Tag: disaster in the water?

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Well THAT Almost Ended Badly!

Late August/early September is when college students usually head off to school to continue their education. I had some fun jobs during college. One of the ways I kicked off my senior year was by starting a job as a Teacher’s Assistant during a half-semester kayaking class.

In my senior year I was Vice President of our kayaking/whitewater rafting club, and had already spent a good amount of time playing with kayaks in the college’s pool. I liked the job because it had hours that worked for my schedule and was fun to do. A lot of it was simple stuff: setting up and putting away equipment, helping students get sized for their boats, helping them get in and out of the water, and just kind of being another set of eyes while a class full of novice paddlers grew in their ability to operate out on the water.

On our first day the teacher went over the different types of equipment we’d be using. Early on we just focused on the boat itself, the paddle, and the skirt. The skirt is so named because it resembles that article of clothing. You step into it, pull it up around your waist, and cinch it snugly around your waist. When you sit in the boat (still wearing the skirt), you stretch the rest of the skirt (the hemline, if you will) around a lip lining the boat’s opening. When paddling through rough water or you end up capsizing, the skirt prevents water from entering the boat and swamping it.

Skirt with a red loop at the front

It takes a little practice, but it doesn’t take long to get proficient at attaching the skirt to the boat. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to get out of the boat quickly, there’s a big loop at the front of the skirt you can tug on, easily breaking the seal and allowing you to exit. For safety reasons, one of the first things we did in the pool was practice flipping upside down while in the boat, then yanking on that loop so students got familiar with how to safely get themselves out of a capsized kayak.

If you’ve never used a whitewater kayak, they have sort of a different feel to them as far as how they move in the water. The keel is shaped differently from canoes or flat-water kayaks, so they handle differently. Designed to be more maneuverable in volatile currents, it’s easy to flip whitewater kayaks over if you try to turn them without flexing your hips to present more of the boat’s bottom toward the water you’re heading into (that might still be unclear; just know that it’s easy to flip the boat in a turn until you figure out how to do it). To gain experience, the teacher had everybody get into their boats, get in the pool, and have a friendly game of kayak water polo (no paddles, just hands).

It was a fun way for everyone to get used to how the boats felt in the water. Every now and then someone would hit a turn in a way they didn’t expect and end up tipping over. That team would be down a player while they dragged their kayak out of the pool (with some help from the teacher), got it drained, and got back into the game. It was a good way for the students to start putting together some of the basics.

The game continued for awhile, and everybody began gaining proficiency, so some of the students got more competitive. I raced against one of them to the ball, and I think the only reason I came away with it was because I knew how to anticipate the turn. He got there quickly, but he flipped his boat either reaching for the ball or trying to turn without doing the hip thing.

Whenever someone flipped during the game, we paused until we saw them safely exit the boat and their head broke the surface. I floated very near his boat, waiting, but he didn’t come up. I saw the boat shaking and his hands grabbing the underside of his boat, as though trying to push himself up and back, out of the kayak. For whatever reason, it wasn’t working; the guy wasn’t getting out of his flipped boat and he couldn’t get his head above water to breathe. Fortunately, we were in the shallow end of the pool. I pulled my skirt and rolled out of my boat into the water, then got to his kayak as fast as I could. Since time was a factor I skipped trying to help him exit the kayak and grabbed the stern of his boat, then twisted the whole thing hard so he was right-side up and could breathe again.

As the excitement faded and heart rates started coming back down to normal, we figured out the loop of his skirt was tucked underneath its hem. In his haste to get into the water, he had only focused on securing the skirt around the boat’s opening, and hadn’t paid any attention to ensuring the loop was easy to grab. When the time came to use it, it wasn’t there. It was like a fighter pilot needing to eject, but the ejection handle wasn’t there.

Is there any safety measure in your life you’ve been neglecting? The Bible gives plenty of advice about wise living. While few of its passages address situations as urgent as this, they nonetheless confront challenges every bit as dangerous. Are you hanging out with people influencing you negatively? Are you in a relationship the Lord wouldn’t approve of? The wisdom books of the Bible (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) provide plenty of insight on things to avoid and things to pursue. It explains the power of having friends you can trust (Ecc.4:9-12), the value of holding your temper (Prov. 19:11), the personal character we should strive to have (Psalm chapter 15), and numerous other bits of wisdom that can vastly improve the quality of your life.

Read these books, and then read them again. Reflect on different passages that stick out to you, and memorize them. When they help guide how you think and live, they help steer you away from the types of danger others fall victim to.

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When a Chance Encounter Doesn’t Happen by Chance

As a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard four summers. Thankfully I can count on one hand the number of times I had to take action to save anyone. There were a couple of times kids jumped into water a little deeper than they expected, and I was able to extend a rescue tube to them, but those were easy. I only had to go in after someone one time.

At the place I worked, we had two outdoor pools. One of them had both a shallow end and a deep end (three to nine feet deep), and the other one was deep all around, where the shallowest part was nine feet deep and it went to 12 and a half feet deep. It was my turn to keep an eye on the deep pool, where we had two diving boards. This pool was easier to watch because there were usually only a few people in the water at a time.

This one kid, probably somewhere in the 10-13 age range, got on a diving board and walked to the edge, then unceremoniously jumped in. It took him a bit to come back up, but he broke the surface eventually. It’s a difficult thing to watch someone who’s drowning. If they’re still fighting to keep their head above water, kicking is the first thing to stop. It’s a reflex; you kind of get tunnel vision and if you can’t see your feet, you don’t think about them. The person just stays vertical in the water and kinda slaps the water with their hands without kicking. This is what the kid was doing when I jumped in.

I totally blew off procedure. I forgot to blow my whistle to alert the guard at the other pool and I didn’t tell others near the diving boards not to jump into the pool; I just jumped in and started swimming toward the kid. Since I had a pretty good size advantage on him, I also totally skipped the technique I’d practiced countless times in training. Instead of swimming around behind him to scoop him up by his armpits onto the rescue tube, I made a beeline for the ladder nearest him and on my way past I grabbed him around the waist with one arm, holding his head above water even though it meant keeping mine under. The emphasis was on speed, trying to prevent an active drowning victim from turning into a passive drowning victim.

