River of God Kayak Kamp: Day 3: Passaic River

We began our day today with devotions led by Mr. Eric. He read Psalm 46 and reminded us of how God is our "refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble". That means if your flipped over in the water and every other time in our lives. Our River of God theme text is also taken from vs. 4 of this Psalm "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall." We believe this is true for our city of Paterson and the Passaic River makes us glad. We also has Ms. Jamie VanBuiten join us today substituting for Mrs. Englehard. Ms. Jamie just returned from a mission trip and is heading off to her senior year at Calvin College on Friday. We appreciate her help. Here are some pictures of all our paddlers.

Justice

Dominic

Zy'Nasia

Joseph

Victoria

Henry 

Naomi

Tieshmere & Malik 

Roget

Jahod

Mr. Eric

Ms. Jamie

We put in the river at the Hawthorne Ball Fields launch and part of our goal today was to clean up the river. Everyone had a small trash bag and we picked up bottles in the water on the way. Here Tiehsmere  & Malik use a net to collect some debris.

               At the Elmwood Park Marina we picked up what little trash was there. The last few weeks Mr. Rick Rodriguez has been on a campaign to clean up the river and did alot here by himself. It looks so much better than it used to. Thanks so much Rick.

 We landed on "Ricks Island" for lunch. This is just above the Rt. 46 bridge.

 After lunch Mr. Eric did another lesson on taking care of God's creation.

 Then Mr. Rick came by and told us of the work he has been doing to clean up the river and the island. He hopes to make the island a picnic grove and even a place where people can camp.

 He brought some rakes and we had extra bags and worked for awhile cleaning up the island and clearing an area near the landing. It really looks great now. Stop by and check it out.

 We ended as the sky began to turn dark and we could smell the rain. As we paddled back it continued to get darker and just as we got back the skies opened up with a downpour. All of us got soaking wet loading up the trailer but once your wet your wet and can't get any wetter. We ended our day with a treat at Guernsey Crest Ice Cream - the best kept secret in Paterson. We thanked God for another wonderful day in God's good creation and with each other. We padded about 5 miles.

River of God Kayak Kamp: Day 2

Today we began our day with devotions from Genesis 3 entitled "A Tale of Two Rivers". Between the Tigris & Euphrates River, in a perfect world, God created a perfect placed called the Garden of Eden and created Adam & Eve. However they disobeyed and rebelled against God and brought sin into God's perfect world. This is the cause of all of the sin in our lives and all the brokenness in our world.  We see this in how people treat each other, crime, diseases and even they way we pollute God's creation. Yesterday we saw the trash people left at the Wanaque River falls. Adam & Eve were ejected from Eden however God began a plan to send Jesus to save us from this sin. Jesus came to bring the Kingdom of God here and now, although it won't be complete until He comes again.

Today we paddled at Lake Wawayanda State Park in Upper Greenwood Lake NJ. It was a beautiful day on a beautiful lake. Everyone enjoyed God's creation and did great paddling.

 We especially enjoyed paddling through the lily pads that had white and yellow flowers.

 We stopped for lunch at our usual spot and after eating Mrs. Englehard led us in another faith lesson about cultures and civilizations and what characterizes each of them. We also learned more about what happens when we rebel against God and stay stuck in sin. We paddled back to the beach for a swim before heading for home. A great day was had by all.

Here's a short video of today if I can get it uploaded - sorry it didn't work :(

River of God Kayak Kamp: Day 1

Today we began the third year of River of God Kayak Kamp with 11 young people: 4 girls and 7 boys. Eric White & I are the directors and our volunteer instructors are Mrs. Alisa Englehard & Ms. Jamie VanBuiten. We began with our Bible Lesson today from Genesis 1 on God's creation of the world. Our memory verse was Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  It is our goal to help everyone to experience God's revelation not only in the Bible but also in the BIG BOOK of Creation.

Getting to know our kayaks and paddle strokes

We went to the Monksville Reservoir  in West Milford. Everyone practiced floating in the life vests or cannonballing into the water from the dock.

