John Vandervelde - Program Director
As a child I remember hearing a story about a man who grew up on the American frontier in the early 1900's. He spent his days running through the woods, fishing in the creek, climbing rocky cliffs, and hunting for his food. It was the life I dreamed of: no school and all fun, all day in the woods. One day, this frontiersman's uncle came back to the family homestead, in a place like Montana or something like that, and invited the young man to journey with him to New York City.Upon arriving in New York, the young man was quickly overwhelmed by the busyness of the city. People were everywhere, automobiles moving, people shouting, buses rumbling, trains rattling -- it was nearly too much for the wilderness boy to handle. As he took a deep breath and looked to the sky, he heard it. He grabbed his uncle's arm and said, "I heard it, did you?" The uncle stopped, "No, what is it? Did you hear a coin drop or something?" The young man began to search, hunched over, and he bumped into people, looking for the source of the noise. "No," he said, "not a coin... something more beautiful than that..." Eventually, he found the source of the noise: a small cricket, huddled under the leaf of a plant, surrounded by the sprawl of New York City. "It sounds like home!" said the young man as he picked up the cricket.
I remember being a student at Wheaton College when a professor challenged the class to not let the "unnatural environment" of Wheaton stop us from seeing and experiencing God's natural creation. As a Wheaton student, you can literally spend your whole day never walking on God's natural earth. You can walk from carpet to tile, to pavement, to linoleum, to the rubber of a treadmill, to more pavement and never step foot on grass, or dirt, or sand or mud. He challenged us to walk on natural ground everyday so we didn't lose touch with the Creator of the universe.At HoneyRock, we're surrounded by nature. Trees, dirt, lakes, rivers, plants, and snow -- it is all around us. People today need to experience this. We feel closer to God when we're in nature. Creation shows God's glory and power, and when we stop to listen and look, we are in awe of His creativity and might (Psalm 19:1, Psalm 95:3-6, Psalm 97:6, Psalm 104:1-24, Romans 1:20) . This is why "experiences in nature" is one of our core values. Every participant at HoneyRock will experience God in the natural world He created because it's powerful. It teaches us about who God is and who we are.
So today, let's walk on natural ground. Let's listen for the cricket and not be swallowed up by buildings, roads, and sidewalks that make up our world. Let's stand in awe of the Creator of the universe.
- See you at Round-Up on Saturday!!