The Home Stretch of the Faith Rising Campaign

Friends,

When this issue of STILLPOINT drops in the mail, we will have been 495 days into the public phase of the Faith Rising comprehensive campaign. Together we’ve spent more than 11,880 hours working to provide all students with an education that is affordable, adaptable and anchored in Christian community. We are shoring up the Gordon of today to serve the students of tomorrow and long into the future—and we can’t do it without you.

We are now in the home stretch, but it’s not over yet! Like runners in a race, we are committed to giving our all until we cross the finish line, until the very last dollar is raised. A successful finish is now more important than ever. As Gordon prepares for a leadership transition, we want to ensure that whoever God brings to this place is equipped with a firm foundation to propel the College forward—to build on the hard work and incredible generosity of our community, and to make a Gordon experience more accessible to more students.

I believe we can make this ambitious campaign the most successful one Gordon has had. Your generosity makes a difference. Together, we will finish strong and be prepared to serve future generations of Gordon students. Thank you!

With sincere gratitude,

Britt Carlson Eaton Associate Vice President for Advancement Director, Faith Rising Campaign

Affordability for Students

Nine new donor-funded scholarships are created or awarded: • Dyk African Student Scholarship Fund • La Vida Servant Leadership • Tassa Rose Wilson Endowed Scholarship • Rwanda Student Scholarship Endowed Award in Celebration of • Salt and Light Endowed Scholarship Richard L. Obenschain • Karen L. Sheppard Endowed Scholarship • Bible Translation Senior Scholarship • Grace Evelyn Hinshaw ’65 School of • Joslyn Endowed Scholarship Education Scholarship The Emergency Fund for Students and the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund enable Gordon to help 30 percent of students during a financially difficult time.

Adaptable Education

In partnership with Wycliffe Bible Translators, Gordon expands the Bible Translation Program, an interdisciplinary vocational training program that equips students to support the work of Bible translation.

Dr. Kate DeMello is hired as director of digital learning and plays an instrumental role in pivoting classes to a digital format.

The inaugural Margaret C. Wright Memorial Alumni Award is awarded to Jessica (Harper) Cochran ’18, an elementary teacher at Pittsburg Urban Christian School. The award annually provides a Gordon graduate who teaches among an underserved population a $10,000 award for themselves and $10,000 for their school.

The Master of Arts in Leadership, Christian Education is launched as a joint program with Centro Presbiteriano De Pós-Graduaçao Andrew Jumper of Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo, Brazil.

Thanks to the Murdock Trust, the Master of Arts in Leadership, Classical Schools becomes the first distinctive graduate leadership degree for future administrators for classical Christian schools.

Gordon’s adult education program hires Dr. Ivan L. Filby as its founding executive director. He will administer the four new fully online bachelor’s programs for adult learners.

With a grant from the Kern Family Foundation, Gordon partners with GordonConwell Theological Seminary to offer an accelerated B.A./M.Div., shaving two years off the standard total completion time.

The Graduate, Professional and Extended Studies task force is developed to explore adding new health professions degrees, including a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

In honor of long-time support from Rev. Dr. Charles “Chip” Falcone ’95 and Dr. Aimee Falcone ’99, Gordon unveils the renaming of the Falcone Center for Teaching and Learning.

The Loring-Phillips Endowed Professorship in History is created thanks to a generous gift from the Loring family, which complements the existing Stephen Phillips Chair of History to fully fund this faculty position, held by Dr. Jennifer HeveloneHarper ’92.

Thanks to funding by friend of the College Sherry Tupper, Gordon’s Writing Center is renamed in her honor and vital renovations begin on the Academic Support Center.

Anchored Christian Community

Gordon launches another learning opportunity to take place outside of the classroom through the Bay Area Project. This three-year initiative provides options for a semester-long internship, career expeditions and an intensive summer program for Gordon students in San Francisco’s Bay Area.

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership launches the Accelerator Fund, providing immersion trips and new venture workshops for students from all majors to experience innovation in corporations, nonprofits and churches.

The La Vida Center for Outdoor Education and Leadership begins building a new high challenge course that will allow for expanded program offerings and reduce maintenance costs for the next 20 years. This new course will provide opportunities for cultivating community, catalyzing character formation and developing servantleadership skills.

