ON TO SEATTLE

Our time in Portland is finished. The campmeeting was really good, the preaching was excellent, the people were friendly. We did get a little monthly support pledged, and we will receive an very good offering.

On Sunday afternoon we headed north to Seattle. We had a meeting Sunday evening in an Evangelical Church where some old friends from India attend. Our meeting was good, again we did get promises of more support. It was wonderful to be with folks we hadn't seen for a long time. Lester and Mary Hamilton were missionaries with WGM in India for about 35 years. They were responsible for starting the Vacation Bible School ministries which reach more than one million children and youth every year in India. Their daughters are old friends who grew up with Frank and now live in the Seattle area. Unfortunately Lester is in a care facility for Alzheimer patients, but Mary is still living on her own although she is frail and needs daily help.

We are close to Mt. Rainier and can see it clearly from our motel. It is snow-covered and has a somewhat rounded peak which is a little flat at the top. Below is the short article from Wikipedia to tell you a little more. I know it's a little pedantic of me to post this article, but I found it interesting and says everything much better than I can.

"Mount Rainier is an active stratovolcano (also known as a composite volcano) in Pierce County, Washington, located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle. It towers over the Cascade Range as the most prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and Cascade Volcanic Arc at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).
The mountain and the surrounding area are protected within Mount Rainier National Park. With 26 major glaciers and 35 square miles (91 km2) of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each over 1,000 feet (300 m) in diameter with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice, and has formed the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters. A small crater lake about 130 by 30 feet (40 m × 9.1 m) in size and 16 feet (5 m) deep, the highest in North America with a surface elevation of 14,203 feet (4,329 m), occupies the lowest portion of the west crater below more than 100 feet (30 m) of ice and is accessible only via the caves.
Mount Rainier has a topographic prominence of 13,210 feet (4,030 m), greater than that of K2 (13,189 feet (4,020 m)). On clear days it dominates the southeastern horizon in most of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area to such an extent that residents sometimes refer to it simply as "the Mountain." On days of exceptional clarity, it can also be seen from as far away as Portland, Oregon, and Victoria, British Columbia."

Okay, class dismissed!

Tomorrow we leave Seattle and head east to Spokane to spend two days with some of our supporters. Then on Thursday we head to southeast Montana to begin the Ridge Holiness Campmeeting. We'll be out in a National Forest and I'm pretty sure we won't have internet access or cell phone signals while we're there for at least eight days. So you won't be seeing us on our Facebook page or here at the blog for a while. This is where we will really be roughing it, so we appreciate your prayers!

PORTLAND, THE CITY OF ROSES

Portland is called the City of Roses for a good reason. On Saturday we had some free time and the weather was wonderful, so we headed to one of the many rose gardens in the city. This particular garden was high on a hill and had some statues that commemorate the Lewis and Clark expedition. But the best part was the roses. You can tell from one picture that many of the plants were taller than me, and a few were taller than Frank. There were all kinds of roses: tea hybrids, floribunda, minature, old fashioned, you name it. I was in rose heaven!

FURTHER IMPRESSIONS

More impressions of the Portland area, some not so great:

• Lots of adult video and book stores, visible everywhere.
• Lots of people smoking, which is strange considering how exercise conscious they are.
• No gas pumps at convenience stores.
• Not pumping your own gas, the law won't allow it. So someone else fills your tank for you.
• Environmentally conscious----we supposed to sort our trash: paper, plastic, glass, etc.
• Beautiful wildflowers----okay, some people would call them weeds, but when they're blossoming into wonderful colors, they're wildflowers. What colors? red, yellow, purple, and blue, mostly.

Well, we're finished with Portland for now. More later.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

What are our first impressions of Portland, Oregon, after being here for the weekend:

• Very green. It looks like a jungle here! All this cool weather and lots of rain make it look like a tropical paradise.
• Huge roses and hydrangeas. The flowers are absolutely beautiful.
• Few visible churches. We come from the Bible belt with churches on every block. Here the churches must be hidden behind all that greenery.
• Reminds us of the hills of south India, especially Ootacamund, the town where Hebron School is located and where our children (and Frank!) went to school----except that it's much cleaner! The weekend was cool and rainy, just like Ooty weather.
• People wearing sweaters and jackets in July.
• Lots of people riding bicycles, with special lanes in the roads for them. Almost like Europe.