The whole thing was over in a few seconds. I got him to the ladder, where he was able to catch his breath. I asked if he was okay, and he gave a panting “yeah.” He climbed out of the pool and walked away, and at that point I just got severely irritated with him. I didn’t ream him out or anything, but I got instantly enraged. I didn’t say anything else, but how could he jump into such deep water if he didn’t know how to swim? If nobody was around, you would have died, dude!

For less than a minute more than 25 years ago, our two lives intersected. If I saw him today, I’d have no idea it was him. I’m clueless about what he went on to do with his life and whether he’s closer to the “dirtbag” or the “saint” side of the spectrum. He may not even remember that day so long ago, but whatever else was going on in his life at the time, it’s pretty obvious to me God wasn’t done with him yet. I’m confident anyone on our lifeguarding staff would have been able to bail him out of the trouble he got himself into, but I was the one sitting in the chair that day. The Lord allowed me to be the one to play a role in a small, but decisive part of his life.

Every now and then I think about that kid and wonder what he went on to do in his life. Think about the people you come in contact with on a daily basis. There are people you know and see on a recurring basis, but there are also plenty of people you’ll probably never see again in your life. For brief periods of time, your life will intersect with theirs. It could have been someone else, but it ended up being you. Not all those occasions will be so definitive or dramatic as pulling someone out of danger, but some of them might very well be (literally or figuratively).

Embrace those little encounters, whatever they end up looking like. You may have been put there to make a much-needed difference. Don’t squander the opportunity. Maybe one day you’ll look back and find yourself wondering whatever happened to that person. Better yet, that other person may look back and be thankful for the time they ran into you.

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An Apology to the Taxpayers

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of some kind of wasted taxpayer money before. Well I’m sorry to say that some wasteful federal spending once happened because of me (at least on a smallish scale).

This is back in 2004, and the Air Force was paying my salary at the time. I was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Washington. While I was waiting for some paperwork to go through, I supplemented the folks teaching water survival.

It was a cool gig. I don’t remember what happened each day of the week, but one day out of the week was a course where they simulate being in a helicopter that crashes in the water and rolls over as it sinks. Two other days out of the week was a course where they taught students how to signal from the ocean, how to use rescue devices that were dropped from aircraft, how to use radios and distress beacons, and the course culminated in a big production in the indoor pool where the students climbed into a big aircraft simulator that then “crashed” into the ocean. There were two already-inflated life rafts lashed to the side of the pool (with ice water inside). The lights were all shut off, a thunderstorm soundtrack played from enormous speakers up in the rafters, and strobe lights simulated lightning. As the students evacuated the “aircraft” and jumped into the water, my job was to spray them using a fire hose while on a catwalk up above. I’m not gonna lie, it felt crazy to be getting paid for stuff like this.

These courses were pretty messy and took some time to set up. We used the other two days out of the week to clean up all the wet gear and reset it to prepare for the next course. Those were good days to schedule medical/dental appointments and any other type of official errands that Uncle Sam mandated.

This goober is modeling a pair of fully inflated LPUs

On one of those days, I was at some kind of appointment at the beginning of the day, then returned to the pool to help with prep. As it turned out, while I had been at my appointment, one of the instructors taught my colleague (someone that was supplementing, like me) how to pack LPUs, or Life Preservation Units. An LPU is a piece of survival gear that some aviators wear. When you’re descending toward the water while dangling from a parachute, you can pull the tabs on your LPU and two big high-visibility pontoons will inflate in a flash, providing more than enough buoyancy to keep you afloat.

Well, when I got back to the shop, my colleague showed me how to pack an LPU. Each LPU had two CO2 canisters that, when punctured by pulling the inflation tabs, quickly inflated the pontoons, even if completely submerged. Packing the LPUs meant unscrewing the old canisters, resetting the pull switches, screwing in new canisters, and then folding up the big orange/pink balloons into small compartments that could be easily worn by an aviator.

Packing LPUs

Unfortunately when my buddy showed me how to pack LPUs, he didn’t show me the right way. The two of us packed tons of LPUs and set them on the shelf, thinking they were ready for students in future classes to use. When they got pulled off the shelf and used during an actual lesson, students that ran off the diving board expecting their LPUs to inflate midair had to end up swimming for it.

While that’s obviously embarrassing for the water survival instructors, that’s not the part I owe taxpayers an apology for. The way the LPU puncture mechanism worked, it wasn’t physically possible to properly reset the mechanism without removing the new CO2 cylinders, and it wasn’t possible to remove the unused CO2 canisters without puncturing them. We had to intentionally pull the inflation tabs, knowing it would waste two perfectly good cylinders per LPU. Each cylinder that was improperly installed in an LPU had to be unscrewed and tossed on the floor, shooting all over the place like a corkscrewing balloon while turning ice cold from the sudden expansion of compressed gas.

Considering all the LPUs we packed and a rough guess that each CO2 cylinder cost about $10, we’re talking hundreds of dollars of wasted taxpayer money. It would’ve been far better to each waste a pair of cylinders by doing a quality control test after packing just a pair or two of the LPUs rather than the way we did it.

Yep, they all need to be packed

So for those of you that dutifully paid your taxes back in the 2003/2004 timeframe, I’m sorry I wasted some of your hard-earned money. The Government is funded by the people, and you deserve better than that. I wish I’d known to correct the mistake sooner! It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been around LPUs, but that lesson has taught me to keep an eye out for ways to head off the wasteful use of resources (even if it’s as simple as making my kids finish the food on their plates before they can be excused).

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The Physics of Sin

It’s been a long time since I’ve done it, but years ago I got scuba certified. As you might expect, there’s a lot more to it than just grabbing an air tank and jumping into the water. I found learning about some of the physics behind it to be very interesting. I know not everybody is a math person, so I’ll try to keep it pretty general.

