Whenever a person is very sincere, willing to listen, and ready to obey, dedicate himself, and surrender, the Lord is willing to do anything to help that person.

-F. Enzio Busche

The Allen Family

There is a word that comes to my mind when I think of the Allen family. It is a word with incredible power. Their family is adventurous, kind, fun, tough, caring, and full of charity. The attribute that underlies all of these traits and that shines through in all they do is faithful. 

It’s been amazing to watch the power, peace, and love that stem from their faith.

Despite the hard things some of them encountered through this experience (I'll share some below... including poisonous trees and a near hijacking), they served with joy and love, always looking out for others.

I have been thinking a lot about how I can develop their kind of faith in order to make this dream of a school, home, and safe healing place in Mexico come out of my head and into reality. 

What is a dream you have that you want to see come to be?

Here are some of the principles I learned as I watched Benjamin’s faith and that of his friends and family that I believe can help all of us turn inspired dreams into reality.

1. Faith is Charitable Action Out of Your Comfort Zone

It takes faith to drive 8 days from Utah to Mexico with two cars full of valuable construction material. 

It takes faith to assume a family without many resources, but with a big dream, will one day pay you back what you spend on that material.

It takes faith take the vacation time out of your year to go serve a cause in Mexico instead of going somewhere to relax.

It also takes faith to keep going, after having to leave half the equipment behind because they won’t let you take wood into Mexico.

And it takes faith to assume that somehow you will have what you need when you arrive.

2. Faith Inspires Others to Step Out of Their Comfort Zone

After Benjamin arrived, he got to work visualizing what we could to with the trees we miraculously found waiting for us on the property.

Then he drew ideas on paper. 

Then he got to work building it.

Our family would show up, always later than we hoped, to try to help with our limited skills and knowledge. When he was doing so much, we wanted to do all in our power too. It was not nearly enough, but we tried our best because he inspired us to try to do the impossible by believing in our dream.

Sometimes he would wake up with ideas to try and share them with us. What a privilege to watch this creative power of faith in action. Thankfully we were not the only people that his faith drew in to help.

Joey and Jordan

The first people who arrived were Joey and Jordan who work for Benjamin at CLAS ropes. They both dedicate their lives to ropes courses because they have seen first hand the transformative power that a ropes course has. They see the importance of transformational education and have a passion for helping others have access to these experiences.

As soon as Ben explained his vision to them, they got right to work drilling, climbing, organizing, and building. Like Benjamin, they gave of their time and talents freely, with a smile and kindness the whole time… even on hot humid days or days with many mosquitos (they seemed to be worse when we cut down the foliage). 

Nathan and Lisa

Nathan and Lisa have also chosen to use their gifts to create these experiences for people. They are the owners of Big Rock Adventure in Utah. Nathan is Benjamin’s son. He, Lisa, and their little newborn baby Austin arrived in Mexico the day that Joey and Jordan left. 

Once they arrived, we got used to seeing Nathan and Benjamin in the trees. Lisa would be wearing her baby in a wrap around her and would tie tools to ropes to send up to Nathan and Benjamin (in between feeding, walking, and changing her baby.)

Like Joey and Jordan, Nathan and Lisa worked 10+ hours every day, giving their time and talents freely. And then they would be up through much of the night caring for a newborn. This would be enough to make anyone a little cranky in the hot, humid weather with mosquitos. But I never heard either of them complain or lose their kindness and smiles. It was remarkable. 

3. Faith Overpowers Difficult Experiences

To say Benjamin encountered some difficult experiences on his drive to Mexico would be an understatement.

They were forced to turn back at the border 4 times because of what they were trying to transport. A planned 5 day drive turned into an 8 day drive.

A tire blew out, a hose kept coming lose on one of the cars, and he and my dad were almost ran off the road by hijackers...

Benjamin saw their car on a bridge ahead of him when they were about 3 hours into Mexico. He had a feeling that something was wrong.

The car came off the bridge and drove up next to Benjamin and signaled for him to pull out. When he refused they started driving their car into his to get him to pull out. He refused. Then they tried going in front of him and pushing on their brakes quickly. When he was undeterred, and kept swerving past them, they tried it on my dad who was just ahead of Ben. My dad started to slow down even though he was trying to evade them because he was driving Benjamin's suburban and didn't want to damage it. Benjamin saw him slow down and sped up to reach them and to try to drive them away from him by pushing his car towards theirs. The men gave up on them after a while and got off on the next exit.

