A cat can never be completely satisfied with the indoor life. We have to watch our doors every time they are opened. In spite of our constant vigilance, she slips out occasionally, like a gray shadow. All other activity comes to a halt and we turn into cat hunters. She knows she’s the prey. It usually doesn’t take long to capture our little runaway and bring her back into benevolent captivity. Her eyes gleam with dim remembrance of a feral life and she resumes her haunting of the doors.
I’ll probably release this post into the wild in the morning.
After leaving Big Bog State Park, it wasn’t a long drive to Franz Jevne SP and we knew that the 1.3 mile hike wouldn’t take too long. On our way there, for the first time ever, I actually looked at reviews of the park on google maps. Lots of people posted photos and short reviews – I hadn’t noticed that feature before. In general everyone loved this little state park, the smallest one in Minnesota. But I was glad we hadn’t camped there because it looked like the bathrooms were all primitive and there were no showers. Good to know. Apparently, it’s a great park for fishing, though, if that’s what you want.
At last we came to Franz Jevne State Park, the final park to be visited and hiked on this particular trip. I wish I could tell you something about the man, Franz Jevne, after whom the park was named. All I know is that his family donated the land for the park in 1967. It’s strange to think of his name being used for the park, and then after some time goes by, only the name remains. The man, Franz Jevne, is gone. I found some information about his son, Franz Jevne Jr., though – he was born in 1913 in International Falls, so I’m pretty sure it’s the right family. That was a bit of a rabbit trail. Now that I think of it, maybe Junior is the Franz Jevne!
All the hikes we’d done so far on this trip had been fairly level so I hadn’t always needed the hiking pole, but Kris suggested I bring it along on this one, thinking the terrain might be more hilly. He was right.
The trail was narrow with lots of ups and downs. By this time we weren’t seeing a lot of new and interesting foliage, so there weren’t as many photos taken or plants identified. The trail goes along one side of the Rainy River, which forms another border with Canada. We didn’t see much of the river after the first part of the hike since the tree growth by the trail was so dense.
Those are Canadian trees across the river, just so you know.
This was another out and back hike instead of a loop. There were some tree stumps here and there and my observant husband noticed that on the inside of one stump a lot of the plant matter had gone, but you could still see where some of the small twigs that had grown through the bark were still there. Hard to explain, so here’s a photo.
When we got to the place where we’d be turning around, there was a nice picnic table to take a moment’s rest. We were uphill from the river and there was no good way to get down there, so we didn’t.
On the way back it began to rain, a nice sun shower. It was a very humid day, so we didn’t mind getting a little wet. Felt good!
As we made our way back, we saw one of the rangers coming toward us toting a chain saw. He stopped and told us that he needed to take care of a downed tree on the path (which we’d seen). He was an older fellow, maybe 70 years old. I was pretty impressed that he was still so active. Maybe he was thinking the same thing when he saw us.
We saw a sign with the word “Mishe-Nahma” on it, so after we got done, we looked it up on our phones. It means “King of Fishes,” and is in reference to sturgeons, which many people had mentioned fishing for there. Now you know!
Contrary to my Eeyore-ish predictions that I might not make it through the hikes this week, it all went well. I’ve really noticed a difference to my stamina since I started lap swimming again in March. We added up our cumulative hiking miles and it came to 180. We only have four more state parks and 17 more hiking miles to go to finish what we started in July of 2018! Can you believe it?
Before leaving for home, we stopped by Voyageur’s National Park so we could get our NP passport booklet stamped. Very efficient of us, I must say.
“Take me home, country roads…”
On the way home, we listened to the John Denver album, “Back Home again.” It’s good road trip music – hit the spot for us.
Knee score: 5 out of 10.
I think the axe may fall on this post in the morning.
Little Girl Holding A Ball. It could be the title of an old painting. I found this slide among my mother’s things and took a photo of it with light shining from the background. It’s a cheap way to make a photo from a slide, but I don’t necessarily recommend it.
There’s so much to enjoy about this photo, in spite of the fact that the the quality has degraded over the years. The colors are still vibrant and it almost looks like a faux-watercolor painting. I like it. The fact that the little girl is me in no way influences my regard for it, other than to make it more personal.
I don’t remember that moment; I don’t remember being that little girl. The colors wash over me and fill me with nostalgia.
