Colorado: Day 8

At 6:00 am, approximately the same time we arrived at Horizons a week before, we packed our bags into the van and car and departed from Boulder. The sun was rising as we got onto the highway and began the first leg of our journey home. The mountains behind us reflected the morning light and shined a farewell glow toward us.

Most of us slept for the first couple hours. We stopped in Nebraska for a rest stop and put some oil into the van to keep it going strong. A few hours later, we stopped to get lunch at Arby's and then got back into the cars to eat it on the road. I read another chapter from Velvet Elvis, and it was just as good as the first.

The sun eventually set as we neared Des Moines, and we played the alphabet game a few times to keep ourselves occupied. The two cars talked over Jim's walkie talkies about our favorite memories from the past week. We also came up with some interesting questions for each person to answer like, "If someone were to make a movie based on your life, who would play you?" I think mine was Denzel Washington. In Illinois, we passed Geneseo and said another thank you and farewell to our friends who aided us in our need a week earlier.

I was riding in the car with Jim and a sleeping Riley toward the last leg of our trip. We listened to soft music while the miles went by. When we got to Michigan, we were greeted by a very thick fog. At certain points, we had zero visibility. We had to take it slow for that last couple of hours, but eventually, we made it back to Kalamazoo. We arrived at the church at about two in the morning, got our bags out of the van and said goodbye to each other; to the people we spent the last week getting to know and love.

This year's trip to Colorado was a great experience for me. I really got to learn a lot about the Islamic religion and I was able to make some pretty cool friends in Boulder. I think that God definitely uses trips like these to shape who we are in Him, and this was no exception. God has really been working in me since this trip, and I can't wait to see what He has in store for my life.

Colorado: Day 7

Our last day in Boulder was our busiest. After breakfast, Seth led us in a Bible study. He talked about Object studies - Bible studies based on specific objects or subjects in the Bible. On this day, we talked about wells. We went over the story of Abraham's servant finding a wife for Isaac at a well, and how Isaac's son, Jacob found a wife at that very same well. There was a similar story for Moses and how he met his wife at a well too. And then we went to the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. In fact, they had their conversation at the same well where Isaac and Jacob's wives were found. What was the subject of their conversation? Marriage. Interesting. We went into the study a bit deeper than I can explain here, but I definitely plan on doing more object studies in the future.

After Seth played us a beautiful song on his guitar that he wrote, we went our separate ways for a bit until lunch time. The group brought our pizza and juice to Georges' office and had lunch with him. We ate while he told us stories of his ministry in Middle Eastern countries and of his opposition, both physical and spiritual. Georges is such a wonderful man. I think we all could have stayed in his office and listened to him talk forever. We shared a great time together at lunch and posed for a few pictures afterward. Georges and his son, Pierre were leaving that day for a foreign country. I'm not sure which country, but I think it was one of the 'stans. We said our goodbyes and thank yous to George and left him to finish up his work at Horizons before he had to leave.

After lunch, the group decided to go into downtown Boulder and sing praise songs. So we packed all nine of us and Seth into the van and made our way there. After walking a bit, we found a bench in the middle of a mall, similar to Kalamazoo's downtown mall, actually. Some sat on the bench and some stood around it as we sang some wonderful songs unto the Lord on that beautiful afternoon. Seth taught us a very diverse selection of songs from all over the world, and we joyfully sang them. A few people came up to us and seemed interested and excited about our singing. It was great to just stand there and praise God. It really lifted our spirits after the attacks of the previous night's speaker.

After about an hour or so, we made our way back to Horizons. A few of us decided to read an entire book of the Bible. We chose the book of John, which ironically (or not so ironically), I was about to start reading anyway. We went into Georges' then vacant office and took turns reading chapters from that gospel. It was a wonderful experience. We finished in about two hours, just after dinner began. We went down and ate our last excellent Horizons dinner and went over to CU to listen to the last speaker of the week.

