SurviVAIL - Mt. Massive

Sorry for all the Vail puns.  :D

I didn't get the job I talked about in my last post. I was really frustrated for a while because I had wasted a week and a half interviewing and waiting for the company because they had made it sound like I was hired for sure.

Last weekend the project split up and we had Men's and Women's weekends. The men drove an hour south of Vail through beautiful terrain and through Leadville, the highest city in the US (at 10,500 feet above sea level, twice as high as Denver). Here's a picture of Leadville.

We camped that night. The next morning we got up at 6, ate breakfast and made lunch and set out to climb Mt. Massive. Yeah, that's really what it's called. It's the third tallest mountain in the lower 48, and more than 14,400 feet high. It was an insanely awesome and hard climb.

It started off through a steep staircase-like rock formation. The whole thing was steep actually. We all started off together on the climb but we slowly started to spread out as we got higher. The staff who had all climbed mountains like this before pulled ahead. I was surprised the staff wasn't sticking with us students but now thinking back it was pretty cool that they left us to climb and test ourselves against the mountain without their support. As we got higher, we'd take breaks for 3 or 4 minutes to catch our breath in the thin air and let our muscles rest. But in just like 15 steps after the break, we'd be back to breathless.

Finally, the ridge was close. The last climb to the ridge was the most memorable to me. It was still early morning and this part of the mountain was in the shade. The ground was covered in loose rock that slid down when ever you took a step. It was impossible to walk up... so we crawled. Finally you would reach your arm over the edge and emerge into the sun and see the high plain below and the other mountains all around. Supposedly, you could see for 150 miles from the top. The wind there was insanely strong and cold. From here it was just a short hike to the peak. It was an amazing experience.

The descent was a hard too, but really fun. The huge patches of snow which had been so hard to traverse where now our way down. We sat on our packs or rain jackets or just our butts and slid hundreds of meters down. When we got to the bottom, we are all exhausted. All of us slept for a few hours and woke up with killer headaches because of altitude sickness.


On Monday I applied at McDonalds and Taco Bell and I got a call back that night for an interview on Thursday with McDonalds. Yesterday, a few of us helped clean the ski trails on Vail Mountain. We took a gondola to the top of the mountain. While cleaning up we found some pretty sweet stuff. Ski's, cellphones (some still worked), and a snowboard. They provided free lunch and a free lift ticket for this winter. Today I got a call from a guy who goes to our local church here. He's a photographer that another guy on project is working for. Aaaaaaaaaaand, I'm going to work with them tomorrow! Wooohoo! God provides.

positions aVAILable?

We've been here for 11 days now. Living here is starting to feel a little more normal but there is still that 'summer-camp' feeling.

For the last week we've all been looking for jobs. It's been hard finding work for a few reasons:  1.We can only work Monday-Friday. 2. We can only work 6am-5:30pm. 3.We're only here until early August. Nevertheless, God has really provided for our project. The staff says they have never seen this many people get jobs this quickly before. It's been awesome seeing God  provide our project with so many jobs. I don't have a job yet but I've had two interviews with a place called Vail Cascade Resort and they both went pretty well. I'm supposed to hear back in the next day or two. I'm pretty sure they will hire me.

The point of getting jobs while we are here isn't just financial. It's missional. Our staff likes to call our jobs 'Paid Ministry Opportunities.' This is the main evangelical focus while we are here. Building relationships with co-workers, sharing Christ with them, and hopefully bringing them into our community through our outreach events.

I'm starting to understand what the focus of this project is. Here's what I think God is wanting to teach me and train me in.
Grace- Understanding the gospel better, and learning to live by grace instead of law/performance.
Listening to God- Slowing down and taking time to listen for the still small voice of God. Praying that he would speak to me and give me insight.
Prayer- There's so much power in communicating with God and realizing just how faithful God is in responding to prayer. Becoming more faithful myself in praying.
Relational Evangelism- Sharing Christ out of an overflow of the heart's joy from knowing and belonging to Christ in through listening, understanding, and letting the Holy Spirit speak through you. I've had some experience sharing Christ with stranger through 'street' evangelism, but I've never been good at sharing Christ with those who interact with everyday, who see how I live and speak.

