Our new address sign!

Whew! I sure got behind again! Let’s see if I can bring you up to date a little on what’s happening around here.

Remember I told you I was working on a bird house address sign? Well here it is; I finally got it done. Sure looks nice hu? I thought so
too. It sure makes the place a little more cheery. Let me know if you would like me to make one for you too.

Well, last week Suzanne and I took a trip to Idaho again. This time though, it was for a mission’s conference at Treasure Valley Baptist Church. We heard that they had a pretty good institute there, and happened to be having a mission’s conference soon, so we wanted to see what it was like. While we were there we found out that MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) was there, so we got to tour their headquarters in Nampa. We even got to see Nate Saint’s plane, and the planes that they fly today!

My first flight EVER!

At the conference, a member of the church heard that I was interested in Mission Aviation, so the next day he took Suzanne and I up in his Cessna. That was way cool! If the Lord will, I certainly am getting my pilots license. I can’t think of anything I would rather do than fly for missions.

While we were in Idaho, we went up to Prairie and visited my friend Joseph on his uncle’s ranch. That is some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. It is a very needy mission field though, with only a little church that just got started in 2006! The pastor there is running two churches, one in Prairie, and one in pine about an hour apart from each other, but only accessible by snowmobile in the winter. My friend Joseph preaches in Prairie on Sunday morning, while Pastor Weil preaches in Pine. Then for the evening service Pastor Weil preaches in Prairie, and Pine doesn’t have an evening service. The Sunday

Flying over the mountians near Boise

morning that we were there, only two people came to church. And for the evening service there were four. Granted the population of Prairie is only 50 people in the winter, and about 75 in the summer, but Joseph told me that there is a very strong resistance to anything related to church. From the stories I heard, I have to take my hat off to Pastor Weil for having some true grit to stick it out there as long as he has.

While we were on the ranch we got to go horseback riding which was pretty fun, but the scenery was the best of all.

It sure was cold over there! One morning it was 16⁰F. Last winter they said it got down to 40 below Zero. Berrrrrrr!

Well, hope you enjoy the pictures!

Suzanne and I on horseback

Suzanne and me with the Boise river canyon behind us. We are on my friend's Uncle's property

Boise River Canyon

Fixing fences with my friend

Prairie Idaho

Suazanne and I at the trail head

At last I was able to unfold myself from the car for good! After 20 hours of driving from our home in Battleground Washington to the Big Horn Crags trailhead in central Idaho. Packed in a jeep with 3 adults and one baby in a car seat, I was more than eager to arrive at our destination. We arrived late that night, about 11:00 PM, and the chill in the air painfully reminded me that I had forgotten to bring my long sleeve wool shirt. Great! I thought this is going to be one long trip. We were going to be at 10,000 feet above sea level; even though the day was hot, as soon as the sun went down things would get really cold fast. I was already starting to shiver, but with 17 other people in our expedition with ages ranging from 8 months to 68 years, you can imagine the chaos. I found what looked like a flat spot and started setting up our bed, when I heard dad complaining about leaving his coat home too. Oh boy, I thought this is going to be quite to trip, what else did we forget? That night I found out what I had thought was a flat spot was more like the side of a mountain. Sure helped me get an early start on my day though! I’m convinced that good beds are not conducive to building strong character.

Me at Welcom Lake

Day 1:

By morning we were all ready for the journey, and after a nice big breakfast of bacon and eggs we started down the trail. Little did I know that 10 days later I would be coming back the same trail carrying almost twice as much weight!  I was greatly relieved though to discover that I had not forgotten my shirt! It was stuffed in a corner of my pack. Praise the Lord! Maybe things won’t be so bad after all. After 7 miles of hard hiking Suzanne and I were the first to arrive at Welcome Lake – 45 minutes ahead of the others. Whew! I thought, now for some rest. Ha! Think again! I quickly dove for my bug spray and began feverishly drenching myself, wishing I had bought the large bottle instead of the smaller one. I have never seen worse mosquitoes in my life, not even on the rest of the trip. When dad came, he said “good, that means the fish will be huge because they have plenty to eat.” I thought – that means there probably aren’t any fish because the mosquitoes aren’t getting eaten. Ha! ha! The optimist verses the pessimist. Maybe I should learn to be a little more optimistic

