MY WIFES DEATH chapter 253

As it has most likely become painfully obvious to the few of you still attempting to follow my blog, I am no longer making entries. The time has come to bring it to an end. There will be 2-3 entries following this one in order to deal with the major events of my life.

I am currently writing a book and am on a deadline. I fine that I cannot write in both places and keep up the pace. Then there is the issue of this old man’s eyes getting tired.

In fairness, I was never sure what I was going to do regarding my story after I left Canby, but here’s a summary.

My wife dies on Fathers Day in 1992. Her diagnosed illness was short lived. We knew her breathing was becoming more difficult in the fall of 1991. We were repeatedly told it was asthma, but she responded to none of the treatment. In January of 1992 we were finally referred to a specialist and told it was emphysema and informed there was no cure. We were told is was likely she had at least two years to live.

It was obvious that she was going to need more care than my traveling was going to allow. Sensing this, I turned down the job I had always wanted for two reasons: 1) it would increase my travel, and 2) it would removed us from a very good support group. I wanted to be home nights to care for her and her friends would come around her when necessary. They were so wonderful I could not bear to take her out of the environment.

When an opportunity came up to apply for the job as job as executive pastor at Salem Alliance, I believed it could work. I would be home most nights and we were close enough to Canby to have her support continue. We candidated at Salem at the end of April. She went to the hospital the next with pneumonia. After two days there, she returned home. Everything appeared better until the a week before Father’s Day. She appeared to be getting pneumonia again on Friday. On Saturday friends John and Donna Barach arrived for a visit. Donna and Della had been childhood friends and we were all in Bible College together. Clearly we could all see that she was no feeling well, but being a very stubborn lady, she refused to rest or leave her guest or ask them to leave. She wanted the there.

After they left (early then planning), I told her I was going to take her to the hospital. She refused. I felt like I would have had to knock her out and carry her to the car. I accepted it, but told if that if she was not better on Sunday, she was going. She was worse. At the hospital they eased her pain a bit and said they were going to do a biopsy Monday morning. I was with her early on Monday staying until she was taken for the biopsy. I told her I was run some errands that needed to be done and be back when they brought her to her room.

When returning, I was taken to ICU. I was told she was not year ready to be moved and that the doctor would come and talk to me. I had returned to the hospital be 1:00 and was the only one in the waiting room. The doctor did not come out until 4:30, Meanwhile, I am watching a lot of equipment being taken into ICU and it didn’t take long to believe it was for Della.

Eventually, the doctor came and told me that her lungs has collapsed droning the tests and she was on a ventilator, but she would never be able to breath on her own. She doubted Della would survive more than a day or two. She never spoke to me again after I kissed her, said goodbye and told her I would see her later.

She passed away the following Sunday as I was returning to the hospital after sleeping that night. Her mother, brother and sister were at the house.

Rod was living on the streets of Portland and during that week, people from the church searched Portland try8ing to find him. He had a certain look and they approached everyone with a similar appearance and asked if they knew Rod please give him a message to call his father. He got back to me, but would not come to see her. After she passed away, we found him again and asked him to come to her funeral. He refused, but showed up in time.

I had resigned at the district and was to begin in Salem in September. I had two responsibilities left. Family Campo was first, but it pretty well ran its self. Many stepped in to help. The other was administrative director for LIFE 92. At that point in time I one wrote down what others needed to know. I had normally stored my part in my head and had done that with a great many details of LIFE 92. Rob McCelland, a good friend and former pastor in our district flew out and spent a week with me to glean the details and get them on paper. I could not have done it without him. I was still deeply stunned by Della’s death. Rhonda and Chris came to help out. They were not yet engaged.

That August, I took both my kids to New York and the east coast to build new memories. They were new alright. While Rhonda and I had a good time, Rod separated from us and told us he was not coming back. We left him and returned, but my heart was broke.

NEXT: Rodney’s life

QUIZZING STRUGGLES chapter 252

I have always had quizzers who thought quizzing would be fun. I was, but it was also a lot of work. I somewhat viewed to program as an outlet the studious kid. You needed somewhat of a love for study to do well in the program.

I never minded the quizzers coming along for the fun of the program. I believed there was always some spiritual benefit and I loved them for sticking with it. On the other size, keeping quizzers motivated was why I developed so many games for practices. Simply quizzing only at a practice was very hard on the bottom ranked quizzers. So turning it around in as many ways as possible kept them interested. I included every game I every created and ones from other coached in the Coaches Manual I wrote for the C&MA in 1974. I haven’t a clue what even one of them was any more. I doubt there are even any copies of the manual around. I was shocked to realize I had a copy of my thesis. I had to get rid of so many things every time I downsized. The next move will have me living in a cardboard box.