Athletics Rising: To enhance the experience and deepen the team community for student-athletes, renovations to Bennett Center gymnasium are completed thanks to generous funding by the Kanas family. Construction on a press box begins at Brigham Athletic Complex, and Gordon Athletics unveils fresh updates to the lion rampant logo.

TRANSFORMATION

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF LA VIDA TRANSFORMATION ON THE TRAIL

OPENING WIDE THE DOOR TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS

50 YEARS OF LA VIDA:

The rugged, grassroots efforts that teetered on the brink of failure, and came back to transform thousands of lives

There are a few ways to build a trail. One option involves trail designers, careful plans and construction. Another may start with similarly careful plans but divert over time; “social trails,” as they’re called, are created gradually as hikers step around a puddle or a downed tree. Sometimes they’re simply shortcuts. Then there’s the bushwhack—an opportunity to leave the traditional trail and forge your own using only a map and compass. This most rugged option requires grit, determination and a clear vision. And that’s how La Vida was born. A few trailblazers with a passion for the power of faith-based experiential wilderness education muscled their way through uncharted territory, enduring all the scrapes, scars and victories that come with pioneering new pathways.

OUTDOORS

In the mid 1960s, Dean Borgman, then on staff with Young Life—a nondenominational ministry to high school students—was working with the followers of Malcolm X after he had been assassinated. “They had some very radical ideas about Black youth and the Black youth crisis,” Borgman says. “They thought these young African Americans—some of their parents had come from the South—were suddenly thrust into urban living. And they were very strong, as we had these late-night conversations, about getting Black youth back to the land and to the sea.”

In response, Borgman, along with his colleague Bill Milliken and their Young Life trainees working on the Lower East Side of New York City, developed what Borgman called an “alternative plan for camping—a wilderness adventure type of camping, although we knew very little about it at that time.” The trainees, called the Lilly White Boys because they were funded by the Lilly Foundation, had attended an Outward Bound experience in Colorado, which fueled the inspiration for a wilderness experience.

Using Young Life’s Saranac Lake, New York, campground as base camp, the inaugural 15day La Vida expedition set out in the summer of 1970 with 16 participants from Harlem, a German Shepherd and two leaders: Colorado Springs Young Life staffers George Sheffer Jr. and Jim Koontz, who had also worked for Outward Bound in Colorado. Recent college graduates and fellow Young Life staffers Steve Oliver and Tuck Knupp also joined to catch the vision for this new camping ministry. On this very first trip, the solo experience and 10-mile run were born.

Legend has it that La Vida’s name was, too. The Harlem group included several Puerto Rican youth, who under the tapestry of stars and quiet crackle of the fire in the Adirondacks concluded, “Eso es la vida”—this is the life. Borgman’s version differs a bit, as he recalls one of the Hispanic Young Life leaders, Ricky, shouting the name in response to the original proposal for alternative camping.

Either way, La Vida stuck. In time, its original vision took a “social trail” deviation, if you will. Its bent as an experience specifically for youth in city areas shifted as Young Life began to align what they called their “creative camping options”— including La Vida and similar ones in North Carolina, Colorado and British Colombia—into follow-up discipleship experiences for participants of the traditional Young Life camps.

By that point, Borgman had moved on to teach at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and establish a Young Life training program there (though he remained on the La Vida board), and others entered the La Vida scene. Oliver along with Scott Dimock, an outdoor enthusiast and Young Life staffer based in Washington, D.C., thought La Vida could benefit from the help of their friend, Colorado Outward Bound School instructor and former Army Ranger Dr. James Kielsmeier.

“The Young Life work in the city at the time and my work in Outward Bound clicked around the fact that we were very keen on the wilderness experience being a time for bringing [together] young people of different races and cultures from a social justice perspective,” says Kielsmeier.

The potential for creating a “shared meeting ground in the neutral territory of the outdoors,” as Kielsmeier described it, combined with a memorable adventure and lasting discipleship experience united this otherwise disparate group of trailblazers.