Rachel was glad to see me again

Day 2:

The next day we went on a day hike to some higher lakes to the northwest of Welcome called Heart Lake and Terrace Lakes, I could have stayed there for the rest of the trip just because there were hardly any mosquitoes, but that night Suzanne and I moved our camp to the other side of Welcome were it was a little higher and further from the water. The Mosquitoes were still pretty bad there but it was a big relief from where we were at first. David’s family moved with us too, but the rest wanted to stay so the group was divided in half. That night we wanted to roast some marshmallows, but the other group had all the food so Michael and I sneaked over to get some without them noticing. They had said a long time ago that they were going to bed so I thought our mission should be fairly easy to accomplish, but when we got there they were still up telling stories by the fire side, and the food was hung in direct line of sight of the fire. Oh boy, this is going to take awhile I told Michael. We crawled on our stomachs, inching our way across the open trail for nearly half an hour, and arrived under the food undetected. I decided that we might be able to wait till they went to bed, but at 9:30 they showed no sign of turning in for the night and we had been out for over 45 minutes. Dad threw another log on the fire, and I thought – that’s it, we’re going to just have to do the best we can. The stories are getting boring anyway, and the others are going to start worrying about us soon. I thought they might send someone over to ask if they had seen us, but then they started whistling across the lake thinking we had gotten lost.

Tarrace Lakes Pass

Great! Now we’re for sure going to get busted I whispered to Michael. There was a little commotion and dad yelled “HEY!” across the lake but then things settled down again and I decided we’d better make our move. Standing behind the tree trunk I grabbed the rope and started slowly pulling down on the bag that I wanted, but the others were so heavy it wouldn’t budge. I knew if I pulled harder the rope would squeak so I gave Michael a stick and told him to push up on the other bags but without stepping out of the shadow of the tree trunk. He pushed while I pulled, and sure enough the rope squeaked! Flash lights came on while Michael and I froze solid, stick in the air and everything. The bag I wanted was now a whole foot closer to me, but they didn’t seem to notice anything wrong so they turned their lights off and I took a deep breath. Whew! That was close! Our group started whistling again, so after patiently waiting for things to die down we gave it another try. This time the bag came all the way down, and dad said Something’s in our food we better go check it out.” Flash lights started coming our way. By this time I was wondering if the marshmallows were even worth it, and decided to run for it if I couldn’t find them in the bag. I had seen were they were in the bag when they hung it, so my hand went right for them, and we made a break as fast as we could. We didn’t turn our light on till we were a good ways from camp, and I lost the trail for a little bit, but we were soon on our way back. Dad starting yelling and lighting off fire crackers to make us think he had a gun. He was still yelling and shooting fire crackers when we got back to camp. Suzanne, Brooklyn, and Rachel, were very glad to see us, they were sure something had happened to us. We stayed up for several hours that night and had a good time.

Ship ahoy!

Day 3:

The following day we planned on hiking North 6 or 7 miles to Big Clear Lake, but the trail was too treacherous for the small children and we ended up staying at Wilson Lake a few miles short. I got bored and decided to build a little raft. It worked pretty well, but was really hard to paddle so I abandon ship and did something else.

Day 4:

David’s family left early for Reflection Lake 7 Miles south, while dad, Matthew, Mariya, and Faith went on to Big Clear to catch golden trout, a rare type of trout that only live above 10,000 feet. Suzanne and I stayed in camp for the day with Jeremiah and went exploring around the area and played Frisbee.  We got rained on a little, and got to see some lightning, but that was about all.

The kids playing in the medow on the way to Echo Lake

Day 5:

Mariya and Faith were wiped out from their day hike to Big Clear, but David’s family were expecting us at Reflection that night so to keep them from wondering what was going on Suzanne and I went to Welcome; picked up the stashed food for the remainder of the trip and went on to reflection. That was one grueling hike! We had to climb over a high ridge, and when we got to the top of the ridge we could see Reflection Lake seemingly clear on the other side of the world. Boy was I ever glad when we got to camp!

