The Britany Gathering

I have been wanting to share about our awesome weekend since Sunday night, but haven't made the time to do so. I was doing some reading in Psalms today and came across the old familiar verse Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart" I know this verse is often misunderstood, but it reminded me of some of my old "dreams" that are now coming true in some ways in my life. As a child I always wanted to live hours from any major city, I also had a fascination with Native culture. This last week I got to experience both, which is just a preview of what our future will hold. Friday evening we drove about two hours south-west of Steve and Jill Horsman’s (Chilanko Forks) to a place called Henry's Crossing. We arrived about ten an night, and were supposed to meet up with a group coming in on horses. I'll spare you all the details, but with a little bit of adventure we finally had the horses taken care of and tents up for everyone by about three in the morning. That evening is a story in itself and not really the point of this blog. So anyway the next morning, we did sleep in, the fun begins. First we learned why the Chilcotin people even had this gathering together. Basically this gathering started about fourteen years ago and was done in protest of a certain lumber company and how they were logging the land. The place that we had gathered was called the Britany triangle (hence the name Britany gathering). They are still battling all the details in court and every year they get together to celebrate and remember. We got to see some parts of the Chilcotin culture first hand like singing and dancing (see picture). We also got to taste some traditional foods like moose jerky and ban cook (fry bread) but done on a stick over the fire. Moose jerky is great for teething babies. The best part of all was when Saturday night we stayed up around the camp fire and hung out with some new friends (who are Chilcotin). We had a blast just talking and laughing and enjoying the outdoor night. Sunday was a long day because we had to break down camp and take everything back home, but it was worth the weekend of new experiences. We were so thankful for this opportunity and it has given us a new sense of urgency to raise support and come back to the Chilcotin to share Christ.