Scuba diving is all about pressure. Before we get in the water we’re only dealing with the weight of air on us. If you’re standing on the shore at sea level, the weight of all the air above you equates to a little less than 15 pounds per square inch (psi). That’s not much, considering how many miles up that column of air extends. This level, 14.69 psi, is known as one atmosphere.

The water is a completely different story. Since water weighs so much more than air, a column of only about 34 feet of water exerts the same amount of pressure as one atmosphere. Standing at the ocean’s edge you have one atmosphere pressing down on you. Scuba diving 34 feet deep, you have two atmospheres pressing down on you (one air and one water).

Moving from sea level to 34 feet under the surface causes the pressure that’s exerted on your body to increase by 100%, to nearly 30 psi. It’s definitely noticeable. If you move another 34 feet deeper, you have a total of three atmospheres (almost 45 psi) pressing on your body. The same amount of air pressure in your tank offers differing amounts of breathable air at various depths because there needs to be enough “oomph” in your air tank(s) to overcome the water pressure to make it through the regulator, hoses, and into your lungs. That excess “oomph” is what determines how much air is available for you to breathe. The deeper you go, the less time you can stay there.

Here’s the kicker: as you’re descending deeper, you notice the biggest pressure difference early on, and even though you’re still descending, the rate of increase gets less noticeable the deeper you go. Ever dive deep into a pool or a lake? You probably had to plug your nose and equalize the pressure in your head/ears before you went 10-12 feet deep because it felt like there was a huge increase in pressure. Mathematically, moving from one to two atmospheres is a 100% increase. Moving from two to three atmospheres is an increase of only 50%. Moving from three to four atmospheres is an increase of only 33%. The further you go, going even further feels like less of a big deal.

Sin is like that too. When you first encounter something you know is wrong, it’s easy to identify as being wrong. Once you start accepting it, rationalizing it away, or getting comfortable with it, it becomes more difficult to think of as being “wrong.” You start to accept additional things you formerly would’ve rejected outright. Once you make the jump from “one atmosphere” to two, it becomes easier to move to the third, and from there to the fourth.

What’s the bottom line? If you know it’s wrong, don’t do it. Don’t compromise. The more you compromise on living a God-honoring life, the more you’ll be willing to make subsequent concessions. Stay in that area near the surface, where you’re still sensitive to small changes in pressure and where going only 10 feet down becomes painful.

Our world is changing. Things that were once considered unspeakable are now commonplace and even endorsed. God’s view of sin has not changed, so neither should ours. We’re all sinners, and we all need the salvation Christ offers. Everyone needs to hear about it (God loves each and every person He’s created, so we shouldn’t play favorites), and you may be the only way someone encounters the truth. The truth will be more evident in your life if you’re living the way God wants.

Lord Jesus, thank you for creating this wonderful world and even giving us examples from science! Help us all be sensitive about the things in our lives that we should not allow to be there. Also help us to avoid a “holier than thou” attitude and be willing to genuinely reach the “tax collectors and sinners” of the Bible. Praise You for what You’ve done for us! In Your name, Amen.

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The Safest Time to Kayak Over Waterfalls is When the Water’s Big

I feel like I’ve had a lot of “20-years later” stories either lately or coming up. (Kayelling, 9/11, attending the 2002 Winter Olympics). Well, Senior year of college was a busy time for me, I guess. Today’s post talks about an event that happened 20 years ago this week.

There’s a creek near where I went to college that had a pair of roughly 6-foot waterfalls that were spaced about 50-100 yards apart. During most of the year, this is a very scenic spot with a water depth of only a few inches, but during the spring rains and snow melt, the creek swells, the current becomes much swifter, and for kayakers, the water gets too big to resist.

Gearing up for a double waterfall!

A 6-foot waterfall doesn’t sound like much. I’m a little over 6 feet tall, so it’s no big deal when I look eye-to-eye with another person the same height as me. It’s a different story when you’re sitting on the floor, looking up at someone that tall. That’s sort of what it’s like when sitting in a kayak and looking at a 6-foot-tall waterfall. I’d been over a four- or five-foot waterfall before and it went very well, but it wasn’t in water this big and it wasn’t in a “must-succeed” situation where a second set of falls lay waiting beyond.

There were three of us going that day. We all slid our boats into the water and allowed ourselves to get a good amount of space between us. Our most experienced paddler went first and demonstrated the line we should follow. As the least experienced kayaker, I went second, and the third guy brought up the rear. I followed the guide’s line, and I hit the first set of falls perfectly. I paddled right over the edge and had a great landing, and it was exhilarating!

On approach to the first waterfall
Quit while you’re ahead

I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but I think I hit some kind of undercurrent I wasn’t expecting, and I flipped over. I can tell you from experience that it’s a very unsettling feeling to be headed toward a waterfall while floating upside down in a capsized kayak.

Even though the creek was swollen to several times its usual size, the water was still only about 18 inches to two feet deep. As I was upside down, my helmet bounced along the bottom of the creek bed. I moved the paddle into position to right myself, but I had to modify the technique because the water was so shallow. I think I was trying to decide whether I should try the technique I’d practiced countless times in the pool, or let go of my paddle and use my hands to try pushing off the bottom to get flipped back up, hoping to catch the paddle again afterward. I didn’t want to risk going over the second set of falls without a paddle, and this wasn’t really the best time to try flipping back over using a method I’d never tried before, so I went the traditional route, but the water was too shallow to make it work the way I’d practiced. I don’t remember how many times if I tried it, but between not knowing how far away the upcoming falls were and confronting a compelling need to breathe, I decided to bail out.

Without question, it was really nice to be able to take a deep breath again, but I still had to contend with some challenges. After dragging my head along the bottom and fighting against the creek bed to try to position my paddle, I figured I wouldn’t have any problem just standing up wherever I was. I faced upstream and got on my knees. My wetsuit stopped above my knees, and I later realized that being pushed along while kneeling on a stone creek bed tears up your shins pretty badly. I got up on one knee, but my sandals couldn’t get any traction. I think I tried on the other knee too, but neither try worked. With my back to the looming falls, I did the only other thing I could think of: I swam as if my life depended on it in a foot and a half of water.

