Stories from the Fly: Beyond the beginning

By Ben Creelman

Many people ask us why we do it.  Many people are bewildered why we return, put our lives on hold, and put ourselves into situations where we aren’t sure if its sweat, rain or both that is dripping down our foreheads.  The real sadness is when we start asking ourselves these same questions, and we can’t remember the answers.  I have been blessed to be involved with Beyond in one way or another for the last few years. Even with this continuity of service, sometimes I question the sacrifice.   Well this week I was reminded that the answer lies in the McKinley Fly.

The fly isn’t pretty.  It makes one think that somewhere out there roaming the highways is a circus that has lost the top of one of its tents.  In wind storms the fly acts more like a parachute than a weather break.  Its stated purpose is to repel the rains, but often the condensation that forms inside its walls can rivals the persistent drizzle outside.   But it was within this square-ish sanctuary that I was reminded of why we travel into the waves, forests, storms and sunsets of British Columbia.

Mountain 10-day this year was the ideal training trip.  Rope systems were set up, crevasses were jumped into, and the unending oral tradition of guiding was handed down to the wide eyed first years.  But almost as if by clockwork, when the day was wrapped up and camp set, the clouds would unleash torrents of rain sending everyone scurrying into the fly for the serving of dinner, studying of scripture, and telling of life stories. 

The time spent in the fly this week was the same as any other trip that ventures out at Beyond—but its context was different.  I knew that the guides sitting around me weren’t hesitantly emptying their hearts in a once in a life time chance at vulnerability, they were emptying their hearts in preparation.  They were preparing for a summer of modeling vulnerability.  They were like Peter getting out of the boat to walk amidst the waves of their own lives in hopes of meeting Christ…so that they might lead others to Him.  These were stories of fear, joy, brokenness, laughter, and abandonment—stories of life.  But the beautiful thing was they were all unfinished stories.  It seemed as if the men and women surrounding me in the fly were not telling these stories as an end all explanation of what locks them into who they are, but rather as a setting of the stage in eager anticipation of Christ showing up this summer--in their lives.

Redemption is the part of the story of life—for our participants, for our leaders, and for ourselves.  Ten-day set the stage in a mighty way.  It will undoubtedly be a full tough summer just like it has been every other summer at Beyond.  But the guides on the mountain and sea have walked into vulnerability, humility, and hope.   

The summer is in full swing... and new stories are being written.

And it begins...

Max and the Base Camp crew.  Photo Credit: Stacie Murray

Greetings from the beautiful Beyond base camp. We are just finishing up our 10-day training period, and things have been chugging along smoothly. We are in the process of building a large extension to our barn that will provide us much more shelter when it rains. We have also constructed a new campsite, built desks for the red house, organized the equipment storage, and done the typical all-camp cleanup tasks to have Beyond looking picture-perfect for campers who come in on Saturday. We have been incredibly blessed with a hardworking team that fits together to form a loving, Christ-centered family. Each staff person and guide brings a joyful uniqueness to the table, expressing characteristics of different walks of life and quite different hometowns. We have our native Canadians, like John—who wears suspenders and a belt over his red flannel shirt (seriously); our southeasterner—including Blythe, Meredith, and myself who are extraordinarily out of our warm element; and we even have our own penguin—Stacie, our phenomenally talented cook who usually spends her summers in Antarctica. But no matter where we come from or what we’re accustomed to, we are all in absolute awe of the beauty of God’s creation in this place. The Spirit is thriving in every nook of the forest and inlet, and is being even more cultivated in the relationships that are already in full bloom here at base camp. We have all been sharing our life stories one by one after meals and doing group devotions every morning; the Lord is preparing each of us for a fruitful, fun, and fantastic summer.

The barn extension. Photo Credit: Stacie Murray

Meanwhile, the guides have been up in the mountains climbing Sun Peak. They spent solid team time getting to know each other, having fellowship, and growing in community just as we did here at base camp. Each of the three teams had great success in the mountains practicing their skills and getting a feel for the trails this year. Please keep all the guides in your prayers this summer- for safety, strength, endurance, energy, and guidance on trips, and that the Lord would be present in content and speak to the heart of every camper during their Beyond experience.

Our beloved sea kayakers are doing wonderfully as well! During their 10-day training they paddled all over the Jervis and Princess Louisa Inlets, stopping at and checking up on campsites along the way. We even had the delight of having them here at base camp one night for dinner and worship. They camped at the Point campsite for the evening and paddled out early the next morning, so we didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time together. Nonetheless, we were ecstatic to see them and to be able to have fellowship and pray over them. They are already out on their first trip, so please keep them in your hearts this week and pray for a very successful journey.

