Portraits

I was turned down for another job today, though, of course, I was a most impressive candidate.  I was offered part time work, and even forty days of work one year from now.  But I was not offered a consistent paycheck, or a way to pay rent, or a community to invest in for more than a few days here and there.  The harbor was attractive; I was denied entry.  I am preparing the main sails.

Sunset over Quito

A good friend recently wrote and asked me to share some things about my recent experiences.  He was feeling disconnected from me, he said, which is understandable as we have not seen each other in years.  He also said he felt disconnected from himself.  I’m not sure what that means, but I think I can relate.  I began my letter as such:

“How do I write to you all the things that have passed?  How do I dip words into my heart to paint a portrait of who I am?  We are constantly changing, being made and unmade like sand or swirling leaves.  Our portraits are outdated before their paints have dried.  Still, there must be something constant in you and me.  Some piece of God.  I hope this writing shows with any sort of clarity that Piece.”

I wrote to him about Ecuador, and I wrote in a vague way, about my recent experiences in the wilderness.  I wrote that I've recently been learning to "dig down into my beliefs and find Bedrock shallower than expected.  To brush off that Bedrock and stand upon it with my arms crossed and eyes closed, refusing to move." I wrote to him these types of things to tell him where I'm at.  It occurs to me, once again, that this blog is a similar, mass endeavor.  I hope it shows pieces of myself, sometimes shattered pieces, that if held to the light, cast kaleidoscope images against the wall.  Portraits of who I am.

I leave tomorrow for another two weeks of courses.  I’ll be heading to Santa Cruz, then up into the mountains again for two more courses.  I’m waiting to hear from potential employers and frustrated by not being available to answer emails and phone calls.  The wind has died.  My compass is spinning.  The sea is glassy.

I finished my letter to my friend with this paragraph:

“And now I’m packed and ready again.  I’m ready to go out again.  I’m ready for God to use me if He will.  I’m even ready if He doesn’t want to use me.  I’m packed.  But I’m tiring of packing.  I’m tiring of sleeping in a truck bed, of lonely nights, of watching Transience bubble up and overflow and cover people I value.  I’m weeping for the loss of consistency, of knowing and being known.  I’m tired of goodbyes.  I’m tired of phone calls.  I’m becoming ready to unpack, but I’m still adrift and land is not in sight.

Still, I've found that Bedrock floats."

S.S. Boat:  A portrait drawn for me by a friend.  

The sun rises each morning on a world of rock and men, both broken and carved by the passage of time.  How I have been privileged to watch it from a perch above the Yosemite wilderness.

Just after finishing my last post, I took off for Baltimore, Maryland where I worked for Johns Hopkins University's outdoor program for twenty-three days.  I led a ten day leadership and canoeing course followed by a four day climbing instructor course.  Between these courses, I quickly became accustomed to the swanky life of being put up in hotels and picked up each morning by a shiny Hopkins suburban.  In my free time, I explored Baltimore and found it to be a fascinating, complex city.   Searching for a place to sit and read led me to a long line of failed restaurants with dark windows.  Eyes followed me as I passed men on the street.  Many other sets of eyes were unfocused or twitching or supported by wobbling feet.  I assume this is the result of drug addiction.  Baltimore is a broken, addicted city splattered with pockets of wealthy apartments and high-class restaurants, pockets largely defined by skin color, pockets of comfort and ease.  Johns Hopkins is the largest of these and continues to grow through real estate practices questionable to many.  In my short stay there, I went to a Yankees/Orioles game with a social worker.  Her car window was shattered and a bag was missing when we returned to the parking lot.  She was not surprised.

Upon returning to California, I attended Summit Adventure’s staff orientation and organized the climbing portion of the trip.  I then had one day off, which I used for job applications, before I began planning a twenty-one day trip in Yosemite.

Twenty-one days of wilderness refuse to fit in a small blog and I will not attempt to force them.  Perhaps I will write more about them later, for instance, The Tale of the Two Pots occurred on this trip.  For now, I’ll let captioned pictures suffice.