Thankfully, I did NOT take a trip over that second set of falls. I made it to the bank safely and jogged downstream to catch up with the first guy, who recovered my boat and paddle for me.

Ever have something just go in a TOTALLY different direction from what you expected? Don’t let it get you down. Living a life for Christ is going to have moments where you simply feel overwhelmed or inadequate. Then on top of that, experiencing failures only makes it feel worse. I’m certainly thankful there weren’t too many people there to witness this embarrassing situation. My two fellow paddlers were extremely gracious, and they reminded me that outings with the biggest mishaps make for the best stories.

If things had gone according to plan, it would have been an amazing 90 seconds to experience, but it wouldn’t be a very exciting story to pass along. Don’t be afraid to attempt big things in the name of building Christ’s kingdom, but when things don’t work out the way you expect (because God doesn’t follow YOUR plan), learn from the experience and use it to either make the next time different or to benefit someone that reminds you of your unfortunate or inexperienced younger self. You’re not the first one to make mistakes, but maybe you can pass along the wisdom you’ve learned through hard-won experience so others don’t have to make the same mistakes you’ve made.

Lord Jesus, when I look back at all the crazy situations I’ve willingly placed myself in, and how unscathed I came out of them when I should have met with much more serious consequences, it’s clear to me that there’s something after those experiences You wanted me around for, and it reminds me not to waste this life. Help me learn from the past, be bold in following after You, and share the things I’ve learned with others. Also, I don’t know how many guardian angels you’ve assigned to me, but please…thank them and bless them in a special way for me!

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“Abba” Ain’t Just a Swedish Pop Group

Last year as part of the effort to escape the oppression of COVID, our family went to the beach for an overnight. We had a lot of fun, got some sunburn, stayed in a hotel for the first time as a family, and ate some treats that we don’t normally have.

This was the first time in a few years that we had been to the beach. My son, 9 at the time, was now big enough to try using a boogie board in the surf. Since he was only 6 years old the previous time we’d been at the beach, he was a big kid now. In fact, he had even stopped calling me “Daddy” by this point. He was all kinds of excited that he had the chance to try out something cool.

Remember what it was like being a kid? When I was young I used to be the one that was rearing to go, but now I’m the slow parent. We stepped off the boardwalk and onto the sand, and he was ready to hit the water. My wife and I, on the other hand, still had to find a spot to set up blankets and umbrellas, then apply sunblock, then blow up whatever inflatable thing we had brought, have a drink of water, etc. Since my son was chomping at the bit to get started before I was ready to join him, I sort of explained what he needed to do in order to get going on the boogie board, and then he took off to give it a try.

He didn’t quite realize that you can’t really boogie board in the water that’s super close to the shoreline, where all the waves kept crashing. Being the enthusiastic guy that he is, he had fun giving it a try, but he wasn’t really able to get going for any significant distance.

After his old man finally got in the water, I gave it a try from some deeper water. I took a few test runs to make sure I was giving him accurate information. I found the technique that was working for me, then tried passing it along to him. In order for him to really get going, he had to come deeper, past the point where the waves were breaking.

He was fine with the idea of coming deeper, but it was tough for someone less than half my weight to do while holding a very buoyant board. As I stood in water that was probably waist deep for me, it was hard to watch him try to fight through the surf to get out deeper. His first attempt was a victim of poor timing; he ventured into the water at just the right time where the wave hit him while he was off balance. It knocked him down and pushed him back to shore. He got back up and gave it another try, but he tried again too soon. I would have said something to him, but I figured he’d see the next wave coming and hold off until it passed. Nope. The same thing happened and he had to pick himself up again. From where I stood, I could see he was having second thoughts about this. Holding the board made it so much more difficult to get out past the crashing waves when he ordinarily could’ve just dived through them or gone under them.

On the third try, with mounting failures fresh in his memory and fear building in his mind, I watched him enter the water much more tentatively. A wave approached him and it hit his board hard, reminding him of just how powerful the waves could be. I called to him, encouraging him from where I stood, but I could tell he wasn’t going to hang in there a whole lot longer. Moving slowly when he should’ve moved quickly, more waves bullied him. Struggling to keep a straight face, his eyes grew wide and he called out to me in fear, “Daddy, I don’t like this!”

It was a heart-wrenching moment. I moved quickly to him and helped get him steady. While still standing in the zone where the waves crashed, I told him I could help him get past the crazy part, but he was no longer willing to give it a try, he just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. It pained me to see him give up, and I tried several more times to convince him to give it another go, but he had made up his mind to stick to the shallows.

The part of that experience that sticks out the most to me was when my little guy’s enthusiasm melted away and he went back to calling me “Daddy.” He gave up on something that I know he would’ve enjoyed if he’d just done things a little differently. I could’ve forced him to do it, but I wanted him to want to do it, and it didn’t seem right to make him try something he no longer wanted to do (especially since it could have resulted in him fearing the ocean for years to come).

In the Bible, God goes by many names. One of them is “Abba.” The word “Abba” is something that Hebrew-speaking children call their fathers…it’s like saying “Daddy.”

The word Abba isn’t used often in the New Testament. It’s only used by two people: Jesus and Paul. Joachim Jeremias, a German theologian, remarked on Jesus’ use of the word. He writes “[Jesus] spoke to God as a child to its father: confidently and securely, and yet at the same time reverently and obediently.”

It makes sense that the Son of God talks to His Father that way. The part that’s crazy and amazing is this verse that Paul writes in Romans 8:15 and following. Paul’s writing about how we’re changed once we receive the Holy Spirit, and he says The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

This means that we (Christians) are adopted into the family of God. Not only that, but we’re loved and accepted to such a high degree that we’re given the privilege of calling God the Father “Daddy!”

The next time you’re overwhelmed or just having a hard time in general, remember that not only can you call on your Heavenly Father…you can call on your Heavenly Daddy. If you tell Him “I don’t like this,” know that He sees you, He’s got you, and He can get you where you need to be.

