Licht Krieger!

My biggest challenge and my greatest joy, those are the two ways I can describe my team. Both descriptions are very true and what it came down to was this: they were wonderful people, but so incredibly fit. Our fitness levels ranged from mine-a girl who works out by tap dancing-to Dominic, a German 22 year old training for marathons. The first few days, I didn't notice how strong they were, but when our first tour hit, I could feel myself slowly falling to the back of the line. After our first day of hiking where we left last and ended up at our destination quite some time earlier than all the other teams, I asked myself, "Why am I on this team?" I quickly found out I was on this team to learn some lessons. Lessons about humility, strength and joy. We were a team of very distinctly different personalities.

We had our fearless leader, Tony. A man who listens to country music and line dances on Friday nights, but happens to hail from Northern California. He was cynical about everything which caused me to defend my optimism even more than I did before.

There was Karen, our civil engineer from Hamburg, Germany. She taught me how to deeply care for people, always cook with salt and the vital importance of a very good friend.

There was Sarah, a priceless gem. Through thick and thin, there was somehow always a smile on her face. When she had monstrous blisters and when we were camping in the pouring down rain, she somehow managed to keep all of our spirits high.

We lost Jonathan two weeks in due to a dislocated shoulder, but he was an excellent friend from the start. Easy to talk to with a full life behind him and a full life before him. He dressed like an old man and was so utterly proud of it that we too wanted to look just as goofy.

That brings us to dear Celeste. I met her about five seconds after I arrived in my room. She was a vivacious bubble of energy who knew Taurenhof front and back. She was only 19, but carried on conversations that a 25 year old wouldn't dare to attempt. She taught me the beauty of relaxing and enjoying every moment of life.

Dominic...how do I even begin? 22 years old from Southern Germany, but he is already fluent in three languages, has spent a year doing missions work in Africa, has a beautiful voice and ran 12 km in 45 minutes. A phenomenal man, but the most humble person I know. He always hiked in the back of the group so that nobody would have to feel like they were last. He carried my climbing equipment on a day that I couldn't bare the weight. He taught me that it's okay to ask for help.

And Luke, dear wonderful Luke. A Canadian who had been traveling the globe since January, he was just about closing off his trip with these five weeks in Austria. I am so glad he was on our team for many reasons. He embodies the rule of "a time to speak and a time to be silent." Sometimes he would be absolutely silent and other times we could talk forever on the trail about everything big and small.

It was a wonderful team and I'm so glad I was with them. They were always very encouraging, even when I so often doubted myself. They taught me that it's okay to ask for help, to cry when I must and to laugh when I want. I was quickly dubbed "Happy" because even when I should have been so entirely unhappy, there was always laughter mixed with tears. There was something about the combination of the mountains and this wonderful team that brought out the best in me. I came alive when I was with them and it was a true honor to be a part of the Licht Krieger with them.

And in case you are wondering, Licht Krieger means "Warriors of Light" and it has to do with Ephesians 5:8 which says: For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." We did our best to make this ring true as we walked through the mountains together. Step by step, sore muscles and all.

My Happy Place

"Tonight was ultimate peace with the Alps in all directions. Somehow, each day brings a new wonder that I cannot believe. I am challenged beyond my limits, but the peace that comes afterword is perfection." -July 12, 2010: Upward Bound Day 9

The day had been a very long, hot and difficult one for me due to an empty water bottle paired with a steep push to our final destination. This picture was taken that evening after our dinner of sauerkraut and dumplings and in that moment I was filled with peace and wonder. Peace of mind because I had accomplished much on this day. I had hiked quite far with a pack on my back for the first time since I was eight and now here I sat in the middle of the Alps staring at the massive mountain range. But more than peace of mind, I was completely struck by the enormity of this world. This wasn't the first time I had this revelation and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

I was found in this happy place so many times while in Austria. It's a place where I can see the vastness of the world and within that I am able to see the glory of God. Something so often discussed was the difficulty with loving an intangible God. How is it that we can love and believe in a God that we cannot see or hear or touch? Well, moments like this one demand for that question to be rephrased because we can see God. He is in the world that He created and we can see Him everywhere. We see Him in the mountains and in the stars. We hear Him in the birds and the howling wind. We can smell Him in the hot pine needles and the fresh rain. We can taste Him in the fresh berries and the clear water. We can feel Him as our hands scale rocks and as cold snow falls into our boots. HE IS EVERYWHERE.

My father gave a sermon on Sunday that completely summed up my feelings about Austria. The sermon considered the power of beauty. Beauty has the power to transform us into someone new. It has the power to hurt, but also the power to heal. The power to move forward or the power to take a step back. As I sat on the rock you see in the photo, all the troubles of the world seemed to melt away. I was completely captured by the immense beauty of our world as the clouds weaved through the valley. I knew deep down in my heart that Seattle and Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico were all out there somewhere, but right there, in that moment, all I could see was mountains. All I could feel was peace. All I could think was how great is our God.

This picture now sits on my desktop at work and I stare at it every once in a while. I don't do it to make me sad and wish that I were not in an office, but rather in the Alps. It is simply a reminder that God is good and that I can always feel His presence in my life. He is not an intangible God and that is something I firmly believe. So long as we believe and trust in Him, we will be able to taste and see that the Lord is good!

Upward Bound

It's 5 am. I have now been up for an hour, trying to fall asleep, but it is hopeless. Those planes which took me halfway around the world have also taken away a normal sleeping pattern. So here I sit, in my bed, wishing to be asleep, but with a mind racing too fast.