I was feeling awful about all they were enduring and nervous about the rest of the drive. Benjamin said, “We should be okay now that we are much more into Mexico and away from the border. Building a ropes course is always an adventure and there are always obstacles. It’s like a giant team-building activity. That’s what makes it so rewarding when you finally overcome all of the challenges and get it built.”

The drive was only the beginning of the hard experiences. Besides the mosquitos and some hot, humid days, there is also a tree here called the Chechen tree. It acts like Poison Oak (which Benjamin is very allergic to). At first, we weren’t very adept at identifying the tree. Benjamin moved in and out of trees all of the time to attach cables or clear areas and he got exposed to the Chechen tree quite a bit. It burns your skin, itches and stings. He had a hard time sleeping through the sting and would sometimes have to take cold showers in the middle of the night to help with the pain. 

Those here who had been exposed to Chechen before could not believe he was still out working through it all. My friend who had dealt with Chechen wounds before said she suspected he was Thor in disguise because he was so tough about it and kept working with a smile, laughter, and kindness. He didn’t let it slow him down. I asked him how he was doing and he replied, “I’ve felt worse.” 

I saw an email to his family in which he explained that his testimony allows him to live with low stress. He said, "As I put my trust in God, everything always works out for the best. Maybe not immediately, but eventually I can always look back and see the hand of God... each of us are required to trust in ways the Lord has prepared for us."

His trust in God permeated all he did and how he interacted with everyone.

4. Faith Creates Miracles

Despite the hard things, there were so many miracles we got to see.

One of the blessings was that Benjamin and my dad had to leave the trailers they were towing in Texas because of the border laws. At first this seemed like a bad thing because they couldn't bring the posts and the rock wall, but when we learned they were almost hijacked and that they barely escaped, we realized that it would have been much harder for them to drive those men off if they had been towing those trailers.

I already wrote on previous posts about the miracle of the hidden trees and of the 30 meters that made it okay for them to have left the posts. God worked it all out ahead of time.

A hose came off the suburban a couple of times during the drive and on the 3rd time, Benjamin had a strange idea in his mind about how to fix it. My dad gave him a funny look, but trusted his inspiration. And it worked. The hose hasn't come off since.

After they got here, they were on a tight schedule to get everything done and worked long hours. We live in a place where rain is common. It only rained on one of the days they were here. It happened to be on a Sunday, a day they hadn't planned to work anyway.

5. Faith Builds Powerful Families

Benjamin said I should invite our church families to try the ropes course on Saturday, February 24th. That would be the Allen’s last day with us. 

Even though everyone had worked so much, I wasn’t sure we would be able to get everything done by the 24th… but I trusted Benjamin, so we invited the families.

All of Benjamin’s family (except their son who is on a mission) arrived on Wednesday the 21st. All 20 of them! Benjamin and Nathan picked them up and we did not see them until we got to the ropes course build on Thursday the 22nd. Like always, we arrived after everyone was already working.

I was blown away by what I saw.

In just a few hours, the united Allen family, with lots of little kids in tow, had finished building most of the low course elements and finished up a lot of the high course elements. They grew up helping their dad and had the skills and experience to put his vision into reality.

There was also a beautiful spirit about the place. You could hear happy chatter, hammers, drills, jokes, and laughter with an occasional baby cry or toddler complaint. Everyone was so full of light. I was struck by the power of a faithful family.

They not only served at the course, but they made friends with many in the town as they would go out to breakfast or to buy supplies. They got invited to church and they invited others to church. They played sports with the youth and sat to chat with them on the bleachers. I felt their light radiate through the whole town. 

I will write about the Saturday the 24th on a different post because this one is already too long, but the lives that were changed and lessons learned form that opening day at the ropes course had a profound influence to help grow other powerful families. 

I am thankful for the creative, overcoming, impactful power of faith of one man and his incredible family. I am inspired to be more like them and to serve with a grateful heart wherever I go, whether it is comfortable or not. 

Ripples

Thank you Allen Family for your examples! It is an honor to know you. 

And thank you for your service. The ripple effect of your love will continue to influence us and others here in Mexico forever. 

How You Can Help Too:

Besides donating his time, vacation, and talents, Benjamin donated many tools, supplies, and things for when we have an orphanage. He also decided not to drive back, so he donated two vehicles to the work here. This turned out to be a much more expensive service trip than he had planned.

He said we could pay him back for the equipment he bought for the ropes course (cables, harnesses, etc.) when we had the means. We would love to pay him back for those things sooner than later after all the unexpected expenses he incurred. He has a large family and plenty of expenses of his own. If you can help, please consider donating to the ropes course fund by clicking on the donate button at the top or bottom of this page. Thank you!