God, thank you so much for understanding us so well and for giving us so many illustrations by which we can get a better sense of Your love for us. You’ve assured us we’ll have hard times in this life. When we do, remind us to call on You, seek comfort in You, and remember that You’ll give us what we need for each day. Amen.

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No Holding Back

The November after I graduated college, I took an adventure trip to Australia. One of the parts of the trip I was most excited about was the trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. I had never been scuba diving before, and the Great Barrier Reef was like, legendary from everything I’d heard. During this portion of the trip we all got on a boat that took us miles from shore, and we stayed out there for two overnights.

The crew operating the dive tour took us to several different locations known to be good diving spots. Once they securely anchored the boat at a given dive site, we waited for a designated time window before we could go in the water. Safety observers needed to be in position, and we needed to receive a dive brief where we learned about the features of the area, where to avoid, can’t-miss sites, and what depth limits we should not break. During this leg of my Australian trip, I had the opportunity to do about a dozen trips into the water, either snorkeling or scuba diving.

For those of us that were not scuba certified on this trip, we could pay a bit extra on some of the outings and a staff member would teach us enough to get by, and would be our dive buddy and personal guide during that particular dive. I wasn’t going to come all the way to Australia and NOT go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Since it wasn’t cheap though, I got a good mix of scuba dives and regular snorkeling.

The reef was an amazing thing to see, especially the amount and variety of life that lived there. The reef itself sounded like it was fizzing and popping. When snorkeling, I would hold my breath and dive down to get a closer look at some of the gorgeous sites. While snorkeling, there was so much to see, even if you only dove down a few feet. I started diving down more than a few feet, though. Equipped with flippers, I was able to swim deep a little easier than normal. The more you do it, the more your body gets used to it. A few times I dove down deep enough to be on the same level as some of the divers.

On our last day at sea, our last dive was coming up, and I was going to spend this dive snorkeling. We all got into the water and started going our separate ways. I was kind of swimming around aimlessly when I noticed a very large concrete block down on the sea floor. It was one of the weights our boat anchored to. It was pretty far down there. I decided I was going to try to get all the way down to it.

The first time I tried, I started swimming straight down just to see how far I could comfortably go. I wore a wetsuit that provided some buoyancy, and lungs full of air also helped keep me afloat. The deeper I went though, the more the water pressure compressed everything, so the buoyancy of my lungs and suit had less effect. I gave it a half-hearted shot, but got nowhere near my goal before I turned around and swam back to the surface.

I recovered on the surface for awhile, but wanted to try again. I took a few quick, deep breaths, and then surged straight down again. I kicked hard, driving deeper. I got much closer to the block on the floor, but started getting concerned about not having enough air to make it back, so again I turned around early and headed up. Coming up from the depths has the opposite effect of going deep; your buoyancy increases as you get closer to the surface. As I got shallower, I could feel myself rising through the water more quickly, even if I slowed my kicking.

I spent some more time resting and letting my breathing return to normal before making another shot without holding anything back. I did the quick breathing thing again and dove hard with the most air I could possibly fit into my lungs. Again, I swam hard straight down, pushing back more firmly against the nerves and survival instinct the deeper I went. The block on the ocean floor became larger and larger, and as I drew nearer I became more determined to reach it. It was almost within my reach!

Finally, after a swim straight down and what seemed like forever, I reached the block on the ocean floor. With a major sense of accomplishment, I flipped over and placed my feet on the block. I took a moment to look down at my feet on the concrete, then to look around at this place I had fought so hard to get to.

Then I looked up. If we could go back and see what I looked like, we’d probably see the color drain from my face. On a free dive, being the deepest you’ve ever been also means that you are physically the furthest away from oxygen that you’ve ever been. Never, either before or since, have I seen such a large aquatic distance that I had to cover so quickly. I became so focused on reaching my goal that I lost sight of the fact that the trip to the block was only half of the swim.

I shot off the block and began kicking furiously. I wasn’t far off the block before my lungs started burning. I kicked as hard as I could, and tried a few strokes with my arms, but that almost felt like it slowed me down. Have you ever held your breath so long that your diaphragm starts going into convulsions? It’s your body’s natural reflex, as though it’s trying to force you to take a breath. More than halfway up, my diaphragm started convulsing. It’s one thing if you’re sitting on the couch seeing how long you can hold your breath, but it’s different when the muscle controlling your lungs starts having spasms underwater, and I got worried that I wasn’t going to make the surface without inhaling a lungful of seawater.

As I tried to keep my body from betraying me, I noticed that I was rushing through the water. The air in my lungs and wetsuit had expanded enough that it was again making me buoyant, and my buoyancy was increasing as I moved toward the surface. The water at this point was rushing past my face, and I could feel its flow anywhere my skin was exposed to the water. Compared to being at depth, my lungs were now so full they felt like they were about to explode, yet the air within them was all but used up.

I needed air so badly that I didn’t even want to waste time exhaling after breaking the surface. With nothing left to spare, I blew out halfway just before breaking the surface and took the most grateful gasp of fresh air I’ve ever taken in my life. Looking back at my notes from the trip, I estimated at the time that the concrete block on the ocean floor was about 10-12 meters, or about 35 feet, below the surface.

My muscles were spent from the furious swim and the lack of oxygen, and I floated there panting as my wetsuit kept me from sinking. After resting awhile, I was able to swim back to the boat and make it safely aboard.

Have you ever thought about how, when you feel you’re doing everything you possibly can, and it’s still not enough, the Holy Spirit can cover the gap? The way the wetsuit worked is sort of the same way the Holy Spirit does; it’s there, wrapped around you and pushing you toward where you need to go. I’ve met amazing people that have endured unbelievable hardships that have drained them of any strength they held in reserve. When you ask them how they got through it, their answer usually has something to do God’s grace. It might be “peace that passes understanding.” Hearing their story and knowing that they withstood things that would make the average person buckle or tap out reminds me that the Holy Spirit empowers Christ-followers with the things they need for the task at hand, even if that task is nothing more ordinary than to make it through the day.

