My name is Stasia Chan, and this is my first year at CLBI.
Coming to CLBI, I knew that it would be full of new experiences. I love nature, the outdoors, and all things camping. So naturally, I was excited to go on the Fall Camping trip, and have the opportunity to get to know all the lovely ladies that I am currently enrolled with. I was expecting this trip to be intense, tiring, and a wonderful opportunity to grow in God– and I was right. The trip was intense, mostly because going into it I already felt tired and overwhelmed,as I know many of us were feeling, and I felt almost unprepared to do this trip. But through everything I was feeling, I remember feeling God’s peace come over me the night before as I prayed about how I was feeling towards the trip. In reality, the trip was absolutely amazing, and it truly did help to bring us closer as sisters in Christ. By the end of the trip, all of us were tired, and really just wanted a shower, but through that, we had the opportunity to share about ourselves around a campfire, and we were all able to get to know each other a little better. I think I might finally be able to name all the girls!
On fall hike I truly got to experience the beauty of God’s creation, and was reminded that since God so intricately planned every part of nature, he also planned every little detail about me too. I also was reminded how God has plans for you and wants to use you in ways that you have no idea about. When He created me, He had a plan for me and a plan to use my story in some ways that I could never imagine.
There were many things that were difficult on this trip. For instance, trying to start a fire in the rain is not always that easy, so we had to learn how to be resourceful, and how to build a shelter to keep us out of the rain. There were also times during the camping portion of the trip in which the stove that we were using gave us troubles, and we had a hard time cooking with them. But we soon discovered that in order to get the stove to work nicely, you had to pump it at least a hundred times, and then it worked ten times better. There was also a time while we were climbing down Vision Quest mountain where the group that I was in got lost. At this point, we had split into three groups, and mine was the middle one to go. We were all going to meet up about half way down for all of us girls to be able to have solo time. We had been hiking down for about half an hour when we realized that we had definitely missed the meeting point, and were very much lost. So we decided to just continue down the mountain, and meet up with the rest of the girls down at the bus. We knew that we were headed in the right direction because we could see the high way, and Abraham Lake. Eventually, we made it down, and it was actually kind of fun. The group of girls that I got stuck with were great. Never once did we panic or feel scared, because we knew that we would make it down eventually, and that we would be safe. Boy, was it ever nice to see Kate, Wanda, Dean and the bus.
Honestly, this trip was so incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and just loved being able to get to know all the girls I will be living with for the next year. I loved climbing the mountain with them, and hiking to Crescent falls with them, and getting to know them on a deeper level. I got to experience God in an intimate way, and I learned to lean on him even more. Because of this trip, I was reminded that God is the God of love, and that no matter what happens with the people around me, God is the most loving King, and that ecause I am his daughter, I am a princess.”