The last night was all about Sunni and Shi'a differences in Islam. A lot of people were very interested in that topic, and it had been brought up all week by the visiting crowd. I think he was the first speaker we had heard that week that didn't appear to have a distinct agenda to change people's minds about Islam. He simply told of the differences in the two sects and the problems and disagreements that have occurred between the two. He spoke nothing of Christianity.

After the speaker, everyone was invited to a dinner hosted by the MSA. It was a nice, formal dinner with fantastic food from different Middle Eastern countries. It was so nice getting to know more people there and continuing our conversations with the friends we had made over the course of that week. We stayed for an hour and a half, I believe, just talking and enjoying the company of others, learning from our differences and our similarities. I think the dinner was my favorite moment of the week. I just felt completely at peace and full of joy. One, by one, people from our group said goodbye to our new friends and trickled back to the Horizons house for the last time.

It was getting close to midnight and most of our group was finishing up packing and getting ready to leave in the morning. Justin and Matt took their sleeping bags up to the Upper Room and slept there for the night. Kennie had met some Afghanis and hit it off with them almost immediately. He stayed up all night hanging out with them and had a great time. The rest of us went to bed, some sooner than others, and got ready to leave for home the next day.

Colorado: Day 6

I woke up on Wednesday feeling much better than I had the day before. The group ate breakfast and met to pray and talk about the day. Then Josh, one of the Horizons staff, led us in a Bible study. Honestly, I do not remember a lot of the details of the study, but I do remember that at one point he talked about different cultures of the world. He said that we live in a world that tries to preserve cultures because we think they are good and unique and beautiful. He also presented the idea that sometimes cultures can be unique and beautiful and go against the word of God as well. Just because a culture had historical significance and value does not make it good. He used the American culture as a prime example and then went on to different cultures around the world.

After the Bible study we broke as a group and ate lunch. The food at Horizons was always wonderful and we always enjoyed it to the best of our abilities, sometimes even by going back for seconds.

After lunch, we went up to clean the upper room. Personally, I think it's awesome that they actually have a top floor called the upper room. It was basically the attic and had a lot of random stuff laying around. For the next few hours, we moved cabinets around, trashed old junk, and organized files. After that, the upper room was a little more presentable. After cleaning, we broke off and all did separate things. A few of the guys went to the mountains again, a few of us hung around Horizons and played games or read, and some of us took much needed naps for a few hours.

The guys that went up to the mountains came back with one of their party missing. Riley had decided not to ride back in the van with the guys, but to walk back down the mountain to the Horizons house by himself. We all thought he was insane and were kind of worried about him. But at dinner our prodigal son returned and was received with raucous applause.

That night after dinner, we went to CU to hear another speaker. This particular speaker did not bring a message of peace and tolerance to his audience. He had a reputation of being a very outspoken Muslim leader from the area. His talk was titled "The Glorious Qur'an" but he spent the night pretty much just bashing the Bible and the Christian God, saying that the Bible had many errors and could not be believed. Personally, I like to hear people give their honest opinions about what they believe, but this guy was not simply giving his opinion. He was mocking Christianity and actually laughing off our beliefs as foolishness. A few of us had to leave and go out to the lobby to pray.

After hearing this guy, we stayed for a bit and talked with some of our Muslim friends we had met before making our way back to the Horizons house. We met as a group and talked about how we felt about the speaker. All of us pretty much felt sick to our stomachs at the blatant disregard of respect. It is a hard thing to sit for an hour and a half straight listening to a guy laugh and smirk about how stupid your religion is. It was a hard night. We prayed for a while and went to bed, feeling discouraged and angry.

Colorado: Day 5

Tuesday was a bad day for me. While everyone got up, had devotionals and breakfast and met as a group, I was sick in bed. I woke up in the middle of the night shivering and then sweating, and decided not to meet with the group that morning. I got a couple more hours of sleep before I pulled myself up and got around for the day. After a few minutes of sitting in the Horizons house's wonderful couch room, the group came back from meeting and praying. We all sat in the couch room, reading articles about Islam and Christianity before we had lunch. I was drifting to sleep while everyone else was reading, and apparently, Seth was too.