This isn’t just for people with extraordinary stories, like Samson or King David; it’s for you and I, too. When we’re in the midst of excruciating trials or facing an insurmountable obstacle, God gives us what we need to “make it back to the surface.” Then, when it’s all over and we’re completely spent, He’s there keeping us afloat while we catch our breath, sustaining us long enough for us to make it back to safety.

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27

“And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”Acts 4:31

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Were You AIMING for the Bridge? (Part 2 of 2)

The arrow is pointing at the pillar where the canoe got pinned.

(View Part 1 here.)

I sat in the van, more than a little worried. Remnants of a hurricane had swollen the river to a level that wasn’t safe for recreational canoe usage, which became painfully obvious on our last canoe run. Earlier in the afternoon another lifeguard and I had accompanied a group of canoers on our standard trip, but one pair of boaters somehow managed to broadside a bridge pillar. The current was so strong that it dumped the boaters and bent the canoe around the pillar. My boss, Allen, and I were on our way to retrieve the “shipwrecked” canoe, and I was a teenager that was getting less and less comfortable.

Herb, the director of the Christian conference center where I worked, was driving us upriver. The plan was that we’d get into a single canoe, paddle over to the spot where the bent canoe was still pinned against the bridge pillar, and break it loose. If it was in good enough shape, one of us would transfer to it and we’d each paddle a canoe back home. If it was too damaged for that, we’d both remain in the same canoe and tow the damaged one behind us.

We could see the pinned canoe from the boat ramp. I buckled my life jacket and climbed into the front of our canoe. Allen skipped a life jacket, but had a rescue tube (one of those big red floats that you see pool lifeguards standing around with) wedged under his seat. We shoved off and right away got swept into the bright brown water’s swift current.

The river moved so quickly that we barely had to paddle. As we approached the bridge, we started paddling backwards to slow ourselves down. We slowed down perfectly, turned so we were parallel with the pinned canoe, and gently bumped up against it. A perfect docking.

The problem was the current was moving so quickly that when it crashed against the bridge pillar and the two canoes, it pillowed up and created undercurrents that we couldn’t see or anticipate. Even though we sat completely still in relation to the shore, the water churned and frothed angrily beneath us as the river pounded the keel relentlessly. Our boat shuddered, then flipped over, dumping us both upstream.

That water was flowing hard. I didn’t even have time to be pinned against the canoe; I got dumped in and immediately got swept under the boat. I was able to get a hand onto the side of the boat, and hung onto it with one hand, and held the paddle in the other. I was laid out horizontally, completely underwater, flapping in the current like a flag on a windy day.

I had no idea where Allen was or what his status was. He had probably safely cleared everything and was downstream by now, but maybe he had managed to hang on somehow. In the event that he was still there somewhere, I needed to get into a position where we could make something happen. I needed to breathe, but if I let go, not only would I be unable to help Allen with recovering the canoe, but the attempt would be over because he’d have to abandon the recovery effort and come after me. Still horizontal underwater, I tried to do a chin-up so I could get my face out of the water enough to catch a breath and maybe see where Allen was, but the current was so strong I couldn’t do it. I think I tried again, probably with both hands this time, but it still wasn’t working. With no choice (and not knowing how long it would be before the river let me get to the surface), I let go and got flung into the current, now at the whim of the river.

Honestly, when I surfaced, I expected to see Allen downriver. When I came up though, I didn’t see him. I turned and looked upriver, but didn’t see him there, either. I couldn’t see him anywhere. The only place he could be was still with the canoe, somewhere underwater.

The current pushed me into the eddy behind the pillar, but I was about to be carried out of it. Once I left the eddy, there would be no chance of getting back upstream. Allen was in the process of drowning about 20 feet away from me; I swam with everything I had, but I barely got anywhere.

While I was still fighting to get upstream, he popped through the surface. I found out later that the strap to the rescue tube wedged under his seat had somehow wrapped around his leg, so even though he wasn’t hanging onto the canoe at all, the canoe was hanging onto him. He had been dangling by his knee at the end of a strap, batted around underwater without any way of getting air. It must’ve been his guardian angel that shook the rescue tube loose from under his seat.

Just relieved that we were both alive, my sense of humor returned. While we were still drifting downstream, I asked him “well, do you want to try again?” Thankfully he said “uh, no.” We were able to swim to shore and get out of the water, but we were down another canoe.

What would’ve happened if Allen’s rescue tube hadn’t come loose? Could I have made it far enough upstream to be able to help him at all? If it meant I would exhaust myself, what should I have done, considering I’d probably still need a good reserve of strength if we both needed to rely on me to get out of the jam we were still in? Thankfully, I didn’t have the chance to think of any of this at the time. Allen bobbed to the surface before I had time to think about it.

This event helped put things in perspective for me. In this life, there are things you can control and there are things you can’t. When you can’t handle it, God will take care of it. If the only way out of a situation is via something that’s beyond you, there’s only so much you can bring to the table, and you have to rely on Him for the rest. Life has countless opportunities for you to bear witness to the fact that you’re not in control as much as you like to think you are. Every day brings new challenges, and a lot of them need God-sized help to overcome.

It’s important to remember that if God hands you an assignment that you’re totally confident that you’ll be able to accomplish, the task just might be too small. By all means do it, but recognize that if it’s something you can handle on your own, there’s not much room for God to be glorified. On the other hand, if you get to be part of something that you could in no way have accomplished on your own, it’s harder to take the credit for it. I give all the credit to God for shaking Allen loose and granting us overall safety that day, and pray that recounting this story glorifies Him further.

(Also, hypothetically, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation with shipwrecked canoes, don’t forget to call the local fire/rescue folks and let them know that everyone’s safe and accounted for. Otherwise, someone will eventually report two canoes pinned against a bridge, the rescue team will get all kinds of excited, and then they’ll let you have an earful when they find out what actually happened and that you didn’t fill them in.)

