I’d always loved camping. Something about being out of doors all the time, falling asleep to frogs croaking and insects humming, smelling like campfire smoke, and having that happy tired feeling of exhausting yourself while doing something you love. Saying I was excited for this trip was an understatement. A few days spent just living in and exploring God’s raw creation in Hawaii Volcano’s National Park was right up my ally. The trip took place in the fall. It was of course warm down near the beaches, but on Hawaii’s summits the air was getting chilly. The drive to the park was quick. We stopped at the visitor’s center first to learn about the park and any rules we would need to follow. The center boasted articles and interactive exhibits about the volcanoes, and also the surrounding area. After the visitors center, we were off to find the camping area. This in itself was an adventure. We drove down tiny roads surrounded by rainforest, but as we drove higher into the mountainous region, the rainforest became rocky ground, stickery shrubs, a few large trees, and sage plants. It was under a few of these trees that we set up our tents. From there, our adventure continued.

Cooking over campfires, hiking miles of trails that went through dense vegetation or over lava rock, star gazing, Bible studies on top of a mountain with a view of the blue ocean far on the horizon. This trip was meant to bond a group of individuals into a team that could work together in diverse and potentially adverse situations for the next few months. We were a part of a social justice focused organization that was going to break up into teams and do activist work in different parts of the world.  This group had spent the last couple months together – we lived together, worked together, ate meals together, and had leisure time together. None of that though, bonded us like this trip, like this place, did. The beauty of our surroundings, the physical exertion, and being away from the stresses of our everyday lives, brought out a new side of us – a vulnerable side that many of us had never seen before in ourselves, let alone in the others around us. This place fused us together like the lava rock fused itself to the soil of that island.