By the mid-70s, Kielsmeier and Dimock were infusing La Vida with necessary staff development and wilderness program skills, elevating the discipleship component and raising money to expand the gear supply. They redefined the role of trip leaders, dubbing them “sherpas,” and introduced the two prongs of mountain patrols and canoe patrols.

Around this time, a punchy seminarian from Virginia by the name of Richard Obenschain was introduced to the program through Borgman’s Young Life training program at Gordon-Conwell. Obenschain had been working for the Scotsman Adventure School, which became Project Interface at Gordon College, and was eager to play a role in the strengthening of La Vida.

In one of Kielsmeier and Obenschain’s first shared endeavors, the pair led minimum-security prisoners on adventure days, including ropes course and group activities. When Kielsmeier pitched the idea to the prison superintendent

in Ray Brook, New York, he says the superintendent gave him one rule—“You can’t use a map and compass; you can’t teach the inmates how to escape”—and then granted him permission. “The reason I want you to do this,” Kielsmeier recalls the formidable superintendent saying from behind his colossal wooden desk, “is because you’re Christians . . . Over half the people who leave this place on release are going to come back and be readmitted. But I know for a fact that half who leave here with a faith grounding, with a faith base, will never come back.”

La Vida’s current executive director, Abigail Stroven, remembers the late Obenschain retelling the experience of guiding the prisoners over “The Wall,” an activity wherein the group works together to scale a 12-foot structure. In retrospect, he would say, “I am not sure we were supposed to be teaching them how to do that, but the guards were with us, and they didn’t say anything.”

The experiment was a success, and it was repeated multiple times. As a thank-you, the prisoners built a bridge over a swamp to connect the Young Life Saranac Lake camp to its nearby ropes course and dedicated it to La Vida.

By 1980, however, “Young Life had carried it as far as they were going to be able to carry it from an administrative standpoint. We had really bolstered it in terms of its program side, but on the administrative side . . . it was cumbersome,” says Kielsmeier.

Young Life shut down La Vida. But Kielsmeier, Dimock and Obenschain banded together, motivated by their belief in the transformative power of both wilderness experiences and the gospel, and their drive to make such experiences accessible to all. They knew the program could—in fact, had to—stay afloat.

At Obenschain’s suggestion, they explored the idea of bringing the program to Gordon to join forces with Project Interface. After two years of an uncertain future, La Vida finally found a home. But the fight to survive wasn’t over. For the next several years it would endure a steady uphill battle to be fully adopted by the College—eventually earning a spot in the Core Curriculum with the addition of Discovery and Concepts of Wellness course options, and adding GORP (now Adventure Pursuits) to serve churches and other groups.

Even as La Vida was getting its sea legs at Gordon, the program continued to welcome all into the wilderness. In the mid-80s, Dr. Diana Ventura ’88, a physical education student with cerebral palsy, spearheaded the idea for an expedition for students with disabilities. At that point, La Vida was a requirement for physical education students but not yet for all students. She could have received a waiver, but “I wanted the gift of [La Vida],” she says. “I saw it as a way to be out in nature and to respond to a challenge that was presented before me.” So, Ventura took it upon herself to convince four fellow students with disabilities to join her, along with six ablebodied students, on a canoe patrol.

“We had the full La Vida experience,” including solos, says Ventura. She crawled up the 2,876-foot Mount Jo on hands and knees; Obenschain scaled the rock climb at Owl’s Head with one of the participants strapped to his back.

“My whole life is a walk in faith that bucks against the idea that what we should do with people with disabilities or brokenness is to just throw them away,” says Ventura, who went on to serve as a sherpa for another expedition for a group with disabilities. Her ambition laid the groundwork for future trips, including an ongoing partnership with Waypoint Adventure, an organization that provides outdoor adventure opportunities for people with disabilities.

Two years later, another unconventional group set out: an allwomen’s patrol. Eight participants, at least five of whom were over the age of 50 (including Obenschain’s mother-in-law), spent eight days canoeing on the Adirondack ponds. They, too, had the full La Vida experience—ropes course, rock climb, day hike and solo.

