Summer 2013

Journey Quest

Alright folks here is my next update. I'll start with where I left off my blog that I wrote over a year ago. I was working at Journey Quest and was loving the time that I had with all of these awesome people!

Left to Right - Ryan, Ben, Elise H, Elise S, Amy, Cori, Me

Guiding a family on a single day float

For those who don't recall, I was about to be on a week long combo trip with Family Life Church in Lake Jackson, Texas.

Family Life Church

Guys tent in progress

Ladies Tent completed

team building activities

Bible Study

The youth pastor Chris and kids

Worship session

Worship Session

Duckies

Rafting

One thing that was awesome for me was because of my years spent with this company, I had the privilege to be the trip leader for all of the rafting portions for this whole trip. This was a fun task because with a group of this size and spending as many days on the river as we did it is important to have the boats and crews organized so that they can be balanced. It also gives the kids an element of surprise for who they'll be rafting with on a given day.
 

Impromptu Baptism

So this photo deserves some explanation. This day was the start of our last rafting/duckie day, well we were all ready and waiting for someone or something, I don't remember what it was, but we were all in our wetsuits dying of heat. Therefore, we decided that we would dunk the kids in the river to cool them off. Well the youth pastor was pretending it was a baptism, but then one of the kids asked if he would do it for real, which is awesome! After this we had a few kids who were baptized for the first time 

Rock Climbing

Elise H.!

Brendan & Ryan Belaying

Smoke from wildfires

More Smoke

Ingredients for Pita Pizzas

Cooking the Pita Pizzas!

Crazy bus rides!!

Group departure = sad day

This group was a ton of fun. We had lots of fun adventures: Duckies, Rafting, Rock Climbing, Rappelling, and great food. An awesome part of this trip was we had many kids accept Christ into their hearts and a few more kids get baptized.

_____________________

The rest of my summer was an absolute blast with several other extended trips. One of those trips I actually had the privilege of leading and organizing. This trip was with New Life Community Church from Gardner, Kansas. This group was a men's retreat and it included a day of whitewater rafting, Rock climbing and Rappelling.

New Life Community Church

Campfires!

Rappelling

More rappelling

yup... more rappelling

Grime from the rope

Here's one of the guys rock climbing

And another one

yup and another one climbing

One of the most awesome things about leading this group of men was that through all the adventurous stuff we did, it challenged each and every man. Someone may ask, but they're grown men. And my response would be that yes they are, but we are all human each with our own fears. Some may have been scared of heights and so climbing was challenging or they may have been afraid of water and so rafting was challenging. No matter what we did they were challenged, but the awesome thing is that we were able to be there to encourage them in that challenge and they were all able to overcome.

The rafting trip we took was a full day Royal Gorge from JQ to Pink house, it was an awesome time and the men were thrilled!!

Rafting - Sharks tooth rapid

Breakfast!! Bacon and French toast

Evening Talks

_________________________

Overall, my summer was awesome! Though it did end shorter for me than I was planning. I'll go into this in great length in my next post.

JQ 2013 Staff taken at Anderson's

This photo was of all the staff at the Anderson's for a New Year's party!

 

My Crazy Life and Adventures

Hello all, it has been over a year since I have updated my blog, which is a very crazy thought. I'll be honest, my life has been jammed packed with all sorts of events. All the way from amazing river trips with Journey Quest, injuries, a friend's wedding, working at Glen Eyrie as well as this past summer of working as a counselor with Eagle Lake Camp.

 So for the sake of clarity and to speed up the process of sharing what is going on in my life, I have decided to break my life down into several different posts going mostly in chronological order from where I left last year. Expect to see my next post about the rest of the 2013 summer in the next couple of days. Here is a preview of it.

Sporting wetsuits

Summer Excitement

The first month of my summer has been filled with awesome people and water levels. Our staff is blending well thus far. It is incredible to see how a group from so many different backgrounds can meld well when their focal point is centered on Christ. We are able to love one another as Christ loved the church. It is awesome!!

            The water has come up and it is such a huge blessing for me to be able to be here for another summer to help my team become acquainted with how the river works at higher water than what they saw it all summer long last year.

School loan

As I live this summer I am constantly reminded of God’s awesomeness. One of these times happened at the end of May, but to lead up to it I must give some back-story. In January, I had enough money saved to be able to pay off an unsubsidized school loan I had, so I went ahead and paid it off. This left me with one subsidized loan that would not begin earning interest on it till the beginning of June. Well, after paying the first loan it looked like my second loan was going to take a long time to pay off because at the time I was not making any money. But then I got the job at Glen Eyrie and my Grandfather blessed all of the grand kids an undisclosed amount of cash that they had been saving. With these two things added up I determined that with the very few expenses I have this summer and the amount of money that I had in my bank account, I decided that I would go ahead and pay off my school loan in full. This means two things, one, I did not have to pay any interest on it. Second, I am now debt free!! Thanks to Jesus for His provision.

Bible study

We are going through a book called “Good News for Those Trying Harder”

We are three weeks into this study and the discussions that come from it are very interesting. The main focus of the book is to teach people that the Christian life is not about trying harder or completing a set of steps to be a better Christian because God already has our life worked out and we don’t have to try. We just have to believe.