I greatly struggled with kids in the program who never made a connection is Christ. There weren’t very many. If the interest in knowing God and getting deeper into a walk with Him wasn’t there, most left the program fairly quickly. There was one however, who gave me pause. I did not believe one could or would ever become a top quizzer while rejecting Christianity and knowing the savior. I didn’t really know what to do. I confess I really did not want him representing our district at top-level competitions. There were no rules that said you had to be a believer. If anything I always believed if one stuck with the program for a whole year they could come to know Christ.

The boy was never antagonistic, not did he demonstrate a rejection of faith in quizzes, but you ran into it in personal or small group conversations. Sometimes his actions would be embarrassing. I could not understand what was happening and why God had not changed his heart. Believe me, I prayed for that often.

I tried to keep track of him from time to time and each piece of news I would get did not bring news of a transformed life. I did reach a point where I accepted that he was in Gods hands and that I may never know what was going on in his heart, nor did I know, nor would I likely know the end result of God’s work. I choose to believe in the power of the word of God to transform a life at anytime.

Not every quizzer has or will remain faithful to Christ. I know that. It was his position that was a concern. I would a great deal with recovering addict at this point in my life. In fact, the writing project I have undertaken is the life story of a woman who has touched the lives of thousands and continues to this day. Her own story is one of a redeemed shipwreck. I understand better the ebb and low of relapse and recovery. As I reflect on my own life and the lives of most believers, we are not much different from the men and women I now see every week. Their uses are in the open for all to see. Many of us good church going people do a much better job of hiding the ups and downs of our walk with God.

I like, everyone I know, have had the ebb and flow of a strong to weak and maybe even non-existent walk with God. That is why I love the life of King David – the man after God’s own heart.  What a terrific God believing and God following youth he was. Maybe it was power that went to his head, or maybe it was simply the sinful and lustful natural of man that took over, but he not only committed adultery, he had a man murdered to cover it up. Then, by the grace of God he is restored to a wonderful and positive walk with God. Later, one son rapes one of his daughters – maybe a problem of multiple wives and the lust of life. But the law requires that Amnon be stoned. He does not do it. He puts it off and tries to let it slide under the carpet. However, his daughter’s birth brother does not forget and begins to hate his father David for not doing what was right. Absalom plans his revenge and punishes his father for his lack for his lack of obedience. He attempts to overthrow the kingdom of David.

This is only two of possibly many ups and downs in David’s life with God. He is on track, he falls away, he is on track, and he falls away. Maybe in a more drastic way that most, but he was not a straight arrow always going higher and higher in his walk with God. And this we know, but reading the Psalms, David’s thoughts on life. Only God knows and we do not know whom he will choose to build His kingdom or at what point in their life he will call them out.

THE NOTES I RECEIVED Part 3 chapter 251

I attempted to try and find out who won International Championships each of the years until I left the district Office. I went online to see if Alliance Life, our national magazine, to see if they reported. Well, as long as Dan Rinker was Youth Director, there was an article every year naming the top three teams. Next was Robert Mar quart in that job and he never wrote a report. Sadly, Robert didn’t care much for the program and mostly just let it go on with little or no enthusiasm. Daryl Dale took over at the National Christian Education Director when I came to replace him in the PNW. He was spread too thin taking on the entire field when there had been two people before. He was a fried of quizzing, but his heart was a friend of Sunday School. Articles were rare. But I only found two reports during my years in the Pacific Northwest District: 1990: 1. Western Pennsylvania, 2. Pacific Northwest, 3. Canadian Midwest. 1991: 1. Central, 2. PNW, 3. South Atlantic. And I think it was 1992 that we finally one when Tony was the coach. We always did very well as I recall. Usually in the top three. Often a bridesmaid, but rarely the bride.

Andrew Campbell – staccato comments

- The invitational trips to Montana- I have one particular memory of being stopped by road construction, and you got out of the second van and "Oreoed" the first one's windows. We would stay on the Thursday night at Garland Avenue Alliance in Spokane, and that was always a highlight- sitting in a circle and talking about what we hoped to get out of the trip.

- Dave and Gini Lincicome coached Internationals maybe twice, 1985-86?  Jim and Diane Westfall coached from 1987 or 86?) through 1991, when they overlapped with Tony.  Tony coached from 1992 into the 2000s.  PNW finished 2nd in 1991, losing in the third quiz of finals on another quizzer's (a pen-pal paramour of mine from Ohio, to be exact) perfect 4th answer.  PNW had finished 3rd in both 1989 and 1990, and finally won decisively in 1992 (losing only one quiz the entire meet) and then again in 1993.