We are all so very excited for campers to begin piling in today (!) and for them to experience the incredible adventure of coming face to face with the Lord. Please keep the hearts of campers in your prayers- that the Lord would do big things during each of the sea kayaking and mountaineering trips. Here at base camp, we would love prayers for energy, provision, health, and a servant’s heart throughout the summer. Also, a few prayers for nice weather would be greatly appreciated by both the base camp staff and all of the guides. 

Beyond- over and out.

Heading out for Ten Day. Photo Credit: Stacie Murray

Spotted from above

Where were you on July 19th, 2010? Were you climbing Mt. Pearkes with Beyond Malibu?  While using Google Earth to prepare for the 2012 summer, we noticed 3 tents setup at the High Terraces campsite on the Mt. Pearkes route.  Was that you?

July 19th, 2010 was a day 2 of week 4 for us at Beyond.  We've done a bit of looking around for other groups but haven't found any yet.  Maybe you can find some.  With the increased resolution of the satellite imagery, you might just find your group taking a lunch break or setting up camp. 

If you open this file (Beyond Malibu Base Camp) with Google Earth, you'll find our Base Camp.  From there, you're on your own.  We've had a lot of fun exploring the mountains and inlets around Beyond with this program, we hope you will too. 

--If you don't already have Google Earth, its a fun program and can be downloaded free here:  earth.google.com/.

Purpose for the Summer

Beyond Malibu Guide Staff 2012

This post is by Cliff DeMastus.  He is a second-year guide this year and a total rock star. This is his take on this summer's mission statment.  Please pray for Cliff and the rest of the staff as they head up the inlet this week to settle in for a summer of service.

In our first training weekend, the ten returning guides compiled a mission statement to serve as a focus for the rest of the summer.  Acquiring and collaborating over ten different visions for how we ought to approach the summer was definitely a tedious process.  In the end we finally agreed on one statement, which had some amazing attributes, many of which we discovered post-compilation.  I hope and pray that our mission statement will be something we return to again and again throughout the summer and that it aligns our hearts to a posture of service, gratitude, and glory for God.  What follows is the mission statement, its outline, and an explanation of the three components.

With God as our strength and song, recognizing we are poor in spirit, we will be stewards of Christ’s light and love.

As one navigates through the mission statement it covers three arenas.  It first speaks to who God is which is our strength and song.  Next it declares who we are which is poor in spirit.  Finally after proclaiming who God is and recognizing our current state, we identify what we will do in response, stewarding the light and love of Christ.

Strength and Song
We are to serve by the strength that God supplies (I Peter 4:11).  We will toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within us (Colossians 1:29).  He will be our refuge, our rock, our fortress, our salvation as we trust in Him (Psalm 62:5-8).  He is also our song, our source of joy in the highs and lows of the summer (Habakkuk 3:18-19).  We will recognize Him in our and the participants’ "a-ha" moments (Ephesians 1:17-18).  God is the composer of the melody that is the tune of our lives (Exodus 15:1-21).

Poor in Spirit
As the first beatitude shows us (Matthew 5:3), it is important for us to reach a humble state, to acknowledge and accept our need for Jesus because we are human, we are frail, we are imperfect (John 15:5).  We utterly depend upon God.  From the Valley of Vision’s The Broken Heart, “Give me perpetual broken-heartedness, keep me always clinging to thy cross, flood me every moment with descending grace, open to me the springs of divine knowledge, sparkling like crystal, flowing clear and unsullied, through my wilderness of life.”

Light and Love
Stewarding the light and love of Christ speaks to our responsibility to God’s creation, not only in the natural world (Genesis 2:15) but also to each other with the grace found in the Gospel (I Peter 4:10).  We are to use our gifting to bring God glory (I Corinthians 10:31), sharing the Good News that is a light in the darkness and the source of all love.

With God as our strength and song, recognizing we are poor in spirit, we will be stewards of Christ’s light and love.

A Successful Training Season

Eating lunch. Lovin' the sun.

You’ll have to forgive me for my total failure in keeping this blog up to date.  It has been a super busy training season this year.  This past weekend we had our fourth and final pre-season training for our 2012 staff.  For me, it was my seventh time attending snow weekend in as many years.  That’s fourteen days total at Artist’s Point just outside of the Mt. Baker ski area.  Of those fourteen days, exactly three of them have been sunny.  In fact, I would say that fewer than five of those days have had a visibility of more than fifty yards.  As miserable as a rainy white-out can be, it’s actually great for our guides to have some experience in the those mountain conditions. 