After lunch, the group left to go for a hike in the mountains, led by Jacob and Tom. I decided not to go since I was still sick, and sat in the couch room reading the first chapter of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. The group seemed to have a very nice, if exhausting hike. The pictures they took are some of the best of the week. They seemed to have had a good time.

After they came back, most of the group took naps and cleaned up. We met in the lecture room and talked about the speaker that we would be going to later. Then we prayed for God to lead us at the University that night. We had dinner, (I think it was beef brisket that night) and left for CU.

The speaker that night was the mother of the president of the CU Muslim Student Association, or MSA. She referred to herself as a White Anglo-Saxon Muslim. She had attended CU years ago converted to Islam from Christianity. She met her husband at the University and had eight children with him. Much of her talk dealt with how people perceived her and treated her and what it was like being a white, converted Muslim. Her theme echoed the previous night's panel's theme of "we can all get along". It was interesting to hear a full story of a Muslim's conversion, but she was not the greatest of speakers.

Afterward, we met a lot of people and had some very good conversations with them. Jim, Chelsea and I met a man named Ahmed from Egypt. He worked for a television studio in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates running a show called Third Eye. It is a documentary show that has some very intriguing topics. They were filming Islamic Awareness Week for an episode called "Muslims in America". He was a very interesting and nice guy that we kept up with as the week went on.

We trekked back to the Horizons house and met as a group to talk about our experiences and thoughts on that night before praying and heading for bed.

Colorado: Day 4

As per the usual plan, most of us got up at 7:45 for devotional and/or a shower and ate breakfast in the dining room at 8:30. I woke up kind of sick that day and picked away at a muffin, which was delicious. After breakfast, we met as a team and went up to Georges' office. For the next couple of hours, we listened to the story of his life and his testimony. We listened to how he grew up in Lebanon and was raised Greek Orthodox Christian, and how he was kicked out of his school when he started attending a church that taught of a more personal, loving type of Jesus. He told us of how he was involved in gangs for a time and how he came back to Christ. He also told us of his twelve year struggle to translate a new version of the Bible into Arabic. After much political opposition, he was finally able to get it done, and now there are millions of copies of his Bible all over the world. It was very inspiring to listen to Georges talk in the quiet of his office. He is a very gentle, soft spoken man who has gone through a lot in his life, and God has worked in him in very powerful ways.

Afterward, we went into another office and talked about what we would be doing that day. We decided to go to the Islam exhibit at the college and then return later that night to listen to a panel of Islamic students. We prayed for God to be with us that day and for the students that we would encounter.

We walked over to the University of Colorado (CU) and went to the exhibit, which included many posters that informed people about the religion and a movie about the hajj, or journey to Mecca. It was very informative and helped us learn a lot about Islam before we attended the week's events.

After the exhibit, we drove into the foothills above Boulder and climbed up to some large rocks and sat down looking over the city. We each found passages from the Bible to read to each other and explained why we chose the passage and discussed it with each other. It was very insightful and engaging, and we got to learn even more about each other as God was preparing us for the week.

We came back to the Horizons house and ate dinner before leaving for the college again. The panel was made up of eight Muslim students, four guys and four girls. Two of the girls were converts to Islam from Christianity, and one was white. It was a good mixture of backgrounds. People submitted their questions and the panel answered them as best as they could. They explained the basics and origin of Islam and the five pillars, and pretty much rehashed everything that was on the posters in that room. The overall theme and message that they seemed to want to get across, however, was that Islam was very accepting of Christianity and Judaism and that there was no reason that we couldn't get along. This, I believe, was said more or less to attract college students to Islam. Any hard questions were answered with hesitation and shallow answers. This panel did not contain the best speakers of that week.

After they were finished, we went around the room talking to different people about their thoughts on what the panel said. There were a lot of different opinions and viewpoints and we got to know a lot of people that night.

