Journey to Nwanedi
Cliff Jumping
Today — well, by the time I post this it will be last Saturday — the global year took a weekend adventure to Nwanedi(en-won-e-dee). We left Friday morning proceeding devotionals. After a quick 2 hour road trip, we checked in to the camp ground, dropped off the trailer, and headed for the water falls. We climbed on the top of the land rovers and started to trudge along the trail only to find the dirt road, overgrown with with large stalks of grass, was un-passable by vehicle. Nevertheless, we hopped down and hiked through a river until we saw a water fall flowing over a cliff 60 ft high into a pool surrounded by a U-shaped series of cliffs. Most of us climbed up the sides to jump. At each step, my heart’s pace went up. When I arrived at the top, standing on the edge of the rock, I asked myself: “Why in the world are you doing this?” Before I could answer, I jumped, plummeting 40 ft (I went on one over 50 ft later) through the air into the bone-chilling water.
Cliff jumping, one of the most exciting things I have ever done, was only the start of our adventure. Later, we ventured up over the waterfall, discovering a small lake which fed the waterfall. We further ventured between high-rising cliffs, finding a valley spattered with small sandy stretches, lonely trees, and little pools of water, each running into the next. (Unfortunately, I didn’t find a way to get my camera back there because I had to swim through a river running from the small pond to the valley.) Eventually, we hiked back to the land rovers and settled down at camp.
The Feeling On Top of a Mountain
The next morning, after packing everything in the trailers, we headed out for a hike. Walking along the edges of the mountain and clamoring over rocks, we eventually made it to the top. Filled with wonder, as my pupils soaked in the entirety of the prodigious view before me, I felt tiny and humbled. I felt infinitesimal (I had to look up this word because tiny didn’t quite match). This feeling became a sort of theme for the trip. As we trailed off down the other side of the mountain, shuffling through knee high grass, tangling our legs in ever present yet unforeseen thorn bushes, we walked across empty valleys, under patches of woodland, next to cliffs, and across a river, until we finally got back to camp. Hungry from the hike, we ate lunch before loading onto the land rovers. We drove across Nwanedi through the valley and up a mountain, seeing zebras, giraffes, monkeys, and something that looked like an antelope but was significantly uglier. Eventually, we stopped to take a quick walk/climb up a mountain, through a cave, and then up the mountain again. The same feeling as last time, but spiked with stronger feelings of adventure.
Thinking About Grace
Once we got down from the mountain and back on the road, as the sun started to set over the mountains, I recollected my thoughts of the day. Like a seam running down my jeans, the realization of how small I was, and how beautiful the realization was, was sewn into my cognition. While traveling along the trails and standing atop the mountain, I realized the beauty of nature didn’t lie simply in the enormity of the mountains, the fleet-fullness of the giraffes, or the speckles of moss on the rocks. It was that beauty and life ran throughout it all, as everything flowed together delicately: the cracks in the mountains, the glimmer on the water, the spattered color of lichen along the rocks, the thorns, the sand. Although He has no reason to include me in His plans, despite my insignificance, He chose to include me in his grace out of love and mercy before the foundation of the earth. Not because I was anything special, not because I was good, or acted a certain way or said a certain prayer, but because He wanted to. He saved me out of grace. In the same way that God has weaved beauty into every bit of nature, God has weaved a tapestry of His character into our lives by demonstrating His love, mercy, grace, justice, holiness, and goodness through Christ work on the cross. Despite my infinitesimal being, God loved me because He wanted to. In the end, it wasn’t the size of the mountains that humbled me, but the size of my sin, and the size of Gods grace & mercy. Although insignificant, thorns, and rocks, and lichen, are chosen to be part of God’s beautiful creation; likewise, we are chosen despite our unworthiness to be part of God’s redemptive plan.
Titus 3:4–7 ESV
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
soli deo gloria
Ryley Brown