Sherpa Pam (Jelliffe) Mulvihill ’85—who co-led the trip with Obenschain’s wife, Katherine—remembers a park ranger stumbling upon the group during his regular rounds. Somewhat befuddled at seeing 50- and 60-yearold women scaling a rock face, she says, “He was amazed that women would do that, would choose to do that.” But as Mulvihill recounted at a recent La Vida “Black Fly” storytelling event, “In the end, most of [the women] loved how the trip stretched and challenged them way beyond their comfort zone. It turned out to be the ultimate commitment move for some of them.”

By year 20, La Vida had a home, a dedicated following and a lot of potential. But it lacked the sophistication it would need to expand further. “When I came back in ’91, I knew we needed to get a property,” recalls Eric Wilder ’85, who was a student when La Vida first came to Gordon and then returned to serve on staff for 14 years.

La Vida had been renting property on Saranac Lake, and Wilder recounts, “The staff would live in MASH tents all summer long . . . the groups would meet in a parking lot, and La Vida would just start.” The infamous celebration dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs at the end of an expedition happened under a tarp in the middle of the woods. “The next morning, you’d get up and start the 10-mile run and head back,” he says. “You didn’t see civilization until you got home . . . Once we got the property, things changed.”

Wilder scoured real estate listings, eventually locating a parcel of land, the former Camp Triangle, just 15 miles down the road from Young Life’s property. He dubbed it “Camp Potential.”

When La Vida acquired that 74-acre property with 15 buildings in Lake Clear, New York, in 1995, it was a turning point. Now there was a true home base—an official starting and ending point, housing for staff, storage for gear, bathrooms and (importantly) a kitchen for the celebration dinner. Capacity and operations increased considerably.

With the base camp property came more responsibility— heightened regulations, licensing from the Department of Health, risk management—all of which Nate Hausman ’00, director of outdoor education, has helped navigate in his 21 years directing expeditions. As a student, Hausman was part of the second trip group to use base camp, which at the time was only partially usable because of trash and animal infestation. Top on the list of more recent challenges that Hausman has navigated: cell phones. “Now that’s so much of the focus for people,” he says. “Parents want to know, ‘How can I get a hold of them? What happens if something goes wrong? Can they bring their phone with them?’” La Vida holds fast to its principle of unplugging in the wilderness but faces more resistance as reliance on technology grows.

La Vida’s expansion over the second half of its life involved opening a Rock Gym in Gordon’s Bennett Center and an indoor Activity and Training Center at the Brigham Athletic Complex, launching Adventure Camp for middle- and high-school students, and adopting the Compass program for high school students with strong leadership potential (which later launched as its own nonprofit). La Vida donned a fuller name (the La Vida Center for Outdoor Education and Leadership), relocated offices a few times and expanded its staff. It also helped create or replicate its programs in Romania, Ecuador, Kenya, China and South Africa. Participation grew fivefold, now with nearly 5,000 individuals each year experiencing life-changing transformation—and in turn impacting the lives of those around them.

Through the College’s Faith Rising campaign, the next phase of growth for La Vida will open the door to the outdoors a little wider by pursuing even more opportunities to make the wilderness accessible to all. In the summer of 2019, harkening back to its early days, La Vida piloted new partnerships with two Boston-area organizations to again bring urban youth to the wilderness. Sixteen youth spent 10 days in the Adirondacks—many sleeping and cooking outside for the very first time—learning the importance of daily devotionals, perseverance and working as a team to overcome challenges.

Why? To create, as Kielsmeier aptly put it, that “shared meeting ground in the neutral territory of the outdoors”— where survival and success are built not on wealth, status or ability, but on the tenets of community, faith and character.

Through the Faith Rising comprehensive campaign, La Vida is seeking to propel the Center forward as the premier institute of outdoor experiential education developing servant-leaders who are equipped to transform their communities worldwide. Give today:

www.gordon.edu/lavida/faithrising

GREAT OUTDOORSLA VIDA TURNS 50

TRAIL MARKERS

DEFINING MOMENTS IN THE LIFE OF LA VIDA

1970s

1970 The first 15-day wilderness expedition sets out from Saranac Lake in Upstate New York, under Young Life and led by George Sheffer Jr. and Jim Koontz. The phrase “la vida”—the life—takes root. Early ’70s La Vida becomes a follow-up discipleship experience for Young Life campers. Mid ’70s Jim Kielsmeier and Scott Dimock increase La Vida’s gear resources, discipleship component, staff training and more. Two expedition options are established—a mountain patrol and a canoe patrol. 1977 Rich Obenschain, joins the La Vida staff while studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. 1978 Gordon College launches Project Interface, originally named Scotsman Adventure School and run by Obenschain.