Climbing a couloir on Mt Hoffman was the start of our trip.  The temperatures did not get low enough to freeze the snow so we ascended a steep, slushy slope. 

 

Bath number one in the high country.  One of these characters looks colder than the others.

We packed in costumes for certain days in the fields.  This was my climbing costume.  The sequence-lined vest caught the sun and turned me into a mobile disco ball ascending the rock.

We took suit coats with us to wear on each of the seven peaks we summitted.  Clouds Rest at sunset.  

The sports coats were eventually used as an extra insulation layer.  With our greasy hair, fingerless gloves, and suit coats, we began to resemble a troop of homeless vagabonds.  In many ways, I suppose we were. 

Another couloir near Cathedral Peak

The dark stillness of dawn.

A natural wind tunnel between Half Dome and its sub-dome.  My water bottle and bag almost blew away.

The laundry mat. 

Crossing a swollen creek near Tenaya Lake

Ragged clouds over Mt. Watkins and Tenaya Canyon

Well.  I've got to get on with "life stuff".  Another application is hanging over me.  Thanks for reading and thanks for your prayers.  I think God has been active in all of these journeys, shaping me and healing me.  I hope the same for you.  I'll leave you with one last picture.  It's the precise moment of sunrise over the Cathedral Range.

It’s been a long time since Ecuador.

After 24 hours of traveling and delayed flights, April and I landed in a chaotic scene of mudslides, deep snow, and electrical outages.  April and I, along with Summit’s ISAS students, stayed a few nights at the Smith’s (Executive Director’s family) house and enjoyed the close community of eight people eating, playing, packing a studying in close quarters.  The wood stoves were roaring, the snow was falling, and I took my first truly warm shower in three months.  These days were transitional for me—days of hesitating with my toilet paper, trying to remember where to put it if not in a trash can.  A week of savoring each leaf of lettuce and piece of fresh fruit which had not been washed in disinfectant.  Two days later, April and I set out for Red Rocks National Monument to meet some friends and climb.  We happily escaped the snow (the electricity remained off for several more days) and headed into the desert.

Snow in Bass Lake

As a child, I always enjoyed long car rides by staring out the window and thinking about everything, or nothing.  I still do, and on that trip I had plenty to think about.  Along the way, we stopped to visit two young families which, somehow, were extremely important events for me.  I can’t put my finger exactly on a reason why.  Part of it, perhaps, was my knowledge that I was entering a time of inconsistency—a time of moving from job to job, place to place, community to community, often feeling alone.  There is something healing about sitting down in the home of a welcoming family; of seeing loving, consistent, lasting relationships and being invited to participate in them,  if only for a day or a few hours.  Since moving around the past few years, I have come to greatly enjoy families.

Kathleen and Shotgun.  Guess who is who.  Part of the family I got to visit.

Upon returning from our climbing trip to Red Rocks, April and I parted ways and I worked for a week doing a manual labor at Mission Springs, a Christian conference center in Santa Cruz.  I chose to volunteer and work there as an escape from “purposelessness”, the sickening feeling of not being useful.  At the camp I mainly did manual labor, job applications, and catching up with friends.  Manual labor was the best thing I could have done for that week.  Something mindless, repetitive, and physical.  Digging holes, pouring concrete, and weed-eating were perfect tasks for me.   I felt emotionally tired, but physically restless.  I did not want to be around a lot of people most of the time.  The maintenance guys were great.  You’re not estranged if you’re not talking.

After getting my truck worked on and finally going to an English-speaking church on Sunday, I left for Yosemite and rope-soloed part of a route called The Prow.  I fixed lines, then rappelled to the ground laying my sleeping bag on a boulder beneath a tree.  I talked to God and wrote in my journal as the sun set on the valley, then lay on the boulder simply thinking until the stars were bright and clear through the branches over my head.  The next day, I headed up the rock alone, stopping at every ledge to sit and enjoy the view and pop a couple M&M’s in my mouth.  M&M’s are extremely expensive in Ecuador.  I retreated soon enough to meet the Summit Adventure community for dinner at Tom’s house.  The next day I began planning for the ISAS expedition.

