Community

Shane Besmer began serving at Beyond when he was just 19. He has worked as the boat driver, male base camp coordinator, a guide, maintenance man, and eventually just as The Shane. He is in grad school now studying third world community development. Here are some of his thoughts on community in the Beyond context.

Living with forty other staff members in an isolated wilderness camp has given me a rare view of what close community can be like. Sharing the most mundane and extreme of life’s experiences, we were given a glimpse of the tremendous possibilities of community.

Beyond Malibu is an adventure camp with the purpose of removing kids from their everyday lives in hopes that they might see themselves, and Christ, more clearly. The staff at Beyond is almost entirely volunteer, and many staffers are required to make a two year commitment. Operations are run out of a small base camp that is accessible only by boat or seaplane. Running water and electricity are very limited. Absent constant contact with the outside world and electronic entertainment, the staff naturally develops a very close community. Each member plays a very important role, serving one another along with our campers, and inadvertently painting a beautiful picture of the body of Christ.

The jobs of the staff range from mountain or sea-kayaking guide, to food packing and maintenance. Each member is completely dependent on the others to continue with his or her job. If one person becomes ill, the impact spreads throughout the community. If two members are not communicating well, the rest of the body is aware of it and often affected. In the evenings when the work is finished, co-workers and bosses become friends and family, and look to each other for the love and support they need. Nearly all aspects of the life of one person are tied in one way or another to the lives of others, creating a micro-example of the definition of community.

I loved the years I spent at Beyond and I cherish them even more now that I am more removed from the experience. I have come to realize that this kind of community is nearly impossible to duplicate in the chaotic obligations of the city, and to attempt to do so can become incredibly frustrating. Despite the rarity of the Beyond base camp experience, it has been a challenging, yet joyful experience to see my community grow and change and settle into the ebbs and flows of community life in the city. We cannot live as in tune with one another, or with God, here as we did so far away from the distractions of the world. Instead, we struggle, and mostly succeed, to intentionally seek out relationship amid the business of everyday life. More significantly, we are challenged to learn and grow through the process of integrating our family of friendships with the various communities we intersect as we go throughout our lives. The result is beautiful and messy. We fail often, and just as often we accept grace, get up, and try again. This is community. I praise God daily for my time at Beyond, and for beginning this life long adventure.

Spirit Animals

Kelly Hannah was our assistant cook the summer of 2012. This is a sweet picture of her taken by Brandon Sawaya. Kelly is currently serving as our office administrator. Call the office and say hello; she loves booking trips.

During the summer I spent as assistant cook in base camp just one of the things I learned about myself was that my spirit animal is a seal: one of the many kinds of animal friends that coexist with us at base camp and around the inlet. Like a seal, I am extremely curious, but shy at first. Once I feel safe and comfortable I am friendly and playful. That summer my understanding of myself, my view of God, and my love for those around me changed so much, but so did my appreciation of the seals who shared their home with us.

My first interaction with my spirit animal is entertaining now, but terrified me at the time. It was my first morning in base camp, and I was determined to start the summer with a swim to the rock just off shore from The Point campsite. I dove into the freezing inlet and immediately regretted my decision. But I took a few deep breaths and, stroke by stroke, made my way towards the rock. Halfway there, something caught my eye that made me freeze in mid kick. Just ahead of me was the smooth dark shiny head of a seal. His head was still and his eyes stared directly at me. My heart tried to leap out of my mouth as I tread water but I stared right back. It felt like hours we stayed there with eyes locked, probably with the same combination of surprise, curiosity, and fear. On my part I was terrified that the seal would think my feet were fish and decide to make a meal of them. I waited, and I stared, and nothing yanked me from below. I kept breathing and watched my morning swim companion. He kept breathing and watched me. Finally I turned back. It was too cold and frightening to risk being eaten or getting sick, and besides, I needed to make my way to the barn so I could dry off, warm up, and help get breakfast ready.

Later, as I cut fruit and prepared coffee for breakfast I asked Elisa, the head cook and a former kayaking guide, about seals. Elisa had worked for two summers on the water, she'd have to know if there were killer seals roaming around. She laughed when I told her about my encounter. "No, seals aren't dangerous. They're just curious and playful: like dogs, but they live in the water." Whew. That helped. I was not the biggest fan of the seals at the time, but at least I knew they wouldn't hurt me. As the summer went on, my new aqua-canine friends continued to join me as I swam. I grew comfortable with them watching them play a sort of hide and seek around our watery front yard, or seeing them from a distance as we boated between base camp and Malibu club on laundry days.

Close to the end of the summer, the staff spent a Sabbath day at Malibu Club. I went to the outer dock to read and bask in the sun. I was sad that the summer was almost over, and asked God to help me carry the experience home with me. I had made amazing new friends and with whom I had gone through busy work days, lazy Sabbaths, bed time stories, theme parties, bible studies, and a lot more. Personally I had grown a lot as well. I learned the importance of regular prayer, the necessity of rest, how to give up my own desires to serve others, and how to root my identity in Christ rather than what my own insecurity or or the opinions of others. And then there was the beauty of God’s creation. No matter how many pictures I took or how many ways I tried to describe it in my journal. I didn't want to forget anything but I knew I could not fully bring home the feeling that setting inspired in me. As I sorted through these thoughts before the Lord, I lay on the dock embracing the sun's warmth with my feet resting in the water.

Suddenly, I noticed a strange silence. Then, out of nothing arose a loud, steady breathing that surrounded me. I opened my eyes to see who it was: maybe someone on a run come to say hello? Strange though, since I hadn't heard footsteps. Then I realized the breathing came from the water. Directly in front of me, 20 seals floated. 20 pairs of those wonderfully curious and penetrating eyes floated above 20 pairs of gray-white whiskers. They stared at me as I stared back, in awe of how close and how still they were. I moved to get up for a better look, and as quickly as they appeared, they vanished through the blue surface into their world.

