Tour Blog — Day 11

2026-07-28 — whitewater rafting, Missoula, MT.

No missing what today was all about: Whitewater Rafting with the Montana River Guides company. Man, were these guys awesome. They were so professional and kind and if it had anything to do with rafting, they were ready! We started out with a safety briefing and a guide personally fitted each of us with a life jacket and helmet. Emily sprayed everyone down with sunscreen while we were divided up into groups. Then we headed out to the river with 13 boats. It was quite a sight to see the string of boats heading down the river between the mounding hills outside of Missoula.

My raft ended up having four of us and a guide named Lucy, the 23-year-old recent Harvard grad. I got to hang out with Mackenzie Honeycutt, Chris Cronk, and Gavin Freeman. We spent the first 10-15 minutes getting the basics of team building that we were going to need to brave the class two and class three rapids we were going to be facing shortly. Gavin and I were in front which meant that we set the rhythm for the rowing when Lucy gave us the command. Mackenzie and Chris were in the middle to provide extra power and stability. Lucy sat in the perch in the rear with two oars that were much longer than ours. I am really proud of my group – we were soon in each other’s heads. Lucy said we rowed like machines. I don’t know if she says that about everyone, but I like to think that it is because Gavin and I are studs.

So, the rapids were amazing. Especially the big one that everyone was talking about after the trip – The Tumbleweed. It was great – we screamed, we swam, we looked at beavers, otters, and eagles, and we caught tadpoles. But what I really want to tell you about is my conversation with Gavin and Lucy.

The topic of the talent show that we had planned on having tonight came up during one of our relaxing float sessions between rapids (unfortunately, we didn’t do the talent show because we got in so late). I asked Gavin what he was going to do; his eyes lit up, and he said, “I’m going to talk about the logic of Christianity, and why it makes sense to be a Christian, like from a scientific lens.” Of course I was intrigued, and I mentioned back that it was so interesting that he brings that up, because maybe at one time I would have thought about faith through that logical lens, but as I’ve grown older I kind of thought that logic wasn’t the right tool to look at faith through. I could see Lucy was intrigued, because she asked, “Well, what do you think about that, Gavin?” Gavin went into how his grandparents (one of whom was a science teacher) had really influenced his faith.

I thought it was interesting that Lucy had expressed some curiosity about faith, so I asked her what her viewpoint was. “Staunchly atheist,” she said, “but my parents had some relationship to faith when they were younger, but I was raised atheist.” So, I asked her what she thought the meaning of life was. She said that she basically thought that life had no inherent meaning. Now none of this was attacking us or disrespectful in any way. On the contrary, I was really impressed how sincerely interested she was in our conversation. Now, I’m a big philosophy nerd. I’m not going to bore you with philosophical talk, but I found out in our conversation with Lucy that she had taken several classes in philosophy. We went on to dive pretty deep (or as deep as you can before you start having to row like your life depends on it) on some of the finer points of existentialism and epicureanism. It was a really unexpected interaction.

During the course of our conversation, at some point I said something to the effect of, “You know what I think is wonderful about philosophy is that I get to beat my faith up, poke at it, see if it holds up as a way to live my life with integrity. The truth is, I think far too many Christians don’t do that. One of the things that I see as my job as a New G sponsor is to challenge our singers to create a habit of REALLY THINKING through their faith and not just accepting it as the thing that they must do because their parents do.” To which she said, “I couldn’t agree more…except for the faith thing.”

This is some of the stuff I love about New G. In all of our interactions we have a chance to show the love of Christ. Not talking about it, not making people feel less-than because they don’t see things the way we do, not giving people who don’t believe another reason to say that this Christianity deal is just nonsense for stupid people.

I hope that today in that raft that I got a chance to get Gavin to think, “hey, maybe there is more to my faith than meets the eye.” I hope that Gavin and I got a chance to get Lucy to think, “hey, maybe there is more to this faith thing than meets the eye.”

I don’t really believe in the type of evangelism that is trying to beat people over the head with the prospect of their salvation. I like what Bemo says as he quotes the old campfire song, “…they will know we are Christians by our love.” God, I hope Lucy felt loved today. I am confident Lucy didn’t walk away from that conversation convinced of all the reasons she should become a Christian. But I am fairly confident that she walked away from it saying that she knows now that there is a group of Christians from Missouri who love me for who I am, take me seriously, and have a faith that they have picked up on purpose. THAT IS WHAT NEW G IS ABOUT!

Tomorrow initiates a rhythm of four consecutive performances starting in Great Falls, MT at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. The next four days are going to go really fast for us, and the tension of anticipation for homecoming is going to mount in increasing increments over the next few days. We’re in the home stretch now, friends. See you soon!

Joseph