Explore
Explore is a one-year Wilderness and Leadership program at Prairie Bible College that I did my first year of college. I ended up loving the program so much that I applied to work on staff for the program as an intern for the next two years. This page is all about the Explore Program and my experience in it.
See Prairie’s page about the Explore Program
Check out some pictures during my first year in Explore. There are other pictures from my second and third year on the photos page.
Fall, 2005
(I wrote this last Fall, in the hopes of posting it on my website. Well, I finally did)
Where am I?
I am currently in Montana, 12 miles away from a little town called Plains, at Camp Bighorn.
Where have I been?
I have been here off and on for the last two and a half years. I have worked here on staff for the last two summers. Camp Bighorn is partnered with the Explore Wilderness & Leadership college program at Prairie Bible College that I am on staff for now as an intern. I went through the one year program as a student 2 years ago. We travel back and forth between Camp Bighorn and Prairie, in Three Hills, Alberta, six times a year. As an Explore Intern, I am still a full-time student at Prairie. I am in the process of completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Ministry with a double major in Outdoor Education and Wilderness Leadership
What is Explore?
Explore is an intense one year program that combines basic wilderness skills training with leadership training and Bible training. It is a program that is based on the experiential education model, which means it is structured so that students learn by doing. Instead of just reading books about theory, you get to go out and try it for yourself. Your classroom is the wilderness and the world around you. Learning is no longer restricted to the hours in a classroom, but becomes a lifelong process as you begin to reflect on your experiences of putting theory into practice. The students are divided into teams at the beginning of the year. Throughout the year, you do almost everything together with your team, from going on backpacking trips to doing prison ministries. Each semester, you travel down to Camp Bighorn for about half the time, where you do the wilderness skills training and much more, including continuing to work on different classes which you start while at Prairie.
What is the philosophy of Explore?
Explore seeks to challenge people by getting them out of their comfort zones–putting them in a new environment, such as in a kayak in whitewater rapids, and living in a small community where they have to be real with themselves and others.
Explore believes that when you are in your adventure zone, when you are unsure of what the outcome will be and whether you will adequate to face the unknown, that is the best time to learn about yourself, and your relationships with others, and ultimately your relationship with God.
Explore believes that God created us to be in relationship with one another, and then through those relationships, support, challenge, encourage, and teach each other while in community. Living together in a small community teaches you about interacting with others in the bigger communities that you are a part of, learning how to communicate better, dealing with conflict instead of avoiding or denying it, learning how to relate to people who are completely different than you, etc.
Explore believes that as Christians we have a call to leadership. Leadership takes many forms. Camp Bighorn teaches that a leader is a “non-anxious influencing presence.” No matter what position we are in, even if we are a “follower,” we have the opportunity to influence others. We should lead out of the confidence of who we are in Christ.
What am I doing?
As an intern in the Explore program, I have many different responsibilities. Working with another intern, I lead a small group of 8 college students through different wilderness adventures, as well as weekly Bible studies. On of my major roles is the role of a facilitator. A facilitator is one who shares life experiences with people and then uses those experiences as a chance to cause people to critically reflect and learn from them. A facilitator is in relationship with others, meeting them where they are at and then encouraging them to continue forward in processes of growth. I have the responsibility of being in a discipleship relationship with 4-5 guys who are placed on my team. I also have specific program responsibilities. I am the Logistics Manager, who takes care of all the little details for things such as transportation between Prairie and Bighorn. At Camp Bighorn, it is my responsibility to make sure that the Explore team that is in charge of cleaning the facilities is doing their job. During our Fall Skills wilderness training, I am a rock climbing instructor, along with Zach Vanderwall, the instructor for Camp Bighorn. This winter I am one of the mountaineering instructors. I am also responsible for finding ministries for my team to do throughout the year.
What is the Explore Internship to Me?
I feel that God has called me to the Explore Internship as a ministry. I see it as an opportunity to use my passions, values, and skills to be a part of the process of changing people’s lives. Some of my core values are relationships and truth. My ultimate goal is to see people seeking after God. I believe that the challenges that the wilderness and living in community provide confront people with reality—the reality of who they really are, the reality of their own insufficiency, the reality of their self-absorbed individualism, and the reality that they don’t really know what they think they know. Hopefully this realization will lead them to search wholeheartedly after truth, which ultimately is God. I have a passion to see people dealing with hard questions in their life, for the purpose of not being able to continue to live apathetic, unexamined lives, but to live life to its fullest, embracing the opportunities God gives them to be learning and also leading others.