Between the Mouse and the Giant

Quito and Cayambe

It’s always difficult to start these things.  It’s always been a little overwhelming.  Not that I live an overwhelming life, it’s just that relating one’s life can be difficult.  I conjure up ideas of scenes to portray, or, sometimes, just a memorable picture.  Like a student sitting on a bed with his eyes half closed.  When I look at him, my headlamp illuminates his body and the raggedy bed on which he sits.  When I look away he’s in darkness.  Around such pictures one can construct a scene which portrays a fragment of what one’s lived, and with such a scene one can reach out to others and say “This is what I’ve lived.  Perhaps it hints at who I’m becoming.  Maybe you know me better now.”  And that last part, I’ve found, is the heart of the issue.  The reason for writing.  To be known over vast distances.  This way, when I come home and apparently have nothing to talk about, when I sit like a mute man across from you, when you ask me how Ecuador was and I mumble words inscrutable, at least you’ll have these bits, these selected images to know.

Illiniza Norte with a group

I’ve worked with three different groups of North Americans so far and I believe I have seen God at work—not in obvious ways like physical healings, but in subtle ways easily mistaken for the normal flow of life.  When the steady, wide flow is slowly etching the banks of humanity into a more beautiful form, more kind and empathetic and others-centered, that’s when I assume God is in the water.  Take, for instance, a big-time farmer from Idaho who changes his opinion of his Latin-American community.  Or consider the 15 year old with the tear-streaked face, who says the highlight from her time in Ecuador was visiting some of the poorest homes in Quito.  Or take, for example, a woman with renewed hope for a Christian community based on love and respect.   Or think of the woman recovering from an eating disorder who was able to healthily exercise for the first time in months.  It’s difficult to describe the contagious happiness that emanated from her in the mountains.  My point is I think there is a point to all of this.  The mountains are beautiful and fun and scary.  The city is interesting and intricate and different.  But people are changing for the better.  And that’s the biggest thing to celebrate.

A participant enjoying taking in the mountains over Quito

Each of these abstract examples happened on the first course, but before I move on, let me tell you about that part of the course which will stick with me for a long time, maybe until I die.  I walked with a social worker from a local church visiting various homes in a poor barrio.  I looked past the group in front of me, through a damp corridor of plywood, to a man scrambling around his home.  He was rapidly plucking papers, debris and sharp tools off his floor.  When he looked up at us, bent over with his hands full, I noticed his upturned, anxious eyebrows.  I also noticed his left eye was looking in a wildly different direction than his right.  His face was kind, nonetheless, and his unruly hair waved in the air as he nodded his head at what the social worker was saying.  She was asking him why his home was so dirty and unkempt; I understood that much.  When he looked at me, I sensed a submissiveness which made me uncomfortable.  I sensed it in his tone, when he asked if I spoke Spanish.  There was vomit on the front of his shirt, but, all in all, he looked much cleaner than his wife and two boys.

I’ve got to be honest, I’m tempted to continue describing this face of poverty with all of it hideous expressions, with its scabs and urine, mud and cardboard, cinderblocks and metal, but I’m not sure that pages of adjectives and analogies and personifications will be of any help in understanding all of this.  The only thing I claim to understand about that situation is that it is not supposed to exist.  People, immortal beings, are not supposed to live like that.  So I’m going to move on.  I’m moving into the abstract, into that which is less entertaining.  The story’s over, the moral is beginning.  I apologize in advance for my philosophizing, but I’ve been considering different perspectives on poverty and want to share these thoughts.

A muddy home, scabs, urine, cardboard—so begins the struggle between sympathy and empathy for one privileged white man.  I’ve come to believe that sympathy is man inflated.  It’s you or me injected with air until we are forty-five foot giants looking down on equals.   With sympathy, we smile and pledge to think of the poor often out of the benevolence that overflows our blown up, holy hearts, or we cry and highlight the suffering of others, but in sympathy we very seldom commit—not in a real way. Sympathy helps us ignore the poor by feeling badly, but it requires little action.  It patches our spirits by giving the false sense of helping others. 

A participant helping a blind man go for a walk at an "Old Folks Home" for the poor in Quito

I don’t have a good word for the opposite of this sympathy, found sometimes in the poor.  I guess one could call it “hyper-admiration”, basically, a deflated image of one’s self or an over-admiration of one’s equals.   It is shrinking one’s self down into a miniature mouse-person looking up to equals as superiors, not believing that one’s value has nothing to do with possessions or position or your child’s learning disability.  I view this “hyper-admiration” and sympathy as equally distant from what I believe to be the truth that all men are equal in one, important way.  God rejoices over all of us.  None should look either up or down to equals.

