Painting & Volcano Climb

We painted all day on Friday. The downstairs of the promise house is now sky blue. Doesn´t exactly match but it´s the color that the girls wanted and they really like it so that´s good. The girls that were home during the day helped us with the painting and they really enjoyed doing that. Miguel, one of the kids here, is 4 and was home from Kinder that day because his teacher was sick. (Lucky us haha) He thought it would be a good idea to dump a whole water bottle into our bucket of paint, so the paint was a little more watery than it should have been but it still worked out fine. For lunch we bought the girls pizza and soda and they were excited about that. For dinner we had pupusas again!

On Saturday we woke up and left around 815am. They wanted to take us to this volcano that is about two hours away. They said it would be fun. What we did was drive up a huge mountain and then took an ¨excursion¨at 11am. The excursion was a four hour hike/climb. No, not four miles, FOUR HOURS! We had to climb down a ton of stairs in the woods into this valley type thing and there you could see the volcano. When I saw it I thought to myself, there is absolutely no way we can climb that and survive. There is really no trail, just a bunch of rocks. But we climbed it anyway. It was probably the most tiring thing I have ever done. There were a few times when I just wanted to quit, but quitting isn´t really an option because you have to get down somehow. We finally made it to the top, where we ate our lunch and took a short break. Really short, like ten minutes. Oh and there are also no bathrooms on this little trail, that is a problem. haha. The way down wasn´t as difficult but it was ten times more scary. It was so slippery and rocks were falling everywhere. Seriously I have no idea who thought this was a fun thing to do. I had to have my hand held then entire way down. I´m pretty positive that I would have been seriously injured if I didn´t have help! After we made it down the volcano, we still had to climb up all those stairs. Most intense work out of my life BY FAR!

Even though it wasn´t my idea of fun, at all, and I would never ever do it again if I have a choice, I feel like it was a good experience and I learned a lot about myself and God while doing it. On the way, about half way, I was just getting real tired and frustrated. Cramer, one of the interns was by me at this point and he just told me that he felt like it was a perfect picture of the ¨narrow road¨that the Bible talks about. It isn´t always easy, in fact some parts seem impossible, but in the end the reward is great. That was my lesson on the way up. On the way down I learned that sometimes you can´t do things on your own and you need to rely on a strong leader, someone who you know will lead you down the right path and ¨hold your hand¨ when you are unsure or scared. It could also be a picture of Christ and how he paves the way for us and knows all of our weaknesses.

Needless to say, I´m pretty sore today but I did survive! I can´t wait to show you guys pictures of this volcano. Actually while I was climbing it I thought to myself ¨there are so many people from home who would never in a million years believe that I was doing something this intense right now.¨ haha. I mean, I never really thought I could or would do it. So all in all it was a good experience but it definitely doesn´t fall under the ¨fun¨category, not for me! Next week, I´m voting for the beach again!