Monday, July 20, 2009

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!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Chris & Frank! I just read through your entire blog posts - starting at the very beginning! Chris, you are a good writer... I felt like I was reading a travelogue! Anyways... wonderful to catch up on your lives!

My kids are wanting me to start a blog... and yours has inspired me. I will have to get that going.

I will continue to watch your progress in getting to the Ukraine... as you know timing is in bigger hands than our own. It will be right when it is right.

Great to be connected again!

Linda Reinhardt