We went back to Horizons and talked about what we saw that night and how we felt about the panel and the other people's thoughts. All of us had very interesting conversations with a number of people, some Muslim, some not. All in all, the night was rather sobering. We prayed again for the people we met that night and for the rest of the week. At this point, we were all pretty exhausted from the mountain climbing earlier and went to bed.

Colorado: Day 3

We arrived at our destination, Horizons International, at 6:00am Sunday morning. We found our bedrooms quickly and went to sleep. Three hours later, we were up to go to church. Matt and Riley, who had driven the most the night before, stayed in bed a got a couple more hours of sleep while we went. The name of the church is Indian Peaks Community Church, and is pastored by Georges Houssney, who is also the director of Horizons. He gave an interesting talk about remembering important things that Jesus has done in our lives. He gave the story about the yeast of the Pharisees in Matthew 16, and how the disciples had assumed Jesus was still talking about bread and not of deeper issues.

After church, we went to the store and purchased some food for lunch and for dinner that night. We went back to Horizons and made lunch: Salad and Spaghetti. It was delicious. After lunch, Matt, Justin, Alicia, Chelsea and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather we had in Colorado (It was in the 50s and 60s all week). So we walked down the street to a local cemetery at the base of a foothill and proceeded to hike up the first few hills. It was a muddy and slippery ordeal and I still have some red mud on my shoes from that day. The hill was pretty steep, and due to the lack of oxygen at that altitude and the fact that I was starting to come down with a cold, I felt like I was going to faint by the time we got to the top of the hill. I spent most of the time up there with my head between my legs and holding on to Chelsea while we posed for pictures. But eventually, I regained my strength and was able to enjoy the fantastic view of Boulder from the hill. You could see the entire city from there, and the mountains stretched as far as you could see to the North and South.

We returned to the Horizons house and met as a group. We went around the circle and took turns telling everyone what God had done in our lives as per Psalm 66:16. It was very interesting to see that God works in everyone's lives in very different and powerful ways.

Afterward, we had dinner (stir fry, again delicious) and chilled for the night. We talked with new friends and played pool and Foosball for a few hours before most of us went to bed. Matt, Riley, Justin, and Jim went rock climbing that night and they seemed to have a lot of fun. Eventually, we all ended up in bed, ready to begin the first real day of the trip.

Colorado: Day 2

I awoke in the church sanctuary on Saturday morning at 7:45, got dressed and had my devotional near the front door. Matt and Justin had left earlier to get the part and help Eric fix the van. Mike, the youth pastor, arrived around 8:30 while we were finishing up our devotions and getting dressed for the day. We sat around the table in the youth room talking about seminary and the differences between working with junior and senior high students. Pastor Greg came in about that time and gave us a $100 gas card, just one more blessing from these wonderful people.

A couple of their Sunday school rooms needed to be painted, and we had just so happened to have brought painting clothes. So we changed into them and put the first coats on three of the rooms. We took a break for lunch and ate Subway that Carol and Joyce had brought the night before. As we ate, we talked about our parents and our varying relationships with them. It was a very good conversation and we got to learn a bit more about each other through it. We finished up our painting and chilled for a few hours before the guys called to say that they were done with the van and it was running. About an hour later, they returned with the van in full working order. Eric didn't ask for any payment for his troubles, but we gave him a gift anyway. It was not nearly enough for what he did for us, but it was the least we could do.

So at 5:00 pm eastern time, we loaded up the van and car and took off for Colorado again, 30 hours after we had arrived at that great town of Genoseo. The sun set only about an hour after we had gotten on the road again, so most of our driving was in the night. But the full moon lit our way down I-80. The highway was open again. We had heard reports that 15 people had died the night before in the terrible road conditions. But today, the roads were fine, save for a few patches of ice. Driving through Iowa, we counted at least one hundred cars that were in the ditch. Most were facing the wrong way, some were sideways, others were completely upside down. Jackknifed semis passed in the darkness, and some just lay on their side by the road like a carcass. It wasn't until we saw these things that we fully realized God's intervention in our trip. If our van hadn't broken down the day before, we could have easily been one of the many that were stranded in the middle of nowhere.

