Life as a Canoe Guide

Jonny and I have been working at Rock Ridge Christian Camp and Outfitters in Ely, MN as canoe guides since May. To be honest with you, I had never set foot in a canoe until about a month before I was to show up to camp. In fact, prior to staff training, Jonny and I decided to rent a canoe so I could practice at Salem Lake, and it turned out to be the first point of friction in our marriage. I was so bad that my canoe would often do doughnuts in the middle of the lake despite Jonny's patient coaching. It was with that limited experience (and muscle) that I showed up to staff training. In addition to my inability to control a canoe, my aversions to cold water and mosquitoes did not ease my mind concerning where I was headed and what I would be doing. The snow we encountered on the way to camp did not instill confidence that I would be staying warm as I knew I would be in and out water that was frozen just a month or two earlier.

However, my excitement began to build the minute we arrived at camp, and I was surrounded by green trees, crystal clear lakes, directors and staff members with fun Minnesotan accents, and a cozy little cabin.

Our 2 weeks of staff training were intense as we trained to guide rock climbing, repelling, dog scootering, high ropes, zip line, and extended canoe tripping. We took a staff canoe trip that pushed us 10-12 miles a day with plenty of portages, and our first day made the rest of the summer easy as we conquered the longest portage in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

The day after we completed staff training, Jonny and I headed back onto the water for a week with our Guides in Training and Junior Guides (leadership programs for high school students). We had an amazing week quickly building friendships with them and hearing their life stories of great pain and difficulty. We were privileged to spend a week pursuing a deeper understanding of how the Gospel applies to every aspect of every day of our lives, and we focused on understanding how God views us with immeasurable love despite our felt brokenness. It was a unique trip for the summer as the relationships that we made on the trip have been able to continue through the summer. In the following weeks after the trip, Jonny and I were also able to take time to conduct further teaching times with them, and we have been able to both hang out and walk out daily tasks along side them.

As soon as I got back from guiding the Junior Guides and Guides in Training, I immediately went back out for another week with a group of girls from the inner city of Minneapolis. These young ladies were beautiful, strong, and athletic, but I soon learned that they were facing some of their biggest fears by camping in the woods (spiders, bears, a week without a toilet, etc.). Even though I was much smaller than they, they looked up to me as the one who would keep them alive and hopefully well. It proved to be a very adventurous week of paddling against wind, up rapids and portaging around waterfalls. But the best part was that God was speaking to me and to the girls. For me personally, I had some concerns about leading an all-girls group which meant I had to manage some tasks as a guide which the men had handled in all my previous trips, such as collecting firewood, starting and sustaining good fires for cooking all the meals, and properly hanging the food bag each night to keep it away from bears. I prayed about all of these things and God faithfully provided an abundance of wood and eager participating girls for setting up the bear rope (it became a fun competition each evening). For the young ladies, the Lord spoke through my daily devotions regarding the Gospel, their relationship with Father God, listening to the Lord in His Word & prayer, and spiritual warfare. At the end of the week they were eager to pray and shared that they highly valued our lessons and quiet times as their favorite and most memorable parts of their experience!
The following week I stayed back at base camp while Jonny guided the group of boys from the same inner-city ministry. While it was nice to finally take a break from being on-trail, there was no lack of work to be done around camp while I eagerly anticipated Jonny's return.


The following week our camp hosted a large youth group for Adventure Camp where rather than guiding small groups out in the BWCAW, the entire group stayed at the cabin on base and went on daily adventures canoeing or rock climbing or dog scootering, etc. Jonny's highlight of the week was getting to teach each night. He challenged them in their understanding of the who they are in Christ, to fully surrender their lives and plans to the Lord, and how they can practically live out the will of God for their lives. He was encouraged all week long as leaders and kids alike responded positively and expressed to him how encouraging and timely the messages were for their lives.

A youth group from Fargo North Dakota came for a week of guided trips into the Boundary Waters. I had the privilege of guiding a fun group of 2 girls, 3 boys, and 2 men who had children in the group along with one of the guides in training. It rained and stormed for the first two days and we were so grateful to wake up on the third day to glorious sunshine. One unique aspect to being a guide is that even though I just met these teens, they respect me and are eager to hear what I have to say due to the fact that I become their mom for the week (cooking their meals, mending their wounds, and so on) but they also see me as Bear Grills since wilderness survival is my job. Therefore, I get to challenge them to deeper levels of faith and promote loving community. On the last night of every trip we always have an affirmation circle where every person in the group takes turns encouraging and affirming each other. This is one of my favorite parts of the week because it is so special to see the reactions of a teenager as their peers call out identity, life, and lovingly build each other up. This time was a reflection of the success of the week and it was particularly special to hear the children affirm their parents and vice versa.

