Los ultimos dias

Well, i made it out of the jungle alive.  Yesterday was our last day in shell,  very sad.  We're heading to Quito today until our flight on Thursday at midnight back to the states.  I'll try to put up more pictures in an airport.  Please pray for partings with friends as well as safe travels.  Thanks!
Dios te bendiga!
Camden

Selva otra vez

Queridos amigos,

      Truth to be told, I did make it out of the jungle last time.  Many apologies that I have not updated in a while and that I may not have responded to attempts to contact me.    In the past month…(whoa, time flies!), I’ve been very busy.  We've added teaching English and piano lessons at night to a family which has kept us very busy.

Just as we were about to leave for the jungle last month.  I was nervous about the airplane.  Our pilot was Rick LaBeauf, the man who lent Steve Saint a plane when he was living with the Huaorani for a year.  Our plane was the same plane that he used, also featured in end of the spear.

Flying into the wild green yonder.

We went spear fishing in Hundayacu, I speared a fish.  Our three days in Hundaycu were quite an experience, I'm not sure that I have time to describe now.  I was able to do ISEE for our time there.

We have to eat these?  Ever seen lion king?  I ate a large roasted grub known as chantacorros.  The flavor was quite tasty, although the idea was a little weird.

This is Boice climbing a Guava tree.  We've been going to the 'Asilo de los Ancianos', which is like a day care for elderly people to do exercises with them and spend time with them.  One of the older gentlemen (who is rather deaf and difficult to understand) took us to his house during a break and asked us to climb his tree to get a Guava bean for us to eat. 

We watched Harry Potter with Andres several weeks back.  They translated 'Bloody hell' as 'mujeres'...the word for women.

Our friend Pablo.

We've been spending more time with Pablo and other friends over the past several weeks.  We had them over twice to eat and talk.  This past Wednesday, I shared my story of how I became a Christian with them.  They are definitely interested, and I believe tehy have accepted Christ, but unfortunately, they are not very passionate about God.  Several of our friends thanked us for the Christian example that we set for them, but please pray that they would also devleop a passion for Christ. 

We've also had the opportunity to talk with a new friend, Nataly about Christ.  Sandi and I went to Carlos' church for a afternoon church meeting two weeks ago where I met Nataly.  Although Nataly had gone to that church for two years now, she still did not understand many fundamentals of the Gospel.  I had the opportunity to be able to explain some of these to her, and we were able to give her a Bible so she can discover more.  Nataly is very curious and serious about finding God and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to talk to her more.  Please pray for more opportunities to talk with Nataly and that she would also find truth in the scriptures.

Walking through a path after swimming with our friends.

We learned how to weld.

Sandi y Carlos hard at work in the hanger.

Nate Saint's house back in the day.  We held Danny's daughter's birthday party there.

Andres on the far left, Galo center, and Danny on the right inspecting some welding.

Welding with Danny.  Danny is extremely passionate for the Scripture and is very concerned with making sure that we follow what the Bible actually says rather than what people may say about it; he makes a great effort to know what the Bible says.  His influence has been very catchy and I've been in the Word much more and enjoying every opportunity to do so.

We did a day trip to the mountain city of Baños this past Saturday, very fun.

Boice took a silly picture of me in Baños looking at the mountains as we ate cooked plantains, 'maduros'.

A rare snapshot of ITEC members planning.

Fixing a treadmill at the day care.  During the past several weeks, we have also helped Galo by working at his house.

Danny, Boice, and I went for a bike ride one afternoon.

¡Thanks to Boice for the photos!

Thanks be to God, I am complete with my support!  Thank you so much for all those who support this time prayerfully and financially. 

Tomorrow (well, today at this point) we are heading to the jungle Zapino, a Huaorani village for a week.  We will be working with Felipe and others under their direction to help them construct a house for Mincaye, as his previous house was burned down by an enemy.  Please be praying for safety and for efficient work as a team.  Hopefully I'll come back.  ;)

God Bless,

Camden 

Hundayacu

Hi friends,

    Just a quick update.  I’ll be going tomorrow for the first time into the jungle for several days!  At lunch today, we meet two other Gringoes and started talking with them to find out that the husband is a dentist and will be doing a dental clinic in the village of Masaramo of the Saparos people group.  He ended up coming to ITEC for the afternoon to finish training us in giving anesthesia; Mincaye and family joined us for the afternoon as well.  We offered him an I-Dent chair, but he also offered for three of us to join him as well.  Boice, Danny, and I will be heading out tomorrow morning to do two days of dental clinics.  We might get a chance to do I-see as well.  Please pray for safety, specifically on the flights (30 min.) into the jungle as well as opportunities to share the Gospel.  Thanks!