The Big Bog State Recreation Area has a large office and a very nice campsite. Kris felt that a great injustice was done in not promoting Big Bog SRA to State Park status and said he’d devote the rest of his life to making it happen. Ha ha! This SRA was established in the year 2000 to help develop a tourist attraction in the area after the Red Lake walleye population crashed in the 1990’s, devastating the local economy. Big Bog is near Upper Red Lake, but it’s named after the 500-square mile peat bog, which is the largest bog in the lower 48 states.
By the time we got to the Big Bog campsite, the rain had stopped, so we were able to get set up in the sun and start drying some of our stuff off. The campground is in the southern unit of the SRA and our site was right next to the slow-moving Tamarac River, where I found more reflections and a lily pad flower.
After we put up our tent, two friendly chipmunks came around. They’ve clearly learned that humans are sources of food droppage. They kept going under our tent, which was disturbing. What if they did that at night while we were trying to sleep? What if we accidentally stepped on one while it was under the tent? Many unpleasant chipmunk-under-tent scenarios played out in my mind, so I had to quit thinking about it. One of them came into the screen tent while we were reading and approached us boldly. What if it comes too close and runs up my leg? I’ve got major chipmunk issues now.
We packed up early the next morning, having decided to do the 2-mile Big Bog hike before breakfast. Yes, even before Kris’s early morning coffee! The bog portion of the SRA is in the northern unit, which was about 15 miles north of us, so it was 7:55 a.m. by the time we started out. It was 68 degrees – not too hot – but boy, was it close and sticky! In order to get to the bog walk, you have to do a short jaunt part-way around Ludlow Pond until you see the grand entrance to the bog.
We had the bog all to ourselves – no other humans in sight. The construction of the boardwalk was really amazing. It boggled the mind (see what I did there?) to think of the work involved in setting up the mile-long pathway in the swampy area. The boardwalk was completed in 2005.
You would think a bog wouldn’t be interesting, but you’d be wrong. Every so often as we walked along, we’d come across plaques with information about the bog, what kinds of flowers, plants and trees we’d see, the birds and animals that inhabited it, and how the boardwalk was constructed. We also read about when the government appropriated the land back in the early 1900’s and gave parcels out, hoping people could tame the bog and make good farmland out of the area. The Mighty Bog just opened its mouth and laughed at the hubris of man. That’s why it’s still a bog.
Kris was going back and forth taking photos and identifying various things with the much-lauded Picture This App. I was hoping we’d get a glimpse of the exotic carnivorous pitcher plant! The first thing that caught my eye, however, was cotton grass – lovely stuff.
Meanwhile, Kris was enthused about all the tamarack trees. Once I got a good look at one, I could understand the appeal. It’s a conifer that’s not an evergreen, so it drops its needles in the fall.
We also found and identified a plant called “Labrador tea,” which turns out to be a natural remedy for diarrhea. Good to know, although one hopes that this would not be needed in the middle of a large peat bog.
At last we came upon the pitcher plant. I took gobs of photos, thinking I might not see another one, but as we went along we saw so many of them that it became rather ho hum, which didn’t stop me from taken even MORE pictures.
Another charming little plant was the Bog Laurel. (I wrote it sloppily in my notebook as we were going along and later it looked like I had written Bob Laurel. What a weird name for a plant, I thought, until I realized my error.)
We were also hoping to find another carnivorous plant called the sundew, but it must not be the season for them. What is it with bogs and carnivorous plants? At least they don’t eat humans, like mosquitoes do. (Insert bitter thoughts here.)
Animals that inhabit the bog range from the terrifyingly large moose (which we didn’t see, thank God) down to the adorably cute little bog lemming. I’m really taken with the whole idea of bog lemmings. If I had the artistic skills of Beatrix Potter, I would start a book series featuring these.
At the end of the boardwalk, we had emerged from the humid claustrophobia of all the trees and plants out into the open where there was a nice cool breeze. It’s a mile out to the end and then you just turn around and go back again.
As usual, my plan is to make short work of the return journey on these “out-and-back” hikes because I’ve already seen everything and don’t need to stop for photos. It’s amusing how I can fool myself on that every single time, but how was I to know that I would spot a dead bog lemming on the way back? Beatrix Potter sometimes used dead animals to make her sketches, so I had to get a photo just in case it would inspire me.
And also, how was I to know that a trio of interesting birds would come along and pose for me? (I took about 15 photos but they didn’t understand the concept of showing me their best side.)
