It was in the wilderness that the people were first liberated. … There they met God. … And there in the wilds they met themselves, and their own wildernesses. … Denied the comforts of a fixed address, they faced the questions of what was really necessary for life. … The hardships of the journey strengthened them. …

Forty days of disastrous rain, forty years in the wilderness, forty days of Elijah's fasting before his prophetic and visionary ministry, these are the touchstones of the spiritual journey the Bible knows. Jesus tastes the same parched, dry experience of the desert. … Jesus' deeply human intuition was that if he was to live and take up the cause God had called him to, he must first experience a wilderness.

… I wish you could enter into the real wilderness with your whole person, knowing who you are and what you need. … Come to that space, find yourself, find and be found by that Lord.

~taken from "You and Your Wilderness" a sermon by Rev. William Tully

In an effort to recreate the wilderness experience of Noah, Moses, Elijah and Jesus, fourteen Greenville College Residential Life staff and student leaders spent two days in solitude, prayer and fasting this past August as part of Walkabout '98, a ten-day "wilderness adventure" in the High Sierras of California sponsored by Azusa Pacific University.

In the pristine Ansel Adams wilderness, students and staff witness the order and unity of God's creation, a world He created out of chaos. The unpredictability of the wilderness creates a unique learning environment that could never be duplicated in any conventional classroom. What first appears as the chaos of an unfamiliar environment can be transformed into the learning laboratory for bringing order to fragmented self-images.

In loving ourselves through the eyes of Christ - our pain and mistakes as well as our talents and successes - we are empowered to effectively lead and lovingly serve His kingdom. We are made in his image, our identity is in Christ; without a knowledge and love of Him, our identity lacks clarity and purpose. It is often in the wilderness, in our loneliness, vulnerability, insecurity and exhaustion that we search for the presence of one who can provide inexhaustible companionship, protection and security. As we experience His identity, we further define ours as well.

During the two-day Solo period, participants engage in various spiritual growth exercises including Bible study, mediation and prayer with the Lord. Each person has the opportunity to emerge from this process with a stronger and more personalized sense of identity - values, commitment, strengths and weaknesses - and the knowledge that their limitations need not keep them from succeeding.

These individuals chose to enter a personal season of devotion, introspection and revelation in order that they might make themselves available for God's teaching without distraction. This environment sets the stage where unparalleled transformation and life change can take place.

Devotion
Devotion requires our hearts and minds to focus on the object of our devotion. The wilderness provides a unique setting of silence, of removal from life's usual pace, to refocus our thoughts, priorities and commitments with God's guidance and direction. "I'd always heard people talk about the concept in personal time with God of just being quiet, but I never understood or experienced that until my Solo days," voices Katie Snyder, resident director. "Scripture meditation and focusing on specific ideas in scripture began a process that's starting to sink in."

Continues Michael Ritter, Student Association president, "One of the favorite things for me to do now when I'm running is to run out of town where no people are and stop and sit down. I have now seen the value of getting away from the noise." This time of education and communication often leads the heart to a time of inner contemplation to examine more fully God's plan and perspective of our individual lives.

Introspection
Self-examination, in the context of God's Word, produces insight into enhanced use of our strengths and perpetual definition of purpose, as well as personal limitations and how to walk the journey in the midst of them. A personal understanding of the Father's traits and purposes in relation to our own produces both unity and freedom - unity with Him and freedom in Him.

"When the time actually came for me to 'solo,' God used that forty-eight hours of solitude to turn my heart, my thoughts and my emotions upside down and inside out. Never before have I felt such a distinct need to cling to my creator as when I sat, completely alone, upon a rock in the middle of the California wilderness," shares Kelly Fife, student director of Royal Lake Homework Assistance Program.

"I learned the value of self-evaluation, time to just get alone to sort my feelings and emotions … to reflect on what's happening in my life and look for where God is working." Such deep moments of introspection inevitably lead to valuable revelations. Participants repeatedly express excitement and desire to make application of this information in their daily lives.

Revelation
Creating a circle of stones, a significant exercise during Solo, serves to dedicate the time of introspection and place of renewed conviction which arise from these unique moments of communion with Christ. Stones represent areas of weakness primed for growth, divine pursuits for which to aspire, sins of the past and new hopes for the future.

"God enabled me to focus on the areas in my life through which he wanted to reveal himself," states Travis Klopfenstein, Director of Advancement. "I sat and prayed in a circle of stones, and asked God to reveal those issues I needed to remove from my path and give to Him. When I left my solo area I left behind that circle of stones, and I left behind the 'sin that so easily ensnares.'"

Brandon Hill, resident director, shares, "Each rock was to represent something we were praying for or giving up. We were then to leave those rocks on the mountain as a monument to our prayers and commitments."

A time of Solo, of solitude with Father, Savior and Spirit, offers each individual a unique opportunity to deepen their relationship with God, discover and cherish their own identity in Him, and apply new growth and understanding to awaiting responsibilities and possibilities. As a result of the Walkabout '98 wilderness experience, Greenville College staff and student leaders returned to their respective roles more effectively equipped to lead and serve His kingdom.

"And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil. … And when the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit … And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all." From Luke 4: 1-15 NAS

Walkabout began twenty-five years ago as a unique component of staff/student leadership training offered by APU's Department of Residential Life, and it is planned for Greenville College to begin a similar wilderness program in the next academic year.

Funded by a generous grant from the Chatlos foundation, and grounded in this most recent experience, Greenville College has begun to research the wilderness areas here in the Midwest in hopes that the transforming power of wilderness adventure will engender new energy toward saving a lost world for Christ here at Greenville College.

Norm Hall serves as Dean of Student Development and Leadership at Greenville College. Prior to coming to Greenville, he served as Director of Residence Life at Asuza Pacific University, where he coordinated Walkabout trips. Robyn Florian is the Assistant Director of Public Relations at Greenville College. "Storytelling for development," she provides writing and design support for public relations, enrollment and fund raising special events and programs.