    God Bless,

          Camden

Mincaye

            The past two weeks have consisted mostly of classes in I-Dent, I-Med, and I-See taught by Danny Alonso, a fellow Gringo from the United States.  “Gringo” is a term to describe white folks, particularly north Americans.  It’s not really derogatory, just a description.  Danny is a little less Gringo than the rest of us because he comes from a Cuban background and has spoken Spanglish…that’s right, since a young age.  We’ve also done a little work for Galo at his new house where he’ll be moving in soon, mostly weeding the ground of boulders and other similarly sized rocks.  More than once we joked if he would like some dirt with his rocks. 

            Last weekend we went to a neighborhood in town called “Nuevo Amanecer”, which means “New Dawn”.  This neighborhood contains a mix of people from all over that came to the land and settled without buying it when the Communist president came into power.  Although this was in fact legal, this commune type neighborhood is rather disorganized for a lack of city planning and was settled mostly by poorer folks.  Last Saturday, we brought the I-See program to the people to screen whether they needed glasses to improve their vision.  We didn’t bring the glasses intentionally so that we would be welcomed back today.  We were able to meet a good number of people and identify many who would benefit from corrective lenses. 

            On Sunday, I was able to play piano for hymns in church.  Sandi and I sang a verse of “Cuan Grande es El”, or “How Great Thou Art” in English before the congregation joined in with Spanish.  It appears that all of the hymns were directly translated over to this hymnal, the numbers even matched up.  In the afternoon, we took the 25 cent bus to the nearby city of Puyo, where we walked around the city for a while.  We found a Quichua craft store where I bought a blow gun…that’s right.  We spent at least an hour and a half that night shooting foam “monkeys” with it out of “trees”. 

            Monday and Tuesday of this past week were spent in classes, particularly in I-Dent, which should be a blast, or rather a drill and a pair of pliers.  Wednesday we began training as usual to get a phone call shortly after from Galo’s wife that Mincaye was at Galo’s house across town looking for him.  If you have heard of the “Operation Auca” story, Mincaye is one of the warriors who killed Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, and the other 3 missionaries on Palm Beach in 1956.  Mincaye is probably the most joyous people I have met.  Later that day, I was talking with Filipe, one of Mincaye’s sons who also speaks Spanish.  I asked him, “has Mincaye also been so full of joy?”.  He said “no”, before Mincaye decided to walk God’s trail, he was filled with hate and murdered many people.  Shortly after the 5 missionaries died, their wives went in to Huaorani territory to tell the people about God’s love for them through Jesus.  Their wives and families knew that God’s love for them was too great for them to live in bitterness and resentment of those who killed their husbands and fathers.  Just as these 5 missionaries died for the Huaorani, Jesus had died for all of them.  Many of the Huaorani decided to also walk God’s trail, and all of this Huaorani tribe gave up their culture of murder, with a 70% homicide rate.

            Mincaye came out of the jungle with his son Filipe and his wife because he had a dream that something bad had happened to Steve, which, if you read my earlier post, it indeed had.  We were able to Skype Steve so that Mincaye and Steve could talk.  Mincaye also said that he needed several supplies, and a new house, after his old house was burnt down by a Huaorani member that is incensed because of his connection with foreigners like Steve.  We ate lunch with Mincaye on Wednesday in our normal lunch restaurant, where he managed to consume a good deal of the chocolate portion of Boice’s 18^th birthday cake.  After his second piece, he simply held his spoon above his bowl as he coyly waited for more chocolate.  I think we were all on the same page about that.  He gave us Huaorani names, as is custom when a foreigner comes into a village.  Boice and Sandi were given names of birds; mine is best written as Tangka, which means a hard stone.  Mincaye and family left to Felipe’s house for the rest of the day, while we celebrated Boice’s birthday by fishing in the town of Rio Negro and grilling our rainbow trout at Galo’s place.