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Were You AIMING for the Bridge? (Part 1 of 2)

Lots of rain that week…

This week’s posts took place at roughly this time one July. I got certified as a lifeguard very late in the summer when I was 15, so I didn’t get much experience actually working on duty that year. The next summer was different.

The Christian conference center where I worked not only had two pools that needed lifeguards, but it also conducted waterfront activities on the Delaware River. It had a boat that guests could use for waterskiing and tubing, but it also did a lot of “canoe runs.” A canoe run was where someone on staff drove guests a few miles upriver and dropped them off with canoes, along with a lifeguard to guide the group. This stretch of river was mostly flat, but did have a few sets of progressively choppier or rougher rapids that helped break up the monotony. Canoe runs usually occurred four or five days a week, many times twice a day. As a result, the lifeguards became very familiar with the river and where they might encounter trouble spots or submerged obstacles. They almost never went more than a few days without being on the river, except for once each summer.

There’s a week every summer where the organization’s program offerings change, and it does not offer any waterfront activities. During this particular summer’s no-river-activities week, the remnants of a hurricane blew through our area. It rained hard for a few days that week, swelling streams and tributaries locally and for miles upstream of us. The water level rose and the current quickened many times over as that water made its way into the river.

For the first canoe run of the following week, plenty of people were excited to go. Recognizing that the river had risen substantially, an extra lifeguard went on this trip. I was one of them. Things started out uneventfully, but we were still within sight of the boat ramp when something very unexpected happened.

Here’s the bridge, with the supporting pillars. The one in question is the one right over this guy’s shoulder.

Soon after the put-in point there’s a bridge that crosses the river. The bridge is built for vehicles, so its pillars are pretty solid. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I think the two men in one of the canoes were trying to get past one of the columns and got surprised by how swift the current was moving. They somehow ended up slamming broadside into the pillar. The current was so strong that the impact dumped both people into the river and the force of the water physically wrapped the canoe around the upstream side of the pillar.

With the current moving so quickly, everyone else who had not hit a bridge went flying past the site of the impact. The other lifeguard and I, still a little stunned that someone had actually run into the only thing they could have possibly hit, spun our canoe around and began paddling upstream as hard as we could, but it was all we could do to not lose any further ground to the current. Just about all of the other canoes did the same thing, but with varying degrees of success. The two guys that got dumped in the water didn’t quite know what to do, and were stuck in the eddy downstream of the pillar. Everyone paddling hard was getting tired, so we had to shout to the guys to start swimming downstream, out of the eddy, so we could reach them. They did, and we eventually reached them and placed them in two of the remaining canoes.

This all happened within sight of where we put the canoes into the water. We still had almost three miles to go! I started worrying about all kinds of things. “What are the rapids gonna look like?” “If the current’s moving this fast, is our whole group going to be able to make land if they all arrive at our destination at the same time?” “How do I tell my boss I lost a canoe?”

The rest of the trip wasn’t nearly as eventful as what I feared. The river was so high that the rapids no longer existed, and the current moved so quickly that we made it downstream in record time. It was a struggle at the end, but we were able to get everyone back on land at the right spot. After counting heads and accounting for all of the gear (minus one boat and a few paddles), it was time to go tell the boss.

You might remember Allen from an earlier post. He’s the guy that recruited me into lifeguard training. He was in charge of all the recreational activities, and he was the guy I needed to tell. Allen’s the kind of guy that usually has the same facial expression whether he’s happy, sad, conflicted, ecstatic, flabbergasted, or thinking about a baloney sandwich.

“Dude, Al! We lost a canoe! These guys hit one of the bridge pillars, the canoe wrapped around it, they got dumped out, we picked ’em up and made it back, and as far as I know, the canoe’s still there, stuck on the bridge!”

He just kind of stood there and blinked at me, digesting what he just heard. He asked me a few clarification questions, paused to think for a few moments, and then hit me with:

“Well, let’s go get it.”

Then it was my turn to stand there and blink.

I should have protested more, maybe making more of an attempt to convey the river’s strength. I was fresh off the situation…I had just been there and seen the power of the current, and how crazy high the water actually was. Allen knew the conditions were much different from what they normally were, but he hadn’t been there to witness the ease with which the river destroyed a canoe. At 16 years old, though, I wasn’t confident enough to challenge my boss and say “I’ve been there, I’ve seen it! You’ve gotta believe me!”

There’s a difference between knowing something with your mind and having experienced that same thing in person. If you follow Christ, He enables you to do things that you can’t do without Him. The Bible talks about how we’re supposed to go out and tell the world about Christ, being bold and taking steps forward when we can’t see what’s in front of us. It talks about being strong and courageous, and it even talks about how, if you’re faithful with a few things, you’ll be granted authority over more resources so you can further demonstrate your faithfulness.

Yet it’s one thing to read about and say “yeah, I know that, I’ve known that for years” and quite another to do it. Keeping your keister parked on the couch instead of being obedient is a loss for Christ’s kingdom. You, as a child of God, need not fear even when seemingly impossible and daunting obstacles stand before you. If you know that God will empower His followers to do His work, do you believe Him? Going a step further, if you know that God has charged you to do something overwhelming, are you stepping out in faith even when you can’t see what’s in front of you?

Take the next step. Step out in faith. He’s going to give you what you need to succeed in His name. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. You’ve gotta believe me!

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Tomorrow Might Never Come

Picture courtesy of GoogleMaps

I don’t remember if I was 16 or 17 but I worked as a lifeguard a few of my teenaged summers. The Christian conference center where I worked was always very busy in the summer time, so when I wasn’t doing lifeguard or pool stuff, I usually had some other type of work to do.

One morning I sat in an office near the conference center’s front desk, doing data entry for some upcoming summer programs. I heard someone come running in the front door, and breathlessly told the front desk attendant, Kari, that there had been an accident down on the river. On the other side of the Delaware River, right across from us, there was a rope swing. Apparently a pair of guys that had been paddling down the river stopped to play around on the rope, but the rope snapped on one of them while they were mid-swing. According to the guy who came running in, his buddy was conscious, but couldn’t get up. Since there were some people hanging out on the conference center’s dock, the uninjured guy saw them and paddled over to ask for help.