My wooden spoon and spatula

Day 6:

We had a nice slow day, with a beautiful day hike to Echo and Turquoise Lakes. I got board and started carving some pine root that looked liked it should be a wooden spoon, and then latter carved out a spatula too.That was lots of fun!

Rams Horn

Day 7:

We headed for Paragon, but ended up staying at Ram’s horn, which is just short of Paragon about a mile. It didn’t take us long to get there, so we spent the afternoon swimming, and skipping rocks.

Day 8:

Dad, David, Mathew and Mariya, and a few of the boys went on a day hike to Paragon to fish, While the rest of us spent the day swimming and just having a good time pretty much – For me, swimming is about a fun as it gets.

A relaxing day at Ram's Horn

Day 9:

Storm clouds blew in about 1:00 AM. Lightning was flashing all around us, with a strong warm wind, but it never rained. The air was so fresh and strangely warm that I became wide awake about 4:00 AM and went for a walk. While I was walking the clouds cleared away, so I got to sit a watch the full moon reflecting a cross the lake. It must have been something about the full moon, the warm wind ruffling through my hair, with the distant flashes of lightning; at any rate I decided to go for an early morning swim. What a great way to start the day! I’ll take that over coffee any day. I got a nice fire going, and pretty soon Brooklyn and Elizabeth joined Suzanne and I for an early morning of Bible reading. We latter headed back to Reflection had camped there again
for our last night out.

Our version of pack mules!

Day 10:

We made the 15 mile trek to the trail head, and headed home.

Ahhh, summer time! It’s so refreshing to see the sun again, and flowers too!

Well, so last you heard we just got married, and had a great honeymoon. Ha ha, I suppose you all think we’re still on the moon.  Actually we are in Battleground WA. We just moved a few months ago from Woodland to a nice little trailer out in the country on five acres with a field and a barn. We have three lamas that we’re trying to sell, and ten little chickens now that got too big for the front porch so I just built a coop for them. Designed it all myself, I think it looks pretty nice.
We also have a good sized garden now that we’re working on. Right now we have our tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, broccoli, peppers, watermelon, spinach, corn and beans started. We got a little crazy with the tomato plants and are trying to figure out what to do with the 250 plants that we started. Anyone want some tomato plants? I’m also working on little projects like a key holder, and house address sign with bird houses.

 Bus driving is almost over for the summer (:-} really big smile!) So I’m praying about what to do for employment, or if I should just take the time to study and sort things out. I can hardly tell what’s up or down anymore much less what I should be doing, but I know better than to write about things I haven’t thought through.

Our driveway

Our new house is a great blessing; it’s almost like a little resort in the woods. It’s surprising sometimes, being only 10 minutes from town, how peaceful it is out here. Every morning we wake up to the sun shining through the pine trees, and an amazing number of birds singing their hearts out in praise to God. In the evening the coyotes howl up the moon, and a very strange bird that I’ve never heard anywhere else signs a song that almost sounds like it’s from the rain forest, along with the frogs, crickets, and other creatures. During the day about the only thing you can hear is the wind whispering through the trees and an occasional crow from the rooster. Even though we are renting we have a lot of liberty to do things as long as we keep the place up, which makes it feel like home.

Hopefully I’ll do better at keeping ya ‘all posted on what’s happening around here.

Jonathan & Suzanne.

Baby Chicks

Putting the windows in the coop

The front door

Preparing the ground for our garden

Delta with water fall from Angeline

Paddeling across Otter with a full load!

Yay! Let’s go hiking! This year the Farnell’s invited me out on their annual backpack trip which took us to the Alpine lakes wilderness near and partly in the Wenatchee National Forest. It was great fun and a much appreciated get away from working the fairs this summer. The bad part is that it was way too short, only 6 days.

Day 1:

We loaded up my truck and Mr. Farnell’s Jeep early in the morning, then headed into Woodland to pick up Jeremiah (Suzanne’s nephew) and then north to met the rest of our group in Centralia. David, (Suzanne’s oldest brother) Elizabeth, Brooklyn, Michael, Joshua, and Jonathan (Suzanne’s nieces and nephews) for a total of 10 in our group.