            Friday morning Mincaye, his wife, and Felipe and his wife came over I-TEC to spend some time here.  Boice and I were cutting the grass near the airstrip, which means we were using machetes to slice through all sorts of things.  We can see why so many people cut down the rainforest, it’s fun!  When Mincaye and family arrived, Mincaye and Felipe came out to help us work outside.  After lunch at the usual place with our guests, we were able to take Mincaye out for ice cream.  We’d heard about how much Mincaye loves ice cream, and it was truly a pleasure to have this old peaceful warrior with huge holes in his earlobes eating ice cream with us.

            I am thoroughly enjoying what we’ve been learning about missions in our time here thus far.  One of the things we’ve talked about is writing back to supporters.  I’ve heard that missionaries never give their supporters what they want to hear, and I don’t expect to myself.  In our time thus far, we’ve definitely been doing fewer outreaches than I had expected.  Although we are likely to do more and more as time goes on, it’s still not quite what I expected.  We are doing far more learning than anything else, which I now see as a huge blessing.  I’ve wanted to be a missionary since I was probably 11 or so and even more when I was 12 and heard the story about “Operation Auca” and the 5 missionaries mentioned above.  Now I think I’m beginning to find a vision of how to do it better. 

Yes, I’d still like to be a missionary doctor.  Medical care provides a good door opener with people to get to know them and later, share the Gospel.  There are many examples of missionaries in Shell, some of whom actually seem to be doing missions.  I went to get my hair cut on Thursday, (I didn’t remember communicating that I wanted the same haircut as the new army recruits) and talked with the hairdresser, who was surprised to find out that there are missionaries living in Shell.  That indicates to me that something is wrong by the way missions is approached, at least here.  Many of the missionaries in Shell live in “Gringolandia”, a gated community where they live separate from the people.  Many have lived here for many years and hardly do any missionary work anymore but simply run a business.  One of the questions I’ve been trying to figure out is, then, what makes a missionary?

            I believe that every Christian is and should be a missionary.  In the end of the book of Matthew, we find this passage:  “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” 

The popular missions paradigm of our time is to go to a country and give something then leave.  Especially in a short – term missions context, missionaries frequently give something to the people that they could frequently do for themselves.  The good news about how Jesus has died to save us is the most important thing that missionaries have to share, however, other methods and skills are important to share to help the people and build relationships as well.  Missionaries today frequently come from a Western “get as much done as possible” perspective, which is not shared by the rest of the world.  Instead, Steve Saint suggested that our first goal as missionaries should be to share the good news with people who do not know Jesus; secondly we should train them up so that they can train others.  This makes more sense from both a numbers and cultural perspective.  First, it changes the mode of missions from addition of believers to the church to multiplication, as believers raise up new disciples, and these believers do the same.  Secondly, this allows believers within a specific culture to train others of that culture as well, which is far more effective than always having the foreigners come in.  I-TEC aspires to do this process with medical, dental, and other programs as well, ensuring that those skills can also be passed on once the first missionaries leave.  As Steve Saint puts it well in his book, “The Great Omission”, he says, “Evangelizing the world is like a relay race.  In areas where there is no church, missionaries run the first lap.  Then we should hand off to the local believers to finish the race.”

First, missionaries should go to listen and learn.  Only once we’ve been able to understand the culture and people to the point where their problems become our problems can we begin to start sharing.  One of the most impactful ideas that we’ve learned about thus far for me has been the importance of avoiding dependency.  Frequently missionaries do what the nationals could also do, but have no intention of ever leaving and training nationals to fill these roles.  As prideful human begins, we naturally feel good when we feel needed, which creates a dependency on the missionaries rather than on God.  In fact, pride is the main issue at hand here, as Boice suggests.  If we were to eliminate pride in missions, we could probably solve most of the issues.

We do not share our knowledge and train up nationals to do what we can do frequently as a result of an underlying bias that they cannot do what we can do.  This is very hard to hear, especially to North Americans such as myself who have participated in short term missions trips, where frequently the main goal is to accomplish something for the people that we believe they cannot do for themselves.  I’ll have to write more about thoughts on short term missions another time after I’ve had some more time to process what I’ve learned. 

