The very name “May Ski Trip” sounds intriguing. Even for those who live here in the North. It’s pretty odd to think about skiing when it’s already warm for a couple of weeks, and in the city the snow is almost gone. But we know that out there in tundra spring has not started yet. It might get warm, but the snow and ice on the lakes is still untouched by the warmth of spring. Beautiful time to ski.
Every year on May 1st we load our cars with heavy packs, skis and other gear and head out into snowy rocky tundra in the quest for real manhood.
There’s no agenda in such trips. No prepared program. No format requirements. We just go. We enjoy the beauty of His creation, we see His mighty hand in every rock and every little lake. Our hearts sing praises to Him who created all that.
Here we do what we really love to do: we walk through the beautiful landscapes, we fish, we pray, we read the Word, we have late conversations by the fire, where we share our deepest heart things. We talk about being fathers and husbands, being sons; we share our victories and our failures, we pray for each other, we encourage each other.
Everything is natural there. No one forces us to read the Bible, no one even reminds us to pack it for the trip. But conversation flows, and eventually you see guys pulling out their travel Bibles out of the packs, looking for answers there.
No agenda requires prayer, but we love talking with our Father, we know He has the Word of life, so we just pray. Often unsaved men get saved when they get into this kind of fellowship.
The key thing is – nobody is trying to fake anything. We are what we are, and it’s crystal clear. It’s just impossible to be fake there.
So this time there was an unsaved man with us, who came from Moscow just to spend these four days with us. And you know, he went back home saved, having true relationships with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ! Our another guest, Andrey, is a chief editor of a major Christian magazine here in Russia, and he is preparing an article about us for his magazine.
We all were very different – our age, our occupation, the place we live, character, everything. But we became good friends in those four days of the adventure together. We had all kinds of things there. We were wandering in the milky fog, we were putting sun lotion on our faces to avoid sunburns, we were freezing and shivering around the fire, we were wet when rain started on our way back. We skied under pouring rain in full daylight at 1 AM. It was great time which has changed our lives.
