I would love to tell you about the specifics of this trip, but I will leave that up to the others. I would love to tell you what this trip and this opportunity to be on the staff has meant to me, but our language doesn’t know words that would accurately portray such a description.
Our Gracious Heavenly Father has provided this amazing place for us to come and study. He has gorged it with various desert plants, birds, whales, and other assorted animals. He has graced it with an unparalleled landscape. He has filled it with a rich culture and wonderful people with a unique society. Best of all, He has preserved it in this state for us to come and learn from. He has created this to be a place rich with things for us regardless of our discipline or area of study. The Lord has selected this group to come down here so He could show us something we have never seen before and so He could teach us something that cannot be taught in any classroom. He put us in a place so that He could teach us and challenge us as He sees fit. We have this wonderful place and are given this wonderful opportunity to study it because of Him. We have a special chance to be here in fellowship with fellow believers: we learn and grow from each other, not just the land.
I can tell you a bit about the meaning of Biola Baja. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is unrivaled nation-wide. It will take many of the students a long time to realize how grand and special this opportunity is, and sadly, some will never understand. We have all participated in this thing but few of us have the life experience necessary to measure how big this thing that we have done really is.
Biola Baja is not a place, it is not a class; it is a life changing experience. It offers its own set of perspectives, its own challenges, and its own beauties that are available only through this adventure. We have learned much here, much about art, biology, geology, society, culture, life, God, and ourselves. We have been given an opportunity to grow and explore ourselves in a new and unique environment. This place is not just a place of beauty and landscape to our artists and a place of plants and animals to our biologists. Baja has claimed a piece of each of our hearts and means to us something that cannot be explained: It can only be understood by those who have been through the Biola Baja experience.
Baja is a place that treats us all like mature adults. It doesn’t care where we have traveled to, what sights we have seen, what choices we have made or who we were in our pre-Baja days, it only cares about where we will go from here, how we will see the world, what choices we will make and we will become. We have graduated from looking at this place to really being able to see this place. It is amazing how much there is to see in this desert; more than an eye can take in within one lifetime. Though I have only spent 5 weeks of my life here in Baja, I feel as if I have grown up here. I have seen, learned, and thought about so many things down here, things that can only be incited in this unique place. The Biola Baja experience is so rich and full of lush life lessons.
The Lord gives us opportunity to learn and grow, but it is our responsibility to take full advantage of His provisions. Baja offers the same set of experiences to each student here, but at the same time allows us to choose how much of that experience we want to submerse ourselves into. Some of us will take more away from this place than others. In a way, being down here gives each of us a set of wings. Now we must choose how high we want to soar.
-Ted Chapanian
