Trek

I have to admit that Trek was the last thing on my mind.  I knew that I needed to prepare more than we did, and I felt guilty about that.  We just had so much going on.  We were either out of town, or up until 2 am working on the kitchen.  My house was in shambles. So when we were packing for Trek, I felt like I needed it like I needed a hole in my head.

In the end, though, I am glad we went.  We really did have a great time.  I was nervous because it can all come down to who is in your "family", but we had great teenagers.  They were truly awesome kids, who thanked us for every little thing we did, and did everything they could to pitch in and help.

We were assigned to be "Ma" and "Pa" on the handcart trip, and assigned 8 "children" to walk with.  As we were piling out of the buses, I thought we looked rather ridiculous, but three days later, it seemed perfectly natural to walk with hundreds of people in pioneer clothing.  Our family dynamic fell quickly to sarcasm, which suits my husband just fine.  (And me, too some days!)  But it was a good, fun sarcasm, and to be honest, I don't think I heard an actual complaint out of those kids the entire time.

On the first day, we went down a hill that many pioneers mentioned in their journals as being especially tough. Backing a handcart down a hill was more difficult than I thought, but we made it.  Only to be told that the Indian chief (one of our leaders in disguise) said we couldn't cross this spot and had to go back up the hill, or else face his warriors.  (Cue the sarcasm: "I think we should take them.  I've got my pocket knife.  You got your pocket knife?  Yeah, see, we got this.  No need to go back up the biggest hill ever.")  We made it up, only to be told that we could give them two cans of food in exchange for safe passage back down the hill.  That was a really tiring day.

They were all tiring days, actually.  But spending them with great people was worth it.  It ended up being a last hurrah for my husband, who has been working with the youth in the church for years and just switched to work with adults.  He's happy about some parts of the change, but seeing him with those boys gave me an appreciation of how much he enjoyed working with all of the boys over the years.