praise the lord for rigo lion el salvador

Rigo Lion (pronounced ree-go-lee-own) el salvador was the name rigo earned yesterday.  his name is Rigo and the locals call him Rigo Lion, meaning rigo the lion.  he's from quépos so everybody knows him.  he is an older man who spent many years fishing the great ocean and drinking only too often.  

every morning at the center i clean some part of quépos with a group of guys.  this particular day was el malecón y naomi.  malecón is a levee, and this particular levee is the one that separates quépos from the pacific ocean.  it is quite dirty and in only two hours we get three very large trash bags filled, mostly with small candy wrappers and such.  the other part of the morning's work is to be done at naomi.  this is an area which used to be a community center with a pool and grill, and little concession stand on a very beautiful little peninsula.  this peninsula is high above the ocean, protruding out of the sea by sheer cliffs on all sides.  

there is one point, one rock, that people jump off of into the ocean, only during high tide (as we have extreme tides where we are, sometimes as much as 12 ft differentials).  it was low tide yesterday morning.  sometimes when we're done working, we go for a swim to clean off.  this was the case.  during high tide the waves aren't as dangerous in this particular spot.  there are no beaches around and getting into the water is a tough endeavor.  imagine a beach, except without sand, there are large and small rocks with jagged edges that you can barely walk on if you are very careful.  now add giant waves, nothing like you see in florida, but something more like australian waves, 6-12 footers.  in this situation, you cannot ease your way in.  there must be a jump from a certain point into the ocean off of a strategic rock and then a quick swim in between wave sets to get out past the break (past the break is a term meaning that there is a point where the waves are breaking, and out past that, they are not considered waves but rather swells, and there are no white-caps and they are not dangerous, ie. you cannot get crushed by them, and they do not pull you in any sort of direction, at least not vigorously).

so, i jump out after a wave and after a few stokes and out past the break in the open ocean.  there is one and only one place that you can safely get out of the ocean, where the waves aren't too strong and where you can basically tread water off of the rock and let the swell bring you up to the rock where you can climb out.  this is all common knowledge.  

luis jumps out, not far enough and panics right away, trying to swim back to the rock that he jumped from.  this is a horrible idea because there is no way to get out by means of this particular rock.  i am telling him to swim out past the break, but he wouldn't listen.  the next wave set will be upon him very quickly now and i'm trying to get him to swim in the other direction.  then the waves came.  as he was clinging to the rocks the water went out from under him and he could not support his own full weight with just a couple fingers grasping a small indention of the rock and he fell back in the now tumultuous ocean.  picture in your mind, the pacific northwest on a stormy day on one of those large rock coasts, waves crashing the rocks, sending spray 30 feet into the air, well, this is the picture.  where he's trying to climb out, it's a sheer cliff and it is impossible while he's being pulled out by the wave recession and then pounded against the rocks by the full force of the waves.  i am down at the edge of where he should swim to only about fifteen feet from where he is, but he is panicking.  the next thing i know, rigo jumps right in.  i'm thinking to myself, oh no, now two of them.  of course the first thing that luis does is grab rigo and shove him underwater.  during that instant, rigo's foot was shot full of some sort of coral darts as he was shoved to the floor by the frantic luis.  (these darts were nothing like i ever saw, i pulled one out of his foot that measured three inches)  once rigo realized that he could not help him in his current state, at least not by using physical means, he swam himself out to safety.  then luis, now, not trying to make his way to the impossible rock, was swimming after rigo.  then when luis reached rigo he relaxed and let rigo swim both of them to safe waters which was only about 10 seconds away.  luis was exhausted so we pulled him out of the ocean across the rocks (which gave him a few more scrapes from what he already had).  

after getting out luis was laughing about his situation, realizing the he was doing all the wrong things.  louis had a busted shoulder and a busted back from being slammed against the rocks, but that was very minor compared to the possibility of him hitting his head.  rigo went straight to the hospital to get about 60 darts pulled out of his foot.

this story reminds me of life.  that when i'm in the midst of a dilemma, and relying on my own understanding, the way out, or the answer that i believe to be correct may be wrong altogether.  that i often need others to point me in the right direction and that when i don't listen to others, and they take the next step to jump in, that i often pull them down first for a variety of reasons.  that it usually costs the person doing the helping, at least in the short run.  and after looking back, we can, if we take the opportunity, learn from the experience to grow and not repeat some of the same mistakes.

i am very thankful to God for rigo lion, who jumped in, maybe against all recommendations of training, into a very dangerous situation to literally save the life of another.