Hello all.
Today is another new day here in Durango. Campers and staff alike are sharing in something we call "relationships". We get together and talk, have fun, joke with, cry with and revel with each other.
I have seen an amazing week here at Kivu. You have seen it through the lens of all the other bloggers but I wanted to share my three favorite moments since I last posted here... all of it involving relationship.
The first is Alison Savage's story of her sadness at the loss of a friend Kason and older brother figure who overdosed and passed away. His story was of the loss of his parents marriage and not knowing how to deal with it and falling into the wrong things to numb it. He still loved people throughout the years he was struggling and she remembered him as the guy who would look out for her and her best friend when they were playing together. His sister found a note in the days leading up to the funeral that expressed his gratitude for his family and his hopes and wishes for them. It talked about the metaphor of us being created from dirt. When you look at dirt you might think thats it's just dirty but in reality dirt is just a vessel that holds a seed, a seed grows and as it grows you look less at the dirt and more at the seed. The same can be true in ourselves if we look less at the dirt (ourselves and all our successes and failures) and look more at the seed (Jesus and the work he is doing in us and through us) then we can see real beauty. This was a gift for the family to have found this and to be able to share at his funeral. I realized the power of friendships as Alison shared this with open tears on her face at church last Sunday. Even those friendships from the past that others would believe are less painful if forgotten. You need the dirt to find the beauty, you need the pain to feel the vibrance of life.
The next moment was when our long standing maintenance man Bob Webb got up and spoke during 2Deep (if you don't know what this is ask your kids when they get home). Bob is a guy who firmly believes his role here at Kivu is to have the place looking and functioning perfectly so that others can step into their roles as counsellors, friends and mentors without worry. He is a very selfless guy and from the moments I have talked with him I know he has an awesome relationship with God that flows wisdom into him. Needless to say I was excited to hear him speak to us so it was interesting that it was just one small phrase spoken was the most important part I took away from his words. He said "I like to ask my questions to Jesus". This hit me and linked the pieces. It explained why his character was hard to pinpoint or describe. It hit me because the pieces I was seeing and admiring in Bob were pieces of God that have been pushed to the forefront through his relationship with God. It is an amazing thing when even the maintenance guys are a walking image of God and we get to benefit from that friendship here at camp.
The final moment was taking a trip of rock climbers out to Middle Mountain which is above Lake Vallecito which as you can see below is first of all beautiful. There was around 20 of us up there yesterday and it was an amazing time. As I said before relationship is happening at Kivu and yesterday I got to see the benefit of that. We had two climbs set up and the first two climbers on it were Becka and Caroline. Both the climbs were slightly difficult so the two of them had to work quite hard to climb them. Both climbs though were defined by the mixture of encouragement from the belayers as they patiently described moves to help the climbers and the trust from the climbers as they tried these moves even without a faith in themselves that they could even do it. All of this was mixed with humorous comments and other conversation from campers as they waited their turn to climb. The rest of the afternoon followed suit and was definitely one of the best afternoons I have had on the rock. The climbing seemed fun but what really made it was the humor, encouragement and trust. A shared experience which I will remember fondly for a very long time.
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