In a Sabbath School class at Springwood Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1980s, discussion focused on where our concept of God had developed and who had influenced our beliefs about Him. David Swannell said his had developed on excursions to the bush with a science teacher from Strathfield Seventh-day Adventist High School. The teacher’s name: Adrian “Bro” Ellison.
I remembered David’s comments because when I heard “Bro” was speaking at the Yarrahapinni Adventist Youth Centre, I dropped in to meet him on one of my trips south.
“Bro” and I talked about his outdoor leadership program, Wilderness Lifestyle, and when I started lecturing at Avondale College in 1987, we offered Wilderness Lifestyle to students as an extracurricular activity. That began Adrian’s 27 years of association with students at Avondale. When we started the outdoor recreation program in 2000, Adrian taught the core Bible units and used his own textbooks, Outdoors with the God of the Open Air: The Expedition Guide to Peak Dynamic Adventure and Visionary Leadership Explores Learning It From Experience: Recognising the Spiritual Factor.
Those of us who have had the privilege of sitting around campfires with “Bro” have logbooks reminding us of times when he would share his unique brand of wilderness wisdom.
At grid reference 141414 on the Yengo National Park topographical map lies a valley featuring abseiling rock faces. Near those faces, a group of us huddled around a fire on the first night of camp where, on “Bro”’s prompt, we wrote in our logbooks, “The best thing that could happen to me on this camp is . . . .”
Our group on a navigational exercise with “Bro” had been walking the challenging ridges and valleys of Yengo in the rain for most of the day. With darkness beating us to our preferred destination, we decided to camp on one of the narrow ridges. Under a clearing sky with shelter for the night secured, a fire lit and a hot meal eaten, our happy thoughts were beginning to return. With the fire beginning to die, “Bro” captured the moment perfectly with this:
Did you ever watch the camp fire when the wood has fallen low
And the ashes start to whiten round the embers crimson glow;
With the night sounds all around you making silence doubly sweet;
And a full moon high above you that the scene may be complete?
Tell me, were you ever nearer to the land of heart’s desire
Than when you sat there thinking with your feet before the fire?
“Bro”’s prayers often ended with the phrase, “And now we remember the way Jesus . . .” and he would tie in with the topic of the day. So, I can imagine him saying, “And now we remember the way Jesus referred to a land of heart’s desire while here on this earth, ‘When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.’”
Farewell, “Bro,” I look forward to meeting you on the ridges again.
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