Training

Our new staff training has been going well. Two of the three new staff became certified. First was Ryan a couple weeks ago and has taken about 3 or 4 commercial trips. Next was Amy and she was certified late last week. We will now be focusing our time with Ben to get him certified before too long.   

On the 7^th we took our staff and rafted Brown’s Canyon. We will be taking a group from Texas on a 5-day raft/climb combo trip and this is the one of the sections that we want to take them on. Brown’s Canyon is like Bighorn Sheep Canyon in that the rapids are all class 2-3. This means that it is a fairly easy section to learn and will be a fun trip for the group we have coming in.

Impactful trips

My desire and goal with the trips that I take for Journey Quest is to provide people with an adventure that they will remember and be positively impacted. Now it is not on my power that people will be impacted, but when I give the trip to the Lord that He will use me to be a light to the people. When I let God move in and take my place it is a wonder what conversations will be had. An example of this is as follows. On the morning of the 15^th I took Nita, Mindy and Jan down the river. I knew not at the time that they would actually impact me more than I think I impacted them. As we were going down I began to share with them how one of the rocks in the canyon looks like a lamb watching the river, and how it points to the Lamb of God Watching over us. Nita then tells me that as my name is a different form of the name Jesus, that they were rafting with Jesus and were completely surrounded and protected by His love. This really made me think about how my name is a representation of Christ and how I live my life will either represent Him or myself.

Week of June 17^th

This is the week I will be on a 5-day trip with Family Life Church. We will be doing 3 days of rafting/duckies, 1 day of rock climbing and a day of team building activities. I am super excited, as this will be my first extended trip this year, it will also be our first completely offsite trip. Meaning that the entire trip will be distraction free and we will not have connection with many people outside of our trip. I am excited to see what the Lord is going to do in my life as well as the life of the kids that we will be taking with us on this trip.

  Please be praying for Steve, Elise H., Amy and myself as we will be the guides on this trip. Pray for guidance, strength and wisdom as we lead this group of students this coming week. Also, be praying for the kids that will be coming that God will do a mighty work in all of their lives.

Royal Gorge Fire

Royal Gorge Fire

Just so that everyone is aware, The fire near Canon City is not endangering me nor Journey Quest. The only thing that it does affect is where we are able to raft and not able to raft. We are not allowed into the Royal Gorge, and at this point most of the Lower Bighorn section that we run, we are not allowed down. So for a trip that we have today we might have to take upstream, due to the fire. Below is a photo of the evacuation area for the fire. You can see in it that the Royal Gorge Park is in this zone.

We would appreciate your prayers for the firefighters and for all of the people who are directly affected by this blaze. May God's hand of protection be with them all.

Josh

Update of Josh's life

This is my first blog ever and I am super excited to be able to show people how God is working in my life through it.

Life coming up to summer

   My life in the months leading up to now has been busy with finishing school, working and getting ready for this summer. Before I could officially graduate in May from Colorado State University - Pueblo (CSU-P), I had to complete the portfolio for the Practicum that I did with Young Life. I was able to complete and give it to my adviser by the last week in April. Therefore, I am done with school for good.

Also, I was looking for a job that would get me to summer, and I found a position at Glen Eyrie, in their Event Service Position. It took them a few months after my first interview with them to decide if they would be able to hire me as they were going through some department changes and things, but they did end up calling me in for another interview and hired me even though they knew that I was going to be leaving at the beginning of May to go work with Journey Quest for another summer. The two months that I was with them was a great time and enabled me to be able to serve God in a function that I may have done before in different settings, but never for that length of time. Below is a photo of the beauty that God allowed me to work in before summer.

 

Summer Life

My summer will once again be spent on the Arkansas River with Journey Quest. I am excited to see how our staff will be God's ambassador's to each other and to all the people we have to come out on trips with us. As a non-profit ministry all of the staff are working as volunteers. This being said we are not working here for the profit that we could attain working with another company, but it is our heart's desire to see God work in people's lives through the use of adventurous journeys. We have 3 new awesome people joining us for the summer and they are Ryan, Amy and Ben. Below is a collage of our 2013 staff.

Our living quarters for the summer have greatly improved since the last several years. Ben, Ryan and I are living at Steve's house, which is very spacious. He even has a hot tub! The ladies are in an apartment on the Anderson's property.

Our Bedroom

A view from the deck

The last two weeks have been spent training our new guides as well as taking a few trips with guests. Our focus this summer is going to be on building community with our staff as well as making Christ known to all the people whom we have opportunity. 

Prayer is something that we are going to need a ton of this summer, without it our ministry will flounder. Please pray for our staff that we will bond together as one body in Christ. Also for our staff to remember that in whatever challenge we are faced with that God is at the center of our lives and that He will provide. For safety as we guide people down the Arkansas River. That God will work miraculously in the lives of people who come through our doors. There can always be more, but this will do for starters.
 
 

Journey through the Royal Gorge

If you wish to know where I am or send me mail or find out more info on Journey Quest see below.

Journey Quest

Attn: Josh Shannon

27077 Highway 50 Suite 4

Texas Creek, CO 81223

www.journeyquest.org