Five days, 60.6 km of hiking, 6,486 feet of elevation gain to a maximum altitude of 10,127 ft, all while keeping 19 teenagers moving, injury-free and cared for while dealing with weather issues, dodging donkey poop and mosquitoes, and navigating incredibly rugged terrain. Sounds like a great vacation, right? Well, even with all the challenges, the trip to Pico Duarte with the 10 graders is one of my favorite ministry opportunities I have gotten to partake in over the last 6 years. The variety of gospel opportunities over our time together was truly unique.
Structured Struggles
This trip is HARD. I have hiked Half Dome, Angel’s Landing, parts of the Oregon Cascades, as well as hiked in many other Stateside National Parks, and this hike is by far more difficult than any of them. With that, every year, there are students, parents and even some staff that question, “Why do this trip?” One of the main reasons is to ingrain the accomplishment of persevering through suffering. We know that life is hard, and that the Lord empowers those who believe in Him to make it through trials and suffering. Through this trip, students see that they can accomplish hard things and that they can persevere through what seems to be impossible. In an age where many aspects of society try to prevent the “hard” of life, we try to prepare students for it through these types of experiences to give them “anchor experiences” to look back on.
Unconventional Gospel Opportunities
More importantly, this trip provides ways for Jesus to shine in ways that students don’t tend to see in the normal day-to-day routine. Some of the various ways that students experienced the Lord were through:
Intentional Prayer
The four other leaders and myself strived to demonstrate various spiritual practices throughout this week. One of them that we modeled was that act of praying through scripture. At each rest stop, one of the leaders picked a specific scripture that we have memorised and that we use when talking to the Lord. I chose to pray through Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Many of the students don’t have parents that regularly implement spiritual practices, so this was a great way to model the use of scripture as prayer in everyday life.
Multiple students spoke about their reliance on prayer through this journey. Some students shared that they were praying constantly throughout the hike: for strength, to keep them going, praising him for the scenery and the sunshine, and many other aspects.
The Power of Stripping Distractions
We hiked for four of the five days, and they were long days where there were hour upon hour of just hiking. There were no phones allowed, meaning that there was no music nor technological distractions, so it led to a lot of discussion. Some of these conversations were about regular teenage topics (Marvel VS DC, how long Taylor Swift would stay married to Travis Kelce, etc…) but there were a lot of times for the leaders to ask Gospel-Centered questions to students, for students to inquire of their leaders, and to discuss them with each other. One example was when I was hiking for the last two hour stretch of day one. I was hiking with a student who is about my size, and therefore was going about my same pace. We were able to talk about the beauty of God’s creation and how He can empower us to persevere through tough things. This student comes from a family that is on the more affluent side, and is one that would say they culturally “know Jesus” but there is no true relationship. It was great to have the opportunity to share Gospel Truths with him as we were trekking our last few miles of that day. Many other chaperones shared different opportunities they had along the trail to talk with kids through a variety of topics and ultimately point them to Christ.
Modeling the Light through the Hike
It is easy for the students to see the chaperones in the day-to-day and not notice how they are image-bearers of Jesus, but this trip truly highlighted that. There were questions that they had for the different chaperones like:
- “What do you do with all that silence while you hike?” Well, it’s a great time to pray and just have a conversation with God.
- “How are you still in a good mood? Seriously, like you can’t be happy after hiking for 11 hours.” Yah, I’m tired, but also am thinking about how good God is and how he has taken care of this class on the trip. How could I not be joyful for that.
- “You teach 4th grade, why would you want to spend a week with high schoolers?” God just impressed on me that I was to go on this trip and my goal is to be obedient to him, even if it does not make perfect sense.
- “Man, I wouldn’t want to have to be a chaperone with all these teenagers.” Well, we know how God works through these types of experiences and we want to be able to show His love to you.
There were many more of these types of questions and experiences. The five of us all modeled Christ to these kids in a variety of ways just through us being the light of Christ in our everyday actions.
Application of the Gospel
Each evening, we also had a devotional time around the campfire. Perseverance was the overall topic of the week, using the aspects of the trip to dive into God’s word. On our last night, I focused on 2 Corinthians 4. I related the different adjectives (afflicted, perplexed, struck down) to elements of the hike and how the students experienced, and yet overcame, these descriptors. I emphasized how Paul shares that this overcoming power is not our power but God’s. And I explained how it is only those who proclaim Christ as Lord who receive this power. That yes, there are universal blessings and that they could “technically” overcome some challenges in life without God. But, there will come a time when everyone will have a mountain so great in their life that they cannot climb it on their own; the only way will be for those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord and have access to His overcoming power.
Within the general Dominican culture, there is often a very false narrative that all the blessings of Christ go to everyone. So when sharing with students, the Lord often impresses upon me the importance of emphasizing the truth of scripture that a genuine disciple of Jesus looks and acts differently, and experiences God in a way that a non-believer cannot. Jesus changes people, and then uses them as His agents to change other people to ultimately bring glory to His name and advance His kingdom!
God was truly present and provided ample opportunities for His glory to shine through the Dominican mountains. Thanks for all of the prayers for us, especially with the health issues Ava had with Dengue leading up to the trip. To preserve her energy, she spent part of the day hiking and part of the day riding. The school rents a few mules in case there are health issues or injuries on the trail, so she did get to be friends with “Diego the Mule.” We were so glad that she was able to go on this trip with her class and be a part of these special five days.
Thanks again for your prayer and care as we are God’s servants in the DR.
God Bless,
Mike
