Bittersweet Farm

Our trip to the Manitous will live for years as an unforgettable family tale, perhaps more so because it did not go at all as planned. While preparing for the trip, knowing that Kyle Kenneth, our oldest “grandbuddie,” would be with us, I thought of telling the great legend of the Sleeping Bear (you can Google that if you are the curious sort). Instead I wanted to tell impactful, true stories that would stir the hearts of the guys to live for Christ and make Him known.

Down the west coast of Michigan on the shore of Lake Michigan south of Muskegon is a Michigan “Holy Place.” It’s been that way since the 1940’s. It was then that a pastor from Pontiac, Michigan had a vision for a place to get away from the heat of the city with young people to make Christ known to them.

He was Dr. Henry Savage (also influential in the founding of the Hiawatha Land Baptist Mission). He influenced his church to purchase the property and it became a well-known Bible Conference, now known as the Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference.

The history and heritage of Maranatha is a fascinating Michigan story. One day a few years ago while visiting the Conference grounds, I discovered an interesting sub-plot to the Maranatha story. It would have been a great Michigan story to tell if we had not been rained out our second night.

As I tell it now try to imagine a perfect night with the stars over the silver and purple water of the Manitou Passage. We are in a circle of people we love most in the world sweetly weary from a long day of swimming in fresh water and hiking in fresh air. The surf laps gently and steadily on the shore and the wind stirs the leaves in the trees behind us. All else is silent as we slip into story.

One summer day when we lived in Fremont we took the morning off to drive to Maranatha and attend the Bible Conference during Moody Week. After the session ended a man walked up to us and told us that he had come to Maranatha in an unusual way many years earlier as a boy.

He said; “The first time I came here I was with my friends and we camped here overnight without permission. In the morning he was playing tennis when a man came up who was obviously official and said, “Do you boys have permission to camp here and play here? Do you realize this is private property?”

The boys were speechless before this apparently stern and official-looking man. He looked at them without smiling for a moment and then said;

“If I can beat you in tennis you have to stay here and help for the week…”

“Deal,” they said. Then he beat them both having “lost” the bet they stayed and that week the found Christ as their Savior there on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan.

The “stern official” was none other than Dr. Henry Savage himself, the founder of the camp. The man who told me the story still lived there in a yellow house just next to the Conference grounds.

I love that story and whenever I think of it I want to live the part of Dr. Henry Savage, the pastor with vision, passion for Christ and compassion for boys without Christ. On our hike we took trail names like they do on the Appalachian Trail. My trail name is Barnabas—the name means “Son of Encouragement.” I want to be a “Great Heart” like pastor Savage so I can make Christ known to people all over Michigan. I hope you will join me with your life now and keep serving Christ faithfully after I am gone.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michgian
July 26, 2013

You can’t build a campfire in the North Manitou Island backcountry. Fires are only allowed in the small village camping area near the dock on the east side of the island.

Our first night on the island we were determined to get to the west side and compensate for the campfire restriction with a beautiful sunset and some pour-over coffee prepared by Kyle on his Jet-Boil stove.

I looked forward to the trip and prepared stories for the waning moments of day like this. Things had not gone as I expected but I was determined to have a simple “telling” before the sun set and we crawled into our tents.

When dinner was done and daylight was fading we leaned back and I told them a story of Northern Michigan. It went something like this:

In 1855 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned an epic poem The Song of Hiawatha about Native American life in the northern Great Lakes. He called the area the Land of Hiawatha—his name for the hero of the poem, an Ojibwa Indian chief.

Arthur Glenn first went to the land of Hiawatha, specifically Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, just before WWI. He was a single man and, at the time, a backslidden believer. He worked in the raw and dangerous logging camps. The camps and communities were filled with rampant drunkenness, immorality and irreverence.

Years later he would return with his wife Florence as a pastor. They would live and work among the people there. They met other families working to foster churches in a very difficult place of service.