Guiding certainly has its many challenges; unrelenting mosquitoes, crossing slippery, rocky portages with a 50+ pound canoe digging into the shoulders, subjection to unpredictable weather, sleeping away from my husband in a tent with snorers, discovering spiders in my sports-bra, bearing the weight of a pack heavier than myself, keeping the group motivated at the end of a long day when campsites are difficult to find...to list a few. However, I love my job! I am so blessed to live each day in a gorgeous place where most people go to vacation from their mundane jobs. I love cooking good food for my hungry campers. And above all, I am thankful to be in a position where I rely on the Lord every day for strength, love, wisdom, and guidance. To God be the glory!

Home is Where you Park it

A fun fact about me is that I have always wanted to live in a trailer or RV. I recently found out about the "Tiny House" movement and although we didn't build our house from scratch, it seems Jonny and I now fit their profile. Here is the story about our first home:

After Jonny proposed in October, we started thinking and praying about what our life would look like as a married couple. You see, he is from North Carolina and I am from San Diego, we met in New Zealand, we worked in Alaska, and we eventually want to serve full-time overseas. We realize we don't fit into the category of "normal Americans." With our nomadic circumstances, there was not a location suitable for us to settle and purchase a house, but on the other hand, we didn't feel like renting an apartment was the best use of our finances. So, we figured we would purchase a house on wheels so we can live anywhere in the continental US when we are State-side and park it at a family member's house when we are abroad. It would also limit our accumulation of "stuff" to only the essentials and we get to continue with our nomadic lives while having a familiar and comfortable space of our own, in-tow.
Jonny went to work researching the local RV dealers and Craigslist. After seeing many options, God lead us to a used truck and fifth-wheel trailer combo both year 2000 with very light wear and tear from occasional family camping trip use. It was an amazing deal and even though the interior design was a bit out-dated, we could see the potential, plus it had our ideal floor plan! Thankfully, our upcoming wedding gifts would help us to make the purchase without taking any loans. So, we purchased our first house and a truck for $12,000 and began the process of home-making. Jonny worked for the next month and a half on resealing the roof and all the outside seams with the help of my dad. Together we painted the inside walls, replaced all the hardware/hinges/light fixtures, and I sewed curtains and covered the couch. We renovated and updated our trailer and moved all our stuff into it. After the wedding and honeymoon we drove our house cross-country and parked it in Jonny's brother's driveway in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I must say, it was the best way to road-trip pulling over at rest-stops and sleeping for free in our own cozy bed every night!
Now we have been living in our tiny house for a couple of months and it has perfectly suited all our needs. It has kept us warm through the winter months and forced organization with simply the basics while costing us very little to maintain.

Here are some before and after pictures for your enjoyment:

From the outside

Before-Kitchen and dining room

After!

Before-Bedroom

After!

Updated kitchen

Covenant Vows

When Jonny and I got married on December 13, 2014, we made life-long promises to each other. A marriage covenant is not a contract, there is no "out," no breaking of the agreement, no stipulations, it is unconditionally kept; in other words, no matter what Jonny does or says or what circumstances come against us, I will always endeavour to remain faithful to these vows. I do this because I am a follower of Jesus and I live by His standards. I desire to display His glory in my life. All that is to say, I wanted to share these vows with you all so that you can keep us accountable and aid us in bringing glory to God through our sacred union.

I, Jonathan, take you, Amy, to be my wife. I promise before God and these witnesses that by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit I will love, honor, cherish, and protect you. Out of his strength and love, I will love you as Christ loved the church, sacrifice for you, put your needs above my own, and care for you as I care for my own body. I will delight in you, being in union with you as we have union with Christ. I will find my ultimate joy and satisfaction in Christ, and I will not expect you to be my source of fulfillment as such responsibilities are God’s and not yours to bear. I will endeavor to be a godly, self-controlled man acting with kindness, consideration, patience, and humility in the heading of our household. I will seek the Lord first and His righteousness. I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding. I will acknowledge Him in all things knowing that He is, and always will be, directing our paths. I will follow Him and lead our family wherever He leads, and I will put the extension and multiplication of His kingdom before all worldly possessions and pleasures. I will encourage and support you in your walk with God. I will seek your eternal benefit over your temporal comfort or ease. I will lead our family with an urgency that prays for, longs for, and anticipates the coming day that our Lord will return. I will endeavor to bring up any children we may have with love, forgiveness and discipline, always teaching them according to Word of God. I promise to remain devoted to you exclusively as my wife for as long as we both shall live. And I acknowledge before God, before you, and before these witnesses, my inability to live out these vows in my own strength, and I acknowledge that His power alone will enable me to live in a Godly way as your husband. 

