First week

Well, I've been here almost a week now and it's time to give you folks the first update.


The weather when I left Denver

The weather when I arrived in Hidalgo

















First off, I want to thank everyone for the prayers. The Lord made all of the traveling go very smoothly and I didn't lose any bags. Training at The Owl has gone very well and I am about ready to do everything on my own. Later I'll tell a funny story about when we were being trained.

The first day I was here we went to the church that Andrew and Gena attend which was a surprising experience; surprising in how normal it felt. I definitely felt a huge unity with my Christian brothers here in Mexico. It was amazing to see the Lord confirming much of the same convictions and truths in their lives that I have felt and seen in my church. It's also very exciting that many churches in this area are starting to become "sending churches" instead only receiving missionary support. Believers from this town have gone to India and Nicaragua a few times with plans to go to New York and China. Not to mention all of the missions that people are going on throughout Mexico. Another exciting part of it is these aren't only the adults that are doing this. It is primarily people my age that are recieving the vision and carrying it out. This is all with significantly less resources at their disposal than most of our churches have in the U.S.. Pretty inspiring, right?

As far as El Buho goes, it has definitely been an interesting week. The espresso machine stopped working the first day the other volunteer, Hamilton, and myself were left to work on our own (wasn't me!). With plans to throw a party for the locals and the climbers that are starting to come into town, this has been a big worry for us. We have found what the problem is and that it is out of our skills to fix. We have been praying for a couple of days to find out if the Lord is going to get us a new machine, fix ours, or if we need to cancel the party. Only a few hours ago, a friend of Andrew's that volunteers here pretty often, said he has a spare machine and will bring it down here with him. He is driving from Louisiana and is hoping to get here just before the party on Saturday.

So now for that story about when Andrew was training Hamilton and I. Since Andrew is a bit of a coffee guru, things have to be done perfectly. How specifically coffee can be made came as a bit of a shock to a guy who has never progressed from cowboy coffee made in a tea kettle. To get everything dialed (correct pressure when pressing the grounds, correct size grounds, time between grinding and making the espresso, etc.) took making an insane amount of shots of espresso. Then we had to try them all so that we knew the difference between bad, good, and great shots of espresso. By lunch time I was so buzzed on caffeine that I could barely see straight. Then we went to get lunch in the weekly market in town. A buzz from seven to ten shots of espresso + hungry + traveling market in Mexico = I probably tripped over 5 little kids. As if everyone doesn't stare at the gringos enough!



Hamilton following me up Cactus Piles (5.10d 300ft)

And now for the climbing... It's unbelievable! I've only been to Potrero Chico once so far but every line I climbed, whether is was a 5.8 (easy) or a 5.10d (hard), would have been rated 5 stars at any crag I've been to in Colorado. Even though I had planned to only single pitch (climbing the length of one rope) my first day out, the amazing size of Potrero Chico just begged to be climbed so I hopped on a 3 pitch route at the end of the day. One thing that was really funny about the experience was that I already knew many of the people at the crag (climbing area), even though I had never been there before. This is because almost all of the climbers that stay for the entire season, frequent The Owl almost daily.

Spending time with the climbers has been a very rich experience. It has been raining for the last few days so there is hardly a time that there isn't a climber in The Owl. I have been hearing some amazing travel stories and met people from all over the world. I definitely feel like I am more effective in ministry to them since I can relate to them in climbing. Which happens to be a majority of the reason that many of them have made it their lives to travel the entire world. Another thing that I learned from spending time with them is that there is nothing funnier than an actual dirtbag climber calling another dirtbag climber a "dirtbag" while playing board games, especially when all of them have hilarious accents.

Other little updates.
-My spanish is doing really well. My favorite customers are the middle school guys because they are like most guys at that age and just use really simple, one word answers. But I can understand most people and can get them to understand me with a little effort.
-My roommate and I get along really well and feel really capable of living in community with Andrew and Gena for as long as the Lord keeps us here.
-I will not have an update on fundraising until the end of the month but last time I heard I was more than halfway to my goal for the entire trip. Thank you guys so much for being so agile for the Lord and getting me down here so quickly.

Things to pray for!
-Pray that my relationships with the long term climbers are led by God, for His glory
-That John makes it here on time with the new espresso machine
-For the local church, that the Lord would use me to encourage the people in the amazing things that they are doing for Him

Also, I took a video tour so that you could get an idea of the layout of The Owl (I will work on embedding it in this page)
 http://youtu.be/6pWl3ZmsPa8