RENEWAL

Renew…Renewal…Renewed…Renewing

One of my favorite scripture verses is Isaiah 40:31: Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. 

In this instance, “renew” literally means “to exchange”. In other words, if we trust in and look expectantly to the Lord, our weakness will give way and be exchanged for God’s strength.

As many of you know, I just celebrated my 66^th birthday and Jim is a few months past 70. Sometimes we wonder if we’re too old to be doing some of the volunteer work we do. (Most of what Jim does and much of what I am asked to do can be pretty physical in nature.) However, the word “renew” kept popping into my head as I started this blog update. And it seemed even more apropos as we started our second MMAP project in June of this year at the Christian Renewal Center near Silverton, Oregon (about 30 miles east of Salem.)

To soar on wings like eagles (who are known for their strength and vigor), to run without tiring, to even walk up a hill and not pass out are visions senior citizens like us dream about. Even though we don’t soar, run and walk the way we did in our youth, take note you youngsters (and I mean those of you under 40) life’s adventures don’t have to stop when you turn 50. We may slow the pace just a bit……or as Jim so aptly puts it –

In fact, as we have shared in some of our other posts, Jim and I are among the “younger” set of MMAP couples. Many of our fellow MMAPers are still going strong in their mid to late 70’s and 80’s. The other two couples on this project are no exception.

Our MMAP coordinators were Charles and Naomi from Oregon. In their early 80’s, they are full time RVers who have been in MMAP since 2004 and have done 73 projects in the last nine years.

Bill and Shirley were the other couple with us at CRC. They were also with us in May at Warm Beach Camp in Stanwood, WA. Bill confesses to being a year away from the 80 year mark of his life and married his “younger” bride, Shirley just eight months ago. Never one to give away a lady’s age, I will only tell you that Jim and Shirley were born in the same year….you figure it out.

Christian Renewal Center  
 ( www.christianrenewalcenter.org ) was founded 42 years ago by Pastor Allan Hansen and his wife, Eunice. Allan went home to be with his Lord in 2008 at the age of 90, but Eunice (another “youngster” in the Lord who will be 90 this year) is still active in the running of the camp.

Their son, Tim is the present executive director of CRC, assisted by his wife, Julie. Tim celebrated his 50^th birthday while we were at CRC and Julie her 47^th the day after. They have five kids – three in various colleges and two still at home.

Nestled in the woods on 40 acres above Silverton and surrounded by streams and waterfalls (with Silver Falls State Park - Oregon’s largest state park just across the road)the Center offers church, family and individual retreat facilities throughout the year as well as prayer meetings, pastors’ prayer summits and summer family camps.

There is much history (more than my blog space has room to share) of the starting of CRC as well as how God has provided over the past 40+ years for the acquisition of land and the miraculous provision of finances and workers (many volunteers like MMAPers) to complete the various CRC buildings (dining lodge, staff homes, chapels, other conference buildings and cabins, a book store/coffee shop and more.) The details of it and also the story of Allan and Eunice’s ministry before starting CRC can be read in a fascinating book by Eunice Hansen, titled “When God Gives a Dream”. I will attempt to share with you some pictures and highlights of some of the buildings, but I would certainly recommend reading Eunice’s book. Eunice quotes, “When God gives you a dream, you’ll discover it is much bigger than you are!”   

Throughout their ministry, Allan and Eunice have hosted some great and well-known Christians, such as Dr. J Edwin Orr, the well-known authority on revival, Corrie ten Boom, the heroine of World War II Nazi prison camps, and Gladys Aylward, whose story was featured in the film, Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Eunice says, “In comparison ..our story seems small and insignificant. But here it is with hope and prayer that others who feel insignificant might be encouraged. If God could bless our feeble efforts and forgive our failures, He can do the same for you and bless the dreams He has given you.” 

After meeting Eunice, reading her story and seeing what a great example her life and the work at CRC has been and continues to be, I would hardly call her story “insignificant”.

