A Long Winter Update

Hello again, Dear Friends,

It's been quite a while since I've updated you all on events in my life and ministry. But I have found a few quick minutes I can relax in while watching over my dear 95-year-old mother here in Paradise, California.
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When last I left you I had promised some photos from my travels to date. This post will make good on that promise, and bring you up to date on my travels since then, and on the exciting ministry opening up for me ahead.
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After I had driven to Georgia and back to drop off Alex with his mom, I returned to Pennsylvania to pick up my 500-pound Biblical research library (in the tubs at right) and my office furniture and kitchen goods.
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Including the weight of the trailer, I was towing about a ton of stuff behind my little Chevy Cobalt. I had not realized that the vagaries of the highway system would have me crossing the continental divide three times. But the little Cobalt never complained, and in spite of the Rocky Mountains, i averaged about 30 miles per gallon for the whole trip.
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I drove through to Minnesota, where I slept the first night after passing through fifty dollars worth of toll gates on the Interstate Highway System. Sometime that next morning I crossed over the upper Mississippi River, and took this photo. Dams and spillways such as this one, with the boating lock at the right, have made the upper Mississippi into a navigable commercial waterway.
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Many more long miles brought me onto the great High Plains prairie land, with expansive vistas such as this view promising many more long miles ahead.
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The next stop was Mount Rushmore National Monument, which is approached from the east via a steep up-and-down route. The Cobalt had all the gears it needed to haul my load up the hill, but I was not comfortable with the extra strain on the little car's brakes when coming down the other side. I used the back way (to the west) to get out of the Monument, and my brakes were much happier for it.
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Next on my itinerary was the Little Big Horn, and its National Monument commemorating the epic battle between George Armstrong Custer's soldiers and the Lakota, Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne people who had been inspired by the spiritual leader Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull had heard a message that said, "Because they will not listen, I give them to you."
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After camping overnight in a marvelous, pristine campground in the Bighorn Mountains (alas, no photos), it was time to move on to Yellowstone. After all the news about the bears and the bison of Yellowstone, who knew that the park was centered around a 136 square mile lake?
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I camped at Big Thumb campground at the lake's edge and cooked a leisurely breakfast before setting out to watch Old Faithful spout off. There was a walking tour available to the half-dozen other geysers in the same basin, but my bum hip was acting up and i elected to stick nearby and read the literature at the exhibits.
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It turns out that Old "Faithful" is not quite so faithful as advertised in the post-pioneer days. Each time there is a significant earthquake, it rearranges the eruption frequencies of the nearby geysers. Rather than once an hour, Old Faithful erupts about every hour-and-a-half, with a variable wait time inbetween. The rangers post the expected time of the next eruption, but they don't know when that will happen until after they have observed certain characteristics of the most recent eruption. A ranger watches the early part of the eruption with fieldglasses from their post before calculating the time of the next one.
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But it is a sight to see when it arrives, and the watching crowd joins in by erupting in cheers.
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From Yosemite it was an endless car-trek across the vast wasteland of northern Nevada to Paradise, California, where I put my stuff in storage and ditched the trailer. Then on to southern California, where my spiritual advisors had apprised me of a new ministry opportunity (see more on this below).
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On the way back I drove through Yosemite, that kraal-space where inquiring four-legged residents of California can come to marvel at the teeming hordes of humanity congesting the canyon floor. The view, however, is stunning.
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Back in Paradise, I had time to visit Lime Saddle Campground overlooking the western branch of the Feather River and Lake Oroville, only some seven miles away from my sister's house. Here the morning alarm clock is the wild turkeys gobbling as they pass through the campsites. The deer, of course are much quieter, This doe, however, spent some time snorting and huffing at me to warn me not to mess with her two babies.
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Access to Paradise from nearby Chico is via "The Skyway," which begins as a four-lane divided highway, then travels north some 45 miles, ending up as a dirt fire road reaching the hamlet of Butte Meadows. There I found Cherry Hill campground, where I hung out and rested amongst the tall timber for a few days.
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This tall timber adorns the foothills and peaks of the Sierra Nevada and associated mountain ranges which separate the Sacramento Valley from the deserts to the east.
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Cherry Hill camp rests alongside the headwaters of Butte Creek, spawning ground for the largest spring run of salmon in California--and well treasured and protected by the California folk. I enjoyed the music of the rushing waters for each day and night of my stay there.
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On the western boundary of the Sacramento Valley lies the tall timber of the Mendocino National Forest, astride the coastal mountains that separate the valley from the Pacific Ocean. This is the little-known Whitlock Campground, a free campsite at 4,300 feet elevation. From here I had a clear view of Mount Shasta to the northeast.
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If you travel west a bit deeper into the Mendocino National Forest, you can find a peak or a ridgeline from which you can watch the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. However, this is the only national forest which does not have a single paved road that traverses it from one side to the other.
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Meanwhile, Alex's mother in Georgia was running into major problems with her trucking business. Alex was flown to live with his older sister in California, who had cared for him when he was a toddler. Alex has settled in to his new life, and has been meeting California relatives that he had not known before.

Here are Alex and Sis when I joined them on a tour of one of the Channel Islands off California's coast.
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Back to Southern California to confirm my call to ministry there. This is Monte Cristo Campground, the only one that has been reopened after the devastating Station wildfire of three years ago. The firefighters must have defended this creekside stand of ancient white oak, which I am eager to see once it is back in leaf this spring. It lies just a few miles from Pasadena, which is near the foothills of the Angeles National Forest.

MINISTRY UPDATE:

Through the good graces of two of my spiritual advisers, I have been put in contact with the Rev. Charles Myers in the western diocese of ACNA. He has been given a vision for Saint Michael's, a proposed church plant in the Pasadena area. An essential part of this vision is outreach and support for the addicted and recovering communities. Fr. Chuck sees an associated AA post as an essential partner in this mission--and I just happen to have experience in planting and establishing an AA post.

I can also foresee the startup of Church Army classes in the 12-Step solution, and Steve Baughan, the National Director, is seeing to it that I get the materials that we will need. In addition, I am in contact with the Rev. Mark Hall in Bakersfield who knows these classes well. He and I can see ourselves in collaboration with one another to advance ministry to addicts and alcoholics in Bakersfield and Pasadena.

The long and the short of it is: I see myself moving to Pasadena as soon as possible to get started--or conversely, to catch up to where Fr. Chuck is. I know the terrain there well, because I was the director of a Men's Home for recovered addicts for a year there.

But I'm not ready to move yet. First I need to receive Total Hip Replacement surgery to alleviate the debilitating pain that has been really slowing me down. I now have a date for that: the surgery is scheduled for March 15 in Paradise, and I'm guessing a month's recovery before I'm ready to hit the road to Pasadena.

So I guess I'll close this overly long post with a request for your help: Please pray for the new ministry of Saint Michael's, pray for the addicts and alcoholics of the Pasadena area, and pray for me as I go into surgery.

Thank you so much for listening,
I love you all
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