1980s

1980 La Vida’s direct involvement with Young Life ends. A small group bands together to keep La Vida alive until it can earn nonprofit status or become adopted by another organization. 1982 Gordon officially adopts La Vida as an auxiliary program, merging resources with Project Interface. 1985–86 Gordon becomes home to La Vida programs, and Project Interface is included under its umbrella. Offerings begin expanding to include experiences for church groups, individuals with physical challenges, corporate clients, women, father–child pairs and couples in ministry. 1986 La Vida becomes part of Gordon’s Core Curriculum requirement. Project Interface becomes the Discovery course, and Concepts of Wellness is developed. 1985 The first accessible La Vida expedition and first women’s patrol set out. 1987 La Vida begins renting cabins in the Saranac Lake area, and also runs programs in New Hampshire. 1988 Gordon Outdoor Recreation Project (GORP) is created. The original ropes challenge course (located behind Physical Plant on Gordon’s campus) moves to a new location close to Coy Pond in the Gordon Woods, and short outings to local parks and nature preserves are developed.

1990s

1995 La Vida purchases 74 acres and 15 buildings to serve as base camp in Lake Clear, New York. 1996 The Rock Gym is built at Gordon’s Bennett Center. 1997 La Vida develops Adventure Camp for 11- to 16-year-old participants. 1999 The John Templeton Foundation honors La Vida with national recognition as an exemplary program that fosters character development.

2000s

2000 Programs become united in one department: La Vida Center for Outdoor Education and Leadership, directed by Obenschain. 2004 La Vida moves to Conrad Hall, gaining offices, a kitchen, housing and meeting space.

2010s

2011 GORP’s name changes to Adventure Pursuits. 2014 Construction for a new indoor Activity and Training Center is completed, giving La Vida indoor space for inclement weather. The Center’s offices move to 216 Grapevine Road. 2015 Jennifer Jukanovich ’94 initiates writing a grant through the Lilly Endowment that starts the Theology Matters, Equip and Summit programs. 2016 The Compass program is adopted from GordonConwell Theological Seminary and later spins off as its own nonprofit. Gordon College receives a Lilly Grant to fund Equip. 2017 La Vida strategically restructures its staff, which includes naming Abigail Stroven as senior director. 2019 Gordon College mourns the loss of Obenschain on May 22. Stroven becomes executive director. 2020 La Vida celebrates its 50th anniversary virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

YOUR MINI LA VIDA JOURNAL

A bedrock of the La Vida and Discovery experiences is the journal: an invitation to self-reflection, honesty and growth. Here’s a chance to live (or re-live) a slice of that experience, with a guided journal prompt for whatever your current adventure holds.

COMMITMENT MOVE

In rock climbing there is a technical term called a “commitment move.” Often, it’s the crux move of the climb. Handholds seem scarce and footholds appear nonexistent. The tendency is to “bogart”—to freeze, to panic, to wait until exhaustion causes you, the climber, to quit the climb. You have a rope around you that will keep you from ever falling more than a few inches. But still, your first feeling is to bogart. On La Vida, the staff will constantly encourage the climber to “go for it.” “Don’t bogart! Give it your best shot!” And on a commitment move, you’ve either got to go for it or come off the climb.

01. What’s your commitment move these days?

02. On a scale of 1–10, how committed are you to following and trusting Jesus in any situation? What would it take to move further toward 10?

03. Make a list of your fears that hinder you from committing to God. Are there any that you can surrender to God?

SCRIPTURE READING

Look for an example of a commitment move when Peter is invited to walk on water in Matthew 14:22–36. Read further in Mark 4:35–41 to see how the disciples handled a fearful situation.