I, Amy, take you, Jonathan, to be my husband. I promise before God and these witnesses that by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit I will love, respect, serve, and honor you. Out of His strength and love I promise to submit to you and obey you in everything, as I do to the Lord. I recognize you as my head, even as Christ is the head of the church. In so doing I resolve to put my trust in God and not give way to fear. I will help you and work with you as a united witness of the love of God. I will delight in you, being in union with you as we have union with Christ. I will find my ultimate joy and satisfaction in Christ, and I will not expect you to be my source of fulfillment as such responsibilities are God’s and not yours to bear. I will seek the Lord first and His righteousness. I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding. I will acknowledge Him in all things knowing that He is, and always will be, directing our paths. I will follow Him and you as you lead our family wherever He leads, and I will put the extension and multiplication of His kingdom before all worldly possessions and pleasures. I will encourage and support you in your walk with God. I will seek your eternal benefit over your temporal comfort or ease. I will endeavor to bring up any children we may have with love, forgiveness and discipline, always teaching them according to Word of God. I promise to remain devoted to you exclusively as my husband for as long as we both shall live. And I acknowledge before God, before you, and before these witnesses, my inability to live out these vows in my own strength, and I acknowledge that His power alone will enable me to live in a Godly way as your wife.

Note: Portions of these vows were adapted from Adrian Warnock and H. Norman Wright.

Pictures taken by TaylorAbeelPhotography

Fishers of Men

Last summer I worked at Sea Otter Sound Lodge from May through mid September. During my time there, God taught me an important lesson about patience and persistence in prayer and His incredible faithfulness.

First I want to help you envision the unique circumstances in which this lesson occurred. This was a job like none I had ever done. The lodge I worked at floated in Sea Otter Sound in the Southeastern part of Alaska near Ketchikan. There were no roads connected to the lodge, the only way to get there was by boat or float-plane. The lodge floated securely in a protective cove, tethered to the trees on the nearby concave shoreline so it wouldn't get pulled out into the open ocean by the daily currents. The entire facility was made up of several large rafts on which buildings were constructed and each raft/float was connected together by ropes and bridges so that they could be removed and rearranged. On one raft was the Main Lodge building where the kitchen, dining, and living room for the guests who came to sport-fish. On various other floats were the guest-rooms where these paying-guests sleep in comfort. Another float had the Crew Quarters which was a 2 story building where crew (such as myself) abided on the bottom floor and the lodge-owners dwelt in a little apartment-sized flat on the upper level. There were various other floats including a landing deck, fish processing, industrial freezers, generators, food storehouses, workshop, fuel containers, boat docks, and the like.

During the summer months, the lodge runs non-stop. The schedule was that every 5 days 16-19 guests arrived on 2 float planes and concurrently the previous guests (with all the fish they caught) departed on these same planes. It is a self-guided fishing lodge, so each group of guests was assigned their own room and skiff to take out fishing each day. There were 2 types of crew members- inside crew and outside crew. The 3 inside crew members, myself included, under supervision and aid of the wife-owner, were responsible for cooking/preparing/serving all meals, catching the fish we served, cleaning guest rooms and common areas, laundry, and providing friendly and hospitable service for any guest needs. The 6 outside crew members, Jonny included, under supervision and aid of the husband-owner, were responsible for cleaning the boats, prepping the tackle and all fishing supplies, filleting, vacuum-packing, freezing all fish, and also helping catch fish and Dungeness crab to serve.

My typical day at the lodge (non including the day that the changing of guests would occur) would look like this:

4:30am- wake up

5- make guest lunches

6- serve guest breakfast

6:30- clean up breakfast and start making cookies

7- eat crew breakfast

7:30- clean up crew breakfast and continue making cookies and water potted plants

8:30- make dessert for dinner (carrot cake/rum cake/ baked Alaska/lemon squares/cobbler, etc.)