Melinda Lipsey Grow

I quizzed 1983-85, went to internationals in 1985 with Jayna, Steve Forrest, Kevin Donaldson, Toby Bass, and Roy Fenn coaching. Then went to china for a year, and returned for 1986/87. Our internationals team in 1987 was Toby, Jayna, Terri Taber, Greg Lincicome, and me, with Jim & Diane Westfall coaching. I continued as a coach (at North Seattle Alliance with Kyle Hogan) and was a quizmaster until at least 1996, I think.

FROM JAYNA  (Peterson) SAMUELSON

I quizzed from '82-'87 and know that you took us to Life '86 in Colorado Springs. In '84 I don't remember where Internationals was held, but we studied Romans/James that year. In '85 we went to St. Paul (on Gospel of John); in '86 it was in CO (on Acts); then in '87 it was in Nyack on 1 & 2 Cor.

NOTE: We did not go tot Colorado Springs, but to Fort Collins. I was there at LIFE, but not the coach. I was directing the daily programs in the gym.

Kristi Kroon Kong

I quizzed for North Seattle Alliance from fall of 1984 through spring of 1987 (John/Acts/I & II Corinthians). Roy and Dave were quizmasters. Abbotsford team quizzed in our district through '86, I believe. In college, I helped out with scorekeeping and married Tony in May 1990.

Alan Sohn

Dallas fielded its first team in fall of 85 - I remember Kevin Oberg, Robin, Dale Miller as well as myself all being on it. I only quizzed for 2 years (Acts and I/II Corinthians) but made lasting friendships and grew in so many ways because of it.

Dawn Morris Reed

I started in the fall of '81, the first year Canby Alliance fielded a team, and continued until '86. The first year was Matthew, and is it my imagination or was that year still KJV? (ED: it was the KJV) I never was good enough to make internationals, but I did get to make the Montana trip in '86. I was one of your youth group kids, too, and attended LIFE '86. If you want more info on the Canby kids, I can send you a different message so I don't hijack this post! I think I have several of the PNW Quizzer. (ED: Thanks for the NEWSLETTERS)

LINCICOMES

We started with the May Valley quiz team in 1976 and stayed around till 1996. Went to internationals twice as coaches and an additional 2 times as parents of quizzers. Quizzing gave us some of the best times shared with students we loved. The trips to Montana, San Fran. (ED: Another one I don’t remember) plus all the weekend meets........ We got to watch you in action and were always impressed with the skillful way you managed and loved the entire program and all the unique individuals who came through the quizzing experience.

Doesn't take long when old quizzers get together to get the stories flowing. Was a blessing in our lives and a blessed time that continues to put a smile on our face and joy in our hearts!!

I had very clear goals for Bible Quizzing. Ones I had from the very beginning. First, I never wanted the competition to overtake the Spirit of God at work in the lives of youth. To that end there was never to be applause for a missed question, only support and encouragement.

Second, There would be an emphasis on prayer and the application of the word. That also meant meetings would end with the opportunity for quizzers to share what God was do0ing in their lives.

Third, and this has been a goal in all my life and ministries replace myself. Therefore, as the program grew and we moved to multiple quiz locations, I wanted and needed more quizmasters. After a number were active, I wanted to turn the whole thing over to them as they were all doing a great job. The entire youth program of the district was expanding as were speaking opportunities. Something had to give.

Thanks to all you sent me notes. You have blessed me and reminded me of many great memories

Maybe this long post will make up for the many I have missed lately.

THE BIBLE AND GREAT FRIENDS Part 2 chapter 250

The great benefit of Bible quizzing, apart from learning the Bible, was always the friends that were made. Teams looked forward to getting together, spending the night in each other’s homes and catching up with one another. I also loved that connection.

Someone I had completely forgotten about going to Montana for meets with two or three Canadian districts and the Rocky Mountain District. It seems impossible that would happen when so much happened.

It was an interesting challenge to get everyone picked up along the way for that trip. I would start out with any quizzers from Oregon, then we would hook up, usually in a couple of different place, with Western Washington quizzers then head out for a night on the hard wooden floor of Garland Avenue Alliance Church in Spokane. The next leg took us to the Montana camp with everyone would get together for a weekend of fun and competition.

The concept of this meet came out of two ideas. First I had a letter from Tim Vincent from the Canadian Midwest District. Tom was from Outlook, Saskatchewan and a member of one of CMD International Championship teams. He was directing the quiz program for the CMD at that time. From that discussion came the idea to reward a larger number of kids than could go to Internationals with higher level of competition. To that end, we took the top 15 quizzers.