On the Prow of Washington Column

The ISAS expedition was a sixteen day trip in the backcountry.  Due to the time of year (the second half of April) snowshoes were required the entire trip.  There were only two students on this trip, Bekah and 

Sleeping in a spacious four-person snow cave.  We were glad to be out of the weather.

Brendon, and one co-instructor, Kelli.  In the midst of some raging creek crossings, on day three, Brendon finally admitted that his feet hurt and decided to take off his boots.  His feet were red, and blistered and missing some big chunks of skin from the bottoms of his toes.  We kept an eye on his feet when we could and rerouted the course to go down through Yosemite Valley.  There, Brendon and Kelli were “evacuated” during resupply and Bekah and I continued on for the next eight days alone.   

Found the highway.

On day nine, after gaining 3,400 feet in 5.5 hours with 70 lb packs, we reached the Snow Creek Cabin and enjoyed the opportunity to dry out our boots, bask in front of a fire, and read the Easter story without cold fingers. Most of the two-story cabin was buried in snow.

It’s hard to express the contented feeling of watching wet snow fall outside a window, after sleeping in it the past eight nights.  The next day, which was both Easter and Bekah’s birthday, we traveled 7 miles to Tenaya Lake where we stayed for a night and a day on “Solo”.  Solo is a time to be alone, reflect, and listen to God.  This type of thing is found throughout the Bible when Elijah or Jesus or John escape to the wilderness to pray and fast.  Being the gentleman I am, I gave Bekah the tarp-shelter we had and dug myself a snow cave to sleep in.  

My personal snow...bunk?

I spent much time on Tenaya Lake (it was frozen) feeling the wind whip around my face, singing praises to God, and praying for friends, family, and the future.  

Sunset at Tenaya Lake

The rest of the course contained a climb up Cathedral Peak (doing the 5.10 variation in boots, I’ll proudly add), snow anchor school, and some grueling marches back to Yosemite Valley though rain and snow.

Cathedral Peak and camp

view on the descent off Cathedral Peak

Little rest awaited me upon returning to civilization as I caught wind of some friends heading up El Capitan very soon.  I slept one night in a somewhat civilized manner (at least it was under a roof), the next was on some boulders at the base of the West Face of El Cap.  I had hiked up and stumbled over Graham and Keith sleeping around midnight.  So I plopped down to sleep and the next morning arose at 4:30 to start climbing.  After some scary, wet climbing and one decent fall, we arrived back down on the ground at 3:30 am—a 23 hour trip.  A few days later I got on the Captain again and was amazed to see how I flew up the rock, climbing with style sections of the route I had floundered on the preceding fall.  It was as if I had been training, but I hadn’t climbed anything hard in months.  Oh to be young.

And this all brings me to the present.  I’m sitting in front of the woodstove at Summit Adventure.  The power just came back on after some heavy hail and lighting.  I’m volunteering here in exchange for a place to stay and am deeply enjoying having community with friends I’ve known for years.  But I leave again Monday to fly to Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.  I’m scheduled to lead a two week canoeing course for them, followed by a shorter rock climbing course.  Those two courses will take me to June 6^th, just before the Summit Adventure summer courses will begin.

Its quiet here, and dark, except for the fan on the wood stove humming and the clicking of my keyboard.  I slept in a real bed last night, waking in the dark thinking I was on a cliff-edge somewhere.   Today, I took the plastic off all the windows at Summit Adventure so a little more light can brighten its spaces.  If you think of it, would you please pray for my future, that I make responsible decisions, and for Summit Adventure as money is always more than tight.  Also, the poor always need more prayer and action, many in Ecuador are still scrambling around in the trash even while I’m comfy in front of a fire.  Thanks for reading.  Good night.