Feuling up!

After reaching the trail head we made the first and probably hardest part of the trip up to Delta were we camped the first night. After a few hours of fishing, we had Spaghetti for dinner and then sang songs and read the Bible before heading to bed.

Day 2:

We made a short hike up to Otter Lake. I got stung by yellow jackets and wasps several times along the trail, nobody else got stung for some reason. The first time I was in the lead and the second time I was in the middle. The trail took us up a beautiful waterfall from Otter lake into Delta which was pretty cool to see. As soon as we got to camp we went swimming, and then did a little fishing. I caught one fish about 10 inches.

I had to fight a rat all night for my peanut butter. Since I had forgotten to get it out of my bag when they were hanging the food, I stuck it under my pillow which proved to be daring

Trail along waterfall from Otter Lake

challenge. Just as I would start dreaming this rat would sneak up to make his attack, first by quickly running past my head to see if I was asleep and then trying to nudge my arm out of the way with his nose. He was a pretty strong rat because he was able to completely lift up my arm one time before I woke up. His last attempt before morning broke was to jump on my head, but I think he was a little surprised by how fast I woke up that time. With a quick jerk of my head he went flying into the bushes and didn’t bother me any more after that.

Day 3:

We paddled across Otter in our inflatable rafts, and then had a lot of fun fishing and swimming before heading up the waterfall to Azurite. There was no trail to follow here, so I scouted out a possible route, and then returned to take another pack up the mountain side. At Azurite Mr. Farnell caught a nice cut throat trout. I tried fishing for awhile, but as usual had way more fun trying to be a fish myself.

Fishing at Otter

Day 4:

I was scared to get out of my sleeping bag because hovering over my head were nearly 50 hungry mosquitoes and deer flies, all impatiently waiting for breakfast. I eventually did make it out of bed, but not without a bloody fight.We paddled across Azurite and made yet another climb up the mountain side to Angeline which I would say was the biggest and prettiest of all the lakes.At Angeline I caught 5 nice fish by drifting along the shore in my paddle boat, and David caught a really pretty 14 or 15 inch rainbow trout.After a refreshing swim, and washing up my laundry, Suzanne and I climbed a nearby peak which allowed us to see Delta, Otter, Azurite, Chetwood, Angeline, and Big Heart almost all at the same time.  That night we enjoyed lots of fresh fish and chili Mac for dinner, and then the older kids stayed up with Suzanne and I to sing songs in the moon light until we got too cold.

Fish at Angeline

Veiw of Delta from Angeline

Day 5:

We woke up with wet sleeping bags from the heavy dew so we waited until the sun was high enough to dry our bags before breaking camp.

We paddled across Angeline, then made our last climb up the mountain side to a ridge were we met up again with the trail which took us down to Big Heart, and then down to Little Heart where we camped for the night.

Little heart was a really cool lake, the water was very warm, and the fish would bit at almost anything. I had inflated my paddle boat and gone to a remote part of the lake were there was a type of lagoon with a small waterfall lazily dipping down the moss coved walls of a nearby mountain cliff into the lake. While

Root beer floats and watermellon

I was fishing, a little mouse came out and sat on rock just watching me for over half an hour. I must admit it was quite entertaining.  I almost caught two fish on one lure, as a fish was trying to take the lure out of the fishes’ mouth that I had caught until I took him out of the water at which point he ran away no doubt very thankful that he had not succeeded in steeling is friends lunch! Another time I threw the line out, and thought I’d let the lure sink a little ways, but a fish bit it and started running away before even knew what was happening. After catching my limit, including a nice 15 inch cut throat. I wanted to go swimming, but dinner was ready so I went and enjoyed some really good broccoli soup and fried fish.

We took a long break at the highest point on our trek

The big one

Day 6:

After a rough night with some wild dreams, I woke up to Mr. Farnell shouting “It’s raining!” All of a sadden the whole tarp I had been sleeping on seemed to leap at once with every one jumping out of their bags and quickly stuffing them in their stuff sacks. It took me awhile to see strait until I heard David saying to his son Jonathan – “come on Jonathan get out of bed, it’s raining.” “All right! All right! I said sitting up, half smirking. I never did feel a drop of rain, but we sure got on the trail early that morning.

