A night on the plains

I’ll admit it was a slight concern of mine as we agreed to go on trek.  I envisioned late night giggling sessions, maybe some drama past bedtime, requisite late night talks.   I fade come ten and I know from living with teens that they don’t.  And so I worried about being the boring adult leader and how on earth I’d manage to get enough sleep as we headed out on our journey.  

You know how it is when you’re camping.  Sleep’s not the greatest, at least not the first night.  But by night two you’re so dog-tired from bad sleep and hiking and being in fresh air that usually you do just fine.

This was night two.  After hearing we’d be getting up at 4:30 the following morning before our 15 mile hike, I knew we’d want to get to bed at a reasonable hour and get a good night’s sleep.  But the meeting was long, we re-grouped later than planned, and we got to bed past my tired point.  I was doing as well as can be expected on the tent floor in a sleeping bag with a pillow the size of woopie cushion until I heard a faint plea from the next tent over calling for me.  Our little 11 year old “daughter” wasn’t feeling well.  It took me a minute to ascertain that I was the adult in charge and that I needed to wipe the sleep from my eyes and report for duty.  Usually Todd takes the night shift (and I do early mornings), but in this case I needed to be the ma.  So I ruffled the still of the night by very loudly unzipping our tent and perching myself outside of hers.  Her stomach was unsettled (my least favorite type of upsets) and so I asked if she was nervous about our big hike in the morning.  No.  I had Tums, would that help?  She’d already taken some.  Would she like me to go to the bathroom with her?  Sure.  We’d somehow secured the farthest site from the outhouses possible, so we trundled ourselves slowly onward, dodging tent ties along the dusty Wyoming prairie en route to relief.  I was shocked by how chilly the night had become from when I’d gone to bed just hours (minutes?) before.  And how dark it was.  We replayed that scenario one other time that night and I was grateful I had the presence of mine to grab my coat for waiting at the bathrooms that time.  Things seemed to settle down from that point and before we knew it, I was up for the third time in the dark, this time packing up tents and breaking camp, relieved we’d made it through the night without throwing up or serious repercussions.

I jotted down this night in my little paper journal they handed out to us because I wanted to remember what it felt like.

As I peeked my head out of our tent that very first time, I was still a little groggy to be honest.  But as I pulled myself together, I couldn’t help but be swallowed up in the night.  I was overcome as I stood up and then walked silently with my little friend and my small stream of light through the dark.  I was pulled to the sky.  But the sky seemed to be touching the ground.  I was surrounded.

Earlier that evening we’d spent some time with our little family taking in the night sky.  We pointed out constellations we each knew and talked quietly in the dark for a long time.  And how one of the most amazing things is to be on a still lake on a night like this because the stars reflect in the water and it feels like you’re living in the middle of all of them.

The night continued its gift as we took our little jaunts to the outhouses and it took my breath away while I waited for my little friend.  Everywhere I looked there were tiny pinpricks of light, stars—and who knows what else—absolutely surrounding me.  It was the most spectacular sight I’d ever seen.  I’d never been in such complete dark enabling me to see so much of the sky lights, and I was blown away.  I thought of what Mitchell (my 17 year-old son) and I had been talking about just the other night.

Together, all the galaxies in the visible universe contain an estimated 30 billion trillion stars. Yet that number may be a small fraction of all there are. Evidence suggests that we can see only about 5 percent of all there is (the rest is “dark matter” and “dark energy,” so called because it can’t be seen or detected directly by the instruments we have). The universe, in fact, may be infinite in size.  And God controls it all.  (R. Val Johnson, “Worlds Without Number,”)

How many earths are there? I observed this morning that you may take the particles of matter composing this earth, and if they could be enumerated they would only be a beginning to the number of the creations of God; and they are continually coming into existence, and undergoing changes and passing through the same experience that we are passing through (Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, 14:71).