When we asked one another, "What is your spirit animal?" wewere having fun, just one way to get to an understanding of the core of each other's character and personality. As we progressed from being staff to becoming real brothers and sisters in Christ, we helped one another realize the ways in which we have been uniquely created by God. That summer was an amazing time of growth in confidence. I learned to cling to my identity before God. Thinking of that last visit from the seals is always a precious reminder of how I grew and what I learned that summer.

Staff Promotions: Go Big, Go Beyond

A few months ago, after nearly a year of work, we wrapped up our new staff promotions poster. We are staffing for our 2012 summer and wanted to share this with you.

There's no shortage of these so if you, your college group or YL office would like a few copies, drop us a note and we'll send them right over.

Thanks Becca Williams and Joel Shoop for the design and Steven Gnam, Jeff Milsten and others for the photography.

Leader Interviews

We recently asked a few Young Life leaders and staff about their experiences with Beyond Malibu.  This is what they had to say about the ministry. 

Thanks Ben for putting the video together, and Casey Price, Kiki Lund, Mason Rutledge and Sarah Fields for sharing with us.

Snow Day!

The last few days have been pretty snowy in Seattle. Some people are calling it the Snowpocalypse and the Washington State Governor declared a state of emergency this morning, but really it's only like five inches of snow. I kind of like the way Seattle collectively decides to take the day off. It's like this wonderful pocket of freedom nestled right in the middle of a long winter/month/work week, and for the most part you can't do anything about it. Because Beyond staff sticks together like snowball snow, a bunch of us found ourselves holed up in a house together for the day. It was awesome. We reverted to ten-year-oldness and elected ourselves a snow-day president and vice president. Our activities included the creation of a 6 ft snowman, one snow angel, talk of chocolate flavored snow-cones (that's all we had), a snowball fight (of course), a romp in the "woods" across the street, and the contemplation of a polar bear plunge. We also had our fill of hot chocolate and popcorn. It was an awesome time to strip away all of our concerns about work and money and meaning and just spend the day in community with each other and the rest of God's creation.

This pocket of freedom is kind of the way Beyond trips work, too. They're an entire week away from all of the drama and worries of normal life. For one week you strip yourself of media and work and deadlines and success and failure and just be, be with God, with creation, and with yourself. All of the things that seem so important at home (like "wearing a clean shirt" and "showering") don't even show up on the radar once you get out on the water or up in the mountains.

If you enjoy a good snow day and long for a snow-cone covered pocket of freedom even in the middle of summer, you should check out Beyond; snow cones included.

Letter to Self

A lot of people keep journals. They're a nice way to capture emotional and intellectual experiences, to freeze-frame the process of growth. Every now and then I find myself returning to certain journals and reliving certain times of my life. It's great to be reminded of what is important to me and why it has become important, especially after the excitement and emotion of an experience has faded.

At Beyond, we try to one-up the habit of journaling. It has been our experience that Beyond trips can be a tremendous time of spiritual and emotional maturing. It's pretty easy, though, to return from a Beyond trip and have all of those character fortifying moments turn into nothing but sentimental memories. So some guides like to take a freeze-frame of the emotional and spiritual experience of Beyond and have it pop back up in campers lives when they least expect it. We call it "Letter to Self," because that's what it is. Guides have participants sit down at the summit or the end of the trip and write a letter to themselves about what they experienced that week. Then we send the letters out later in the year, usually around New Years. It's kind of a double whammy of awesomeness. First, you get a letter in the mail; who doesn't like that? Then you get this random trip back to a time when the distractions of life had been stripped away and it was easier to see what was important. It's better than just keeping a journal because you are guaranteed to read it. The whole thing is pretty neat.

The picture above is from Joey Leppien. He went on a Sea Kayaking trip this past summer. When he received his letter in the mail this week, he liked it so much that he posted it to Facebook. I like it because it's proof that we really do send out those letters. If you want to receive a letter from an awesome version of yourself next New Years, you should sign up for a Beyond trip now.

Stacks of Packs

We have a room in our office that is full of packs. At the end of every summer we wash, dry, inventory, and inspect everything that Beyond owns. The packs in the room are the ones that were in need of a little extra love and repair. I just started working at Beyond again and I thought it would be cool to move into that room and pretend I had my own office. The moment I opened the door to check it out I was hit by a wave of smell, the smell of pack. Now, some people might use the word stench to describe the odor of compounding BO, dirt, and something somehow sweet, but to me it just smells like memories. These packs have worked hard for the privilege of their smell. They have hauled dozens of pounds of gear up countless mountains on the backs of campers of all shapes and sizes. A Beyond pack gets used eight times more than a pack owned by your average Joe (or Jane) Shmoe. They get drenched in sweat, thrown on the ground, sat on (I mean wait, that doesn’t happen), stuffed until bursting, dragged through the mud, rained on, and then scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. If you’ve been to Beyond, you can imagine the smell. If you’ve ever worked at Beyond, you're probably like me and have come to love the smell. When I leave the door open the whole office wreaks of nostalgia and some of the best times of my life. In fact most of the clothes I wear in the mountains smell the same way when I take them out of the drier.

I was trying to come up with some analogy for these packs and the Beyond experience. I guess like the packs you might get roughed up a bit if you are willing to head out on such an adventure, and what seemed before like the stench of struggle and challenge and dirt will change to the sweet aroma of deep relationship, satisfaction, and beauty, and probably some of the best memories of your life.

Too much? Well it’s true even if it is a little sentimental. So go on a trip or apply to be on staff already. Then you too can smell like the packs, and like it.