Finally, one turned around
Or that one of those flighty, but beautiful dragonflies would sit still long enough for me to take a photo? Life is unpredictable.
When we got back to the bog entrance, I had this idea that the rest of the way around Ludlow Pond was tediously long, so I turned right to go back the way we came. “Lynn, we need to go the other way,” my husband said. “Oh no, I’m not – I’ll meet you back at the car,” I said determinedly. “But we’ve already come more than halfway around Ludlow Pond,” he informed me, “You’ll be walking farther if you go that way.” Have I mentioned before that map reading is not my strength? Good grief!
Knee score: 1 out of 10. Very level ground.
Unless a bog lemming tells me not to, I’ll probably delete this in the morning.
As I said before, we had to pack up our stuff in the rain when we left Hayes Lake State Park. Those of you who have done this know what I’m talking about. It’s not the ideal way to break down camp, but needs must. (That’s the way they used to say things in the 1800’s – quaint, isn’t it?). With our soggy belongings tucked into the car and the car-top carrier, we drove up to Warroad to wait out the rain, not wanting to do the next hike at Zippel Bay State Park until it stopped raining. The weather app kept promising times when the rain system would be past us FOR SURE, but the weather system itself proved that things aren’t always that predictable. After some hot drinks and some reading downtime, we decided to go to ZBSP and take our chances.
Zippel Bay State Park is way, way, up north in Minnesota, hugging part of the shore of Lake of the Woods, which comprises part of the boundary between the U.S. and Canada. When we got to the park, it was still raining, but by the time we got to the place where the trail started, it had stopped. Thank you, Lord!
The first part of the 1.5 mile trail was literally just walking along the beach, a first for us. The lake had a misty look about it, so the atmosphere was quite enchanting.
I picked up a stone that I thought looked like an arrowhead. I’ve always wanted to find an arrowhead and this might the closest I get to it.
We had decided to wear our full rain gear just in case it started raining again, and it’s a good thing we did. Once we came off the beach to walk on the inland portion of the trail, the mosquitos scented us out like insect bloodhounds and were hot on our trail the whole time after that. Our rain coats are made from strong stuff – no mosquito can pierce it. Of course, they figured out fairly quickly that our faces and hands were still fair game. Captain Picaridin helped, but didn’t eliminate the threat completely.
We sped things up a bit to keep ahead of our pursuers, so once again, we didn’t really stop much to identify flowers and plants. This was one of those “out and back again” trails where you just retrace your steps once you get to the end.
We tried to avoid the inland portion of the trail on the way back but discovered that you couldn’t actually do the whole trail on the beach. Oh well. I saw a little snake on our way back and whipped out my phone to get a photo, but the snake was on to me and all I got was the tail end.
Look carefully – it’s like “where’s Waldo?” except you’re looking for a snake tail. You can do it!
When we finished, Kris wanted our selfie to include the lake, and even the ship that was way out on the water and looked tiny from where we stood. Fortunately, we just couldn’t get that ship in the frame with us. And why is that fortunate, you ask? Kris posited that if it was a drug running ship, they’d have been watching us through telescopes and if we’d caught their illegal activity accidentally with our camera, they’d have had to set their dogs after us and silence us. What a fate we barely missed! (I’m not the only one in the family with an active imagination, you see.)
We didn’t see anything, we promise!
Five hikes done out of the seven planned for this week. Yay! Next stop: Big Bog State Recreation Area, where we’ll be camping for the night and doing the hike in the morning.
Knee Score: 2 out of 10. Short, mostly level hike, but sand is tricky to walk on. Plus we went off script and had to do a little scrambling around on large rocks.
I’ll probably delete this with my raincoat on in the morning.
Continuing stories of the camping/hiking trip we took in June.
We left the idyllic realm of Lake Bronson and made our way over to Hayes Lake State Park. Like Lake Bronson, Hayes Lake was a created lake, but the way the park pamphlet describes it, it sounds like a government takeover. “…one of the first developments was to create Hayes Lake by impounding the north fork of the Roseau River.” What? You can impound a river fork? Also, “the land around the lake was once a collection of private homesteads that has been returned to the forest.” Was the forest asking for it back? Smells like eminent domain to me, but that’s not a discussion that falls into the purview of this narrative. So, back to business.