On another interesting point: why not just do missions in the U.S. where we know the culture?  Firstly, most of the people in the United States (which I’ve been told here is not really the name of a country, since I am currently still in the Americas) have heard about Jesus.  Secondly, almost all have access to some form of medical care and basic human needs.  In addition, as we find in Mark 6, Jesus could was not even honored in his hometown.  Frequently, we must look elsewhere to be heard.

Lastly, missionaries must have an exit plan.  A great model is found in looking at the missionary Paul written about in the New Testament.  His missions trips mentioned in the book of Acts lasted from only a few days to a maximum of two years.  He left the people while they were still new believers, unsure about everything, and wrote them letters to edify them in their faith.  He did not stay with them for the rest of his life, but moved on to share the good news with other people.

Wow, that’s a lot!  Thank you so much for supporting me!  Although I am not doing as many outreaches as might be expected, what I am learning in the modules and the missions training as well as practical experience will undoubtedly shape my future as a missionary.  I’d really appreciate prayer for continued learning about missions, the modules, and Spanish, an upcoming outreach where we will be assisting dentists, continued outreaches at Nuevo Amanecer, and for other outreach opportunities.  Also, please pray for relationships with the youth at Young Life, which are going really well.  I was able to talk about the Operation Auca story with Pablo, who is a leader among the group and now I know has interest in becoming a missionary.  Happy July!

 God Bless,

      Camden

                From left to right: Boice the birthday boy, Mincaye, yours truly, and Felipe.

Galo and his wife Eugenia, which is the most difficult word to pronounce in Spanish.

 Mincaye giving me my Huaorani name at lunch.

Boice hard at work doing I-Med.

                                The mountains are so cool!  From our "backyard".
  

            On the left is the airstrip, on the right are houses, and in the center are the Andes.

Aqui se habla Quichua 17.06.12

                Frequently, when I meet new people here, they will ask certain questions, like how many siblings I have, and how long I will be here for.  Also, many people ask, what do you think of my country?  Now, I have a little bit more to tell them. 

            On Monday night at 11 o’clock, my friend Gustabo and I were waiting for the bus from Shell to Ambato, about an hour ride, when the bus showed up at 12 o’clock, we boarded to begin our lengthy expedition.  Gus (pronounced Gus), is a middle – aged Mexican man who came to Ecuador in recent years with his wife and two young daughters to be a missionary.  Gus’ work is unique in that he has an effective mission to many people groups without having to learn extensively about each of their cultures and dialects. 

Many indigenous people groups inhabit Ecuador; which speak about 23 variations in the Quichua language.  Less than half of these have been reached with the Gospel.  Gus takes trips to Ecuadorian cities, where he has been in contact with an indigenous believer.  Gus helps the indigenous believer to record Bible stories including the Gospel message in this particular native language.  He then returns home to Shell to make many disks with this recording. 

            I had the opportunity to accompany Gus on one of his return trips to distribute the recordings.  After waiting for half an hour in Ambato, we went on to Riobamba, where we waited until 4:30 am for the next bus.  After this, I watched the sunrise from the windows as we headed further west and south into the Andes and the mountainous Sierra region of Ecuador.  At about 8:00 am Tuesday we arrived in Canar, a beautiful city at about 9,000 ft.  I was panting just after walking up a flight of stairs for the lack of air. 

            Here, we met up with two Quichua men who work for a Christian radio in Canar.  Both of these men were incredibly kind and very interested to hear about life in the States (I showed one where Grove City and Maine were on google earth).  After talking for a while, Gus and I started walking towards the center of the city, where after breakfast, we begun to distribute the CD’s.  These disks are in the particular dialect of Quichua for that region; Quichua speakers could be identified by the distinctive fedora – style hat and traditional dress which identifies these people.  We approached these people to present these disks as a free gift.  Unfortunately, many people did not wish to accept the gifts.  In the past, colonial people groups that have moved into the area have given gifts to the Quichua, which were gladly received, only to request something in return later.  Because of this unfortunate circumstance, many Quichua cannot accept these free gifts.

