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Note #6705 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

the General Assembly
15-June-2001
GA01145

'Up against the wall' can be a good thing when you're climbing at the
General Assembly

by Frank Buhrman

LOUISVILLE, June 15 - Eleven-year-old CeCe Sizoo-Roberson of Cincinnati,
Ohio, grapples her way up the 24-foot climbing wall, rings the bell at the
top to applause of friends and onlookers, and makes her way back down with
ease.

	She took the challenge, she said, "because it looks like fun." Did she have
any doubt that she could make it? "No. My first time I did have a little."

	Debby Rickard of Huntsville, Ala., watches daughter Corey, 7, scale the
wall with relative ease. Did Mom have any doubts about this?

	"I suggested that she might be tired when she went up for the second time,"
she said. "but she informed me that she'd done it about 50 times now."

	Reflecting on the wall as her daughter makes her way down, Rickard said,
"It looks taller than 24 feet."

	The climbing wall looks a bit out of place in the Exhibition Hall at the
213th Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly at Kentucky
International Convention Center. It's surrounded by displays of crafts,
foods and other items being sold to benefit disadvantaged people in the U.S.
and abroad, and by books, clothing and informational displays staffed by
organizations of all stripes.

	Few of those draw as much attention. Children dominate the line waiting to
climb, but adults are well represented as well. Two women, guessing ages
wouldn't be polite, but they are clearly adults, climb with only a little
more difficulty than the kids and ring the bell at the top together.

	The good feeling everyone exhibits is the idea, of course, and Jean
Richardson of Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Abiquiu, N.M., says she hopes
to transport that positive outcome to the troubled youth of New Mexico.

	The exhibition center climbing wall draws attention to Ghost Ranch's
display area and to its numerous activities, including new outdoor adventure
facilities there, including a climbing wall, high and low rope courses and a
water program. These are central to five outdoor adventure programs being
offered this summer, and they have been incorporated into other youth
programs.

	But Richardson assigns a higher goal to the ropes, kayaks and other new
facilities.

	"My dream is that this will make a difference in Northern New Mexico," she
says, noting that the area is among those with the state's highest rates of
substance abuse, school dropouts, teenage marriages, alcohol-related highway
deaths and other similar problems.

	Some 3,000 children and youth already visit Ghost Ranch annually, drawn by
museums of anthropology and paleontology, as well as land management
projects and camps or other programs in the arts, music, theology and social
issues, to mention only a few.

	By exposing these and other participants to self-esteem-building,
team-building and other advantages of outdoor adventure.

	"Scaling a 60-foot climbing wall, a youth might be inspired to kick a drug
habit," Richardson says. "A ropes course might challenge a teenage girl
thinking about suicide as she holds the belay line attached to the life of a
classmate.

	"The experience of navigating a canoe in white water might help someone
realize that it's also possible to paddle through the rapids of life."

	The new facilities have even had a beneficial impact on those who work at
Ghost Ranch, Richardson says, noting that the housekeeping staff has begun
to spend "coffee break" time at the low ropes course.

	The outdoor adventure course is in large part due to the interest of Dr.
Sylvia Shirley of the College of William & Mary in Virginia. At Richardson's
request, she came to Ghost Ranch to assess the possibilities for a course
such as the one being used for Elderhostel programs at the college.

	Richardson says Shirley gathered a volunteer work group that came to the
ranch, helped build the climbing wall and provided some of the water craft.
Students at a technical college in Virginia even refurbished a trailer to
haul the boats.

	"She says this is the most important thing she's done in her life,"
Richardson says of Shirley.

	If the effect of the climbing wall at the PC(USA) General Assembly is any
indication, Ghost Ranch's new facilities might well make Richardson's dream
a reality. That would be consistent with her own assessment of the greater
role the New Mexico facility plays.

	"How do Christian education, and camp and conference centers go together?"
she asks. "In ways far beyond our imagination . . . in ways left to the
mystery of the Spirit of God."

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