Our weather apps informed us solemnly that rain was on the horizon and we wanted to get our campsite set up before it came. Just as we were sitting down in the screen tent after getting everything up, the rain started to come down. We exchanged triumphant looks, but we triumphed too soon. We discovered something interesting now about our new screen tent. It kept out the insect riff raff, but not the rain, sadly. It has a canopy at the top so we moved our chairs toward the middle in the hopes of staying dry. Hope got soaking wet, so we abandoned ship and retreated to the tent where the tent fly kept the inside nice and dry. We stayed in our little ark for awhile, reclining and reading on our cots – not a bad way to spend the afternoon, actually. By the time suppertime came around, the skies were relatively clear and our excellent chef got to work. He also does the dishes while we’re camping, so I can’t recommend him highly enough. Sadly for you, he’s taken.
A couple little squirrels entertained us while we ate, chittering loudly, chasing each other and occasionally looking like they wanted to come into the screen tent where they might get tasty tidbits. We spent a surprising amount of time considering what names to give them, surprising considering the small length of time we’d be in relationship with them. We tossed around a few ideas: “Al” for “Squirr-al,” or just “Squittle,” which is the way Brian Jacques pronounced “squirrel” when reading aloud one of his Redwall audiobooks. I heard one squirrel say to the other “Humans are weird.” It is so.
“Don’t call me Al”
All that lovely rain had given birth (so it seemed) to an army of mosquitos by which I was plagued all night in our tent, so I didn’t get much sleep and was decidedly grumpy in the morning. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward; I went into silent and moody mode. We started out on the hike around 6:00 a.m. and it began to rain. Perfect! I always appreciate it when circumstances line up with my mood, so I leaned heavily into the sense that life had wronged me terribly.
Poor Kris attempted a little light conversation, but I was still invested in a bad attitude, so we finished the hike in silence. Sometimes I think my husband ought to receive extra crowns in heaven for his longsuffering with my occasional moodiness.
Eventually, I came out of my funk (the Holy Spirit having been tugging on my conscience), made things right with Kris and was restored to the general sense of cheer that usually characterizes me. We packed up in the pouring rain, but I had a much lighter heart. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…
As for the hike, I took very few photos and hardly looked around at anything, my primary goal being to get the two-mile hike done as quickly as possible. In fact, for only the second time since we started these hikes, we both completely missed the password and had to ask one of the park rangers later.
I need to absolve Hayes Lake State Park of any wrongdoing, but I could hardly wait to shake the dust of it off my feet.
Knee score: 1-2 out of 10. Very level trail.
This blog post has wronged you terribly – I shall delete it in the morning.
I grew up with these salt and pepper shakers and I grew up knowing they were called “Shmoos.” I had a complete lack of curiosity as to why we called them that. It was as solid a piece of information in my mind as anything else that I was given a name for.
Adulthood came along and I left the Shmoos behind and entered into a Shmoo-less world. If the topic ever came up, nobody had ever heard of a Shmoo. Have you?
Nevertheless I had a great deal of affection for these little salt and pepper shaker Shmoos and would occasionally look for their kin in antique stores. Nada.
My mom just moved into a much smaller space, so my siblings and I went through all her stuff. You know the drill: claim, donate or throw away. I sent my sister’s boyfriend into the kitchen and said “We won’t want to keep any of that stuff – just pack it all up to donate.” If the Schmoos could have let out a squeal of alarm at this disregard, I’m sure they would have. Fortunately, my brother overheard this, went and opened a random cabinet and said, “Are you sure you don’t want any of this? What about the Shmoos?”
I’m sorry, dear Shmoos, that I forgot about you in these intervening years. You are now mine.
For those of you with a lively sense of curiosity, a Shmoo (I learned) was a cartoon character. Here’s a quote from our good friend, Internet: “The shmoo is a fictional cartoon creature created by Al Capp; the character first appeared in the comic strip Li’l Abner on August 31, 1948. The popular character has gone on to influence pop culture, language, geopolitics, human history, and even science.”
Well, if it’s so popular, how come nobody seems to have heard of it? I’d be interested to know how this humble, rotund creature influenced geopolitics, human history and even science – seems like a pretty bold claim to me.
(Continuing notes from our camping and hiking trip in June.)
Our last stop for the day was Lake Bronson State Park, where we’d camp for the night. We were trying out a new screen tent that promised quick and easy set up. It mostly lived up to its promise.
Our campsite was right by the lake, but with plenty of shade, a perfect set up and there were no bugs. I kept seeing groups of pelicans on the other side of the lake, but they refused to come any closer for better photos. I settled for some nice reflection photos instead.