            Gus has seen much fruit from his ministry.  He told me a story about how he was on the bus traveling home from one of his trips when he struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to him.  When the man asked Gus what he did, Gus began to tell him about his work with the disks.  This man had not only heard of Gus’ work, but saw how it had personally affected people very close to him.  Further discussion revealed that this man was a native of the Galapagos, which has its own version of Quichua.  The man asked Gus if he could come out to do gospel recordings there as well.  Gus intends to go to the Galapagos to record and distribute disks once the people from the Galapagos can support his trip.  In the afternoon, from Canar, we took the bus to Cuenca for a brief stop before continuing on to Saraguro, another mountain city.  We slept in a hostel that was very nice considering the low cost of 5$ for the night for both of us (they use USD here).  Several Mexican telenovelas provided the entertainment  before retiring for the evening.  The following morning, we decided to leave all the disks with the radio station there to distribute because Gus’ contact was unable to arrive at the station that day due to transportation issues. 

            In the past several weeks, when I haven’t been traveling, we have spent our mornings at Mi Segundo Hogar Guardaria, or “My Second Home Daycare” helping out with two age groups of kids and teaching them some English words, like “rock”, “tree”, colors, animals, and the like.  I think kids are pretty much the same everywhere that I have seen them; a bundle of joy to help out and play with, but also very tiring.

            Another awesome opportunity we’ve had so far is to help out with the Young Life program here.  For those of you unfamiliar with the program, there are weekly club meetings on Friday nights with many youth from Shell which are very fun, in which the leaders share a message, to share the Gospel with the teens and kids.  The past three weeks, we’ve brought some of the kids back to ITEC to play ping-pong and foosball.  Please pray that we can continue to get to know these kids better and be able to share Christ with them, whether in example or word, as some are not Christians, or at the most, only nominally Christian. 

            This past Monday, David, one of our friends from church, had us come to talk on his radio program for kids that broadcasts from Shell.  It was so much fun!  His program shares Bible stories and reaches an audience very far into the jungle.  I believe that we will speak more on the program in the future.

            Boice, Sandi, and I continue to spend significant time with Andres.  It’s very much fun to be able to talk with him (he only speaks Spanish).  Our discussion and sharing of music last night until 12 was not the first time that we have stayed up late talking.  Andres and I have had some fairly deep discussions, which can become rather difficult, because I cannot express myself quite as easily in Spanish yet.

            Thursday and Friday we helped out with a Christian school’s stay-away camp in the nearby town of Mera, which was a very good time to get to know some of the kids from the area.  Saturday we had the opportunity to go on a tour of Pastaza, which was a very fun day.  Some of the highlights included hiking in the jungle to a waterfall and shooting a blow gun.    

            Also, two men from Colombia are living with Boice and I for the next week and a half.  They are training with Gus to be able to do what he does.  Their accents are difficult to understand at times, but as Boice so eloquently described Jorge’s accent, “it’s like a song whenever he speaks.”

            Please continue to pray for Steve’s health, I believe he is undergoing surgery on Tuesday.  Please pray for all of our Spanish skills and that we can get to know the folks here rather well.  We will start the training for the various programs of ITEC hopefully within this week and be doing our first outreach with these programs shortly afterwards. 

   God Bless,

          Camden

Boice and Sandi in the jungle

I found a boa as I was going out to the hanger to fill up my water bottle. 

part of my Team Verde, Caminantes-> Walkers at camp

A cloud lake picture from the bus

Look Katie and Becca!  They have them here too!

Crops on the side of the Andes...how it that possible?

                                      

Steve Saint

Steve Saint, Nate Saint's son and the founder of ITEC sustained a severe injury just yesterday in Florida when he was struck by an aluminum airfoil as he was conducting tests.  The airfoil dismounted, cut his head and produced a case of whiplash.  Steve's spine is very swollen at the moment, and although he is able to feel his arms and legs, he currently can only move his toes a little bit.  Please be praying for Steve and his family during this time.  I will be sending out an update on how things are going here hopefully very soon.
  God Bless,
   Camden

Tu fidelidad es grande. 2.6.12

Happy June!  We all are settling in to life here at ITEC Ecuador!  We spent this past week polishing up the facility here.  We live on the second floor in large bedrooms, with bathrooms, a kitchen, and a communal room, where I’m writing now.  I’m sitting with Boice and Sandi, the other two interns who are studying and working with me.  Despite meeting just a week ago, we’re all getting along quite well, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them both better.  Sandi is a ballerina from North Carolina who will be going to Moody Bible Institute to study communications; she’d like to do missions with radio and other media.  Boice is a pensive Texan who will be attending LeTourneau University to study mechanical engineering in the fall.  Gallo Ortiz is the director at ITEC here, here leads our classes and work projects.  Danny is another ITEC employee; originally from Miami, Danny married an Ecuadorian woman and is an expert in Spanglish; this mix is far more difficult to understand than Spanish itself.