I couldn’t help but think of God and all His creations.  That each speck of light represented a star or a planet or even a galaxy.  It made me think back to that morning on the bus when I’d prayed for help finding my contact after I’d put all my stuff away and rustled my apron and been moving for awhile.  I knew He’d help me because I’d need to see during the trip, so I asked in faith knowing He’d come through.  Immediately I looked down and there it was safely balanced on the edge of my apron just calmly waiting for me to pick it up.  I juxtaposed that memory with the one I was imprinting at the moment and was humbled.  I knew everything I knew about God was true, He is real, I felt it deeply.

This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it (President Uchdorf*).

Even with all His spectacular powers, His intelligence, His omniscience, I know He knows me.  And each of His children.  Just as we do ours.  He wants to be in our lives, to help us.  I know and feel that He loves us.  Not just as a collection of people, but as individuals.  I’ve had so many insights and experiences that have cemented that in my heart and I know for sure it’s true.  I loved that quiet time alone to feel that again.

Later that night, when we went to the bathroom again a little before the camp wake-up, I was intrigued by the intermittent lights now amid the tents where the road had been completely dark just hours before.  I noticed how much easier it was to see, even though the sun hadn’t begun to rise; it was just the small lights from each family illuminating the tiny area around them just a bit that helped us see where we were walking.

I loved the obvious symbolism of the dark world.  Even on the quiet plains of Wyoming with no one but coyotes around, I found it all a little disconcerting walking with just my 11 year-old friend and flashlight for comfort.  But on this last jaunt of the night, I couldn’t help but feel hopeful as I thought about what these lights represented.  Each person—as tiny as her light was—contributed to my overall feeling of peace and confidence.  I thought about how insignificant we think our influence is, how little impact we think we’re making, how I bet we don’t even notice we have a light at all.  But it took contrasting those small rays of light with the heavy shroud of darkness to witness how powerful each of us is—even on our own.  It wasn’t as if I needed everyone to crowd together in one area to provide enough light for our walk home, I just appreciated the tiny lights along the way, each person standing in place, doing his own work for the day ahead.  Each light contributed to the illumination of our path.  What a great metaphor.

It was just a glorious night of simple reminders that I think I’ll always reflect back on.  I think most of all it reminded me to stop and be quiet more often. To pay attention to the truths embedded in me.  To really think about what I feel.  To look up.  Most of all to remember.  I think that’s what the trek was all about.  I just feel incredibly blessed to have had one night alone with my thoughts on the plains, far away from distractions and the normal commotion in my head so that he could teach me and remind me of what I've always known.

*You Matter to Him

Trek

For anyone who knows us, you already know we’re a little different and it will likely come as no surprise that we would encourage our young people from all over the country (and world, for that matter) to dress up like pioneers and pull handcarts over desolate countryside for several days during the height of summer.  But it may shock you to know they consider it the highlight of their summer.  And possibly their young lives.

Our church hosted a trek just the other week for the youth in the area and planning took at least a year.  You simply can’t imagine the number of hands and hours required to put something like this together, what a logistical puzzle it was to move a group this size through five days and three different campsites.  What it took to feed nearly 400 people every day.  What vision and coordination it called for.  A mammoth undertaking for sure.  But I’d go again next week if they asked.  Because it made all the difference.

A ma and pa were called as volunteers to lead families of 6-8 kids, and each group included a big brother and a big sister.  We dressed in period clothes: long full skirts, lightweight blouses or dresses, aprons, bonnets or sun hats, suspenders for the guys, long sleeved work shirts typical of the time and long pants. Some sewed their own clothes, others shopped online.  Avery (our 15 year old) made skirts out of old sheets and pillowcases, and took apart another pillowcase to make her apron. I scooped up what I could find at Good Will, took apart a sundress to make a skirt, fashioned an apron out of muslin, found long-sleeved lightweight blouses for me and Avery and oversized, billowy shirts for Todd and our 12 year old son, and we were set.  Maybe not spot-on authentic, but our large group was pretty convincing. Assembling at the church to depart, I know it just gave the neighbors more fodder for their assertion that we are certainly a peculiar people.

