Day 4: Winter Adventure
It’s been six days since we said our farewells to the rest of our brothers and sisters who will be experiencing life in different countries; Peru, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic. Going overseas is an amazing experience. However, we are 18 people who decided to take a different path in deepening our character and life of faith through what we call Winter Adventuring! Tolik Kazak and Kolya Moyer will lead us during this time. Winter Adventuring offers a totally different environment from any we have experienced. An environment that REALLY tests your character and helps you to look deeper within yourself, but also an opportunity to truly understand the beauty of God’s creation and His deepest love for us as His beloved children. For a whole week at UTS (Unification Theological Seminary), we will be preparing ourselves for a week-long experience of surviving in the icy mountains of New York called the Adirondacks.
Despite the long travel to make it to UTS everyone was awake and excited to hear more about the adventure we would be going on. We received an orientation/introduction from Tolik on this three-week adventuring program. He explained the significance and intention behind this program. He conveyed an important message for us to understand that we could either have a beautiful experience after winter adventuring or a miserable experience; it all depends on our intention and attitude going into it. After his guidance, we were given time throughout the day to build a deeper and more meaningful intention for choosing to do winter adventuring.
The next day was the first full day of our training. We started the morning by learning about the significance of this world and all of creation, simply to help human beings understand the principles by which God created the universe and to understand His immense love for us as His children. Later, after we ate our breakfast, we gathered in the dojo and did what we call “equipment exploding” Basically, Tolik and Kolya showed us all the equipment we would be using during our winter adventuring and thoroughly explained each piece of equipment.
After going through all of the equipment, we were assigned teams for this winter adventure training. We went to a shed that stored all the equipment, and with our new teams, we were given all the equipment necessary; our tents, sleeping bags, kitchenware, etc. After we got all our equipment, we organized them in the dojo within our teams. Within the equipment exploding, they went over the basic food they buy for adventuring, and while it doesn’t seem the most appetizing, in the wilderness, anything tastes delicious. For the next six days, before we headed out to the Adirondacks, we were told that we would cook our meals using our portable stove. So, we were given a couple of hours as a team to shop for our groceries. To end this long and packed day, we gathered together and shared our intentions and desires for coming to this program of winter adventuring.
We immediately got to practice using our portable stoves by cooking breakfast the next morning! Afterwards we received a talk on L.N.T (Leave no Trace) by Koyla, went on a short little hike, and learned many different rope knots, how to set up a shelter, and the steps and process on how to build a fire. We ended the day with a movie titled, “Touching the Void.”
To safely head out into the mountains, we had to learn about “Leaving no Trace.” Koyla explained that this ultimately meant different things that we’d had to be aware of, emphasizing properly disposing of waste and ensuring we’re respecting wildlife. After all, we are there to recognize and receive God’s love through God’s creation. As the day went on, we had the amazing opportunity to learn many different rope knots. We also had the chance to practice building a shelter of our own. Everyone felt so eager and excited to keep learning more.
As the afternoon went on, Tolik showed the group how to build a fire!
We were taught how to properly build the tents, which excited everyone as our days get closer until we head out into our adventure. Tolik and Koyla showed us the importance of setting up our tents correctly and adequately and allowed us to practice building them in our groups. The Dojo in UTS was filled with excitement, chatter, and laughter from each group as we made our tents.
Later this same day, we gathered again in the Dojo, where fishing rods and hooks awaited us. You may wonder why fishing rods and hooks were added to our schedule. To our surprise, some of us are going ice fishing tomorrow! We’re all having the opportunity to go ice fishing, half of the group is heading out into the woods tomorrow for ice fishing, and the other half will be busy engaging in other activities. If you want to know how ice fishing goes and what the other half of the group will do, please check out our next blog post!
Our days are packed with many preparations for our big adventure in the Adirondacks, and we would like to take you along with us on this journey! A journey that will be filled with excitement, adventure, cold weather, eagerness, wildlife, nature, laughter, and lots of God’s love.
Generation Peace Academy
Kenichi Ishibashi & Yoselin Reyes
Blogger, Winter Adventure