In 1940 an incident took place that would change his life and impact the whole region for Christ. He stopped by the home of Fred and Stella Kinkel, missionaries in Newberry. He usually stopped at mealtime. They were normally warm and hospitable. On this day they were slow to invite him in. It was because they had so little. Their meal would consist of a few old potatoes and a porcupine that Fred had clubbed to death.

Later Arthur would say that he felt the incident was arranged providentially by God to stir him to go to Lower Michigan and make the needs of the missionaries known and raise money to help them.

With the help of Dr. Henry Savage of First Baptist Church of Pontiac he would form an organization to support missionary church efforts in the Land of Hiawatha. They would name the organization Hiawatha Land Independent Baptist Mission.

Arthur was killed while serving the mission ten years later in an automobile accident, but the mission would go tenaciously on planting gospel-preaching churches all across our beloved Land of Hiawatha.

Today the mission had broadened its reach across the North American Continent and it is known as Continental Baptist Mission. We will never be able to calculate the impact of their vision this side of eternity.

When I finished my story we sat quietly and sipped our coffee and watched the colorful afterglow of the setting sun in the clouds. I told the guys that I hoped they would each dedicate themselves to making the story of Christ known, perhaps here in the region we have grown to love so much. We all prayed. We told Him our burdens, ambitions, fears, goals, and dreams. We expressed our love to Him and then we crawled into our tents to sleep.

Tomorrow would be a day none of us will ever forget. I’ll tell that story next, but you won’t believe it.

Here is the main source of my story:

The morning of July 7th I woke eager for the week to begin. I taught the membership class in my study and then preached. When I finished I had lunch with the girls and then aimed my Jeep toward Grand Rapids. Chuk and Wes had left the night before. We would all meet in Grand Rapids, spend then night, and head north for a three day backpacking and hiking trip to North Maniou Island.

We ended the day together gathered at a big round table at Famous Dave’s BBQ. A platter full of barbecued brisket was the perfect way to begin a manly adventure. In the morning we had breakfast and headed north on US Route 131 towards Cadillac. 131 is a wide lightly-travelled highway that undulates through beautiful countryside. About 20 miles south of Traverse City the rain began and pounded the car is we drove north.

The sun came out as we drove into Leland. We ate and headed out into Lake Michgan toward the Island. It’s an hour-long ferry ride. When we arrived at the Island we readied ourselves, checked our map, agreed on our route, and strode into the woods.

We had all agreed that we would take the most direct route to the western shore where we remembered a vast stretch of sandy beach reaching well out into the clear, cold water. We wanted to spend as much time there as we could and hike directly out on Wednesday morning to catch the ferry-ride back.

I noticed that it was a little over five miles across the island. I didn’t remember it being a very difficult walk when we visited before. I walk about 3.5 to 4 miles a day so a five-mile hike didn’t intimidate me. Our packs were a little heavy because we didn’t intend to do any more hiking than necessary to reach the paradise of the west shore, swim, eat, drink coffee, tell stories, pray and watch the sun set. The guys let me go first even though Kyle was the man with the map who had done the planning. I didn’t want to fall behind the young guys.

About twenty minutes into the hike I went right when I should have gone left and added an extra loop of trail to our hike. It was a bad mistake. The trail tacked almost two miles of very difficult climbing on unmantained trail to our walk. It seemed to me they tilted the island since we hiked it last and the trail was all up hill. Trees had fallen across the trail. The heavy rain had washed away large parts of it. A very wet spring made portions very difficult and overgrown. It was just hard hiking.

After a couple hours we all stopped noticing the sound of the birds, the fragrance of the forest, and the occasional views of the lake. We just lowered our heads a trudged on wondering how long it would be until the western shore would come into view and we could drop our packs and plunge into the water. And it was a lot longer than any of us thought. We were weary and winded and the overgrown trail just kept climbing up.

All of this difficulty would have faded into a happy memory when we reached the refreshing lake if it were not for what happened next. After trudging seven miles of our five-mile hike we still had not reached the lake. Occasionally, perhaps two or three times a year, I have a flair up of gout or inflammation in my right foot that makes normal life difficult without any gout treatment, and walking impossible. It feels like something is broken or dislocated. When it happens it is extremely painful and I will be off my feet for a day or two until it has abated. It goes away almost as quickly as it comes and within a day or so I’m pain-free and back on my feet. It’s a painful mystery to me.

