December 16th 2013
I recently saw a posting on Facebook from one of my Trekkers who is now a junior at Eastern University in which he shared his personal feelings on faith.
This is what Vincent wrote:
"I think I connect best with God through nature. It's something about the weather and wilderness that makes me believe even more. That and my personal day-to-day experiences.”
Vincent and I share a wonderful history of travel and Trekking during his high school years at the UrbanPromise Academy. Of course, our travels together were not always perfect nor without tensions. One experience that brings us both to laughter these days took place during his freshman year. We were spending a week in Florida visiting the Everglades and the Keys, hiking, canoeing, and snorkeling. One night, after all the students were supposed to be in their bunk rooms with lights out, I caught Vincent and a few of his fellow Trekkers outside their room. I confronted the young men and stopped them when they began to explain their reason for being up. My too quick and unfiltered response was, "Don't even give me any B___S___!” Vincent, surprised at seeing an angry Mr. C, responded, “But Mr. C, we're only kids!"
Vincent and I, along with his classmates, would later travel and experience some of the most amazing things to be seen in nature. We rode horses together up the steep, rugged mountain trails of Sierra Chincua Sanctuary in Mexico's Transvolcanic Belt to see the monarch butterfly in its winter habitat. We've hiked and camped along ridgelines on the Appalachian Trail. We've kayaked along Maine's jagged coast with Atlantic Harbor Porpoises and Minke Whales swimming past us. We've been awed together!
For a young man from the hardened and unforgiving streets of South Camden, where drugs, prostitution, and violence are often the experience that influence and define who children become, Vincent chose something different. I can't help but get emotional when I think of the role Trekkers has had in Vincent's life. I also know Vincent has been blessed with a loving and caring mother and father and an entire network of people throughout both his community and UrbanPromise that rejoice in who he's become.
And like Vincent, it has been the magnificent sunrises and mountain summits where God's power and majesty has been revealed to me. But it is through Vincent that I feel and see more than ever the face of God and his love even in the harshest of places.
Have a Blessed Christmas and a Purposeful New Year,
Jim and all the Trekkers