The Background Story
It all began 26 years ago when a group of teenagers from
Grace Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN left where most of us had spent our
growing up years and ventured to help open The Wilds of the Rockies outside
Denver, CO for their third season of camps.
Most of the 30-40 of us had rarely ventured outside the southeast and
almost none of us had ever traveled to the Western US. After growing up in the mountains, hills, and
forests of Southeast TN, I will never forget the awe of seeing miles and miles
of flat nothing-ness while driving through Kansas. I will never forget the contrasting of the
vast height and rockiness of the Rocky Mountains to the familiar Smoky Mountains
from home. I will never forget the awe of finding a patch
of snow in the hills we hiked near camp.
We, southern teenagers, who rarely saw more than an inch or two of snow at
a time, had the best snowball fight in our lives…in June!
'
 |
| Who wouldn't fall for that face? |
That
trip was also the beginning of the “Ben and Faith” story. Even though we’d gone to the same schools and
church most of our lives and knew of each other, we consider this the trip
where we “met”. The second day of the
trip, I clearly remember seeing Ben standing outside the van my friends and I
had ridden in the day before and thinking…”oh, no”. He was standing there holding the largest
water gun that I had seen so far in my life.
But, it didn’t take long for me to fall for the blond haired blue eyed mischievous
guy who ventured into that blue church van that day. He turned what could have been a long dull
trip into an adventure.
The
long van rides quickly turned into immense fun.
Now, I can’t imagine how Jerome our youth pastor and van driver put up
with us. We had so many marker fights,
shaving cream fights, flour bomb fights, and more! But, maybe he put up with us because he was
in on the mischief as well! There are
pictures of the vans having water gun fights between vans as we drove down the long
empty roads of the west. I know there is
one photo out there of Jerome driving and hanging his body out of the front
window at the same time! The mischievousness did not stop when we left
the vans. The girls vs the guys in the
blue van carried on many tricks on each other.
The girls “rolled” the guys hotel room when they were swimming; the guys
tricked the girls into getting into the van, locked the doors, and threw in a
punctured shaving cream can. We have so
many fun memories from that trip!
Oddly,
the song where we would find inspiration for our oldest daughter’s name came
from that trip. In preparation for the
many hours that we’d spend in the van on that trip, Jerome had made a mixed
tape of his favorite Christian songs. We
heard that tape SO MANY TIMES! There was
one song in particular that we all HATED.
HATED. The song was called “Kyrie”
by the Christian band Glad. Years later when we were pregnant for the
first time Ben and I saw an episode of Jeopardy where one of the contestants
was named Kyrie. Of course we remembered
the song from that trip, did some looking, found out the name meant “Lord” and
fell in love with the name and thought of naming our daughter after our Lord
and Savior.
That
trip was also the beginning of a dream…a dream that we are planning will come
true this summer.
 |
| Can you see Ben getting ready to throw a snowball at Faith? |
| Yep, that's when it all started... |
It all began 26 years ago when a group of teenagers from
Grace Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN left where most of us had spent our
growing up years and ventured to help open The Wilds of the Rockies outside
Denver, CO for their third season of camps.
Most of the 30-40 of us had rarely ventured outside the southeast and
almost none of us had ever traveled to the Western US. After growing up in the mountains, hills, and
forests of Southeast TN, I will never forget the awe of seeing miles and miles
of flat nothing-ness while driving through Kansas. I will never forget the contrasting of the
vast height and rockiness of the Rocky Mountains to the familiar Smoky Mountains
from home. I will never forget the awe of finding a patch
of snow in the hills we hiked near camp.
We, southern teenagers, who rarely saw more than an inch or two of snow at
a time, had the best snowball fight in our lives…in June!
The
long van rides quickly turned into immense fun.
Now, I can’t imagine how Jerome our youth pastor and van driver put up
with us. We had so many marker fights,
shaving cream fights, flour bomb fights, and more! But, maybe he put up with us because he was
in on the mischief as well! There are
pictures of the vans having water gun fights between vans as we drove down the long
empty roads of the west. I know there is
one photo out there of Jerome driving and hanging his body out of the front
window at the same time! The mischievousness did not stop when we left
the vans. The girls vs the guys in the
blue van carried on many tricks on each other.
The girls “rolled” the guys hotel room when they were swimming; the guys
tricked the girls into getting into the van, locked the doors, and threw in a
punctured shaving cream can. We have so
many fun memories from that trip!