About seven and a half miles into the hike the pain began and by the time we reached the lake I could not take another step. It took me about an hour just to make my way up the beach to where we were forced to make camp and I knew we were in trouble. I had no idea how I could get off the island. I couldn’t take a step.

I was in pain that would not go away and began to pray for some way to get off the island. As far as I was concerned, at that moment, the whole trip and all my dreams for it melted down. I had imagined swimming, laughter, dinner, coffee, conversation, stories, qqScripture, prayers, a glorious sunset, and drifting off to sleep to the sound of the surf and wind. In my pain I managed one story and then literally crawled unto the tent to lie awake until sleep finally came at about 3:00 a.m.

We eventually did get off the island. How that happened will be an entertaining story for another day. Right now I’m sitting on our shady screen porch in Granville Cottage. The weather is ideal. It’s a cool morning. Breeze is making music in the trees. Our little fountain is singing harmony. I just enjoyed a jar of juiced vegetables. I had a good night’s sleep. I took Hazard on a brisk walk around the pond this morning. I’m just a short walk away from a wonderful flush-toilet. There’s cold water in the fridge.

In the comfort of our home I have time to think. What went wrong? We planned but we should have planned just a little more. We should have gone to school on the most direct route across that island and we should have very carefully followed the map to avoid adding the loop on the un-maintained trail. If we had made those simple adjustments we would have avoided the melt-down and we would be telling a much different story.

When you are suffering through an experience like that there is nothing funny about it but upon reflection, there is an amusing irony to the whole affair. When we last hiked North Maniou Island it was such a memorable experience that we saved a large map of the island and the map hung on the wall of the boys room for years. For years every night the boys would go to sleep under a map North Manitou Island. If we had studied the map and if we had carefully followed the trails, what a difference it would have made.

That’s something for people with dusty Bibles to think about. A Bible is like a map. It’s nothing more than a decoration if you don’t follow it.

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
July 24, 2013

We were determined to get to the dock in time to meet the ferry back to Leland. We were all dreaming of hot coffee, hot food, hot showers, soft beds and flush toilets. None of us wanted to be on the Island another hour. Our adventure had melted down because of an injury. It became a matter of survival. We all knew North Manitou Island would be a good memory, but right now we were ready for civilization.

We spent all day slowly limping around the north end of the island and made camp just before the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled and the rain came. I lay in the tent praying. I thanked God that He answered my desperate prayer from the night before, that I would be able to get to the dock in time for the ferry. We knew we were within an hour and a half of steady hiking from the dock. We would make it. I prayed that the tent would hold off the rain.

Dan and Wes prayed. Wesley’s prayer was especially memorable. It went like this; “Lord, thank you for this day. I’m glad it’s over.”

The tent was hastily pitched over a fallen tree. To sleep required creativity, but we were weary and the the rhythm of the rain and thunder lulled us all into slumber. Sometime in the night the rain stopped and the wind began to blow. In our haste to make camp we had not secured the rain-fly. It blew off in the night and we were all to weary to replace it until it became too cold to sleep.

Dan and Wes were sharing a sleeping bag because one of the bags was saturated with water (another story for another time). Dan got out of the warmth of the bag to re-attach the rain-fly. I sat up and looked out into the night.

Our tent was on a point jutting out into the lake. Fresh steady wind blew over the site. Around us was the shining lake and above us a universe of stars in the dark sky. Almost everything about the trip had gone wrong but I was surrounded by strong, kind, loyal sons and God was in his heaven. The stars were all in place and I knew I would cherish the memory of this scene for a long time.

Even in a very dark night after a very hard season, God is in His heaven and he has promised one day to make right everything that is wrong in the world. When the walk seems impossible try to surround yourself with a few strong, loving, loyal people and get out to where you can see the night sky and the shining lake.

Some days you just have to lie down and pray, “Lord, thank you for this day. I’m glad it’s over.”

Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
July 23, 2013