We passed the time by sleeping and talking and playing the alphabet game through the night. Once we got deep enough into Colorado, a slight mist lined the horizon. You couldn't really make the mountains out, but you could tell that they were there. We arrived in Boulder at 6:00 am local time. As soon as we parked in the Horizon's lot, the sun peaked up from the east. We unloaded our stuff and found our beds quickly. Laying down, we were all very grateful for God's protection and provision for His children. I don't think any of us had trouble falling to sleep after that long drive.

Colorado: Day 1

At 6:00 am on Friday, after praying over our trip in the frigid morning air, our team left in one van and one car for Boulder, Colorado. Our team consisted of nine members: Allie, Matt, Justin, Kenny, Chelsea, Alicia, Riley, Jim and myself.

The roads were rough starting out. At that hour, it was still dark and cold and ice covered the roads. After the sun came up, however, the roads got a little better and the only major problem for a few hours was the harsh winds tugging on the van.

But then tragedy struck in Illinois. The check engine light came on in the van and the engine started to misfire. Matt decided that we had better find a repair place in a local town. The next exit was for a small town called Atkinson, but unfortunately, the town's only repair shop (on its dead end main street) was full for the day. They instructed us to drive to the next town to the Dodge garage and having no other options, we did.

The garage was located in a slightly larger town called Genoseo, IL. While they diagnosed the van's problem, the nine of us waited in the local Culver's for the next four hours. The staff was great and the people were wonderful there. At one point, in passing, Matt noticed a couple guys sitting at a table reading a book that he had read. Matt struck up a conversation and found that they were the pastor and youth pastor of a local church. He told them our situation and the pastor gave us his card in case we needed anything. a couple hours later, while the nine of us were trying to decide where to go if the car could not be fixed, a couple of ladies named Carol and Joyce overheard our problem. Carol was a retired social worker and invited us to stay at her house if we needed a place to sleep that night. She was deeply concerned about our welfare and had heard that the weather was so bad that they had actually closed I-80 past Des Moines.

We prayed for the trip and read Isaiah 33 and found some striking similarities to our plight in the chapter. There were also a lot of things that had nothing to do with our situation, but that's not as fun to talk about. Just as we were finishing up, we got the call from to garage. They estimated about $700 to fix the van. Since we did not have this kind of money, we decided to keep driving the van to Riley's grandparent's house and see if we could get it fixed there somehow. After driving just ten miles, however, the van started stalling out on the highway. So we turned around and headed back for Genoseo. We called the Pastor from Culver's and made our way to his church. We also got a severe scolding from Carol when we called her and told her what had happened.

We pulled into Geneseo Evangelical Free Church and sat in the lobby for a few minutes. It turns out that Pastor Greg was just about to meet with a guy that could fix our van. I believe his name was Eric. The church was gracious enough to invite us to stay the night in their building while we got the van fixed. We set up our headquarters in the youth group facility in their basement and met the Youth Pastor, Mike. We had some very stimulating conversations with him and enjoyed a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, which I am now addicted to.

Many people came by with food for us, and word kept going around about the highways being closed and horrible traffic accidents ahead of us. Outside, the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was falling almost completely horizontal. We called Carol and told her that we were safe and staying at the church and she and Joyce arrived a few hours later with enough food to feed us for a few days. They brought McDonald's and Subway, as well as packs of milk and cookies and all kinds of snacks. This was after some nice women from the church brought us sloppy joes and scotcheroos. We thanked them many times for their graciousness and thoroughly enjoyed their blessing.

We found out that Eric would be able to help us get the part and fix the van for only a couple hundred dollars. We would be on our way again the next day. We came together and shared with each other of God's great provision for us in our distress. We also went back to Isaiah 33 and found more similarities to our situation.

After praying for God to bless all those wonderful people of Genoseo that helped us in our time of need, we put our couches and sleeping bags together and went to bed in a place we never would have dreamed we'd be that night.