This is the third trek since we’ve lived in the area, but we’d never really been asked to help before.  So I wasn’t surprised when we weren’t asked this time either.  I was honest when my friends would ask how I felt about trek, “I really don’t want to go, I just want to be asked.”  Of course Todd thinks I’m nuts.  But it’s the truth.  I just wanted to know someone thought I’d be able to do it.  But after not making the cut for the past three treks, I knew we simply weren’t what they were looking for; and honestly, I felt a little sad about it.  So I did my best to find other ways to serve as my kids and most of my friends around me were gearing up for the huge five-day pioneer re-enactment across the Wyoming plains.

Then out of nowhere, three or four weeks before it began, we were asked to be replacement ma and pa.  I all of a sudden had to face my insecurities.  I also had to deal with my bruised pride of not being a first choice.  My initial reaction was no way.  I was glad I’d already committed to watching another kid while her parents went, grateful that Todd was short on vacation days, relieved that it was so near with no chance of us being able to work out the details.  I told her sorry, we just couldn’t swing it.  But it just wouldn’t leave my mind.  I finally acquiesced and told Heavenly Father fine, if He really wanted us to go, He’d have to clear the path and help things fall into place.  Todd was ready to go from the first mention of it.  Days off were no issue.  Finding places for our kids turned out to be a breeze.  It really was up to me by this point.  And I vacillated.  Calling to say we’d do it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.  Kind of like lining up for the upside-down roller coaster with your friends, wondering what you’ve just agreed to.

Speaking of roller coasters, our month felt like one.  Todd was at scout camp for a week, we had company for the entire month, we spent a week in Minnesota arriving home the week before we were to leave again, we scheduled two family meetings with our “kids,” our real kids had their own family meetings with their own ma’s and pa’s.  We shopped for skirts and shirts, we made aprons and armbands.  We bought buckets and bug spray.  We turned decorator pillows into camp pillows and made pantaloons out of scrubs.  We found hiking liners and ponchos, flash lights and Permethrin spray.  We packed spritzing bottles and neck coolers.  We walked and walked and walked.  We went to Target almost daily near the end, remembering Gold Bond and AD ointment, hard candy and gum, wipes, sunscreen and hand sanitizer.  I  had lists all over the place and continually consolidated.  As a ma and pa we were to gather family gear: four tents and tarps, water jugs, song books, pioneer names (each person walked in honor of an original member of a handcart company), first aid and sewing kits, hatchet, extra stakes, tent tape and para-cord.  We also assigned devotionals to be given each evening, prepared family lessons and threw in cards, dice, and juggling balls for good measure.

Since each family would be assigned a 4x4 foot handcart, standard procedure is to use 5 gallon buckets (doubling as seats for our gatherings).  So for weeks our bedroom had a line-up of 18 gallon totes, buckets and backpacks, and each day another item or two would go into its appropriate vessel.  Slowly it started to come together.  Our last family meeting was several days before we were to leave, providing the perfect deadline to assemble our gear.  I’d left the entire week wide open for last minute preparations, but when it came right down to it, I realized we were ready and had loads of free time!  So I took an entire day to clean the windows, we ran all sorts of errands, got the oil changed, saw the dentist.  We went for ice cream, worked in the yard, and just took our time enjoying a few slow days before our adventure began.

It seemed to consume the lives of nearly everyone we knew, and as the time approached I heard them stressing about everything from the lessons they were to give and being able to handle the physical demands to getting outfitted and the money it was costing.  I’ll admit I was also nervous.  Not about camping or not showering for five days.  Not the spiritual stuff.  But I’d heard a lot about the fifteen mile hike up Rocky Ridge we’d be doing in one day and the potential for blisters, so I had that in the back of my mind, hoping our preparatory walks would be sufficient to pull me through.  Truly though, I think my nervousness was unique.  I was most apprehensive about our little family we were assigned to head up.  I’m not a kid person, I’ve told you that a million times.  I like my own kids and obviously I’m comfortable with them.  It’s just that I wasn’t cool the first time around as a teenager, and things like that don’t improve with age.  I was afraid they’d wish they were in a different family, that we wouldn’t be fun enough, that they wouldn’t relate to us, that it’d be awkward, that I’d have to endure yet another failure.