February: A Brief Synopsis

 “If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”
 - Sir Isaac Newton

The Johns Hopkins University course ended on January 27^th.  I saw the last student off (she was vomiting and recovering from a dislocated shoulder) at 4am in the airport, then went back to the hostel and slept a long time.

The Summit Adventure semester program showed up on the 29^th and I began helping facilitate their time in Quito, sitting in on classes, helping them get around the city, and just hanging out with them.  There are only two students in the program right now, which is obviously not financially ideal, but I relate better to people individually so I have enjoyed working with them more than with a large group.

Hanging out (literally) with ISAS in the gondola up to Rucu's ridge

Bryce and I are trading off days working with the ISAS students.  When they went to hike to Rucu Pinchincha, I tagged along and climbed the ridge on my own.  The alone time and exercise was a breath of fresh air for me.

Fresh air near the Summit of Rucu (15,000ish feet)

The next week, I went with the ISAS students to the Happiness Foundation in Conocoto, Ecuador.  We stayed there five days, Kelli (ISAS Coordinator) and I staying at the orphanage, and the ISAS students living with Ecuadorian families.  We all took Spanish lessons every day and had some time to talk as a group about the students’ experiences.  It seems clear to me that God was working in the homes of the Ecuadorian families.  Though it may sound hyper-spiritual and I find myself skeptical of such situations, God impressed on one of the students to share certain scriptures and thoughts with one of the families.  As she shared with them, they started crying, saying those things pertained exactly to what they had been dealing with and praying about for months.  They said they were praying for God to speak to them about those things and were beginning to lose hope.  So that’s pretty cool.  It’s nice to be able to see God moving a clear-cut way.

After the Happiness foundation, I was not scheduled to work, but I tagged along with ISAS to Illiniza Norte and had my own adventure on the mountain.  I had some nausea and a headache when I got down, but it went away after dinner.  The next day, after sleeping in the refugio (hut/refuge), I helped get the students nearly to the summit (“nearly” due to time constraints) and back down.

Alone Time on Iliniza Norte

Group time on Iliniza Norte

The day after we returned from Illiniza Norte, I caught a cab to Conocoto and spent 5 more days at the Happiness Foundation.  I finished the first draft of a short story there and took a few more hours of Spanish class.  I learned the most Spanish, however, from washing dishes with Cecilia, Bill’s wife.  Bill was the director of the orphanage for many years.  He shared stories with me about his past and I took notes on one of them, hoping to use them as the basis of a future story.

Bill Davis (in his favorite work shirt)

When I returned from Conocoto, I met up with the ISAS students again and traveled to Banos—a quaint village situated directly beneath Ecuador’s most active volcano, Tungurahua.  The students had free time there, to work on school work, explore, and enjoy the natural hot springs which give the town its name (“Banos” can mean “baths” as well as “bathrooms”).  However, one of the students, Bekah, is not one for sedentary activities and wanted to go on a “beast hike”.  This we did—up the main ridge of Tungurahua to the dilapidated and abandoned refugio.  Most of the climbing-based tourism on Tungurahua has ceased since the volcano’s recent eruptions, thus the hut has not been maintained.  The roof was broken in places, moldy food was strewn about, the walls were patched with clothing and woven mats, and a shattered plaque memorializing an Israeli climber lay shattered on the ground.

Dilapidated Refugio on Tungurahua

Just getting to the hut was the interesting part, however.  We started at 6,100 feet and climbed to 12,500 in about 4.5 hours.  Most of the trail was steep, muddy, and parts of it were tunnels of vegetation.  We passed llamas and cows and fields of onions or blackberries before we got into the cloud forest that drenched us with condensation.  We could see fields of hardened lava that had poured down through the forest and we talked with a woman who had a bucket of stones on her counter.  She said they crashed through her roof during the eruptions.  She laughed a lot and lamented the loss of business since climbing the volcano became unpopular (for good reason).