We also had a resident chipmunk that Kris nicknamed “Chippy.” Chippy was evidently used to getting handouts because he had no hesitations about coming over to us with an expectant air.
“Please, sir, I want some more.”
We had a late supper of cheeseburgers and chips with a dessert of dark chocolate Oreos. Has anyone noticed that the cookie aisle is exploding with new Oreo options? Goodness gracious! Pretty soon the Oreo contingent will be swaggering around the cookie aisle like bullies and shoving all the 98-pound weakling cookies out of their way.
Way up north the sun doesn’t set until after 9:30 p.m., a good signal for bedtime. We compared notes when we woke up the next morning around 6:00 a.m. Both of us slept really well (I have to give ibuprofen some credit for that) and were ready to tackle the 3.4 mile hike while it was still cool. We ended up hitting trail by 7:00. It was 63 degrees, just right for hiking. I doused myself with some Picaridin – you never know when you might get ambushed by mosquitos, but we hadn’t really seen any so far.
It was a lovely, fresh morning. The red-winged blackbirds were singing their “Oka-LEE” song as if to cheer us along the way. The wide trail beckoned us forward and I could almost hear Cat Stevens singing:
Morning has broken like the first morning Blackbird has spoken like the first bird Praise for the singing, praise for the morning Praise for them springing fresh from the world.
We kept up a good clip, but also stopped fairly often to identify and photograph some of the flowers and plants we were seeing: false indigo, mugwort sagebrush, spreading dog bane (AKA Indian hemp or bitterroot), and the beautiful pink prairie rose. After identifying that last one, my husband said, “You are my Prairie Rose,” to which there was no other reply for me but to say, “You are my False Indigo.” I didn’t have a lot to choose from. He took that in stride and responded that he was my False Inigo. “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.” That Inigo. If you aren’t familiar with that quote…no, that’s no possible. EVERYBODY knows Inigo Montoya.
Prairie RoseFalse IndigoMugwort Sagebrush
We saw Lake Bronson on a regular basis as we walked. Kris had read the park information and told me that Lake Bronson actually used to be a river. The world is filled with marvels, isn’t it? Here was a river minding its own business when somebody dammed it up (a WPA project during the Great Depression) and Lake Bronson emerged. This might not be an origin story that merits being turned into a movie, but it’s not too shabby either.
Let’s take a pause while I quiz my fellow Minnesotans about something very important, something you should have learned in fourth grade. Class, who can tell me what Minnesota’s state flower is? You there, in the back with your hand up, go ahead. That’s right, the Showy Lady’s Slipper! I’ve known this as every good Minnesotan should, but have never actually come across one in the wild…until this hike. There were clusters of these beautiful wild orchids along one section of the path. Most of them were past their prime, but a few late bloomers proudly showed off their showy beauty. Happy sigh.
Showy Lady’s Slipper
There was a nice bench by the shore at some point and as we approached, a heron took off. I managed to get a blurry photo of it winging away. You take what you can get.
We went through a corridor of something I suspected was sumac and since I was reaching that part of the hike during which I no longer want to stop for fear of losing important last-gasp momentum, I tossed off a comment to Kris behind me to see if he could identify it for sure. “It’s smooth sumac!” he responded after taking a photo and checking on Picture This. We love using the Picture This app – it has really brought our hiking to a whole new level.
In fact, after Kris caught up, he stopped me, insisting that I look at something we’d been walking on that he finally decided to identify. “It’s called ‘pussy-toes plantain,’” he informed me delightedly. Well! That calls for celebration, doesn’t it? We found it to be such an entertaining name, that every time we saw a bunch, one of us would crow, “Pussy toes!” just for the sheer pleasure of being able to say it again. This is an unqualified success in the realm of plant naming.
Say it with me: “Pussy Toe!”
Nearing the end of the hike, we came across a small twig suspended invisibly in mid-air, a photo-worthy sight. We couldn’t see the spider web filament, but Kris deduced that a spider nearby was seeing how close we were to it, saying to itself “Fresh meat! Really big prey this time!”
So, although the Eeyore in me had been very uncertain about how all this hiking was going to go, I think the hiking pole helped, as well as the ibuprofen-induced good sleep of the night before. All systems are go for the next four hikes!
After the hike we stayed at Lake Bronson for awhile, ate a leisurely breakfast and enjoyed the great outdoors. Experiences like that are why we really enjoy camping.