 I've had the opportunity to do lots of other awesome stuff, too: bouldering, campfires, swimming, watching movies as a group, took a picture with the mayor of Vail, ate sushi, getting lots of free stuff (swag), breakouts of worship songs, hiking the best trail of my life, playing in the snow!, drinking from a clear stream, riding a bear (see facebook), playing cards, and lots more!

surVAILance

Here's a description of Vail and the area around it:

Physical:
Vail is situated in a long valley stretching east to west, with Vail at the easternmost edge. I-70 runs down the middle of the valley parallel to the Eagle river. The valley is maybe a mile and a half wide at the bottom. It's surrounded by beautiful 11,000 foot mountains, some of the taller ones still are covered with snow. Since Vail is in a valley, it's stretched out a lot. The closest thing you could call downtown is called Vail Village. It's architecture looks like what you would see in the Swiss Alps and the town is mostly pedestrian. There's a free bus service around the city so it's really easy for us to get into the village--our project housing is on the opposite side of I-70 so we either have to walk to the pedestrian bridge or catch a bus.

Altitude:
Vail is at 8,150 feet above sea level (I looked it up and Louisville is 466ft above sea level), and you can definitely feel it. When I first got here I had a headache and it was a little harder to breathe. After the first two days, I don't feel the altitude anymore. The other effect of the altitude is the sun. Our staff kept telling usto make sure to wear sunscreen when we are out and about and that the sun is a lot stronger here. Well, they were right. On our second day here we volunteered with the Teva Mountain games and we were outside for 2 1/2 hours. I did put on some sunscreen but I wasn't too worried. Wow. The staff were right. Anywhere I didn't put sunscreen got really burned: back of the legs and arms especially. According to the internet, there is 30% less protection from the sun here because of the thinner atmosphere.

Cultural/Spiritual:
I've only been here a few days but the culture and values of this place are pretty obvious. Everything here is about athleticism.It seems like every person here is an expert in one or more outdoor activities, things like, bouldering, mountain biking, skiing, dog training, kayaking, snowboarding, road biking, mountain biking, fishing, fly fishing, running, hiking, mountain climbing, etc. The people here live for this stuff. I don't want to be too quick to label everyone here, but it's like outdoor activities are their religion. And if outdoor activities are a religion, Vail is a holy city, a pilgrimage site for this religion. People from all over the country and the world come to participate here. The people here are pretty evangelistic for their proffered sport and love to talk anyone about it, even stranger. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with outdoor activities in themselves. All these things are great, fun, and are an amazing way to experience God's creation. What I am saying is that a life with it's focus on and worship of these things is wrong. It's the same thing as all sin and idolatry, "It's making a good thing into a god thing (-Mark Driscoll)." The people here want to be as self sufficient as possible and they don't see a need for God in their lives. But the Vail valley definitely needs Jesus just as much as the rest of us.

I'm still looking for a job. I've had a few leads and I had one really good interview earlier today so hopefully that'll work out.

arriVAIL

Wow. It's so crazy actually being on Summer Project--something I've been planning for and thinking about for months.

Getting to Vail was interesting.
(Friday) Travel should have started Friday morning at 12:01am but the bus from Louisville to Indianapolis was more than two hours late getting to Louisville. Left Louisville at 2:20, and got to Indianapolis at 4:30am. Train from Indianapolis to Chicago. By the way, Amtrak is definitely nicer than Greyhound. Way nicer. However, I was more than a little disappointed when no one yelled, "All aboard!" Also, there was neither a Platform 9 3/4 nor snack cart with Bertiebots Every flavor beans.

Anyways, in Chicago, I had a four hour layover and I didn't want to sit in the station the whole time. I checked in my suitcase and walked around in Chicago for a while, to the Sears tower and Millennium Park. My train left Chicago at 3pm and we spent all day and all night on the move.

(Saturday) When the sun rose, we were in Kansas/eastern Colorado. Flat and Boring. But as we moved west, at the horizon's edge appeared the small gray silhouette of mountains. We arrived in Denver. Those mountains now loomed there, just outside the city. On the bus from Denver to Vail, we entered those mountains at last. The next stop was Vail and the people in the seats behind me were talking about how beautiful Vail is. We headed down a hill, around a curve, into a valley and there ahead is Vail. And chyea, it is beautiful. Nice job God. I took another bus to get to from Vail Village (downtown) to our housing. I got off the bus and there were other Summer Project-ers, arriving too.

The project staff had a cookout for us all and we started to get to know each other through that and a scavenger hunt. All those Facebook names and little pictures are real people now. People I'll live and have community with for the next nine weeks. Already we're growing closer. It's amazing to see how God is working for us and through us.

But this is a long post, so I'll cut it off here. More soon.