Exploring Caves

I had the awesome privilege of once again going on a trip with the youth I work with to the Warsaw Caves in Peterborough. I love the Warsaw Caves, I love being in nature, climbing into holes in the ground, shining a light, and crawling through holes hoping I'm taking the right route to find my way to the other end. I love the thrill of it personally, of the dark, wet, cold hard walls around me, the water dripping from the rocky ceiling and seeing rays of sun shining through the cracks in the rocks. But the one thing that tops this experience is taking kids and helping them explore and experience something I deeper enjoy!

 I had a small group of four young girls who were very eager and yet slightly fearful of the dark unknown. Entering the first cave involved pushing, arguing who would go first and a great deal of yelling. Once we established an order, rules about who was aloud to talk and when we could continue forward. The first cave we ventured through probably took us a good ten minutes to make our way through the rises and falls, corners and tunnels to at last seeing the light ahead! Once we were in clear day light I couldn't keep them there, they were so eager and excited to explore all the caves. One that we entered took a great deal of trust on their part on me and my judgement. About five feet into this cave there was a 7 foot drop which I gladly dropped into to explore what the landing was like. I then had the girls one at a time enter the cave and sit on the ledge about foot and a bit above my head. I then coaxed them to reach across the gab with one hand while holding onto the ledge the sat on with the other trusting me to grab a hold of their waist to lower them to the ground. It took some longer then others to trust enough to do as I instructed but eventually we all made it down! Another cave we enjoyed was one that opened up to a very large almost room like area were one of my girls decided we should sit and pray and so we did, thanking God for His creation and that we could be beneath the ground under neath the rocks but still in His sight and completely in His care.

It is one of my favorite trips to take these kids on, for a number of different reasons but I think the main reason is because it takes them so far outside of their comfort zone to experience something so different then what they have before. It brings them to a place were they must depend on some one else to be able to find their way through these caves as well as trusting the fact that the rocks will not fall and that we will find a way out. It stretches their understanding of the world and God and just creates so many opportunities to be able to speak of God and His creation.

As we prepared to enter into this week of camp please pray for growth to happen spiritually in these kids lives as we start to tackle the topic of “Harvesting what you reap” “You will harvest what you plant. Of you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, your will harvest eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8