The first building to be built in 1971 was the Dining Hall and Lodge. It has rooms below and a beautiful dining hall that seats about 90 guests, with a reception office and the kitchen on the main floor.  

Whenever we do a project where the camp feeds us, we rate the project as a “10 pound project” – depending on the quality of the food. The CRC project is over the top in this regard and probably will end up being a “20 pound project”! 

The chef, Peter Riegelmann has a degree in Food Service Management, but more than that he is a self -taught cook (a definite gift from God.) Every evening meal comes with homemade breads of all sorts and dishes that one would expect to be served in the finest restaurants in any large city. This is NOT the ordinary “camp food”. Lori, his wife runs the center’s bookstore/coffee shop among other things she does at CRC.

Peter’s assistant, Ben, despite his youth (he is only 19) has learned much from Peter and appears to have the same love and gift of cooking. Ben made sure I got as many of his gluten-free dishes as he could come up with. What a pleasure for me!

Besides single cabins for guests, the center also has two other large lodges for retreats –

Heritage House near the main lodge and the Good Shepherd Lodge about midway up on the property. Each is designed to hold large groups, with bedrooms and separate meeting rooms as well as cooking facilities for those groups who do not intend to eat at the main dining hall.

One of the great stories from Eunice’s book tells about the beautiful 10 foot tall stained glass window at the front of the Good Shepherd Lodge: Allan obtained the window at an auction at the nearby Benedictine Center. Thinking he would have to bid a high price, he was amazed that he got it for a mere $300. He also bid on some piece from another window the same size and got them for $50. The window was in need of repair so Allan used matching pieces from the second window pieces and hired the work done for $100 plus giving the repair person (a local lady who was a teacher of stained glass) the extra pieces. This woman had also studied the history of stained glass and determined that the window had originally been in a Catholic Church in Europe and was in the range of 100 years old. The worth of this window was somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000….what an amazing find! (Eunice’s book goes on to tell of how the window was damaged a few years later by a group of campers having a pillow fight in the lodge and the amazing way that it was repaired. Get the book to find out that story!) But needless to say, after the window was repaired, the Center took the precaution that should have originally been taken and covered the window on both sides with clear Plexiglas.

Heritage House

Good Shepherd Lodge

Stained glass window

The center offers three special buildings for its guests to utilize for prayer – The larger prayer chapel on the hill that can accommodate groups for worship and prayer summits or for individuals seeking to be alone with God. It is a place where couples have renewed their wedding vows during the Sweetheart Weekend at the Center. It has a beautiful view out over the forest below. Scriptures have been sandblasted on the walls and symbols of the Christian faith painted on the three trusses above.

There is a smaller prayer chapel near the Good Shepherd Lodge. It is big enough for one to four people to pray. Outside of the chapel stands a life sized figure of Christ.

The smallest prayer chapel is near the Heritage Lodge. It is aptly named the Prayer Hut and can be used by one individual at a time intent on the solace of prayer and study.

Prayer Chapel on the hill

Inside the prayer chapel

Victory Prayer Chapel

Inside Victory Chapel

Statue of Christ outside Victory Chapel

Payer Hut

The MMAP team parked their RVs near the house of volunteer, Helen Johnson.

Helen (another “youngster” of 80+) has lived at CRC for 25+ years in the home she and her late husband, Leigh built on the seven acres of land adjoining the camp. After a stint as missionaries in Tanzania, she and Leigh moved to Tacoma, Washington where he got a position at Pacific Lutheran University. When he retired, they contemplated moving to Sun City, AZ but instead took a bold step of faith and decided to buy the land next to CRC and then deed the land back over to the camp. Leigh was seventy years old at that time and after much prayer by both he and Helen, they decided to build their home using the 50+ trees they cut off the land. Leigh went home to be with the Lord in 1997, but Helen is still active at CRC, working in the kitchen, helping with the cleaning and heading up the craft activities for the summer camps and the CRC sponsored weekend retreats. As Helen says in her story (included in Eunice’s book), “God put us right where He wanted us to be – right here at CRC.”

