Ok, I finally got the site up. What happened? Well, I went to the mountains of Red River, New Mexico for a 5 day last single campout. It was a blast. During my stay my power strip must have been hacked because it started varying voltage and causing my web server to go down. I just replaced the powerstrip and it now works. So I shall now let one of my Best Men, Mr. Turkentine, entertain you with his account of the Men's Advance 2007:

New Mexico Men’s Advance 2007


Wednesday:

We began our journey last Wednesday evening at 8pm which was our scheduled departure time. Six of us were there ready to leave - Chris and Bradford from the homeless ministry, my best friend Brian, Josh Smith from homeless and DallasOne, and a man by the name of Gary who Chris is discipling. The cars were packed but Luis had not arrived. We began to franticly call in search of the boy but its was to no avail. After an hour of calling and waiting, we decided to leave a note on the door and go ahead and head out. After a short prayer, we took off and within 30 minutes of us leaving, Luis called us - he was ok and with some coaxing, he decided to follow us by himself to meet us in Wichita Falls.

We made it to Wichita Falls that evening around 11pm. We stayed at my parents house where they opened up their camper trailer to all of us. All of the guys laughed when they saw that my dad had fixed a seating area outside the camper entrance with Astroturf carpet and lawn chairs all in a circle. My mom fed us some cookies and then we were off to bed - well they were off to bed as I waited up for Luis who got in around 2am. Our first night was complete.


Thursday:

The next morning, I woke up at 5:30am to a ghost! Well it was just my mom walking through the living room where I was sleeping in her nightgown. It took me a minute for me to wake up but for whatever reason, I was scared at what I had seen as a white figure floating across the darkened room. Anyway, I woke the other guys and called them into breakfast. My mother fixed us bacon, eggs, toast, biscuits, and gravy!

We left WichitaFalls around 7am and were on then on the road toward NewMexico. We split ourselves into two groups that would rotate between cars and with who the drivers were - I really don’t recall who was where and for how long. Our first stop was a hundred miles down the road in Childress, TX. at a McDonalds so that some of us could get gassed up on caffeine. The conversations in the car were all very uneventful and superficial to this point. Hitting the pavement again, we drove on towards Dalhart, TX another 150 miles away. We stopped at this BBQ restaurant called “Hodies.” Now this place was great! It was a completely a place visited by only the residents of Dalhart. We stuck out like sore thumbs as were taking pictures of each other, the restaurant, and the waitress. And as usual, Josh has to be excessively friendly to everyone he meets as he engaged nearly everyone there in some form of introduction - I know that we are called to be lights to the world but sometimes Josh’s lights remind me of lights you would only see at a circus carnival. But the BBQ was outstanding. We walked out of that place stuffed full of what had to be West Texas’ best BBQ.

From there, we continued onward toward NM and our conversations soon began to turn toward a spiritual nature. We talked all about various things such as the existence of demons and angels, Christian dating, and the deity of Jesus - this was the start of many such conversations that were to come. Moving along, we made it to NM and had to stop for the traditional tourist picture of the group standing in front of the “Welcome to NewMexico” sign -we were acting like total goofs. I suppose its all due to Josh pumping 1000 watts of power through his stereo system while listening to African based gospel music - to this day I don’t think my head has stopped wanting to bounce sideways to the beat of the primal beats.

We made it to NM that afternoon and finally to RedRiver by 5pm. As we dropped into the RedRiver valley, the guy’s eyes were wide with excitement as only Josh had ever been to the mountains before; I really enjoy being with people during their first few glimpses of the mountains as I love to see their hearts fall in love with a country so dear to me. Once in RedRiver, we stopped to get groceries at the town store. It is a small store that is very overpriced and it was difficult to get seven grown men on the same page when it comes to what to buy as our meals for the next few days. After a few seemingly tense minutes, we made our super healthy choices of potato chips, chewy cookies, bread for toast, eggs, and cinnamon rolls.

Once we completed our shopping, we turned our path toward to final 3 miles of our journey --- the dreaded dirt/rock road that I had not told the guys about. These 3 miles take about half an hour to travel across in non-fourwheeled drive vehicles given the number of protruding rocks and unseen potholes. I could hear everyone cursing my name for taking them over such a gut wrenching experience. We arrived at the cabin around 6pm and it was amazingly cold. It has been several years since I have been here this late in the year, and I had forgotten just how cold it could get even during the Summer. That evening we fixed dinner and then began the first of our devotionals - Chris led this devo on how we need to have proper focus and maintain focus. Afterwards, we played an intense game of Settlers (a little known game of economic and political strategy).


