I+Sum(C+W)=R

The project began in 2018 with the 5th Graders at the Junior High School in Rye, New Hampshire.

The launch was celebrated by the now grown-up 6th Graders and the crew of The SSV Corwith Cramer on October 25, 2020.

462 days later, the project goal is fulfilled in Smola (a small island) in Norway – by a sixth-grader and his class.

This project, a kind of "message in a bottle", consists of a six-foot hand-made sailboat that traveled over 7,000 miles to its surprise destination.  

Information about this educational and inspiring project can be found at Rye Riptides | Rye Junior High School.  It’s a fascinating story worth the time of exploration.

These kids (with the help of the Clipper Foundation) spent time and energy to build this craft, load it with ‘samples of their lives’ bidding bon voyage to a tiny vessel with the hope of connecting with students in a faraway land.

These explorers were willing to invest in a 3 ½ year project to meet, collaborate, and share the excitement with another group of students on another continent. 

This endeavor was very intentional but also completely submissive to the wind and currents. 

In our lives, there are a lot of things we can control.  There are many more which are well beyond that control. I’d like to think we’re willing to explore anyway.  I’d like to believe that we’re willing to trust the wind and the currents with intentional actions that have great potential to produce 'good' in this world.  I’d like to imagine a better world, but as of late, I am faltering.

I look to these middle school students. I look to their long-view commitment to seek out strangers in distant societies to celebrate the achievement with these new friends while learning more about their very different lives. 

My mention of faltering comes with deep and perhaps unanswerable questions.

• When is it that we lose the desire to put a boat in the water in sincere efforts to meet someone on the other side of the world or even a next-door neighbor? 
• At what age do we prefer building walls to keep those same people out?

• When does it happen that we determine that only ‘people like us’ are welcome?
• At what age do we begin to believe that inclusion is to be avoided in favor of isolation?

• When do we become the judgment of society and serve only those that (in our hearts) deserve to be served?
• At what age do we start to point fingers but never at ourselves. (OK. This one probably happens as soon as we can take control of our fingers, but still . . .)

Answerable or not, with the realization of our current trajectory, all questions boil down to this:

• Are we capable of turning the tide? 
• Will we?

• Is it possible for sincere Intention (I) combined with Current (C) and Wind (W) to create new, exciting, and long-lasting Relationships (R)?
• Is it possible to allow God's control of the currents and the winds to guide our good intentions as we work to bring His will to earth as it is in heaven?