wilderness! We will then spend 9 days in the wilderness, with 48 hours in the middle completely alone for a time of reflection and solitude before God. The last two days of the trip, we hike back out to Soquel Ranch for two nights as a whole group. All ten teams will be on separate trails to separate final destinations, so we won’t be encountering any other groups out there. My team is composed of 9 RAs from all over campus (6 girls and 3 boys) and 4 leaders (one medic, and 3 guides). Our medic is a girl that works up at the APU High Sierra campus, and our leaders are Tyler (a CA from last year who just graduated in May), Ronnie (an RD in the Mods), and Bryan. Bryan is Jon Wallaces (the president) best friend, who he backpacks with. We have come to call him Uncle Bry, and he reminds us a lot of Bear Grylls. He has awesome stories, including one where he woke up one morning and a grizzly was standing directly above him, and last Walkabout he spent a day when everyone was on Solo, tracking a deer. He. Is. Crazy. And makes me feel a lot safer and more comfortable about going. If possible, be praying for my physical body, that I’d stay safe and do fine adjusting to the altitude (we’ll start at 8500 ft and head up to between 10 and 11K) and with the rigors of hiking. You can also be praying for my ability to leave all my concerns here on campus, and be able to spend time quiet before God and surrendering to Him. I will see you all soon! I hope.