A RICH LIFE, A LASTING LEGACY

A Tribute to Richard Lee Obenschain April 22, 1950–May 22, 2019

For many, the words “hold fast” have become synonymous with the name “Rich Obenschain,” the pioneer and practical joker who made possible La Vida’s move to Gordon College. They’re words now written on the hearts (and birch bark scraps) of the thousands of young people whose lives have been impacted by the inimitable Rich.

“After the children of Israel had completed the longest camping trip ever recorded and were ready to go into the promised land,” Rich would recite to countless Discovery course and La Vida expedition participants, “Joshua gave them this charge:” Hold fast to your God (Joshua 23:8).

Rich’s wife, Katherine, remembers the time that verse took hold of him. Their pastor at the time had encouraged everyone to read through the Old Testament, and “he came across the ‘hold fast’ passage in Joshua and he just latched onto that . . . and then he talked about it for the next seven years and had it put on t-shirts . . . but that’s just him.”

The couple met at Park Street Church in Boston in October of 1985 at a Halloween party, where Rich was, fittingly, dressed as a lumberjack. He had completed his undergraduate studies at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, earned his M.Div. at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and successfully moved the La Vida program to Gordon College at that point. “When I met Rich,” Katherine remembers, “I very quickly understood that this is what a calling looks like. La Vida was never a job for him. It was his lifeblood. It is what he breathed . . . and he recognized how blessed he was to do what he loved for so many years.”

Rich’s love for the outdoors was part of his DNA. “From an early age,” he once wrote, “I was hard-wired for outdoor adventure. I grew up about 100 yards outside the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee—spent my days until I was 13 swinging from grapevines, playing in the creeks near our home and chasing black bears around the neighborhood in ways that would make the SPCA’s blood boil.”

After moving to Washington, D.C., Rich yearned for “my beloved woods,” returning to them when he could. In college, he continued, “I loved taking high school kids down white-water rivers, back packing, rock climbing and sometime scaring the stew out of them in the middle of the night.”

As the Gordon community continues to mourn the loss of such an influential life, we “take hold of the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19) and remember with gratitude a man who, as his wife put it, was “so bold in his faith and so faithful to his calling.”

“It wasn’t always easy or comfortable to work for and with someone who could so clearly see a better version of myself, but I know that I would not be the person I am today had I not met Rich.” —Kate McMillan

“Rich cared for each person who came in and out of his life. He looked at young people and did not see the fear or the insecurities that others might. Instead, he instilled a boldness in us that assured that we had something meaningful to contribute to the world.” —Taylor Bradford ’19 “Rich just didn’t pursue God, he pursued people . . . He would see potential—potential in the broken and fearful, calling them—me—to pursue and trust Christ. He often had more confidence in these oft overlooked leaders than they had in themselves. Rich’s confidence was based on the reality that God is ever-present and uses common vessels to accomplish His extraordinary purposes.” —Eric Wilder ’85

“He taught me what it means to live wholeheartedly for God. He always encouraged me to try new things, and he believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Rich made me the leader that I am today. I am profoundly grateful for his influence on my life. Our loss is great, but our hope is deep.” —Abby Stroven

“In addition to being caring and godly, Rich was wise, silly and humble—able to switch from a poignant and spiritually deep moment into a side-splitting story the next. He was a man who has deeply impacted my life and the lives of thousands across the globe.” —Michael Hill

“Without the passion, beliefs and crazy ideas of Rich, thousands of us would never know the wonderful experiences and challenges of a La Vida expedition.” —Glen Landry ’99

“Rich was a hands-on servant leader who, in the name of Jesus, walked every trail, paddled every rapid and climbed every rock face and tree before he asked others to do the same.”—Jim Kielsmeier

“Rich taught me not only how to build ropes courses, but why we build them. His passion for sharing the outdoors was exceeded only by his desire to share the gospel and encourage others to grow deeper in their relationship with the Lord.” —Matt Loy ’07 “Rich had our Lord’s patience and persistence in growing La Vida. Rich exuded the spirit of that carpenter from Nazareth. It became a lifechanging spirit to so many young lives and contagious to all manner of leaders.” —Dean Borgman