Trail Days 2005: 5 hikers receive Christ

Stats and Facts about   Trail Angeling in 2005

Trail Stewardship: cleaning the trail

Possible Plans for Craig & Suzy in 2006

Technology News: new "Q & A" section added to home page

Where is Vapor?

Click for a Printable Newsletter

Please pray for us!

Here are some specific needs:

************* 

As A.T. Servants grows, there is a greater need for Suzy to be full-time in ministry (she is currently working at Regions Bank but she will be laid off soon).  Please pray that God provides our full-time financial support.

************* Pray that thru- hikers will connect the beauty of the creation around them with the one, true Creator.

*************  Please pray for volunteers to commit to Trail Angeling.

From May 11-15, 2005, First Baptist Church of Damascus, Liberty Park Baptist, and A.T. Servants partnered to help hikers during the Trail Days festival in Damascus, VA.   It was a *huge* success!  

During Trail Days, the small town of Damascus was visited by an estimated 10,000+ hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts.  At Trail Days, past thru-hikers fellowshipped like a high school reunion, present thru-hikers found current friends from the trail, and future thru-hikers searched for information and dreamt about their upcoming thru-hike.  There were a lot of events at Trail Days.  There were vendors, seminars, contests, giveaways, a hiker parade, a lot of food, and a lot of fun at Trail Days.

This year, we gave the hikers plenty of opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ, step inside the church, and to be served by Christians who truly love them.  Below was our schedule of events:

Wednesday, May 11: Craig delivered a sermon entitled "How to get your spiritual 'pack weight' down".   With a large and heavy backpack full of unnecessary contents on the stage as an analogy, he demonstrated how spiritual burdens can weigh us down.  Christ, who was an ultralight backpacker, can rearrange your life and He'll lighten your burden!  The sermon was especially meaningful to Craig because he was able to share his heartfelt message to his friends--the hikers that he and A.T. Servants had helped over the past 450 miles and two months.  The sermon and gospel presentation seemed to be received well by the hikers.   

Thursday-Saturday, May 12-14: Hikers are known for their diSTINKt odors.  So, Jack Noble and the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia donated the use of a Disaster Relief Mobile Shower Trailer that had 6 stalls for hikers to use.  It even had a washer and dryer on board!  Over 130 hikers used this unit in two days.  Hikers were extremely happy and thankful to use a clean shower with fresh towels.  Special thanks is due to Hayes R.V. Park for allowing us to use two spaces at their fine location. 

As a compliment to the shower trailer, Liberty Park and Myron Myers brought a Mobile Medical Lab and 25 volunteers from Alabama!  At the lab, located in the First Baptist of Damascus parking lot, they offered free medical screenings for good and bad cholesterol, tryglycerides, electolytes, blood  pressure, polysporin, and general medical help.  A whopping 268 hikers registered for the free services!  While most hikers received a clean bill of health, some hikers had to be referred to local medical clinics.   We watched a hiker wince as she received a shot in the toe, another very thankful hiker was sent in an ambulance to the hospital because one of her feet was about twice the size of the other foot, and yet another grateful hiker found out that she had diabetes--not good to have on the trail!  Not only did the mobile lab take care of the hikers' physical needs but they also met the spiritual needs of the hikers as well.  As a matter of fact, four hikers prayed to receive Christ's life at the medical lab and one hiker prayed to receive Christ at the Sunday service at First Baptist!

If that was not enough, Linda "Sonshine" Austin and her husband, Jeff, of First Baptist of Damascus put the topping on an already amazing week.  Together, they worked to organize events such as the meal for over 300 hikers (not included in our stats), showing of "The Passion of the Christ", organizing a well-attended Christian Coffee House, feeding the volunteers, offering free shuttles to hikers back to the A.T., and many other great events--way too many to mention.  

Without Liberty Park, Myron Myers, Jack Noble, Linda, and Jeff,  the Church would not have been able to impact hikers as successfully at Trail Days.  Thanks to their cooperative efforts,  hikers were amazed at how much the church cares for them.  Hikers were healthier and cleaner, lives were changed, lost came to know the Lord, and God was glorified throughout the entire week.

Click here to see more Trail Days pictures on our site and on other sites.

Trail Days 2006 will take place from May 19-21.  Click here for updates.

Stats and Facts About Trail Angeling in 2005: 682 hikers helped

God has TRULY been at work during the 2005 season.  We have seen Him expand our territory and seen Him harvest seeds planted in faith.  Below is a synopsis of the number of hikers that were reached and the amount of food distributed to hikers through this ministry.

Hikers

Imagine that you are working for the F.B.I. and you are given a case in which a number of people are constantly changing their name from one alias to another alias.  In some cases, this is how counting hikers can be.  Hikers have a given name, they get to the trail, and they get a nickname.  In some cases the nickname is consistent (e.g. Vapor) but in other cases a hiker will go through several names until one "sticks" (e.g. 'Fred' changes to 'Featherhead' and then changes to 'Gray Ghost').  This is to say that statistics are difficult to keep up with on the A.T..  

Prior to the Trail Days Festival statistics were much easier to keep up with.  Before then, about 375 hikers had been helped on the trail and about 65 were taken into town.  During Trail Days, about 286 hikers utilized the medical lab and over 130 used the shower units.  Another 300+ hikers were fed by First Baptist during Trail Days.  So in total, about 682 hikers were helped at least one time by A.T. Servants' Trail Angels, shower unit, and medical lab (we did not include the meal or the movie).  80 of these hikers were helped two or more times by A.T. Servants' volunteers.  That's a lot of happy hikers!   Feel free to write us if you would like to see our analysis.  As A.T. Servants works together with Damascus First Baptist, and hostels like The Blueberry Patch in Georgia, and Troutdale Baptist in Virginia (who help hoards of hikers as well), hikers witness Christ's Church Body working together in a way many have never seen before.  The church, as a whole, is helping hikers tremendously, planting seeds, and impacting their lives.

Food and handouts

Hikers consume a lot of food.  So, churches step up to the plate and fill it.  Associations, churches, and individuals donated over 2,500 cracker packs, 1,000 soft drinks, 900 pudding cups, 600 bags of cookies, 575 bags of chips, 300 bottles of water (plus 30, 1-gallon jugs of water), 50 bags of peanuts, 40 Christian books, 28 Bibles, 15 pairs of gloves, 20 rolls of toilet paper, 4 rolls of duct tape, and a watch.  122 volunteers (not counting vols from FBC Damascus) from churches helped to distribute this food to hikers this year.  Click here to see the details.  Special thanks is due to the Chattahoochee Baptist Association in GA and Bud's Best Cookies in AL.    

Would you like to know how you can join the volunteers in serving on the A.T.? Please check out our Trail Angel page and contact Craig and Suzy at 706-482-8537.

This year A.T. Servants served beside nearly 150 Trail Angels.  Prior to serving the first hiker and after serving the last hiker the volunteers would clean the gap in which they served.  This is a practice in ecological ethics and trail stewardship.  It is the goal of A.T. Servants and the volunteers to leave the various gaps looking better than they did when they arrived.

In Georgia, volunteers removed a discarded truck bed liner and two camping mats at Tesnatee Gap (trail mile 36.0) and hundreds of cigarette butts at Woody Gap (trail mile 19.9) in the Chattahoochee National Forest.  

In North Carolina, the gaps were relatively clean.  Only a few beer bottles were removed from Winding Stair (trail mile 106.6) and Wayah Gap (trail mile 112.3) in the Nantahala National Forest.  

In Tennessee, the story was strikingly different.  A.T. Servants and church volunteers helped to clean two areas in the Cherokee National Forest: Watauga Lake in Hampton and Low Gap in Shady Valley.  At Low Gap/US-421 (trail mile 444.7), volunteers from Shady Valley Baptist Church (2.2 miles from the trail) removed 7 tires and 10 bags of trash!  Ray Arnett from Union Baptist Church  (.8 miles from the trail) joined with A.T. Servants in April to clean the trail at Watauga Lake near Shook Branch (trail mile 418.2).  The trail is next to the lake and it is next to US-321.  Unfortunately, it seems to serve as a dumping ground for some of the locals.  Along the trail we found and removed literal heaps of recently discarded trash and mounds of rubbish that appeared to be 40-75 years old.  Next to the white blazes of the A.T., we removed 3 tires, 13 bags of trash (including ubiquitous bottles, cans, car parts, construction rubbish, etc.), and even a kitchen sink!  It will take at least 10 more visits to clean this area.  So, other church groups have been cleaning the area since we left--praise God.  

Bagging trash as a church function serves more of a purpose than merely making the trail more beautiful.  It shows God that you appreciate His creation as a good steward and it shows the world (especially those persons with pantheist leanings) that you care about creation as well.  While we were cleaning Watauga Lake, we met several thru-hikers.  They were amazed and thankful to see the church cleaning the trail and they reported other areas on the trail that were in disarray.  In another case, a local outfitter caught volunteers from A.T. Servants in the good act of cleaning the trail.  Immediately, this caused him to have greater respect for the church and this led to a very meaningful conversation about Christianity.  Conservation can lead to conversation about Christian conversion!   

As we conclude this Trail Angel season, we are already looking ahead and beginning to plan for another year of activities in 2006.

