Three friends and I left for Soldotna, Alaska, Sunday at 5:00 pm, pulling my 26-foot dory boat. We planned to drive the 2850 miles straight, stopping only for fuel and potty breaks, rotating drivers, and sleeping in our seats. Our goal was to drive it in 60 hours, which ended up taking 72 hours. The reason for the extra hours was because of all the adventures we had. The first delay was at the border. We must have looked suspicious because they went through the pickup after interrogating us, and we were there for an hour. The next adventure was when we noticed the hull was developing some cracks. The motor was pretty heavy, and the road was very bouncy. We decided to take the motor off and lay it on the boat’s floor. The problem was that the motor was very heavy, and we didn’t think the four of us could lift it into the boat. So I googled “truck mechanics” to find someone with a hoist, and the first one I called said they could help us. We drove to their shop, and a young kid working there helped us unbolt the motor. We used the hoist on their truck to pick it up and lay it in the boat. They didn’t charge us, so we gave the kid $100 for helping us. The next adventure happened at 10:30 pm when we stopped at a rest stop. We noticed that a bolt had ripped through the trailer tongue and that the trailer was about to come loose from the pickup. That would not have been a pleasant experience to have that boat come loose while we were driving 60 mph down the road. We called AAA and had them take the boat and trailer to the next town. It was 2:00 am now, and nothing was open, so we left the boat and trailer at the towing yard and got a motel room. In the morning, we bought a cordless drill, drilled a new hole, and ran the bolt through it. Off down the road we went, wondering what our next adventure would be. We made it to fish camp with no further mishaps, it was kind of boring.

I have been on over 40 short-term mission trips to other countries with groups, hunting trips, fishing trips, and school trips, and on most of them, something happened from a minor interruption to a major crisis. It is always interesting to see how those in the various groups react to the unexpected challenge and how they work together to solve it. My experiences have gone all the way from major disunity to a wonderful time of solving problems together that results in awesome stories to tell later and relational bonding. The amount of laughter is a huge clue to what kind of experience this will turn out to be.

The determining factor is how many in the group have grown in character and faithfully practice James 1:2-3, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.”

At the beginning of each new trial, one of the guys in our group would say, “We are building character!”