It is wonderful how memories, locked in the body, surface during anniversaries. Last year, at just about this time, I experienced an adventure with my six-eighth grade students that I want to share. This piece first appeared in a school newsletter. Only minor changes have been made.
The winds didn’t just blow in our faces—they roared with a monstrous fury. The Eighth Graders and I had already been paddling along the San Juan River that day for about 12 miles when a wind storm tore through the canyon. With the sun setting far too quickly for comfort, and our arms aching, doubt spread through our minds as to whether or not we would make it to a place to stop for the night. If the kids stopped paddling for even a second the winds would blow us backwards against the current. Two-to-three foot white cap waves splashed at us as we struggled to move forward.
One of our guides decided to link the students raft with the two-thousand pound supply raft that he and I were on. Then he got up, took the rope at the front of the raft, and stepped into the river and began pulling us like an ox. I took over at the oars while the three boys got out of the raft and began pulling also, but the bottom of the river dropped out on them and they had to get back in and paddle again. The three girls paddled with adrenaline-laced power and kept everyone’s spirits from flagging. It was an amazing thing to experience—the Eighth Graders and our second guide paddling, never giving up, never stopping. They fought and they pushed and we kept going.
As the wind was smacking us with an absurd ferocity, I began to pray that it would stop. “Give these kids a break,” I ordered the Almighty. I wanted them safe on dry land; I wanted the wind storm to stop and for the setting sun to pause in its descent so we would have enough light to get to ashore and unpack. But the wind just kept blowing and I just got madder.
We finally made it however to a place where we could pull over for the night. We cheered as we saw the site. Little did we know the worst was yet to come.
It began to hail a few minutes after we got out of the rafts and, the winds, unbelievably, picked up strength. As we wrestled to put up our tents, the winds tore through the camp like a wild freight train. Somehow we managed to get the tents up using huge rocks to hold the spikes down.
As the students were working I took one of our guides aside and said, “So what are we really dealing with here?” “I don’t know,” he replied, “I’ve never been in such a severe storm. We don’t just have the wind to worry about. I’m concerned about flash flooding and about those rocks above us. If it rains in the night it might only be a matter of minutes before we have to scramble up the rocky cliff 30 feet to safety before a wall of water rushes through here. We can’t even get a helicopter in here to take us out; it would never make it in here with these winds. We’re just going to have to hold on and do our best. We’re in a dangerous situation.”
“Lovely,” I thought. This wasn’t what I signed us up for.
That night, the wind stampeded through the camp, like a herd of crazed ghost-horses. It would stop for a few seconds and the pressure would drop in your chest, but then you could hear the wind coming again–smashing its way along the canyon walls. One of the guides estimated the wind gusts at 30-50 mph. The sand on the bank was swirling in our eyes, ears, and mouths, but at least the hail had stopped.
That night I laid awake the whole night as the wind rattled my tent like a drunken gorilla. I prayed as the storm increased in intensity. I just wanted it to stop. I was scared for my students and for myself. I could hear a couple of the students crying in the night and I got even madder at God. I demanded the storm to stop. But it just kept raging. I was furious for my lack of faith. For if I had enough I could have calmed that storm, but I didn’t. In the end however, God worked that out for a good reason.
In the early morning the air was still and almost contemplative. The storm had finally whirled its way out and we were all safe and sound—sandy, exhausted, but safe.
Later that night, during our sharing circle, every one of the students said, to my surprise, that, while they were scared of the storm and that the paddling through it to get to camp was excruciatingly difficult, they were all glad they had gone through the experience. They all felt powerful, like they could accomplish anything. They had worked together in a very dangerous situation and made it through. As I listened to them I realized why my prayers were not answered. I realized (again) that I don’t always know what’s best. The experience I wanted to end became a life-changing, life-empowering experience for the Eighth Graders that they will never forget. Of course, my prayers weren’t wrong—they were the obvious ones to pray, and the storm did eventually stop, and everyone ended up OK. It just goes to show the Powers That Be have better plans than my own often emotion-tinged ones. This adventure had made them better friends, better people.
When we got back to base camp there were whispers among the staff about my class: “That’s the class that made it through the storm. Those are the kids who paddled 56 miles up the San Juan River in 3 days and made it through that wind storm.” One of the directors of the camp came up to me as we were leaving. “You have amazing students,” he said, “really amazing.”
“Thank you. I know,” I said, beaming with pride, “I know.”
Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog