Worldly Holiness

Bonfire, originally uploaded by papalars.

This is the longest gap between posts since I started blogging last fall. Let it be known I have good reasons—we moved from Barcelona to Seattle, had a family crisis, lived out of our suitcase for about 2 weeks and went hiking on the Washington coast. Standard stuff for missionary families sometimes but still, this all takes energy. We are gladly now in our new digs and getting settled. Let me tell a story of the hike I went on and generally catch you up to date on our lives.

Let me start, however, by making a clear statement that we are still engaged with the Mosaics Project and remain Covenant Project Missionaries. A few of the anticipated highlights for this coming year include:

• Telling the story of the Mosaics Project and more generally what God is doing with focus people in churches across the US  
• Networking with mission groups, churches, and other individuals doing ministry with focus people in the US and globally
• Recruiting and resourcing people toward engagement with focus peoples & ministries. I will be speaking at the Covenant Mid-Winter conference on this topic

I have written a 3 page report of our ministry in Barcelona this last year and 1 page of ministry objectives for this coming year if you are interested. Let me know by email if you’d like a copy at: prayformosaics@yahoo.com. We continue to thank you for your prayers and support and continue to need them. Please don’t forget to lift up our family and the ministry of the Mosaics project.

Now to the story of our hike. Years ago my Dad led a hike every Memorial Day weekend for 10 years in a row on the Washington Coast for the North Pacific Conference of the Covenant Church. We would start on the 3^rd Beach at La Push where this picture was taken and hike 16 miles with heavy packs and wonderful adventures south toward the Hoh River. This was back in the 70’s. I think I joined the group about 5 times and still remember one year having 80 people join the excitement. This is not a gentle coastline but requires several overland treks up and over huge embankments to avoid the treacherous rocks and incoming tides. The stories from these adventures have become part of our family folklore and remind us of the great experiences we had growing up.

A month ago Dad, now 85 years old, mentioned he would like to hike down to 3^rd Beach to do some beachcombing. We pulled a few family members together and went for it; on the condition we could carry Dad’s stuff. He used to haul 70 pound packs on our hikes, often carrying an extra sleeping bag for someone who couldn’t carry a full pack. Well, we hiked down to the beach, about 2 miles from the trailhead and made camp. The next day, Dad went north with two of my sisters to hunt for agates, leaving about 7 am during low tide. On their return, they made a miscalculation on the tide schedule and got stranded behind a rock jetty. We had to extract them by wading in the water as the incoming tide made it impossible to climb around on the treacherous shoreline. Dad pulled into camp all wet but stood by the campfire to warm up and dry out before he hit the sack. It rained hard that night as well but the next morning we had a beautiful sunrise and were able to hike out safely with another adventure to add to our memories and probably 25 pounds of agates to our packs. Luckily, Dad paid Erick, our 16 year old son to carry out the agates.