 For me, the desire to scoop up the poor in inflated arms can be emotionally appealing; but when I look at my arms, they look just like those of the man with vomit on his shirt.  I want to bend down and pluck families out of the muck (probably in a way that requires little sacrifice on my part), but I find myself instead staring eye to eye with them, standing in the muck also, not knowing what to do.  Such realizations bring one closer to empathy.  Empathy is the perspective I’m choosing to aim for.  Empathy knows that God prizes the urchin and the philanthropist equally.  Empathy empowers.  It sees eye-to-eye.  It speaks the truth of who we are as humans.  It may cry, but it does not pity.  It may celebrate, but it knows the struggle will not be finished in this lifetime.  Empathy educates.  It doesn’t give hand outs.  It recognizes potential and tries to grow that potential. 

Wendy

In applying these thoughts to my situation, I find that sympathy is tempting for a privileged white boy like myself, more tempting even, than guilt.  I find myself asking questions and making assumptions.  I wonder how they continue each day, if they are planning escape, how any of this could possibly end well, and I picture their frustration piling with each day, with each child, so that the tiniest straw of complications could crush the fragile hope they hold.  And then what?  Where can they go?  I have wondered how these people, with their physical needs barely met, continue.  But who am I to comment on the resilience of man, the resilience of the blotchy-faced woman with no bathroom and no job?  I know precious little of resilience, mainly stories, and it’s yet to be seen whether these stories are seeds planted in a fertile heart, ready to grow into a life that produces more stories and more seeds, or whether they are hollow echoes in a stony canyon.  Furthermore, who am I to doubt the existence of hope?  It may be hard to see, but I have to believe that hope exists for everyone, in all circumstances.  People will still die, the poor will persist, but so will hope, sometimes in the form of you and me and the sharing of our gifts.

John and Lisa, form Idaho, who decided to help Miguel (center) go to school at Remanso de Amor.  Miguel's parents live in the Amazon.  They put him on a bus for Quito one day where he lived on the streets until teachers at Remanso de Amor took him in.  Until John and Lisa came, he was going to have to leave Remanso due to a lack of funds.

So, as always, I come round to the conclusion that I must trust in God for my own sake and for the sake of the poor.  I don’t believe there is hope for myself or the family in the mud apart from him.  He knows of physical needs and commands us to address these needs in the world.  He knows we’re not acting like the people we were made to be and he knows that he is our only chance of changing.  But for all our dependence, he demands action.  He wants us to be his fingers and his feet.  He wants to cultivate us into loving beings, but he demands that we step out.  He places calls on us, calls without an audible voice or a strange emotion, calls that don’t seem like calls at all.  He equips us to serve by giving us tools, for me these are a loving family, a good brain, the opportunity to travel, gainful employment, and with these tools I am obligated to act.  With our given tools, we are all obligated to act.  Perhaps proper action with these tools is the fertilizer God is waiting for.  So act we must, or at least try, with whatever we have, however meager, and in whatever location we find ourselves.  For me, my current location happens to be close to a family who lives in the mud, but even closer to white people just like me, inflated, confused, and needing help in different ways.

Chilling with some Old Folks in Quito during the holidays 

Well, I intended to write about wind, snow, and adventure, of which there have been plenty, but I’m not sure what happened except that I was lured in by the bait called “why?”  I don’t know if there is anything to be learned from any of the above writing, but if there is, I hope you find it.

I’m looking forward to coming home on March 20^th.  Thanks for reading.

Ben  

To Consistency and Back Again

Mechanical issues on the drive to Cayambe

At each new step, I intended to capture my progress in writing.  However, at each new step, I found myself too concerned with the next to relate all of the previous.   Such has been the past six months.  In order to write, one waits, I suppose, for an unexpected and unclaimed pocket of time.  Here, nestled in the barking, honking concrete of Quito, I have found it.  The tea is murmuring in the kettle, rain is peppering the window, and the sky is as blank and unwritten as the page before me.  I’ll begin with the present.

Quito at night:  the Panecillo

Clouds are overflowing the eastern valley, rolling like great cotton balls over the wet rooftops of Quito.  Under one of those rooftops is my home, and indeed, here, at last, I feel at home.  Quito, the city of the clouds.  When it rains here, the frogs are unmuted, and rather than chirping, they pop like a chorus of pickle jars being opened at once.  Six months ago, I did not expect the affordance of living here again, neither did I desire it.  Six months ago I was squinting uneasily into the future, trying to discern a viable path to stability.  I was praying hard and running hard so that when the door was opened, I limped into it with much gratefulness.  I began working for Summit Adventure full-time, settling down into the comfort of a routine, of consistent community, of church on Sunday mornings and a bed (not a truck bed) to sleep in each night.  The insatiability of the human appetite is amazing, but for the past three months, I have often been content.

Curt, my co-instructor, looking out on the city from our rooftop

 There I go again, lost in the abstract.  When I say I was praying hard and running hard, here’s what I meant, taken from a journal entry:

“Around that time, with the summer drawing to a close, I became anxious about not having a job for the next year.  I started running.  For some reason, I tend to consider myself lazy if I’m not experiencing discomfort as I run, thinking I can’t possibly be improving without pain.  So I would strap on my headlamp (thanks for the headlamp, Dad!), and run into the coolness of the night up a steep mountain trail and back down again to Bass Lake.  I would swim through the star-strewn reflections on the water then run back, huffing and wobbling on numb legs.  Perhaps running to the point of discomfort does make one a better runner, but it also makes one injured.  I developed tendinitis in my achilles.”

The humility provided by the physical weakness of a tendon can be powerful.  Weak tendons tethered me securely to civilization—to roads and seats and offices.  Mountains became nothing more than images representing adventure.  But in this time of waiting and healing and thinking, I began to know the mountains in a different way.  I gained the perspective of the inhibited, of the elderly or lame, to whom mountains remain mysterious.  Previously, mountains had become to me a workplace only.  I had allowed familiarity to strip them of their glory.  But as I waited for healing, pacing in my apartment, my perspective was changed.  I began to know wonder, of which mountains are full.  I saw them not for what they could offer me, but for what they have offered everyone since their creation.  Humans have populated them recently like fleas, but for thousands of years prior, God alone sat among them and said they were good.

The Mt. Whitney Portal, 6am on a September morning

 It would be hard to describe to you the joy felt when I broke free from my injury-prison one night and limped with my haul bag up to a cliff.   It’s the joy of watching sparks fly from my hammer into the night—of the full moon staring over my shoulder—of the absolutely wild and untamed look the mountains have when dusted with snow—the comfort of curling up in a sleeping bag to watch the stars spin through the night--knowing that I reside on one of their own, an errant star.

But I’m ahead of myself again.  When I last wrote, I was only partially finished with another summer of work with Summit Adventure.  It would be a shame not to mention my privilege to work with persons with disabilities.

Among the treasure chest of jewels which comprised that course for those with disabilities, I will select only one to give you.  Michael.  Michael was about forty years old and this is how our conversations went:

He would be in his wheelchair wearing his wolf sweatshirt.  I would be helping the others help with dinner.  Michael was scruffy from not shaving and he would inevitably be staring down at the forest floor.  I would notice him lost in his thoughts and go over to him.

“Michael!  What’s up?”

“Ooooh,” he would sigh, “nothing much.”  His voice was a little higher than you would expect and he sighed a lot.

“What are you thinking about?”

He would look up at me with a cocked head and raise one eyebrow.  “Ooooh.  I’m thinking about what I’m going to do next month.”

“Wow.  What are you going to do next month?” I said, astounded.

He would sigh again as if were still debating in his head, then say, “Well, I’m going to watch some movies.”

Maril and Michael

Michael’s main disability was anxiety.  I related to his struggle with anxiety, but still found it hard to imagine the burden he carried daily.  The heaviness of this struggle made his prayers fervent.  The single most poignant memory I have of that course is Michael praying.  He would pray in the sweetest voice you’ve ever heard, starting each prayer with the most deliberate and reverent salutation:  “Dear…Lord…Jesus…Christ”.   The gap between each word was gargantuan.  I will never forget the way he said those four words.   Note: I’m not saying this for the sake of drama, and neither do I say the next sentence for dramatic effect.  After every course for persons with disabilities, I walk away wondering whether I or them have the greater disability.

So you’ll see what’s happened so far in the story?  First the course with Michael, then many other courses, then I injured my achilles, then I started working full-time for Summit Adventure.  That’s the order, not that the order of this particular story matters much.  But I’ve left some things out (as is likely to happen when one writes every six months).  I’ll fast forward through the two weeks of driving around in a rental car visiting colleges; through sleeping in the rain on the shore of Lake Michigan; and I’m tempted to fast-forward through Christmas, for it is difficult to comment honestly on something which any of one’s readers may refute.  The temptation to bend one’s perspective, to match the reader’s expectations, is great.  I suppose all I will say is, “I think the heaviness of the holiday was surpassed by something which shone through it,” which, I imagine, means little to anyone but me.

And I’ve found myself in Ecuador again.

Really, there is too much that has happened here already to comment on it in this post.  So, give a sigh of relief.  Whatever obligation pushed you to read this far is almost fulfilled.

The cotton balls have burst, and the frogs have much to say about it.  The city is wet and quiet and dark as it prepares for the bustle of Monday morning.  It is getting late, so I suppose I'll join it in it's preparations.

Thanks for reading.  I always appreciate your prayers as well as your prayer requests.  I know, as well as one can, that God is at work down here, slowly re-etching people into his image.  I hope you can say the same wherever you are.

Thanks again.  Ben.

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