Dedications and Climbing

Yesterday was the official dedication of the multi-use training tower at ALERT. It is an amazing story of how God provided the funds to build the tower. The materials all have a guaranteed life of at least 30+ years. So they will be able to use it for many more years. On the North side of the tower there is a 22’ rappelling wall with the side open above that. The East side is the new climbing wall that has three main routes all the way up to the top 50’ above. The South side is a solid 50’ rappelling wall with the word ALERT emblazoned from top to bottom. On the West side you have part of it open and part solid with windows for fire training. So it is truly a multi-use tower this will be used by many different aspects of the training as well as for recreation.

After the dedication at 11:30 they had an open climbing day for anyone on campus who wanted to climb or rappel. I climbed each of the three faces on the rock climbing side, rappelled on the high side, and hooked guys up to rappel. While I wasn’t hooking guys up to rappel Capt. Dankers taught me how to climb up a rope with just prussik’s, how to switch from climbing to rappelling, and how to do a self belay for rappelling. That was all very fun.

Today I went to church with SMAJ Patrick. He is a great guy and goes to a great church in Gilmer. It was good to go. The entire church is excited and on fire for the Lord. The pastor was speaking about “Roadblocks” in our “Journey” or relationship with the Lord.

Thursday night when I came back from Malaysia they had been moving people around in the dorms, so I had to move all my stuff over to my new dorm that night. Ben was really nice and stayed to help me for an hour while he was waiting on his dad to get here and pick him up. I now have my own room and bathroom on the second floor of Aspen. It is nice b/c it stays very nice and clean! J

Hopefully soon I will be able to share all about our time in Malaysia. Until then you can read some about it and look at some of the pictures on the blog for the trip. www.xanga.com/malaysia2007

“I thank my God always, making mention of you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective though the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ sake. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Philemon 4-6


Capt. Dankers speaking at the dedication.

Me coming down the high side.

Me going up the high side.

Morgan conquring the hard side of the wall.