Friday:

While we were through with most of our physical travels on the road during the previous day, our spiritual journey was just getting off the ground (literally). We got everyone up Friday morning and luckily had a couple of guys with us who enjoyed cooking - it was quite a deal, as I don’t like to cook that often but don’t mind at all doing the cleanup.... After our eggs and toast, we had a season of prayer. This was Gary’s first real glimpse into to life of a Christian man’s life a glimpse that would soon lead to his awakening.

After breakfast, Josh, Chris, and I took off to have a bit of quiet time together. We climbed up the valley behind our cabin to a remote place where an intermittent stream has cut a natural hole in the side of the mountain. We sat and talked to God and each other and further prepared ourselves for the day at hand. We soon joined the rest of the guys and we then took off on our first group hike of the trip. Our goal for this excursion was to explore a mine that was a few hundred yards from our cabin. We took with us a gigantic flashlight and made our way to the entrance of the old mine. The guys were all pumped about the dangerous trek ahead - we were boldly going where men had rarely gone before. Josh took the lead on this act of stupidity. We crept slowly through the dark opening and made our way through the swarm or flies that flew up as a barrier to our advance - each step we took was thwarted by hundreds of these flying vermin and none of us opened our mouths for fear of having a fly dinner. We progressed deeper into the man made cavern of greed, creeping on our knees slowly following the one light that we had. After about 60 feet of traveling down this earthen tunnel, we reached its terminus. We cheered for our brave and manly success but our pride was soon cut off as our flashlight immediately went out. Apparently the battery was not sufficiently charged and we then had to bravely feel our way back to the entrance of the cave and all the while fighting the plague of insects that faced us -- As we climbed back, we could not help but to make the very obvious parallel that we were following a false light and should have been following the true light....

Once out of the mine, I took the guys up a trail that I have worked to build over the past few years that climbs a few stories to a place with a great view of the cabin’s lake. Everyone made the trip at that point but Chris, Josh, Luis, and I wanted to continue up the mountain. At this point, the group divided as those of us who were more energetic began a quest to reach the top of the mountain. So we began climbing upwards and our hearts began to pound as our lungs called out for oxygen in the thin mountain air. We frequently stopped to catch our breath and to partake of the water supply carried in the backpack which we traded between us, sharing its weight as we climbed. We continued on for at least an hour climbing higher and higher towards the unknown destination and we often questioned whether we were getting lost on the mountain or whether we should simply turn around and climb back down. But we persisted in our long and tumultuous climb and we extolled our joy in the Lord, screaming scripture verses to the woods and yelling how much we loved His works of nature.

The view from the top was amazing. We could see many snow covered peaks and we reveled in the enormity of the mountains and just how small we really were -- we walked for some time along the ridge of the great hill of rock in awe of God’s great canvas. We then found a small area where a group of rocks protruded from the mountainside reaching out well above the trees below. The brave Chris was once again bold and climbed forth to the rocks as the rest of us stood back and jeered at his act of bravery/stupidity. He yelled to the world in splendid vocal strength “echo” hoping for a reply to return - a faint “echo” replied.

A little farther along the ridge, we chose to sit and have an impromptu devotional time. After some worthwhile prayer, we each shared what the Lord had been doing in our lives over the previous days. We also spent this time getting to know each other on a spiritual level by sharing some of our testimonies. During this time we developed an analogy of our mountain climb to that of a Christian man’s walk. We saw parallels in that we did not know where or when our climb up the mountain was going to end, neither could we know if there would be a pay off in the end - we only had hope. The mountain was often difficult and we often wanted to take the easier downward path. We carried the weight of the backpack a symbol of sin -- we spoke of how we traded it between us as we climbed, sharing each other’s burdens. The analogy continued in that our Christian brothers are very important to us and that through unity we made it to the top - to face such struggles alone would more than likely lead to our failure. This time on the mountain was very spiritual and each of us who made it to the top was blessed beyond measure.

The climb down the mountain was a great deal of fun the group ran/slid down the mountain side. I showed the guys a technique of getting down the slope where you allow gravity to take you and you use the trees along the path to slow you by swinging around them like a fire pole - most all of us enjoyed this strategy and had a great time on the path to the bottom.

