We leave for Africa in a few days. Eighteen hours of travel time via Amsterdam to get to Kilimanjaro. Our trek begins this Tuesday (8/8) with a summit push on Monday, August 14.

[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Screen capture of the Garmin tracking site.[/featured-image]

I know some of you have expressed an interest in following us. I won’t be blogging for the next couple of weeks—that lack of wifi on the mountain thing—but I do have a satellite gps device from Garmin that sends out tracking information every 10 minutes or so for you to follow along.

To do so, go to: https://share.garmin.com/PhilLaBelle/. A map will show up, and you’ll be able to see the waypoints of our hikes along the way. I used it today on my last training hike—a little under 2 miles at nearby Mt. Wachusett—so you should see that one right now. Tanzania is 7 hours ahead of Eastern Time. Additionally, on most days our hiking will take 4-6 hours. If you check the site by 9am here in East, we’ll likely be done for the day. On our summit push, we’re slated to leave in the darkness at 3am (8pm Eastern) and hike 10-12 hours or so.

I’ll blog once more before I head out, but wanted to get this information out there. Thanks for your support!

I first noticed it about an hour after we had crossed the border into Canada, although I thought it was smog. “Wow,” I remarked to Melissa, “I never thought there’d be this heavy of a haze in Alberta. You can barely make out the mountains.”

We had been traveling north along the Rockies from Glacier. I thought maybe it would pass as we got closer to Calgary.

It didn’t. And then we noticed the car began smelling like campfire. It dawned on me then that there had to be a forest fire somewhere in the distance.

We’d heard countless times that the immensity of the Canadian Rockies would blow us away. And it has some. But the majestic views have been clouded over by smoke. The acrid smell of a fire hangs in the air at all times. I woke up to see if I could catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights only to see the sliver of the waning moon shrouded in red.

I heard again about the importance of forest fires to the ecosystem on a ranger led hike in Montana. Fire deals with the underbrush that has gotten too dense. Some trees, like lodge pole pines, can only spread the seeds from their pine cones under immense heat. We noticed fireweed–glorious purple wild flowers–on that hike in Glacier, which immediately spring up after the flames rip through a forest. It has been a few years since fire had hit the trail we walked, and I saw shells of tree trunks with their insides completely charred.

While the end result may be beneficial, no one likes the impact of a fire when it’s happening. I know I wish I could see the stunning views better. And I know when the fires have raged in my life, the last thing I could imagine was new life.

Houston, we have a problem.

So, I imagined a great system for posting to this blog with my iPad and a wireless keyboard. However while stored, the keyboard had keys pressed down and the iPad thought I was trying to log in. Except it wasn’t the right passcode. And it tried too many times, so it locked me out until I can connect to my home computer.

Posts for the next two weeks or so will be few. (I’m attempting to post from my phone when I have service.) However, I’ll still post instagram photos (instagram.com/ramblingpriest) when possible.

It’s the wilderness, friends!

The collect (or prayer) for this past Sunday—the Sixth Sunday of Easter:

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: our into our hearts such love towards you, that we, love you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]Photo Credit: Michael W. May Flickr via Compfight cc[/featured-image]

As I heard that prayer read out loud—Christine, our sabbatical supply priest, presided at the service so she read it—I was overcome by the expression both of love and of God’s preparation of good things that surpass our understanding. As I embark on this sabbatical, I am so overwhelmed by that love I’ve felt both by God and the people of St. Mark’s and our wider community. This grand adventure has many good things already, so I cannot begin to fathom how it may surpass my understanding!

At the end of the service on Sunday, Christine called me up and had the assembled body lay hands on me. Those in the front row and in the choir, directly and those who couldn’t reach me themselves put their hand on the person in front of them, stretching all the way back in that packed church.  My eyes welled up when she began praying for me, words I do not recall, but I know they were beautiful.

A circle of love surrounded me.

I will carry that feeling with me in the days ahead, and cannot wait to experience and share the many good things of this summer sabbatical.