Sweating like crazy on Tungurahua

When Tom, Summit’s executive director, arrived to teach classes for the ISAS program, Bryce and I were no longer needed and caught a 4 hour bus ride back to Quito.  I had stuff-sack containing books and a water bottle tied to the seat in front of me and resting between my feet.  At one point during the ride I felt the bag being tugged, so I pulled it up to discover it had been sliced open with a razor.  Nothing was stolen but I was upset with the chubby, middle-aged man behind me who had obviously tried to rob me.  I didn’t know what else to do besides give him my best dirty looks and contemplate talking to the driver about it.  Nothing was actually stolen, my Spanish is not great, and I couldn’t prove it was him, so I don’t think anything could have been done.  So I just sat there questioning whether passivity was the best course of (in)action, and I prayed for God to bless him.  I had just finished patching the bag after Bryce sliced it open with his ice axe on a climb the week before, so I wasn’t too concerned about it.  I’ll patch it again.  Still, it’s sad to be brushed by even such a trivial amount of disregard for other humans.

Seam grip saves the day again.  Thanks Auddy.

My friends and coworkers, April and Steven, showed up the next week and we have begun planning for the next course with Waynesburg College.  Pepperdine University is also down here right now but their course is being led by other instructors and they are living on the floor below us.  It has been nice to have a group to sit down with and eat dinner.  My time down here has been an ebb and flow of solitude and crowdedness.  My favorite medium has been a day alone in the mountains followed by an evening of cooking and laughter in a hut, especially when snow is falling outside the window.

Iliniza Norte

Iliniza Sur and Iliniza Norte from a nearby town

 I'm praying for many of you and hope you'll pray us down here too.  I guess the best thing you could ask for is for God to use me however he wants.  Thanks a ton.

ben

One Month Left: Worthy Causes

Throughout February this is what I've done (in reverse order of amount of time spent on each activity): climb, write, rest,  and work with Summit Adventure's ISAS program (Immersion, Service, Adventure Semester).  While doing these things, I've gotten to work with some amazing (I don't use the word lightly) people and organizations.  Rather than tell you exactly what I've been doing, I want to tell you these organizations with which I have been closely working.

1.  Remanso de Amor (literally translated "Haven of Love")

A teacher at Remanso de Amor instructs her class of disarmingly cute (but alarmingly feisty) preschoolers. 

Remanso de Amor now operates in ten different locations throughout South America and Senegal, Africa.  It is a Christian organization started in Quito, Ecuador by some of those amazing people I mentioned earlier, Ramiro and Jenny Maldonado.  Ramiro has several graduate degrees and multiple (I'm not sure how many) doctoral degrees.  He is a lawyer as well as the founder of Remanso de Amor; he has been petitioned to be an ambassador for Ecuador; he has also been seriously recruited to run for the Ecuadorian Presidency.  He has chosen instead to continue running Remanso de Amor and to raise his two kids.  Jenny is an accountant (and I don't know as much about her).

Jenny and Ramiro, with kids Jonathan and Carlita

They decided to start Remanso de Amor while visiting some houses in Argelia Alta.  One particularly memorable house (shack) they visited was a single room.  In one corner was the kitchen, in another corner everyone slept, in another was a crib for a newborn, and in the fourth corner was the bathroom.  When Ramiro and Jenny walked into the house there was blood on the floor, several young children, and no father.  They came to find out the mother had recently born a child in the house which accounted for the blood on the floor.  When asked who helped her bear the child, she pointed to one of her children who was about eight years old.  The Maldonados left the house moved in spirit, and crying.  This is when they decided to do whatever they could to help Argelia Alta.

