Climbing For Christ

TAKING THE GOSPEL TO MOUNTAINOUS AREAS OF THE WORLD WHERE OTHER MISSIONARIES CANNOT OR WILL NOT GO

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Gary Fallesen
/ Categories: C4C New Hampshire

New Hampshire Inaugural Meeting

The inaugural outing scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006 was postponed by poor weather. Chapter coordinator Kristin Odell reported on Friday that the forecast was “100-percent chance of precipitation with winds gusting up to 60 mph. Crazy!” And not exactly rock climb weather.

Odell had planned on leading a group rock climbing at Pawtuckaway State Park in Nottingham, N.H. Pawtuckaway has routes rating from 5.2 to 5.13 and offers bouldering, too. About a dozen people were expected to attend.

“I at least wanted to get in one trip before the snow comes,” Odell had said earlier. “Hopefully the weather will be nice and we'll be able to feel our fingers at the end of the day.”

Oops.

“Anyway, it hasn't stopped planning for the next trip,” Odell said later, adding that she was going to see if people planning to go climbing from her part of New Hampshire still wanted to go indoors at the local gym.

Odell lives in Portsmouth, N.H., where she is interning with her church, Harbor Christian, in a ministry called Year Team. “Our focus with Year Team is on evangelism, homeless ministry, training, and outreach to the Muslim communities, visiting mosques in Boston and in Portland, Maine,” Kristin said.

Odell is an outreach-oriented person. Her favorite passage in Scripture is found in Matthew 28:18-20. “It expresses the need to MAKE DISCIPLES,” Kristin said. “Jesus made it perfectly clear for us Christians to not only be good people and do good things, but to GO, and MAKE DISCIPLES! — to all the nations and all the people groups.”

Going starts with attending a chapter event. Chapters, such as New England (as well as Minnesota, which began on Oct. 7, and older chapters like Western New York, Adirondack Mountains, Chicago, Colorado Front Range, and Washington Cascade Range), provide an opportunity for fellowship and encouragement. Jesus made it clear that He does not want us to live and serve alone. “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken,” it says in Ecclesiastes 4:12.

New England has many Climbing For Christ members in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. (Notice that Vermont and Rhode Island are missing from this list. Are there no Christian climbers in those states?!) As membership increases — another benefit of forming chapters is ministry growth — we likely will divide the New England Chapter in the White Mountains Chapter, Green Mountains Chapter, Berkshire Chapter, etc. For now, however, we invite New England members to gather for rock climbing at Pawtuckaway and other future events.

“Hopefully this winter we're gonna hit up the indoor climbing gym and have some fellowship,” Odell said. “Who knows, maybe a winter jaunt up Mount Washington.”
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