Yet I knew I couldn’t fake it.  So I did what I always do when faced with obstacles, even funny ones like this.  I prayed.  I asked Him to help me love the kids.  Help me be what He needed me to be.  At one point I wanted to ask if we were really supposed to be doing this, I wanted confirmation that we were the right people for the job.  But then I stopped.  I supposed it simply didn’t matter.  We were who He had to work with, we were available and willing, and He would just have to make do.  I knew I couldn’t all of a sudden turn into the hip, cool, fun leader teenagers always prefer to be around, but I knew I had God as an ally and that love is powerful.  And so over the weeks leading up to our trek, this was my simple prayer.  And my growing love for our kids sustained me.  And surprised me, to be honest.  I hugged the girls one dark night as we were leading them into their tent and told them I loved them.  It was as natural as telling my own kids.  My eyes would spring leaks whenever I thought about how much I loved this new little band of kids, three young men (15 and 17) and four young women (11, 12, and 15).  I only knew one daughter well before this trek, I’d heard of two other names, but the rest were complete strangers to me.  I met our youngest daughter for the first time the morning we were gathering at the buses and she became my little buddy on the trail.  

We rode on deliciously air-conditioned buses for nearly six hours that first day as we made our way to the most remote part of Wyoming the drivers could find.  We were to learn more about two ill-fated handcart companies who left late in the 1856 season, and so we walked where they walked.  Hundreds died along their way through the midwest en route to Utah, and so we heard story after story of courage and sacrifice, faith and selflessness, strength and hope.  We were unabashedly overcome with emotion upon hearing the songs they sang and as we sang ourselves—400 strong—united by the same faith they had.  It was a powerful experience to leave our phones and distractions, to walk the Oregon/Mormon trail for miles each day, to feel hot and tired and sweaty and sore.  To set up camp after getting up at 4:30 earlier that morning and walking 15 miles all day in the wind and the heat.  Much like our fore bearers did.

An obvious metaphor for life, I think the trek made the youth think about their own journeys.  We shared stories of conviction and how that faith sustained the pioneers, many who were teenagers themselves.  We acknowledged their pain and suffering, their sorrows and hardships.  We learned about obstacles they faced and how they endured.  We talked about life today.  And how our luxuries and comforts con us into believing our lives are easy.  That our struggles simply can’t compare.  And yet we told the kids they are pioneers too.  Blazing a trail of goodness and faith through dark and uncertain plains of their own.  We talked about the trials they face and how they can use the stalwart examples of old to forge ahead.

Of course, our challenges are different today, but they are no less demanding. Instead of angry mobs, we face those who constantly try to defame. Instead of extreme exposure and hardship, we face alcohol and drug abuse, pornography, all kinds of filth, sleaze, greed, dishonesty, and spiritual apathy. Instead of families being uprooted and torn from their homes, we see the institution of the family, including the divine institution of marriage, under attack as groups and individuals seek to define away the prominent and divine role of the family in society.

This is not to suggest that our challenges today are more severe than the challenges faced by those who have gone before us. They are just different. The Lord isn’t asking us to load up a handcart; He’s asking us to fortify our faith. He isn’t asking us to walk across a continent; He’s asking us to walk across the street to visit our neighbor.  … He isn’t asking us to die a martyr’s death; He’s asking us to live a disciple’s life.

This is a great time to live, brothers and sisters, and it is up to us to carry on the rich tradition of devoted commitment that has been the hallmark of previous generations.… This is not a time for the spiritually faint of heart. We cannot afford to be superficially righteous. Our testimonies must run deep, with spiritual roots firmly embedded in the rock of revelation. And we must continue to move the work forward as a covenanted, consecrated people, with faith in every footstep (M. Russell Ballard).

And so this is why we did it.  Why we had fundraisers and dressed a little funny.  Why we spent hours gathering supplies and prepping food.  Why we made it a priority in our stake and in our families.  Why we gave our money and time and comforts for even a few days’ glimpse into lives of real people who loved God just like we do.  Who were willing to sacrifice everything for their faith.  And who remind us that we share that same faith today, that we can do hard things just like they did.  The trek was and is a little different for each of us, but walking where they walked helped us see that God is with us along our trail too.  Every step of the way.