Sunday

Last year when I came to El Salvador and was on the sometimes hair-raising drive to the house (2+ hours of being thankful for the invention of seatbelts), Jesus put a thought in my head. It has stuck with me all year.  I am not any more or less special than anyone else, and yet I am who God created me to be today.  It was humbling, disappointing and freeing all at the same time.  It was a profound moment for me.

The same thing happened on the ride from the airport this year (except the kids were with us and hair-raising was exactly what they were looking for) but the message went a different direction… I had the immediate sense that I have not taken the time to understand that God loves me.  Trying to let that happen.

Putting the T nuts in the plywood

So yesterday was a huge work day.  We began building at 7AM and stopped twice to eat but otherwise the men worked all day, with me periodically lending a hand and bringing water.  They were flying and getting in their way was slowing the progress, so I found other things to do.  My day was largely digital.  I designed 3 signs to be printed for the rock walls.  Two on safety (one for top-roping and one for bouldering) and one for terminology… all in Spanish of course.  I scoured Spanish and English rock gym websites to be sure that I was using appropriate vocab.  Then, whenever I could get Nate to let go of Luke he and I worked on the large gym sign with the name of Gabe’s dream gym: Rock Solid.

Luke worked on Photoshop with a Spanish interface.  He said that was actually really fun as he tried (for a couple hours) to find the buttons and read the error messages.  He did amazing.  The background is a composite picture made of an El Salvadoran mountain that he pieced with ocean and river to create a scene with the sun’s rays shining down. I love the little cartoon he put on the one corner that reads (sorry non climbers… this may not make sense, but the V’s are difficulty levels):

          One climber says to the other: “This is a V2 but if the volcano erupts it is a V7”

Luke thought it was funny because these kids live beside a volcano.  Kids are great. :)

The wall is nearly done.  There is a row of plywood that needs to be put up about 7 feet in the air and 24 feet across.  They will work on that this morning. Then a final spray with termite repellent and Gabe can begin to set problems and the students can climb!