How do I even begin to tell what I have experienced in the last five weeks? I could share a thousand memories of moments in the mountains. I can give an account of each tour we took through the Alps. I can match these accounts with dozens of spiritual analogies that I witnessed first hand. But none of these will ever amount to a full debrief of all that I have experienced and the ways that I have grown and been shaped. In the coming weeks, I'm sure I will give more detailed stories, but for now let me just share with you a little bit of what Upward Bound has meant to me.

I went into this program with the wrong attitude, but after about 2 hours, that attitude didn't seem to matter. Any preconceived notions of what Upward Bound had in store for me were thrown out the window the moment I stepped through the doors of the main building with the large letters of TAURENHOF painted on the outside. I entered my bedroom, shared with six other girls, and looked out the window. Right outside my window were the Dachstein mountains, boasting gloriously over the quiet and rainy streets of Schladming. These were the mountains I had come to climb? No, not really. I didn't come to climb physical mountains...I came to climb away from home, just for a moment. How strange that life can make me so tired that my only solution is to run away. "Austria will be the perfect escape," I thought to myself. Wrong. Austria would be the place where I would face and conquer the challenges that drove me there. "The mountaineering will push me out of my comfort zone," I said. Wrong again. These mountains would stretch me and push me so much that I would stop in my tracks 300 meters from the destination begging for water, feeling unable to continue.

Why oh why oh why did I ever think that this was going to be easy?

There was no way of knowing, really, how simple or hard this journey would be. We can try to plan things ahead of time, but in the end, you can never know until you're there. I learned quite quickly upon my arrival that you don't need to know. One of the biggest ideas of Upward Bound is that if you don't have to plan ahead, don't do it. This meant that for five weeks, we would not know where we were going, what we were doing, how long we would be away, what time it was or how far we would be hiking. For many, this was a huge challenge, but for me it was the biggest blessing I could have asked for. After a strictly scheduled year of school, not having to think about anything was heavenly. So now, when people ask me questions like "How far did you hike on any given day?" I can't provide an answer. I have no idea how far we hiked, but the distance was not the point of the hike. Ask me questions like, "Where did you see God on this hike?" or "What was the most beautiful thing you saw on that hike?" Those are the questions I can answer because those are the things I experienced.

On our last day, we met with our leaders one by one to discuss our time at Upward Bound. They asked us questions about our original goals and fears that we thought of on the first day. They asked us how we grew. They asked us what we learned. They were big questions and we could have discussed them for days. Let me tell you about them as well.

My three original goals:

1. To love the mountains. It's true. I'm a Dahlstrom who, until quite recently, didn't love the mountains. How this happened, I'm not sure, but by some freak accident, I never found the rest and beauty in the mountains that the rest of my family seemed to grasp so easily. Coming to Upward Bound, I wanted to find that and I did. Very quickly. Maybe it was the special Alpine feeling or the goats that wandered the mountains, but something that should have happened 20 years ago finally happened and I can say honestly now, I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS!

2. Live for today. This goal was difficult at the time, when I found out we would know nothing about the program until we were actually doing it. After about one day, though, I realized how perfect it is not to have to plan anything. Living "in the now" was a beautiful thing and getting back to reality will be very difficult.

3. Grow in Christ. Yes, I did this too. It would have been impossible for me to be in those mountains and not see Christ. It would have been impossible for me to be surrounded by 35 wonderful students and not see Christ's love. He was everywhere and I began to grasp that much more.

My three original fears:

1. Caving! A conversation in the cave:

Victoria: "Isn't this awesome?"

Holly: "No, I'm really freaked out right now."

Victoria: "Why? We're in a cave!"

Holly: "That's why!"

Victoria: "What's freaking you out?"

Holly: "You know, the crawling through small spaces, the fact that if I take a wrong step, I could fall an indeterminable number of meters into oblivion and die or the fact that I am unable to see the light of day."

Victoria: "Oh. Good reasons, I suppose."

The fear never entirely went away, but I still spent the night in that cave and seeing the light afterward is a feeling I will never forget.

2. Using this time only as an escape. I was afraid that I would use this time as nothing more than running away from my problems. Quite quickly, the program wasn't even used for that reason. Upward Bound was not a place to run away, but a time to refresh and a place to grow.

3. Going too fast. I wasn't talking about the hiking, just the five weeks as a whole. I didn't want to take any second for granted, but treasure the time I had there. When the five weeks were up, I could hardly believe it. I think it would have been impossible not to let the weeks fly by, though. They were too jam packed with beauty and joy to avoid the inevitable fact that they would finish so soon after they began.

The biggest question of all: What has stood out to me the most?

I think, of all the lectures and all the hiking and all the reflection time, what has stood out to me the most is that fact that this world is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I remember the first night of our first tour, I sat on a rock on a ledge and stared for a long time at the mountains beyond. I could see nothing but mountains every direction I turned and they seemed to go on forever. It was at that moment I was filled with awe by the fact that I get to be a part of it. I get to be a part of this beautiful world and that is a privilege that I shouldn't take for granted.

I swear there's magic in those mountains. Magic that makes cold pasta taste good. Magic that takes away fears. Magic that brings everyone together. Magic that makes the troubles of yesterday disappear. So go. Go to the mountains. Find the Lord in them and bask in the glory of creation.

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him." -Psalm 34:8