Helen's house, where we held our morning devotions in the 4-C Room (Christian Creative Craft Center) next to the garage.

RV sites for MMAPers

The project work for our men was to build a 14x26 deck at the back of the Lamp Post Book Store.

It was quite an undertaking and hampered a bit by a lot of rainy weather, delays for inspections, and details of work called for according to the architect’s plans because it is considered a commercial undertaking – not your “normal” deck built off the back of your house. But the men diligently labored through it and at the end of three weeks the deck was nearly completed. It will be finished by other CRC volunteers within the weeks after we leave to go to our next project.

They started by digging holes for the footings – Jim’s “favorite” task!

 Right where one of the footings was to be located was the stump and root of this huge tree. The tree had been cut down over 40 years ago and the count of the tree rings on the remaining stump showed it to be well over 250-300 years old.

 Tim started the 10 holes with the backhoe, but the finish of them had to be done by hand. Nine of the ten were 30 inches wide and 18 inches deep….that’s a LOT of digging.

 

Then came the big chore of getting rid of the tree root   

The footing where the tree root had been had to be 36” deep. Rebar was added to each box.

When the boxes for the footings were finished, a local cement truck filled them with 4+ yards of cement.

This deck will hold in any weather – or even an earthquake!

Bill smoothed them and added the post brackets.

After the cement set up, the framing was started.

The second week was extremely rainy, but that didn’t stop construction….”neither rain, nor wind, …”

 The completed framing.

 The next step was to cut panels of horse wire that will be used in place of balusters. The metal, prior to final installation will be powder coated an antique bronze finish.

Deck posts that had been grooved on the sides to hold the wire panels were set 

And the panels checked to make sure each one fit into the grooves.

We ladies had just a few things asked of us. Because Naomi and Charles have come to CRC for the past 12 years (both as MMAPers and as campers and volunteers prior to joining MMAP) Naomi takes it upon herself to aid in the kitchen before and after meals (a job Shirley and I were not included to do). However, the two of us busied ourselves with some gardening projects around camp (planting some hanging baskets and dead-heading some of the many rhododendrons around the camp.) As I mentioned before, heavy rains hampered some of that work as well – but we made the best of it and the two of us also learned to do a project that Helen teaches at the family camps – carved sandblasted plaques.  

The rhodys outside Good Shepherd, and all around the camp were in full bloom when we arrived.

 

Our craft project-
 

These are plaques made by various campers throughout the years. The process starts with a plain smooth board. A rubber piece with glued backing is attached to the board, than the pattern is traced onto the rubber. The patter is then carved out with an exato knife and all the rubber removed except that which covers the pattern. The piece is then taken to a sandblasting company in Salem and when returned the piece is stained and the final rubber removed. After that the “artist” can choose to paint the design and then spray it with a varnish coating, or in the case of my piece I stained the design a lighter color and then finished it off with the varnish spray. Shirley chose to paint her design.

 

 Here we are, working on the final step of our pieces – removing the rubber after we stained the boards.

The finished products –

Since there were no “Southwest” designs in Helen’s store of patterns, I came up with this pattern by using a picture of our 5^th wheel and a picture of a Saguaro I had taken.  

We fell in love with CRC and the people there. This is definitely a project we would like to return to. On our last evening, after a delicious dinner, the staff sang a song to us in appreciation- 

 

This is a video of that performance

Besides enjoying the natural beauty of the camp, we were again able to see much of the beauty and interesting sights in and around the Silverton area.

