Story by: Taylor Bradford, La Vida Intern
From backcountry guiding to frontcountry advising, La Vida Sherpas have continued to seek and create communities throughout the academic year.
“This is a place that I see a ministry opportunity,” said Electa Sutton ‘21, commenting on being a part of Adirondack Expeditions and Resident Life. “This is a place where I can not only thrive and grow a lot, but it is a place that I can love people and learn to love God better.”
Walker Tuttle and Electa Sutton
After a summer of facilitating personal and communal growth within a wilderness context, co-guides Sutton and Walker Tuttle ‘20 currently serve as resident advisors for Evans Hall.
“Community is something that is consistent, community is something that is shared,” said Tuttle, “community is greater than the individual.”
Sutton and Tuttle’s canoe expedition
In June of 2018, Sutton and Tuttle co-led a canoe expedition for six incoming Gordon College freshmen. In addition to teaching students wilderness skills such as how to hang a bear bag, light a stove, and create a shelter, Sutton and Tuttle paddled alongside students as they fostered a community of growth through challenge and grace.
“I go into each trip trying to recognize what is the best way to create community,” said Tuttle. “Watching and trying to figure out what is the best way to make each participant feel welcomed.”
Sutton’s favorite part of leading was learning “how to bring people into the outdoors and bring people together.” Sutton continued excitedly, “I loved how you could go to the woods with twelve strangers for twelve days and come back and everyone would love each other.”
Amber McCarty, Walker Tuttle and Electa Sutton
This conversation of creating and fostering a community of growth did not end at the site of the trailhead as both guides went from leading trips to advising residents with the onset of a new school year.
For Sutton, being a resident advisor and leading wilderness trips have been aspirations of hers since she knew that they existed.
“I have wanted to be an RA since I was in the seventh grade,” said Sutton. “Because my cousin was an RA and I remember making decorations with them and thought it was the best thing ever. I was like, ‘I need to do this purely for the idea of making decorations,’ even though I didn’t really know what the job was.”
Laughing, Sutton acknowledges that being an RA includes much more than just creating hall decorations.
Because of her positive experience freshmen year with her RA, Sutton wanted to take part in an opportunity that “had been impactful for other freshmen and other people who were experiencing what I had experienced.”
With hopes of creating a space where residents feel welcomed and cared for, Sutton has set up a prayer room for reflection and contemplation, elaborate hall decorations to the theme of Bob Ross, and opportunities for her residents to join in fellowship as they live life together.
Sutton has found that the most fulfilling part of both guiding and advising has been “learning that no matter what I am doing, whether or not I feel like I am doing a good job, whether or not I am doing a bad job, whether or not I feel like I am being a good co-sherpa or a good staff person, or a good RA or Sherpa, knowing that God is working through it all.”
Across Evans Hall, Tuttle’s theme of “hold fast” is spelled out with climbing rope along the walls and climbing holds tacked throughout the hall.
Residents of Walker Tuttle holding up the new hall decorations for Evans.
“I really wanted this year on the floor to be somewhere where we could all care for each others’ needs and hold fast to each other,” said Tuttle.
A resident advisor once before guiding trips for the La Vida Center, Tuttle has seen how Resident Life has influenced being a Sherpa and vice versa.
“I learned that you have to have a structure, there has to be a skeleton, but allow each person to build up the community however they may be,” said Tuttle. “A lot of times within Res. Life, one of the first lessons I learned was that I kind of had a preconceived idea of what it was going to look like and then realized that it was not and so I had to let go of what I wanted and just let it be.”
From this understanding, Tuttle has identified community as “allowing each person to express who they are and how God has made them rather than being limited by me.”
Evans Res. Life Staff
Other current students who have served as both a Resident Advisor and La Vida Sherpa include Michael Mitts ‘21, Porter Sprigg ‘19, and Emma Cox ‘19.
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25