Knee Score: 3 out of 10. Long hike, but fairly level, with one major dip down and back up.
A side note: at one point I saw a mosquito come near my arm, but instead of landing and helping itself to my delicious blood, it flew away. Captain Picaridin, I salute thee!
I’ll probably have my False Indigo delete this in the morning for his Prairie Rose.
After months of delay, I finally painted the tiles in our kitchen. Thanks to my daughter, Ruth, for helping me pick a color scheme, and to my friend Teresa for giving me her expertise on how I needed to do the job.
If that looks to you like an awkward angle for painting, you’re right. My neck was killing me!
I learned as I went along, so the last tiles look a lot better than the first ones. Had I been thinking strategically about this, I would have started over behind all the coffee pots where the tiles won’t be seen. But I wasn’t, so I didn’t. This is also why I don’t play chess.
So happy to be done with that project!
I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless my neck is still stiff.
If you want to start at the beginning of this series, here you go: Adventures Part 1
How do you feel about evangelism, i.e. sharing the gospel? Before my conversion, I resented Christians who wanted to “push” their views on me. As an unbeliever on whom the Holy Spirit was beginning to work, my response was to push Him away. I didn’t want to hear about sin. I didn’t want to hear about Jesus and His death on the cross. Once, when someone on campus handed me a gospel tract, I went to the nearest trash basket and threw it away in front of the person who gave it to me. Take that! I wanted Christians and their Christ just to leave me alone. But they didn’t, and He didn’t, thanks be to God.
Now that I was on the other side of the fence, I was filled with a zeal to pass on this glorious good news. I realized it wasn’t about getting brownie points with God, it wasn’t about some sort of legalistic list of good works that I could check off. It was about sharing life-giving and life-saving news. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Well, most of us, actually. It’s decidedly intimidating to approach people who might be like I was, with “LEAVE ME ALONE” written all over their faces, body language and in their speech. What we think of as “good news” isn’t often interpreted as such right out of the gate. And people don’t like the feeling that they’re just a project for you, which is the way it can often come across. But sometimes, God has worked ahead of the encounter in such a way as to present you with someone who is primed and ready to hear it.
I found out that the Evangelical Free church to which I was going had an active Evangelism Explosion (EE) program and decided to investigate. EE was started in 1962 by D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. When I became a Christian in 1983, the program was still fairly young and was often very effective. I told the pastor of our church, Pastor Erickson, that I would like to take the EE classes that he taught and signed up with a couple others.
Yes, I still have the original book that I got for the class.
I found out early on that being a part of the class meant not only learning the materials, but also going on visits with members of the EE team. These visits were generated by pew cards that visitors filled out. When I first visited the church as a non-believer, my friend Tamie warned me not to turn in a card unless I wanted a visit from one of these teams. Do you think that was wrong of her to give me that warning? I assure you it was not. I was not the kind of person who would have responded positively to a visit; in fact I would have turned them away at the door and then fumed about their duplicity in getting my contact information through the innocent pew card.
But now here I was, ready to become a member of one of these teams. I don’t remember much about the classes, but the main gist was that we were taught to ask the two classic EE diagnostic questions:
1. Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you can say you know for certain that if you were to die today you would go to heaven?
2. Suppose that you were to die today and stand before God and he were to say to you, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” what would you say?
The point of these questions was to ascertain the spiritual state of a person, as much as one person can do that without knowing the other person’s heart. An uncertain answer to the first question might indicate someone who knew the gospel, but had no assurance, who needed to hear the good news of 1 John 5:11-13: “And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; He who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you may know that you have eternal life.” Your goal in that case was to encourage and strengthen that person in their faith with scriptures, to help them understand that they could have scriptural confidence not only in their eternal destiny, but also in their day to day living by faith in Christ.
The second question was meant to ferret out those who were putting trust in their good works. Someone might answer, “Well, I think I have done more good things than bad things,” Or “I’ve always been a good person, so that’s got to count for something.” We would then take that person through some Bible verses that helped people to see that no one is good enough to get into heaven without being covered by Christ’s life, death and resurrection on their behalf. Salvation is through Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone. So we learned a whole method and approach using the Bible to lead a person to faith in Christ and if a person was open, we’d pray with them. That was the theory anyway.