The Gallon House covered bridge outside of town, built in 1916

A car show in the town of Mt Angel

My favorite car….if I ever win the lottery……… sigh

The area is very rural, with hundreds of acres of farm land – wheat, rye, grass seed, truck farms, orchards and hundreds of humongous Christmas tree farms….more than one can imagine. This is truly the Christmas tree capital. Oregon Christmas trees are shipped all over the world.  

Silver Falls State Park (the largest of the Oregon State Parks) is accessible right at the entrance to CRC. There are lots of hiking trails around the ten falls. We only made it to three of them.

South Falls - You can hike down the trail and walk behind the falls, then circle back up to the main parking lot and the nature store.

Upper North Falls and North Falls are accessible from the parking lot right at the entrance road to CRC. It’s an easy hike to Upper North Falls.

North Falls is a little further from the parking lot and the hike down to and than behind the falls is a bit steep. Bill and Jim “wimped out” at the top of the trail while Shirley and I hiked down and behind the falls. “I am woman….hear me roar….”

 

The little town of Silverton, founded in 1854 is quaint and picturesque. It has a lot of older homes and many murals painted on several of the buildings depicting the history of the area.

Wouldn’t you love to live on this street!

As local artists paint Silverton one wall at a time, people come from all over the Pacific Northwest to see Silverton's larger-than-life art. It started in the early 1990s when local artist David McDonald painted Norman Rockwell's famous "Four Freedoms." 

I was unable to get my own photo of this mural, so this one is taken from the Silverton Mural Society’s web page.

More wall murals followed shaping this into what has evolved into an outsized museum of art.

 

This mural depicts “The Mammoth” – the world’s largest camera in 1900

Donald Pettit, one of Silverton’s locals was a NASA astronaut and this mural is in honor of him.

This mural shows the old Gallon House covered bridge in an earlier time (during the prohibition era.) Written on the mural is this poem:             

Return to a day

When they’d steal away

To sneak a kiss

Or moonshine or fish

Neath the old covered bridge.

Named the Gallon House

After a place nearby

Across the Abiqua to Mt. Angel

When Silverton was “dry”.

In Nineteen hundred sixteen,

Built to last,

The years have passed

On the stories it has seen.

A final note on RENEWAL:   There are several other scripture verses that talk of renewal in one way or another:

Jim and I know that what we are doing now will not last forever. As we advance in years or perhaps decline in health, things will change in what we do and where we go. But 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 gives those of us who trust in the Lord a supernatural hope no matter what our age or circumstance. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

And when the time comes to change our focus and our activities, we hold on to the promise of Romans 12:2 – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Therefore, for the present and into the future we pray to remain in God’s will and we praise Him for allowing us to do what we do. Psalm 103:1-5 says Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

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In closing, for those of you blog followers who like keeping up with our family happenings – read on. (No pressure here! :))

One of the foremost “good things” the scriptures speak about is our relationship with our family and our friends. We’ve shared before how blessed we are to have such great kids and grandkids. We were privileged before we left Tacoma at the end of May to attend the high school graduation of our granddaughter, Skyler (our daughter’s oldest).

Skyler (middle) with two of her friends, right after the graduation ceremonies.

Then, during our stay at CRC I was equally grateful to be able to take a four day break and fly down to California with our daughter to attend the high school graduation of our son’s two oldest boys, grandsons, Caleb and Isaac

Isaac and Caleb with their very proud grandma.

These events cause us to marvel at how quickly the years have sped by….it seems like only yesterday these three fine young adults were just babies.

This picture is Caleb, Skyler and Isaac in 2004 (Caleb and Skyler were nine and Isaac was not quite eight.)

These grandchildren, their parents and all of their siblings have blessed us in a way that truly renews us and helps make us “young at heart”…..because of them, our youth is renewed like the eagles!

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Since there was no cell service and only Wi-Fi connection at the dining hall of CRC, this blog update was delayed until now that we are back in Washington to work at Camp Berachah near Auburn, WA for July and August.

Until we tell you more on the Berachah project, we hope each of you 

finds the path to your own personal renewal.