Mount Yonah (September 15th)

In Gainesville there's a mountain that AIM likes to send us racers too, so that we'll get a chance to practice hiking with our big packs of stuff to get ready for the unexpected hikes on the field.

Sometimes they make you carry all your belonging, meaning about 60-70 pounds of stuff on you back up a mountain 2 miles, but thankfully our mentor Luis decided that we could leave some of our heavy 'unnecessary for a hike' items back at the base if we wanted too.

The hike was beautiful, but definitely challenging. One of my squad mates recently broke his heel which has had him on crutches for the past couple of weeks. We all wanted him to be able to come on the hike with us so we made a homemade stretcher out of wooden planks and a tarp and we all took turns carrying him on our shoulders up a mountain.

It was a difficult climb but it was awesome to see my team come together like it did to make sure everyone made it, and it all ended up being worth it by the time we got to the top (3 hours later). The view was gorgeous, and we got to watch the sunset and get photos with the team! We also made a fire and roasted hotdogs and made s’mores. I’m not kidding, those hotdogs were the best hotdogs I have ever eaten in my entire life. although that might have been because we were all so hungry after a long day or maybe they were just a great brand, but either way, so many people agreed that they were so good. 

When it got darker, I went to the cliff to look at the stars with my teammate Madilyn. Unfortunately from the side of the mountain the stars didn’t look nearly as bright because of all the light pollution below from the city. While looking down at the city lights I started thinking about how all the little lights below had thousands of real people with their own lives and stories within it. I wonder how many of those people know Jesus?

There are so many people in this world who literally don’t know who Jesus is. And that just blows my mind, because he's my best friend and such a loving father! He’s love, peace, joy, hope, and so so much more. But so many of the people we pass in Walmart every week or the people we walk past on the street don't know that Jesus. So what’s stopping us from sharing him with them?

In Mark 16:15 Jesus says “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

We have the best thing this doomed world could ever dream of and so many times we choose to keep it to ourselves just because we don’t think people would want to hear about it.. but that’s what the enemy wants us to believe. He wants us to let fear keep strangers at Walmart from hearing about Jesus. But God is so cool and everyone should been given the opportunity to meet him and build a relationship with him too!! So let’s be a light for Christ, let’s share his hope in a hopeless world. 

Lots more coming soon, blessings!

- Hannah :)