9-2:30 either go fishing if needed or take a break

2:30 put ingredients for dinner and lunch bread into bread machines and get them started

4pm- start prepping dinner food (making the various side dishes and whatnot)

6-serve guest dinner

6:30 clean up guest dinner

7:30-serve crew dinner

8:30 relax/ hang out with Jonny before going to bed and starting all over again

 Without going into too much detail of everybody elses job duties, I think you get the picture that we worked hard without a day off for 4 month straight in close quarters. Us crew members really got to know each other well!

As tiring as work was, one benefit of the job was the gorgeous scenery surrounding us constantly. Not a day would go by when we did not see sea otters floating in the bay, bald eagles soaring through the trees, humpback whales spouting or breaching in the ocean, nearby forested islands, jellyfish of all shapes and sizes, and glowing bio luminescent ocean at night (just to list a few of the natural wonders). Alaska is gorgeous!

Now that you understand the physical context, let me tell you about the spiritual atmosphere. The owners of the lodge were Christians and other than that I had one other Christian crew member (a recent Moody graduate)(until Jonny joined me 2 months in). The rest of my coworkers were nice people, but had an opposite moral compass from me. Their speech, chewing habits, choice of movies, and topics of conversation were perverse to me. I knew this was my new mission field, where God placed me to be His light. My goal was to love these people as best as I could and live out my faith before them without judgement or condemnation. There were 2 other girls on crew, besides myself, and I was the oldest of the crew-members. I particularly wanted to reach these girls. From the beginning, I could tell by their disinterest in spiritual things and love of the world that it would take a work of God to soften their hearts and draw them to Himself. So, I prayed for them and befriended them. I choose not to force any spiritual discussion on them and simply let Christ in me be my witness. As the season progressed, it seemed as though their moral state was getting worse, not better, and I'll admit that I started to get impatient with the Lord. I was praying for them and living my uncompromising life before them, but they seemed to continue faster down the path of self-destruction. This was when God began to impress on me the importance of patience and persistence in prayer over time. You see, I believed in the power of God to answer my prayers, bring their salvation, and change their lives for the better. But, I expected Him to act sooner rather than later, because what benefit is there to Him waiting (I thought)? But once again, His ways are higher than my ways and faith is believing without seeing. I surrendered to His faithfulness and righteousness. I prayed that He would open the doors for those conversations in His timing and give me the right words to share and any success would be all on Him (as always).

By the end of the summer, God's grace poured out on me as He opened those doors. A few weeks before the end of our job, one of the girls came to me and asked me what advice I would give to someone who is spiritually lost! In tears, she explained to me her struggles with religion and told me that after spending the summer observing myself, Jonny, and the other Christians, she saw something different and desirable in us. She literally said "you seem like you have an actual relationship with God and I want that. How do I get it?" That is the widest open door to explain the Gospel that I have ever experienced! After explaining how to have that relationship with the Lord, I prayed for her. I told her that I had been praying for her all summer and she said that meant more to her than I could know! A few days later, the other girl also wanted a spiritual discussion and I explained the Gospel to her and gave her a Bible to read (she had actually never heard the story of Jesus before)!

I praise God for allowing me to see some of the fruit from that summer. Community evangelism/discipleship is very good! My heavenly Father is so patient with me and gracious and faithful and wise! This experience of being a fisherwoman (in more ways than one) gave me hope and enthusiasm for being a missionary. I hope this story can inspire you to keep praying with patience, faith, and trust in God for whatever community mission-field you are currently in.

Sea Otter Sound Lodge

Bald Eagle

Humpback whale right next to the boat!

Buz, our local Sea Otter

My daily cookie baking

the 50 pound Ling-Cod I caught

The Yellow-Eye I caught on the 4th of July

My first Silver Salmon

Some Halibut are bigger than me!

We had a big catch that day

The female crew!

Float plane taking away our guests.

Main lodge dinning room

Kevin pulled up an octopus

Exploration adventures

Exploring the surrounding islands

Team work

Jonny at the helm

Kyaking on our break

Its a long road ahead!

Outdoor adventures with my man

Shooting the glass bottles we lined up on the distant logs

2014 SOS crew

We jumped in the freezing ocean!

Alaskan sunrise view from the lodge