That afternoon, rested and then ate some home cooked grub - yum mashed potatoes mixed with hamburger meat. As we began the evening In the evening Bradford spoke to us in the evening devotional. He spoke eloquently on the body of Christ. We fellowshipped that evening with a strategic game of Risk and Rummikub.


Saturday:

Saturday began bright and early as we woke up to eggs and biscuits cooking. After the fine meal, we joined in a time of prayer and we imparted to one another various bits of wisdom and scripture that we felt pertinent to us growing in Christian walk. Today’s adventure was to take a group hike through the canyon near our cabin and to explore another mine along the route. The trail through the canyon began very well but we soon learned that the snow melts in the Spring had changed the course of the river and also diminished the viability of the trail that we had planned to use. Never the less, we traveled onward walking in the stream at times, climbing over felled trees, or marching tenuously through stinging nettle bushes. Somewhere along the route, Josh saw a snake and called everyone to see it. This bothered Gary as he is not to fond of snakes so he chose to not join us the rest of the way. Regardless of this setback, we continued up the canyon. We encouraged one another to press forward and we were soon at the large mine that sits along the side of the trail.

The mine site had a decaying remnant of a miners cabin and we went inside and sat down then decided to have another devotional. As soon as we walked in, it began to rain outside, Josh then began teaching on the running theme of the body of Christ. We shared our thoughts on how each of us have various traits that each bring glory to God and that the body must have all parts to run efficiently.

After the devotional, we stepped off on our next adventure - exploring yet another mine. This time, the stakes were higher as this mine was much less visitor friendly. The entrance to this mine was very foreboding as the entrance was much lower and the floor was covered with a layer of mud. Chris led the way this time and I was the only one to follow him. Chris jumps right in and thinks nothing of the mud. I followed contently for the first 30 feet of the mine but as we climbed further in the mud at the bottom be came thicker. We tossed rocks into the mud in an attempt to ascertain the depth of the mud but all we could tell is that it was really pretty deep. This did not deter Chris at all, he just stepped right into it. I began to follow him but just at that moment, he stepped into what must have been a deep hole -- he sank down to his thighs in mud and Chris is much taller than me. At that point I chose to be the official light holder and not travel on. Chris climbed out of the hole and went on down the tunnel. He went on by himself and was soon out of my sight - at this point Josh joined me at my location. We both started yelling for Chris to give us an update on his location but he did not respond. Josh and I both became very concerned and we had just about decided to go looking for him but then we heard some sloshing about and Chris’ flashlight shinning back and forth on the walls ahead - Chris was ok.

Once out of the cave, we saw that Chris was covered in orange mud (orange due to the metals in the mine rusting). He had also lost his sandals somewhere along his exploration - he said that he could not feel his feet due to them being numb from the cold. So inorder to get him back to the cabin which was back over the ¾ of a mile path that was described earlier, we took his T-shirt and someonelses T-shirt and made him some improvised shoes. We slowly began walking out of the canyon.

We took only one stop along the way where there was another mine. Bradford and I climbed up to the entrance and looked around for a few minutes and then proceeded to climb back down. As I was getting down, I slipped on a rock and busted up my right arm leaving a crimson stain of my own on a mountain rock along that trail - I think I was being humbled since on the previous day all the guys were exclaiming about my climbing prowess even going as far to call me the “mountain man.” We eventually made it back to the cabin.

After lunch that day, we asked Gary if there was something that he would like to do as he had not been able to participate earlier. So after lunch, we bowed to Gary’s request to visit the town of RedRiver and to do some exploration of the little shops that fill the town. While this was not a dangerous adventure, it did yield many rewards. Our visit to town started with a wonderful theatrical presentation of an old-west shoot out. The acting was,,,, well,,,, umm,,,, just a notch below Broadway but we all enjoyed their rather hilarious presentation.