We’ve spent some time getting to know the town where we are living, Shell Mera, in the Pastaza province of Ecuador, in the Oriente region.  Shell has a good small – town feel; it’s very safe, and most everyone is rather kind.  For breakfast, we eat the delicious fresh – made bread that we buy at the Panaderia the night before.  Lunch is the largest meal of the day here; we go to a restaurant in town, La Casona de Maria, which at $3 a meal, is cheaper than making our own food.  Lunch normally consists of a soup followed by the plata fuerte, which is normally meat with rice and a small amount of vegetables; good thing I started eating meat again!  As I said, people are very friendly here; the other day we joined a group of workers from a glass shop for lunch and ended up having a great time with them.  Today we ate with them again and spent about an hour getting to know each other, en Espanol, por supuesto.  We eat with Andres, Gallo’s younger brother for dinner.  Andres only speaks Spanish; we  go to spend some time with him and his mother at their house afterwards.  I take a long time to eat because I am translating for the other two interns, however, this is quickly becoming less and less as they learn to speak and understand Spanish better.  Andres is an incredibly kind person, and I’ve been able to get to know him fairly well by this point.

We’ve started our classes in missions, following a program that Steve Saint, Nate Saint’s son developed.  This program is entitled “Missions Dilemma”, which covers the current ways that missions are done and how it could be done better.  Although we still have much to learn about this, we have learned at least the basics.  Currently, missions consists of believers, frequently North Americans, who go to a country to evangelize.  I’m realizing how much our American culture emphasizes finding problems and providing solutions.  Frequently, Americans arrive in a country with the intent to provide aid, but instead end up trying to give their culture to the people, assuming that everyone needs a nice house, three square meals, and to wear collared shirts.  Although this is not always the case, when this happens, it causes people to become too reliant on the missionaries for their needs they didn’t know that they had.  Instead, ITEC suggests that the indigenous people be trained to continue these skills independently, so that they can continue to help their own people after the missionaries have left.  Similarly, this program suggests that missionaries should begin a church, establish leadership, disciple others, but remain apart from the leadership in the church, so that the people can establish a healthy church, and then be able to share the Gospel with more people.  I’d love to hear what you think about these ideas, so feel free to contact me with my info on the right.  I’ll be writing more as I learn more.

Although we have spent most of our free time with Andres, we also have had the opportunity to get to know other people from church as well as at a young life meeting this evening.  I believe that we start training for the various ITEC programs this coming week.  On Monday night, I will be traveling to the north of Ecuador with Gustavo, another employee at ITEC who makes Gospel message recordings of indigenous people and then distributes them.  I will be with him until Wednesday night helping to distribute these tracks. 

Spanish communication has been an interesting and fun challenge thus far.  On the first day that we had arrived in Shell, Andres took us on a tour of the town.  We were talking about the flora and fauna of Ecuador; and I attempted to ask Andres if they have tarantulas here.  I began to describe tarantulas: large teeth, hairy legs and arms, large and terrible.  However, I incorrectly pronounced the word arana, or spider, and apparently said something closer to rana, the word for frog.  Andres thought I was asking him about the large and terrible frogs with teeth and hairy legs.  It wasn’t until a couple days ago that we cleared up what I had been trying to say. 

Please be praying that we can establish relationships which will be mutually edifying.  Also, please pray that we can learn how God would best like us to do missions and that our service in the community would be an effective way to share God’s Love.

P.S. Thankfully my contact with what I call “hell-beasts” (large bugs) has been fairly limited thus far.

            Thanks so much for supporting me!

                   God Bless,

                     Camden

                        These are the "normal" interns I am working with: Sandi and Boice.

                             Picture from this afternoon- the mountains look taller in real life.

                                      We live right on the airstrip that Nate Saint used. 
                                             The army has a base just across the way.

                                                    It's a volcano...in our backyard.

El puente.