Remanso de Amor focuses on helping communities in a holistic fashion, not focusing solely on spiritual, or medical, or social issues but addressing all of them within communities.  In Argelia, Remanso has started a church, a school (preKindergarten-University), and a microbusiness program, all of which promote the independence, financial and otherwise, of the community members.  Remanso also brings in a group of Ecuadorian doctors at intervals to address medical issues, and they send out social workers weekly to visit nearby homes.  The new focus of the social work program is the reduction of infant mortality.  They specifically visit homes with babies to monitor the health and progression of the infants.  They do mental and physical exercises with the children as well as a small bible study with the families.

Summit Adventure works with Remanso on every Ecuador course.  I asked this guy to make a funny face.

Recently, Remanso de Amor has faced serious financial setbacks.  Ramiro and Jenny both lost their jobs and are looking for work that will allow them to continue running Remanso de Amor. Along the same lines, the government is requiring Remanso de Amor to build a chemistry laboratory in order to maintain their accreditation.  This requires a fourth floor to be built onto the school costing somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000.  Because Remanso is a school for the poor, the families cannot afford to pay much for school.  "The hardest thing," says Ramiro, "is [raising enough money for] paying the professors."  The school is being fined every month the fourth floor is not built, but Ramiro says he does not have anywhere to get the money.

Life is not easy for the Maldonados right now.  If things do not improve, they will soon have to make changes such as moving their children to a different school;  But the thing that most struck me about the Maldonados is how often they laugh and smile in the face of their current adversity.  Their generosity with their time and money seems to compete the frequency of smiles on their faces.  They related their struggles to a group of Summit Adventure students during an interview.  When asked why he is not living for himself comfortably, without the struggles of running a non-profit, Ramiro seemed puzzled by the question as if it had never occurred to him.  "Because Jesus says to help the poor and make disciples," he said.  So Remanso de Amor continues, though not without cost. "Now, if they offered me an Ambassador job," says Ramiro shrugging and half-joking, "I would take it."

2. The Davis Foundation (The Happiness Foundation)

Brothers Eduarado and Elpis help me make popcorn in the kitchen.  2 of their other siblings live with them in the orphanage while their mother retained their youngest sibling.

The Davis Foundation is an orphanage in Conocoto, a suburb of Quito.  I believe it was started in the late 60's by missionary Henry Davis who discovered that many orphaned children were living with criminals in a nearby prison because they had no where else to go.  Henry brought them to a house in Conocoto near to a separate governement-sponsored orphanage.  Over time, and with the specific help of Ecuador's first lady at the time, the Davis Foundation was given a 50 acres of land and the control of the neighboring orphanage.  Henry hoped to work himself out of a job at the orphanage and eventually did.  It is now Ecuadorian-run.

I stayed at the Davis Foundation for two stints of five days this month and got to talk extensively with Bill Davis, Henry's brother.  For my first five days at the foundation, I ate all of my meals with one of the houses of children.  There are twenty houses in all, each with about twelve kids and a parent (or parents) who live in the house with them.  The students attend a school on the property for seven hours a day, then work on the foundation for three to four hours.  They do homework, clean the houses, tend to the crops and livestock, and maintain the property.  

Guinea pigs, or "Cuy", are the cutest thing on the menu in Ecuador.  The orphans are currently tending to over 200 cuy which they sell for their meat.  They require constant attention and tending to them teaches responsibility.

The thing that stood out to me most about the Happiness Foundation was, surprisingly, the happiness of the children there.  The orphanage I visited in Belize was underfunded, understaffed, and overcrowded.  The children at the Davis Foundation have much more, food, space, and affection.  They seem to be socially well-adjusted and respectful.  Many ex-orphans, including my taxi driver, are business-owners in Conocoto.  I believe this is due, in part, to the wisdom of the board that runs the orphanage administering discipline and structure.  Also, adequate resources are made available through the work of Dorothy Davis (the late Henry Davis' wife) who is in the States managing all of the fundraising for the orphanage.

In short, all of this is to say that Remanso de Amor and the Davis Foundation are, in my opinion, doing an excellent job of bettering the lives of some of the most needy people in Ecuador, one of the poorest countries in South America.  Both organizations are sustained by fundraising and donations, not because they don't want to support themselves, but because their main customers are the extremely poor who are unable to pay the organizations offering them avenues of escape.