More to come later.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Our trip was just over 2000 miles from our home in Yukon, Oklahoma, to Portland. After celebrating Anika's birthday we left Dalhart on Wednesday morning and headed west. From the time we sighted Raton Pass in northern New Mexico until we got to Portland we were in sight of mountains or foothills of the mountains. Some of the mountains were snow-covered, such as at Monarch Pass in Colorado. Others were not so high, but were rugged and beautiful in their own way.






















On the western edge of Colorado we stopped at Colorado National Monument, a ruggedly fascinating landscape of mountains eroded into fantastic shapes with deep canyons. In the Visitor's Center we saw a presentation that stated with absolute certainty that these formations began to evolve 2 billion years ago. When I get to heaven I want to ask God how all these scientific statements (truth?? theories??) fit into our Biblical account of creation. The geological formation is extremely interesting to study with numerous layers of sediment from inland seas that developed and receded several times over the 2 billion years.



After leaving the Monument we soon crossed the stateline into Utah. The landscape became a barren moonscape. It was desolate and empty, at least that's the way it seemed to us as we sat in the car on I-70 going westward. No towns or villages, no trees, no people except those traveling east or west on the interstate highway. The foothills of the northern mountains were barren and uninviting. But we eventually turned north and headed to Salt Lake City where Frank let me stop and visit a great quilt shop. I loved the shop and bought Laura's birthday present there. I might have to try it out before I give it to her!



The next day we continued northwest and drove through southern Idaho toward Oregon. In the afternoon we reached the Columbia River and traveled on I-84 westward along the river. It is an awesome work of nature. On the opposite shore is the state of Washington. On both banks of the river are many huge windmills generating electricity, more than we've seen anywhere else including Oklahoma. As we got further west we could see Mt. Hood in the distance and we entered a forest of evergreens. It really is a beautiful part of the country. In the coming week I will write more about Portland and the surrounding area.



Tomorrow we begin our ministry at the Clark County Holiness Camp in Vancouver, Washington. We need to get back into missionary mode as we prepare to share the needs of Ukraine. We appreciate your prayers as we try to help folks find what God wants them to do with regard to the needs of the world around them as well as around the rest of the world.

ANIKA'S FIRST BIRTHDAY

We are in Portland, Oregon, after a long week in the car. We left home on Monday morning, the 6th, and drove to Dalhart, Texas, to see our son and his family. The 7th was our little granddaughter Anika's 1st birthday. We are so glad that we were able to be there for it. Ain't she sweet? Of course, we had fun with Kirsten and Riley too. They are live-wires and keep us hopping all the time we're there. After all, aren't all grandparents just supposed to play games all the time?

We had birthday cupcakes and Anika really enjoyed hers, if you know what I mean. The rich chocolate frosting was delicious and she enjoyed every moment of it!

It took Anika a little while to warm up to us because we don't see her very often. But pretty soon she was letting us hold her and love her up. She is a sweetie-pie.

Fourth of July, 2009

Well, our July 4th is pretty tame. We're staying home, getting things organized to leave here on Monday. We will be going first to Dalhart, Texas, where our little granddaughter, Anika, will be having her first birthday on Tuesday, July 7th. We have an invitation to her birthday party, and we wouldn't miss it for the world.



On Wednesday morning we will get in the van and head for the northwest. We will probably be gone from home for six-seven weeks. We will be in Portland, Oregon, for about ten days, visit old friends and participate in a campmeeting, and then head for southeast Montana for another camp. After that we will have meetings here and there along the way. Usually I hate being away from home for six weeks, and I'm sure that by middle August I will be ready to come home. But I'm looking forward to this trip. I love the American west, and I'm looking forward to the great scenery and the whole western atmosphere.




This past week we were able to be with our niece, Dacia Brown, and her husband Ken. Ken served three tours of duty in Iraq, came home with neurological issues from having so many concussions as he led his unit in house searches and convoy protection, and is now at Camp Benning, Georgia, training and doing other work with the Army. He looked great. He was trim and fit, and happy. We had a wonderful time with them and their eight-year-old daughter, Arissa. We went to Toby Keith's restaurant here in Oklahoma City. They really wanted to go there because a country/rock band called Gloriana was performing there that night. It was fun. We sat on the patio for our meal, then went inside to watch the band for a while. The noise volume was pretty loud, but maybe we were the only ones who noticed that :). Dacia is worship leader at a large Baptist church in Columbus, Georgia, and has piano students during the week. We don't get to see them very often, so it was good to make connections again.



I'll write more next week after Anika's birthday party, and probably put some pictures on too.