The view.

This year we had the best of both worlds.  We hiked in Saturday morning and set up camp in bluebird conditions.  The mountain guides spent nearly six hours that afternoon throwing themselves down a snowy hillside (and self-arresting), digging anchors in the soft snow, and practicing the subtleties of the bucket and boot-axe belays.  It was absolutely perfect weather.  Sunburns were the only cause for discomfort.  We even finished off the evening singing God’s praises while the setting sun cast a soft alpenglow on our 360 view. Magic.

This is from All-Staff weekend three weeks ago.

The next morning we woke up to dark skies and imminent rain.  We hastily packed up our gear, roped up (just because), and headed back down to the parking lot for a little crevasse rescue, you know on all of the crevasses surrounding the Mt. Baker ski area parking lot.  About halfway through our hurk demonstration the skies opened up.  It rained the rest of the day.  We were cold and wet for the next six hours.  Then we just got in the cars and left.  It was awesome.

It really was the perfect cap to four great training weekends.  Our guide staffs and base camp staff this year are rock solid.  It’s going to be a great summer.  We head up the inlet in a little over two weeks.  We would love your prayers for our staff and our trips as we spend an adventurous summer in pursuit of God’s work.

Farewell to Friends

Gill and Lynda Fuller

This week we begin our pre-summer base camp work weekends.  The spring is a great time for us to spruce things up and make the major improvements.  This weekend we’re working on our NEW BARN EXTENSION (more on that later). 

For all of our off-season (fall, winter, spring) projects we work closely with and depend a lot on the service of Malibu Club staff.  For almost ten years Gill and Lynda Fuller have been serving Malibu Club, and us, faithfully.  Now they are moving on. Last Friday marked their last day in the inlet and they will be greatly missed.

Lynda ran the laundry and housekeeping for Malibu Club.  She was always tremendously helpful and gracious to Beyond staff as we raided her workspace every week to wash our smelly smelly laundry.  She also did a lot of work serving our staff during these spring work weekends.

Gill was head of Malibu Club maintenance. He helped us solve innumerable problems every summer, gave us access to his shop and extra materials, and was always available to help us with transportation issues.  Both Gill and Lynda have an incredible ability to serve the kids, leaders, and staff of both Malibu Club and Beyond Malibu.

Gill and Lynda, we will miss you a great deal.  We want to recognize your faithful and invaluable service these past ten years.  We send you our blessings and prayers as you continue to pursue lives of service beyond the inlet.

We Need More Staff!

We have hired a stellar guide staff and base camp staff for Beyond Summer 2012. To give a snap shot, the first year women guides will blow your mind with awesomeness and Jeff the jukebox will be back rockin’ the guitar. Our maintenance staff is ready to maintain, and our guy Nate from Wisconsin is taking up the reigns as the assistant cook in the kitchen this year. But here’s the thing. We still have some serious vacancies and we need all the help we can get filling them.

For starters we are still looking for a Head Cook– you’d get to work with Nate– and a Boat Driver. The Boat Driving position requires a special certification so we’re looking for someone who’s willing to hold that spot down for this summer and next summer.

Next up are our coordinator positions: Guest Services and Base Camp (formerly Female and Male Base Camp coordinators). These are base camp leadership positions so if you know how to get things done and know how to get other people to get things done (or know someone who does), you should definitely look into one of these positions. We like to have a balance men and women on our leadership team so we usually hire a lady for the Guest Services Coordinator and a guy for the Base Camp Coordinator, just so you know. Whoever takes these spots will be joining our Food Service Coordinator Amanda, from Virginia, on the leadership team.

Last but definitely not least, we are still on the hunt for two (a lady and a guy) Guide Team Leaders to join Amanda and Co. on leadership. These positions require a hefty amount of previous Beyond experience– like two years as a Beyond guide– and some pretty exceptional leadership skills. We’ve perused all of the usual subjects but feel like we’re forgetting some people. If you are or know some people who fit the bill, we’d love it if you or they were brought to our attention.

Check out our website for more detailed job descriptions and an application. Don't hesitate to call us (206-525-0791) with any questions or suggestions. Our first training weekend begins in exactly one week. We are so pumped for the start of this new season and we’d love it if our leadership team could join us as soon as possible. Be praying for us please.