If you're interested in helping out The Davis Foundation or Remanso de Amor, there are a couple of ways to do so.  Know that money donated to these organizations is not making Ecuadorian children dependent on foreign money, it is helping them become independent so they can be well-adjusted and skilled adults who have heard the Gospel of Christ.  So, to help out you can do these things:

1.  Support a child or make a donation to the Davis Foundation at their website at www.housesofhappiness.org

2. Donate to Remanso de Amor, through Summit Adventure.  100% of your donation will go to Remanso de Amor.  Because Summit's website will be under construction a little while longer, donations given before the website is running will have to be sent to PO Box 496, Bass Lake, CA 93604, with a note saying that the money is for Remanso de Amor.

During chores, Oguita, sister of Eduardo and Elpis, rocks out on the broom-guitar.

That's all I've got for now.  Don't feel obligated to give.  I just wanted get some information out about the organizations I have been working with down here, and let you know a couple potential ways to put your money towards very noble causes.  I'll try to write soon about what I specifically have been doing.  Thanks for the support.

One month in

It's raining in Quito now, and all the students are gone.  Gray curtains are obscuring the city and are darkening as the sun sets.  Occasional rumbles roll over the tops of wet buildings.  

Climbing ropes are strewn across the couch  needing to dry.  Several of my own pieces of gear lay on the floor as well, torn but newly patched with shiny, wet seam grip (thanks for the seam grip Audrey!)  The rain on the roof is a nice sound, especially at night.

A month has passed and I still wish to be nowhere else.  I am enjoying the benefits as well as the difficulties down here.  I'm learning a lot.  How to coax hot water out of the shower faucet; how to face a headache and nausea with optimism and jokes (and Ibuprofen); how to tell if I'm actually going to barf or if I just feel bad; how to ask about gluten in Spanish; how to make a bed out of hospital chairs and sleep there; how to put someone's oxygen tube back into their nose again and again and again.  I'm also learning how to prepare for the future but not to worry about--to keep walking as best I can and handle the future as it comes (not referring to a career, Mom and Dad).

Part of our group descending part of Cayambe

I made it up Cayambe on this past trip.  I still did not lead a rope team which is hard for me, but I'm learning a lot of humility.  I only threw up once, and I felt better rather than worse afterwards.  I'm not sure how much the altitude was getting to me and how much it was a previous sickness.  I'd eaten little in the days before due to a fever and stomach illness.  I'd also slept little due to half the population of Indonesia dancing in plastic boots beside my bed (the hut on Cayambe was very croweded).  But I made it up.  I'm impoving.  And I'm hoping to lead a rope team next time.  Mom and Dad have sent down a small pharmacy's worth of altitude pills for me to take.  Turns out they don't sell them in Ecuador.  Hooray for parents.

The mountains have been a bit unruly this year, unruly but beautiful.  Illiniza Norte (17,000 feet) was covered in snow when it is usually a rock route.  That day ended up being 10.5 hours and we got back to our vehicles after dark and in the rain.  Luckily, my mustache kept my upper lip warm.

Notice the sweet mustache (no it's not dirt)

We had some medical issues on this past course.  One of which was a student's brain swelling due to a preexisting condition set off by the altitude.  He was in the hospital for two nights and it was pretty intense for a while.  But he got better and went home.  We had some other medical complications but I don't feel like writing about them.

The students on this last course seemed to be learning from their experiences here.  In our nightly discussions they had some profound things to say and showed they were processing their experiences rather than just letting them slide by.  This was encouraging and helped me believe I'm not the only one learning down here.  I think God is at work, certainly in my heart, but hopefully also in others.  I always appreciate your prayers, health has been a tough issue down here.  Other than that I need prayer about where to go in the future etc. (the whole family nods their heads).

It's stopped raining now.  The clouds are clearing away but the its dark and the city is lighting up.