Mrs. Englehard helping Jahod get used to his life vest 

Getting ready to paddle

 We paddled across the northern part into the Wanaque River where it flows into the reservoir. This is the site of the Long Pond Iron Works. Its named after the "long pond" aka Greenwood Lake that the Wanaque River flows out of.

Lunch at the edge of the river

 We hiked up to a falls on the river and enjoyed the beautiful view. However the beauty was tarnished by all the trash, cans, bottles and clothes that others had left. Out environmental lesson today was about caring for God's creation. We did this by picking up all we could and bringing it back to put in the trash.

Wanaque falls above the Long Pond Iron Works.

 After lunch we paddled under the bridge into the bigger part of the reservoir. Our goal was to find the secret cove where the Pirates of the Monksville hide out.

Zy'Nasia & I paddled the canoe today. 

Maliek coming out of the "secret cove" !

Manhattan Island Relays

Yesterday I was again a volunteer paddler for New York Swim in the Manhattan Island Relays. I paddled last year for the Greenwich Masters-  Adrian, Anton, Sean & Sam - and they asked me to paddle for them again last year. I was quite honored. They actually came in first place last year. We had a beautiful day. Offloaded our kayaks on Liberty Street right below the new Freedom Tower and into "North Cove". 

Kayakers waiting for swimmer with Jersey City waterfront in background

Kayakers waiting: Freedom Tower in the background.

This year the race began at Pier A which is right below South Cove and right above the Miss Liberty ferry.  We had a start time of around 9:30 am timed for the tides to help us up the East River and down the Hudson River.

All swimmers waiting for the start

Our support boat: Adrian, Sam & Sean and the captain

 The timing was perfect with a fast ride up the East river to Hells Gate. There was a little tide running down the Harlem River but it was not bad. The first leg of the relay is to the Williamsburg Bridge where the 2nd swimmer begins, then the Queensboro bridge where the third swimmer begins and finally the foot bride to Ward's Island where the forth swimmer begins.  After that they switch every 30 minutes. Once they reached upper Manhattan & the Bronx the tide in the Harlem River was pulling them north out to the Hudson. The longer we were in the Hudson the stronger the tide grew so that by the time we reached 125th St. I was moving about 5 mph without paddling. It was a great ride.

Waiting to make the switch

The new swimmer taps the leg of the finishing swimmer

The Little Red Lighthouse below the George Washington Bridge

Grants Tomb & Riverside Cathedral

 All the way down the Hudson we were neck in neck between 1st & 2th place with another team.
Here you can see the two swimmers between myself and Manny, the kayaker for the other team.

 We finished with a great time in 3rd place. Congratulations to Sean, Anton, Sam & Adrian who swam a great race. Hope to see you again next year.

Our team with the finish line (that big red buoy) in the background.

Newark Riverfront Park Celebration

Today we joined in the Newark Riverfront Park dedication celebration.  This is an amazing new park that completes another section of riverfront park along the Passaic in Newark, They are nearing the downtown area and the park is right along Raymond Blvd. 

We had been asked to volunteer to help people learn how to paddle the kayaks they were borrowing from Essex County but when we got there we saw only canoes. It had also been raining had so they decided to cancel the paddling part of the event. This was disappointing but we went ahead paddling ourselves.

 As we were on our way to the Newark Bay just approaching the New Jersey Turnpike we received a phone call that they were launching the canoes and could we please come back.

 So we paddle back upstream as the tide also began to come in. We paddled passed the Red Bull Stadium, NJ Transit and PATH trains as well as alot of bird life. We saw Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Turkey Vultures, Seagulls, Cormorants and a number of other shore birds on the mud flats.

See the Path Train in the background

 A few of us patrolled the bridge above to keep the canoes from paddling up to Paterson. We enjoyed talking to a variety of people out for a little paddle in the canoes. While Rick stayed at the dock to help people and I stayed at the bridge Eric took the boys upstream to the railroad bridge. The tide turned quickly and really started moving upstream. By the time we were back driving up Rt. 21 home it was nearly full flood tide.

All in all it was a wonderful afternoon on the water and we were glad the Newark is also rediscovering the Passaic River. The program had a poem from Langston Hughes on the cover.

I've known rivers
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen 
    its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers: Ancient dusky river.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. 
                   -Langston Hughes