We went in several shops from there and then found ourselves in the art studio of Kenneth Wyatt (K.Wyatt is the artist who painted to apostles of Jesus whose prints can be seen at the 3rd floor of the Prestonwood classroom area). And what was so amazing was that Mr. Wyatt was there in his studio that day (I have been coming here for many years and have only seen him there on one other occasion). Now Mr. Wyatt is a strong Christian and used to be a circuit minister in west Texas so our conversation quickly moved from his art to that of a more spiritual nature. We talked about why we were up here and we told him that the girls of our church were having a retreat this weekend so we guys went to have our own. He quickly corrected us and told us that we were not to “retreat” as christians but we have been called tp “advance” from that point we began speaking of our trip as the NewMexico Mens Advance. He then told us a story of an military veteran who had been decorated 34 times and how he had won 3 purple hearts for wounds obtained in combat. The story began by speaking of how much the veteran hated guns but when faced with the dilemma of a personal nature such as a Muslim saying that he was going to kill his wife that he might end up getting a gun. Now I’m not exactly sure how we ended up in a geopolitical conversation but it was really remarkable to have the opportunity soak up deep wisdom from a man of such remarkable talent. We each walked out of the studio feeling a little wiser and a bit more joyful in seeing such a strong man of faith using his talents to minister to the far reaches of the world with his paintings.

Afterwards, we visited the Old Tymer restaurant. We each had a wonderful meal and praised the Lord for the fun we had experienced so far. After eating, I took the guys to see a scenic overlook of the highest mountain in NM and we then returned to the cabin. Luis then led us in a fine devotional on the idea of unity in Christ. We each shared how we need unity for effectiveness in ministry and how we need to work to build unity between ministries inorder for God to be most glorified. Following our time of learning from one another, we played yet another round of Settlers - I am sure that a game of world domination brought much glory to the Lord.


Sunday:

Sunday brought us many blessings. That morning we got up and headed off to church at the town’s community house where they hold a non-denominational church service every week. We got there early and in usual fashion we got out of our cars singing praise songs. Once inside we met Harold, the leader of the service. His wife was playing the piano and we soon joined her in sing various hymns from the hymnals laid out on the pews. Harold enjoyed our singing so much that he asked us back that night to perform two songs for the weekly sing-song (a prayer and praise time). We were all pumped at being asked to do this so that afternoon, we spent at least at least an hour choosing and practicing the two songs that we were going to perform.

We chose to sing Blessed assurance and I’ll Fly Away. The evening soon approached and we traveled back to the community house. We met up with Harold and his wife again and spent some practice time with the piano. After the practice time, Harold then asked us to further join in the church service by asking me, Chris, Josh, and Brian to help be deacons and take up the offering for the church - He also asked Josh to lead the offertory prayer. It was overwhelming that God placed us there to fill in those spots in this small town church. So the time finally came for the service to begin and the songs were starting to play. Brian was asked to play guitar for accompaniment with the piano at the beginning of the service - his fingers played like a singing bird as the notes lifted everyone’s hearts. Harold then called us up for our first song. All of us jumped out of our seats ready to sing but then Harold said that he only wanted a duet for this song. It rather confused us and we were distraught in that we had only practiced things as a group. So Bradford and I said we would be the designated singers and we climbed on the stage to sing Blessed Assurance. We sang as well as could be expected considering the circumstances but we were very disappointed in thinking that we were not going to be singing as a group.

We sat through a few songs wondering if the group would get to sing. And then the chance arrived! Harold asked the entire group to sing- he named us the 7 Joyful Voices That Look Up - we began to sing our star piece I’ll Fly Away with Brian playing guitar in the background. And that one song was not enough for the crowd as they asked used to sing another song for them (the crowd actually was the largest crowd of the summer with over 100 people in attendance!). Now we were very much the 7 Joyful Voices but the only reason we were looking up was to pray to the Lord to give us the right key to sing - needless to say the Lord was glorified in our efforts.

After the service, we all went to the grocery store to get the things we needed to complete our trip - well we thought we all went to the grocery store as we later figured out that we had left Bradford at the church - we quickly went to pick him up and plugged our ears to hear his explosive words of rebuke. We then returned to the cabin and dived into a wonderful devotional by Brian regarding the evidence of Christ based upon the historical prophesies in the old testament. We then spent our last evening together in a deep season of prayer. We turned the lights out and had Brian play his guitar for a bit and then had some worship music playing softly in the background. Over the course of an hour, we each talked privately with the Lord and then expressed our prayers vocally with the others. Each of us were emotionally spent after these events and each of us grew spiritually in our walk with Jesus. It was great this evening when Gary who had questioned why we needed to pray so much on the first day beckoned for us to have more prayer time this evening.


Monday:

All the guys left this morning returning to Dallas in the evening.