Kari called an ambulance to get them rolling, then came back to where I was. She asked if I could just go see if there was anything I could do to help or if there was anything I could find out.

As I ran across the street and arrived down at the dock, the guy in the boat was just paddling away in his boat, heading back over to his buddy. I asked the people on the dock what was going on, and got the same info I already had. It sounded like the guy in the boat was super panicky, and it wasn’t clear if the injured guy had a hurt ankle or a hurt back. There were no other boats around. A canoe would have been absolutely fantastic at that point, and the conference center’s ski boat would have been even better, but the waterfront equipment wasn’t going to be set out for the day for another half hour or so.

I didn’t know how long it would be before the ambulance arrived. I looked across the river to where the guy was still laying in the water. That was too far to swim. Well…maybe? It was, right? I had never tried it, but that didn’t mean it was too far. I’d been swimming laps in the pool; in fact I swam hundreds of yards most weeks, but I never went more than 25 yards without touching a wall. This was probably only four or five pool lengths. The guy over there might have a broken back, and if his buddy did anything crazy, it could have a lasting impact. Before I knew it, I ran up to the pool and grabbed a big red rescue tube, then ran back down to the river. I was already wearing swim trunks; I kicked off my shoes and took off my shirt. I put the rescue tube’s strap across my chest and waded into the water to start swimming across the river.

No big deal, right? It was the same thing that I did in the pool. Everything went fine at first. I swam with purpose, I was confident I could do it, and the adrenaline gave me a boost. I had swum hundreds of laps in the pool, so I knew to lay as horizontally in the water as possible, even though it felt unnatural, so I could streamline my body and reduce the effort I’d need to expend.

But that was in a nice clear pool, with goggles. There were no lines on the floor here telling me I was going in the right direction. I had to keep picking my head up to check where I was, where my destination was, how fast the current was taking me, and if there were any boats coming. Picking my head up meant my body was more slanted in the water, so I had to work harder to go the same distance. Without goggles, the water kept getting in my eyes and I had to squint or miss half a stroke to wipe my eyes to see again. My feet kept kicking the rescue tube or the strap it was attached to, so I had to modify my kick. The adrenaline burned off, and I was in the middle of the river, getting tired and starting to doubt myself.

I ended up switching strokes for awhile. I didn’t move very fast, but it helped me rest enough to resume my previous stroke. After what seemed like forever, I made it to the other side. I was glad when my feet touched land again and I was able to walk up out of the water to find out what was going on.

It turns out the guy hadn’t broken his back or anything quite so severe, but his leg was probably broken. The river bank was too steep to get him up to the top, especially since he was a bigger guy and I didn’t have any shoes. The rope swing was on the back edge of a field. Any emergency vehicles were probably going to have a rough time finding the dirt road that led to us. I sent the injured guy’s buddy out to the main road to help the ambulance find us, while I stayed with busted-leg guy.

The emergency folks didn’t have all the information they would have liked, so they activated the swift-water rescue team. Now, my hat’s off to volunteer paramedics and river rescue folks, because they never know what they’re going to deal with when they show up to a call. I have to say, though, I was a little amused when a guy in a life jacket, wetsuit, and a helmet tossed a throw-bag (a rope with a weighted end) near us as I sat on the shore of a gently flowing river, wearing only swim trunks, while the water gently lapped our feet.

They got the guy out and loaded him into the ambulance. They patched him up, and I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure he was fine after a few weeks on crutches. Thankfully by the time they were driving off our waterfront equipment was getting set out, and of all people, my dad came idling up to me in the conference center’s ski boat to give me a ride home. I was glad I didn’t have to swim back.

What a crazy story. Where in the world am I going with this? I have three things to elaborate on:

First, no matter who you are, daunting tasks lay before you. Whether it’s the struggle to make it through yet another mundane day or fighting against something that threatens to annihilate your way of life, the choice to either stand on the sidelines and watch or step forward to get your feet wet is up to you. The road will be hard, but things God placed in your pathway previously have helped equip you for the journey.

Secondly, you don’t have to have all the answers in order to be helpful. I was afraid this guy fell off a rope swing and broke his back and that I was going to have to deal with some crazy complicated scenario. I wasn’t an EMT, I was just a teenaged lifeguard that was trained in CPR and first aid. I don’t think I even had a driver’s license yet. If the guy had been in real bad shape, the only thing I had with me was a glorified pool float. I knew more than either of those two other guys did, though. I may not have done anything to save the day, but by deciding to wade into the river, I kept things from getting worse. We’ve all been there. Maybe you see something at work or at church where you know it’s not going to end well, despite the best intentions of the people involved. If you see something they don’t, even if you’re not the expert, consider offering some insight that can keep things from getting worse.

Finally, when God made you, He broke the mold. While we’re all made in His image, you’re not like anybody else on Earth. Think about the things that come naturally to you…the combination of talents, interests, and traits that are unique to you. We’ll call that unique combination your X factor. In this day and age there is an urgent need for people to make use of the X factors God gave them. There is nobody else in the world that possesses the exact same X factor you do. You might be thinking something like “but you don’t understand…I don’t have a position of authority…I don’t even talk with that many people…I’m a nobody.” Let me tell you something: the Bible is full of “nobodys” that chose to get out of the way and let God put their X factor to good use.

Many, if not all, of us have been given opportunities…opportunities to do whatever it is that we’re best at. It’s one of the greatest gifts a person can receive: a chance to do what you were made to do. Incredibly, many of us put it off. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or even “next week.” What kind of arrogance is it we have when we assume “the same opportunity God is giving me right now will still be there in the morning”? The only thing you have for sure is right now. If God’s been nudging you to do something, what are you waiting for? It’s time to do it right now. Call that person right now. Stop delaying and set your idea in motion right now. Get it done right now. Wade into the water…right now.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. -Philippians 4:13