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2009 Crawl 4 Christ At Disney Oklahoma |
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I would like to start off by extending a big thank you to the Austin family for all the hard work that was put to organizing this event. Also, a big high five to Chuck and Amy Hill at Green Country Christian Camp for hosting all of us over the 4th of July weekend. P.S. Amy, that rendition of “I Will Survive” was the best I have heard! I was looking forward to attending the Crawl-4-Christ (2008) at the Superlift Offroad Park last year, but with gas prices around $5 per gallon, we stayed home. It goes without saying that I was eager to attend this year’s event in Disney, OK. A couple months before the event it was looking like Christian Offroad Association would have several of its members there as well. With only three days before leaving it looked like we were going to miss this one too. My truck “conveniently” would not start. I frantically found the problem and started packing. With the turn in the economy, money became an issue once again, and as it turned out my family and I were the only club members to make it. But man I am glad we did!!! |
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The trip from Wichita, KS to Disney, OK seemed longer than normal simply because we were not in the typical caravan of vehicles heading out for a weekend of wheeling. We were bummed that our friends were not going to be there with us. As soon as we pulled up to the camp our attitudes were changed. We quickly unpacked our stuff and unloaded the XJ for what we knew was going to be a wonderful weekend. |
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Hanging out near the dorms and meeting fellow Christian wheelers as they pulled in suddenly became more important than hitting the trails. As the tire kicking session came to an end, we hit the trails shortly after dark. I’ll tell you what, water crossings at night created a pucker factor that I was not expecting. Not knowing how deep the water was you had to focus on the vehicle in front of you and pick your path much earlier, needless to say I was encouraged that I was not the lead Jeep. Not just the water crossings, but when you have your headlights pointing straight into the dark night sky they does very little for illuminating the ground in front of you. We all made it back safely, but not all in one piece. I was picking up the tail when the Jeep in front of me snapped his front drive shaft u-joint. An easy fix, but one you never want to have to do at night with the mosquitoes. |
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I didn’t want to take a whole lot of time talking about the wheeling, because we have all read about how great Disney is and how awesome our Jeeps performed, I did want to expand on the fellowship and the family setting that we experienced. Like I said before, the minute we pulled up we were immediately pulled into the group that had already arrived. My girls (Maddy 8, and Carly 4) latched onto Sabrina, and were even ok with us sending them home with her and Brad when it was time to go home, until Sabrina told them that they didn’t have any toys at their house. They had a blast as you can tell… We decided to roll up the windows and run the AC for a while after looking at the back seat while riding some trails in the hot afternoon. We even handed the camera over to Maddy and let her take some photos, before long I am sure the question will not be if she can take some photos but rather can I drive the Jeep. |
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My wife (Melinda) came away from this weekend with a new fire kindled for pulling in more women into our club events. You will have to read more about that in her article. We were both encouraged at the number of families that turned out. That just helped concrete our actions to involve the entire family in the sport and use it as an outreach tool. We are grateful that God has provided us with this tool. I know that the fellowship and new friendships gained this weekend were definitely my highlight. The trip home felt a lot shorter, as we reminisced. We could hardly wait to get back and share our experience with the rest of the club. Hopefully next year will show to be at least as good as this. Watch out SMORR, Crawl 4 Christ is heading your way 2010! Now for the discreet plug for our club website. If you are in the area and would like to hook up with a group of folks that love wheeling but love God more, check us out and drop us a e-mail. We are always looking to add to the great group that we already have. Remember; “God forgives, rocks don’t” Eric Craft Club V.P. |