Hiking by copper and trout lakes we completed our loop that morning and loaded up the vehicles to head home stopping at Gold Bar to buy some root beer, ice cream, and watermelon which we ate on the tail gate of my truck in the parking lot.

It was a pretty cool trip with lots of memories made, and lessons learned. (Don’t sleep in the woods with peanut butter under your pillow.)

For His pleasure,

Jonathan

Swimming in Angeline

Swimming in Otter

Jonathan and I filtering water at Angeline

Food line

Bible reading

Line up for lake crossing

Group shot

"Ready, steady, pass the world along!"

There is so much confusion about what the gospel is, it is almost disheartening. Most believe that as long as you confess your sin, or ask God for forgiveness, you will be okay. While many others believe that you just have to try your hardest and God will decided if you were good enough on judgment day.

One lady, in response to the fact that no one can work their way to Heaven, said – “doesn’t God acknowledge our effort though? For many I would ask if they believed that Jesus died on the cross, and if so, why did he die? If the only way for you to escape the flames of Hell was for him to lay down his life in your stead, then you tell me what good is your works, if you are comparing them to the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. In all reality God acknowledges your effort as sin, if it is to earn your way to Heaven, because you are saying that your mere good deeds (mixed with your sin) are equal with the greatest sacrifice of all time, when God laid down his own life in our stead. Though you may not know it, you are despising the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ, by your works and choosing death rather than life.

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” – Proverbs 14:12 

First time I ever talked to two people in the back who didn't know eachother

Another lady said “I don’t want to go to Heaven with a God that will make people who do not accept him burn forever in Hell.” She was trying to tell me that “for ever  and ever” does not mean “for ever and ever”, in Rev. 20:10, and that the story of the rich man and Lazarus was not literal, but that people just instantly burn up and are gone who go to Hell. If that were the case then the Atheist who believes that he will just die and be no more is right, and what is so fearful about that? If that were the case then God has no more power over the soul than man who burned many thousands alive at the stake, but we know that the bible says – “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” Luke 12:4-5 

 I had a very long conversation with a young man by the name of Alex who was an evolutionist, but only because that was what he had been taught in school. He had a very open mind and after about an hour of logically thinking through the process of evolution with me, agreed that it took way more faith to believe in evolution than it did to believe “In the beginning God created…” I actually met very few people who believed in the entire evolutionary theory, but was surprised to hear many people claiming to believe in a higher power or what most of them called “the force.”

 One man stopped by who believed that Jesus taught reincarnation by not refuting his disciples question about the man who was born blind in John 9 “who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” saying that the only way for him to have sinned before he was born was if he had a previous life. It is amazing to see how creative people can get who want to believe error, rejecting crystal clear verses like Hebrews 9:27 for a misinterpretation of an unclear passage. Jesus’ disciples where not at all referring to reincarnation, but a group of the Jews at that time believed that a baby could sin in the womb by rebelling against its parents in some way.

Every thing you need to do your own fair!

Testimonies:

Here are a few of the testimonies that people wrote on their follow up cards. (These are exact quotes, only spelling and some grammar corrections have been made.)

 Alex: age 14 “It cleared up exactly what the Bible says how to get to Heaven. It was really interesting”

 Isiah: age 14 “Jesus died for us because he loved us.”

Kasey: age 14 “I learned that to get to Heaven you must believe in Jesus with your heart and not just your head and it needs to be %100”

Delany: age 15 “I learned a better understanding of the Bible and how sure I am of getting into Heaven and why I am going there.”

Violeta: “I learned how I could get to Heaven, that’s by believing in Jesus”

Mary: age 30 “Thank you… *The most superb choice to believe Jesus is your Savior. Continue sharing the word of God and serving…”

Hal: age 16 “I learned that the 10 commandments are not the reason you go to Hell” [Though the 10 commandments are the reason we deserve Hell, not believing in Jesus is the only reason a person goes to Hell]

Krissy: age 14 “The conversation gave me information I could either not understand or know before”

Nicoltte: “I learned that my sins have not prevented me from getting to heaven because my belief in Jesus Christ has guided me to God.”

Austin: “I think I should believe in God and learn more about him”

Zack: “I learned that reading the Bible and going to Church won’t get you to Heaven, you have to believe in Jesus Christ to get there.”

Danielle: “From this conversation I learned plenty that I would like to apply to my life, like trusting in Jesus and jumping off the burning building.” (I used an illustration of letting go of our dead works like a man jumping from a burning building into a fireman’s net. – You don’t really believe in the fireman until you let go of the building. You don’t really believe in Christ until you let go of any other trust you may have.)

Your servant for Christ’s sake,

Jonathan

The Lord has blessed us with yet another opportunity to witness to many thousands the  salvation that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Please pray for the Clark County Fair August 6th -August 15th

Pray that Holy Spirit will have free reign to work in and through us, convicting men of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, that they have broken God’s law and have rejected their only savior Jesus Christ. Of righteousness, that God is holy and will not let sin go unpaid for. of Judgment, that they will stand before God and give account to the judge of all the earth.

Pray that there will be few distractions, and that Satan will not be allowed to hinder those ready to believe from stopping to drink from the fountain of living waters.

Pray that there will be workers ready and able to work in this needy harvest.

Pray that we will have the supply’s needed to do the work, and that tracks and materials ordered would be sped on their way.

Hello friends,

Just wanted to let you know, if you you have any questions about the up coming wedding, or would like to write in our guest book, we have a new web page just for our wedding.

vist: www.jonathanandsuzanne.com

Praise the Lord! “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  2 Corinthians 4:6-7

This week at the Linn County Fair God open the eyes of several souls to see the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. After reveling to a young man that he had broken every single one of God’s commandments, and showing him that the wages of sin is death, I said – God cannot let any sin into Heaven, you have broken every one of God’s commandments, what are you going to do? He replied – “I can’t do anything” Amen! Realizing his hopeless condition is the first step a man must take in coming to Christ. Another young man said “That’s not fair!” after seeing his only hope of Heaven was to believe in Jesus. He thought that he should be able to earn his own way.

Although many saw the truth and said that they were not ready to believe, or were not done having fun, eight young people assuredly chose to turn from their dead works and trust Christ as their only hope of Heaven. One of them, a young man 15 years old wrote:

“I found out that by being in the grace of the Lord is the only way to reach Salvation. There is no other way to get to heaven through my devices.”

Another, Josh, 18 years old wrote:

“I have now understood how life will be, and that I know if I trust my life to him that I will be saved”

Several others also may have trusted Christ after hearing the gospel at the fair, but were not ready to make that choice right then. Three boys in particular were wandering around the fair and did not want to stop, so I said “what are going to do, just wander around and look at stuff?” “That’s the plan” they said. “Well may I show you just two verses?” They were reluctant, but agreed, so I showed them 1 John 5:11&13 closed my Bible and began to show them what those verses meant for them. About 45 min. later they did not want to leave, but I had brought them as far as I could, It was now up to them whether they would believe or not. Although I very easily could have had them pray and “ask Jesus into their heart,” I told them it was a very serious decision that they had to make on their own. I pray that they will make the right choice. Before they left I said “you may think you are young now, and you have your whole life in front of you, but I can take you a grave yard and show the tomb stones of any age group you want. And don’t forget – 10 out of 10 people die.”

Along with those who stopped and intently listened, there were many scoffers. One man walking by sneeringly said “Three things God cannot do: Keep a promise, come and get us, take us home.” Another said “God can’t save me” A woman said “I don’t do church.” After being asked if they were standing before God right now, and God said why should I let you into heaven? Many said, because I’m awesome, because I tried to do right, because I’m a good person, because God forgives… And many things like that. There were several others though, like one young girl who excitedly said “because of my savior!”

This morning I am heading down to the California State Fair, please, please pray!!!

Your servant for Jesus Sake.