I enjoyed the classes, but going on the visits made me extremely uncomfortable. We were only supposed to be observing at that point, but I lived in fear that I might be called upon to actually say something. The final exam for the EE class was to be the lead person on an EE visit. Horrors! I don’t remember how I did it, but somehow I convinced Pastor Erickson that I didn’t have time for that (I think I was still in the midst of the dietetic internship). He said that EE made provision for that circumstance and would allow me to go through the presentation with a friend and just record it and send it in. What a relief!
I asked my friend Mary Ann to be my guinea pig for this experiment. She agreed to do it and I came over with my tape recorder. We failed to take into account that we might both get the giggles, which made getting a clean recording extremely difficult. I’d turn on the recorder and we’d start in and get derailed almost instantly with uncontrollable laughter. There was a lot of stopping, rewinding, recording over the bad parts, and starting again. Somehow, we sobered up enough to splice together a fairly cohesive conversation between us and I sent off the tape to the EE headquarters.
Mary Ann and me – I might have been the chief giggling culprit. Sobered up a bit.
I passed the final exam (amazingly) but never went on a bona fide EE visit after that. It just wasn’t for me, or at least that’s how I justified my reluctance then.
That was a time during our culture in which most people had at least been raised in the church and had a somewhat nascent trust in the Bible, even if they didn’t understand it and know it well. Christians and Christianity were still largely seen in a positive light by many people. This was the reason that EE was as successful as it was in those days. It would never work now – we live in a culture that has become Biblically illiterate (even among Christians, sadly), and which views Christians and Christianity in a very negative light. In the late 1990’s Evangelism Explosion re-evaluated its approach, which had become less effective, and decided to revamp their methods to focus on relationship building and discipling new believers. But in its heyday, EE was used in over 20,000 churches, and over 7.25 million people claimed to have to come to Christ through its use. I look back with a little regret that I didn’t muster up the courage to try this at least once with the EE teams at our church.
I’ll probably giggle about this and delete it in the morning.
Old Mill State Park was about an hour’s drive from Red River SRA. I employed the time usefully by trying to get caught up on the many newspapers I haven’t been reading at home. I brought eight of them with me: four down, four to go.
Our favorite state park sign so far!
This park was quite a contrast from the previous one. It was in a much more remote area and we didn’t see another human being the whole time we were on the hike. It was still pretty hot by the time we started out, but this hike would be shorter: 1.4 miles. Should be a piece of cake, right?
The trail was a nice wide mown grass trail, the first part of which was in the shade with a little breeze occasionally wafting by. We saw a sign early on warning of poison ivy. I’m wickedly allergic to the stuff and in spite of seeing photos of it many times, I can never really remember what it looks like. “Leaves of three, let them be,” is completely unhelpful. The last time poison ivy and I met, my face got so swollen, I could have given young children nightmares. I stuck to the middle of the path.
The trail was called “Agassiz Self-Guided Trail” and there were plaques along the way giving interesting information about the area and what we might expect to see. This was all quite lovely – I stopped at each one to read it…until the path came out into the sun.
After that, it was every man to himself. I left Kris way behind me as I hurried through this part which felt hotter than H-E-Double Toothpicks. I didn’t so much as glance at the informative placards as I went by. As for the fauna and flora, it all starts looking the same after awhile. I stopped a couple times to take photos, but in general, my eye was on the prize: re-entry into a shaded area.
I saw one up ahead – yay! It wasn’t so much of a cruel mirage as it was an illusion. When we got up to a fork in the road, I looked wistfully at the path on the right which led into the shade, but our path was to the left, a continuing walk through the furnace.
Well by now, you should know that I have a dramatic streak. It wasn’t all that bad, and shortly after that fateful fork in the road, our faithful blue steed appeared ahead of us, calling out, “Come, enter my home. I have air conditioning!”
Old Mill park is so named because it is “the original site of a water-powered mill built by the Larson family in 1886, as well as a settler’s cabin.” Sadly, you you cannot look forward to seeing photos of these historic sites because although Kris suggested we could drive over to see the buildings, I was really exhausted after two hikes in the hot sun, and certain this would involve more walking, I nixed it. Every party needs a pooper…
Nice park, but kind of tough in the heat of the day. If you are less wimpy than I, (and you most likely are), you’ll enjoy it. As for me, my hip was decidedly unhappy and I wondered if I’d be able to do the remaining 5 hikes.
Knee score: 2 out of 10. Mostly level path.
I’ll prolly delete this in the heat o’ the day tomorrow.