We are learning from the great happenings of this season.  What worked with volunteer groups? What did not?  What did we do well?  Where can we improve?  As we examine these questions we can put better systems in place for the future.

In addition to examining what can be done better for future Trail Angel seasons, we are also planning to build the Trail Chaplain side of the ministry. With the conclusion of Vapor’s hike coming in just a few months, we (Craig and Suzy) are considering hiking as missionaries as well.  After having sought counsel from several Christians for several months now, we believe it necessary to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail for several reasons: 

1) Credibility. Wherever we go and whomever we talk to, inevitably, we are asked, "Have you hiked the entire A.T?"  Unfortunately, we have to answer a solemn, "No." Hiking the A.T. would lend us needed credibility to both the hiking community and to the church community.  We will have experienced the A.T. in a different way (i.e. as a thru-hiker), spent prolonged durations of time with other thru-hikers, experienced the needs of thru-hikers first-hand, and made countless contacts that will be useful in the future of the ministry. 

2) Experience is Needed to Gain Future Trail Chaplains. Right now, no one on the Board of Directors for A.T. Servants has thru-hiked.  So, in order to have a greater grasp of what it takes to be a Trail Chaplain, it is important to have experienced what Trail Chaplains will experience.  In this way, A.T. Servants can say with surety, to future Trail Chaplains, what to expect.

3) The Timing is Perfect Both Professionally and Personally. You may be asking, “Where would you find the time?”  2006 seems to be the optimum time for us to thru-hike because Suzy will soon be laid-off from her job at Regions Bank.   If the Lord allows, she will be joining Craig to work full-time in ministry.  This is where we truly “step out of the boat and on to the water” (Matthew 14:27-29) so-to-speak--no more corporate financial security.  This is also an optimum time in the life of A.T. Servants for us take the time to thru-hike. This year, churches answered God’s call to volunteer in a *huge* way. In fact, the number of volunteers this year nearly tripled the number of volunteers from last year!  So, before the network of churches grows any larger and more Chaplains hike the trail, it is best for us to gain the additional experience of thru-hiking.

In order to prepare for this 6-month hike, we are also planning to spend about a month in September hiking The Long Trail in Vermont. The Long Trail is the oldest long-distance trail in America and it was the inspiration for the A.T.  End-to-end hiking this 276-mile trail will not only gain us more hiking experience, it will also gain us the additional credibility of completing a long distance hike. If you would like to donate to this hike, please click here.  

You may be asking, “What will happen to Trail Angels in 2006, if Craig and Suzy hike?” This is a very good question.  Right now, we are looking at options for Trail Angels next season. Our hope is to find volunteer leaders in each area of the A.T. that we covered this year. This leader would be allotted a portion of food and would take charge of the Trail Angel efforts in his or her area.  We still need to find these leaders and begin planning with them to make the 2006 hiking season a success.

While we are assured that Christ will take care of all of our needs, we would be remiss to not apprise you, the church body, of our needs.  Currently, we lack about $1,500 per month in reaching our minimum full-time financial support goal.  We know that God will use faithful brothers and sisters to make sure that this ministry continues to grow.  Please prayerfully consider joining our monthly support team.  Your monthly donations are greatly appreciated.

Of course, all of these plans are still being prayerfully considered. It is our goal as an organization, to constantly be in commune with God and follow where He would have us go.  If you would like to share your thoughts about Craig and Suzy hiking as missionaries in 2006, please write us. If you would like to volunteer to be a Trail Angel leader for the 2006 Trail Angel Season or if you would like to contribute to A.T. Servants, please contact us. We would love to hear from you!

Technology News: New Christianity 'Q&A' Section Added to A.T.S. Homepage

As you probably know, Jonathan (a.k.a. "Vapor) is the 2005 A.T. Servants Chaplain.  He started his journey on the 2,174.9-mile A.T. on March 12.  As of May 31, he was at Bears Den Hostel (trail mile 989.9) in extreme northern Virginia.  Jonathan has already completed over 45.5% of the trail!  He is in good health, he's in good spirits, and he is talking to a number of hikers about God, Christ, and Christ being God.  Please continue to pray for him *daily*.  You can find out some of his needs by reading his daily journals at www.trailjournals.com/jonathan. 

WE NEED YOUR HELP: If you have some spare time, could you write Jonathan/Vapor a note of encouragement?  As you can imagine, life on the trail as an overt Christian can be tough--  especially when one is doing God's work.  If you could write an uplifting note to him, you could really make his day or even impact his life.  Just click here to open up your e-mail client, write the letter, sprinkle it with Scripture, and it will be sent to both Jonathan and us (Of course, you can delete us out of the e-mail if you desire).  Thanks!