This is Project Forty and I am recording in my outdoor office. It’s a beautiful day. I have to get out and enjoy it. I’m continuing on a story about the herd. The herd was a group of 18 people. That’s a lot of people! We were crossing a glacier. A glacier is a big sheet ice full of crevasses and obstacles you have to get around. You have to be roped off and you have to be really sure what you’re doing. I was in charge of the group safety. I’m the only guide on this trip that I had actually set foot on the Bon Bon glacier before. My co-guides had experience but had never been in this particular location. We got everyone roped up and it’s time to go. We’re moving out onto this glacier. I’m really excited, but I’m a little bit nervous at the same time because we got a late start. I got to bloody nose right at the beginning. I was like,”Alright God, let’s get this thing going.”

So we get out there and move along. We’re going around these small crevasses and it becomes sort of like a maze. In the midst of this maze we got a little bit lost in the crevasses. I assumed that what I saw earlier that morning was small crevasses, but they were now opened up into larger crevasses. They were 4 to 5 feet across and 50 to 60 feet deep! You’re going to be seriously injured if you fall into one of these. I’d like to think that we wouldn’t die but in all reality it would’ve been a dangerous situation.

I looked across at the peak next to us called Sun Peak and I’m watching the shadow move up this mountain as the sun’s going down. I was thinking we got to get off this glacier so in a moment of desperation I said this very sincere and drawn out prayer. It went something like, “God, help.” That was pretty much it. That was really all I got out and as I did I saw something in the snow.
I saw bear tracks. We’re on a glacier! Come on, like there’s really bear tracks on the glacier? It wasn’t totally surprising because earlier that day we actually saw the bear cross this glacier and it blew us all away, like, “Wow that’s crazy!”

But praying in that moment and God being so faithful to a simple thing like, “Help!” Just moments later I find these bear tracks and I’m thinking to myself, “Well if a bear can cross snow bridges and get around all these crevasses, we can! Bears weigh a lot more I do.” We followed the bear tracks as far as we could and it led us safely around these crevasses. It really was an incredible moment. I remember laying my head down at the end of that day and thinking, “God you are so faithful.”

Psalm 119:105, it’s a pretty popular verse that says, “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path.” God’s Word is just that. My encouragement will always be to open God’s Word, to study it, to know it. God is faithful in the little things just like he is in the big things.
I hope you enjoy this story and we’re going to pick up part three next week, hopefully in the outdoor office…weather dependent!

-Matt