I forgot who first brought up the Montana trip, maybe Andy? but that lead to a photo of me in the van on the trip. Then, of course, there was the Oreo thing. Andy said it happened at a stop for construction, I think it was at a stop for food and gas. One person in my van wanted to spray shaving cream on the other van. I didn’t want that to happen as there is (or was) some chemical in that stuff that could take the paint off a car. So, I admit, I came up with the idea to pull Oreos apart and stick them on the windows. You have to understand that it was a compassionate decision. I CARED. Besides, Oreos come off much easier.

We always introduced the team at Family Camp before leaving for Internationals. Two reasons: The team was spread all over the district and we needed to get in another practice and there was always the hope that another church would join in. Sometimes it worked.

I always loved Bible Quizzing. When Dan Rinker was the National Youth Director for the C&MA he would call me “The father of Alliance quizzing.” I would tell him that was impossible; I was too young to be a father. Now I must be the grandfather.

QUIZ NEWSLETTERS #2 chapter 249

I cannot remember how many newsletters there were, but this on is from 1986. It is possible the newsletters were only done at the end of the year. There newsletter reports a quizzing master change from Roy to Tony.

Seeing these photos reminds me that for a time we had an International competition on a regular bases since Abbotsford competed right along with out district Churches. Then there was Kevin. He started at may Valley and the family moved to Alaska and he continued to commute for quizzes. That was commitment.

QUIZ NEWSLETTERS #1 chapter 248

     I am indebted to Dawn (Morris) Reed for scanning and sending me these copies of some of the PNW newsletters from back in the day. It may be of some interest to the old-timers. I was trying to check out some info to prepare for writing about quizzing and ran into a current PNW sight. That gave me an ideas as to how big quizzing is these days. Must be a great number of churches and teams.

     Back to the matter at hand. Enjoy the memories.

Memories. There are names here I can barely remember. These newsletter sizes were all over the place. 2 pages, 4 pages and at least one that had 8 pages. I think that happened because we began to include more photos. 

BIBLE QUIZZING part 1 chapter 247

I arrived to a nicely organized and well-run Bible quiz program in the fall of 1980. I wish I could remember the churches that were involved, but I mostly remember some of the kids and not where they were from. It wasn’t a very large program and with the size of the district, I knew it could be much bigger. I set out to make sure every church knew about the program. Quizzing was part of my plan to help bring district youth together. If they saw each other at quiz meets they would want to see each other at camps, retreats, LIFE and other event planned for you. I tried to expose the district to quizzing through the newsletter posting scores and team placement. Since LIFE always followed family camp there was an exhibition most years and family camp was a place to bring the sometimes wide spread team together for their last practice.

Andy asked what lead to the growth of quizzing and I would say the promotion helped, but nothing was more affective than enthusiastic quizzers.

My memories of the program are not linier and as has been the case at most places over the years it begins to appear to me that everyone I knew was involved in quizzing at the same time. So my thoughts will be rather random.

One of the strangest incidents was a church involved for only one year with a pastor better suited to a different denomination. He was not happy at how our girls dressed. He wanted them in skirts or dresses below the knee. The slacks and shorts were certainly apropos from his point of view. We went round and round about that and he ultimately pulled his team out of the program over the issue. I most bothered by the damage I saw being done to those kids.

Because of the size of our district, ever meet was an overnighter and each church had the responsibility to house and feed the visiting teams. There is no questions that part if not all of the fun had to do with that side of the program.

When I arrived the program would be run with one quizmaster and I left needing three in three locations all running at the same time. We started with a group of kids and ended with a mob. I understand that now there is a herd.

I got involved in quizzing at the beginning for one reason: to see teen’s lives impacted by the Word of God. I believed and still do that having memorized scripture it will be in your head the rest of your life. Not to that same extent, but sufficient to influence your life and life’s decisions. I have seen it hundreds or times.

I have always believed that the point of ministry is to equip others to use their gifts to serve the Lord. To that end I have always tried to move myself to the side remaining only in an administrative role. To that end, I like to work myself out of a job, so to speak. To that end, no program I ever ran was more successful t doing that that in Bible quizzing. I didn’t know when I began to step aside, but Andy tells me it was 1987. First we need more quizmasters. Second other responsibilities kept me from taking the team to Internationals and several people clearly wanted to do that job. I didn’t want to take that joy away from them, or more honestly, I didn’t have the time. Another side of it was that I began in quizzing in high school and had been at most every year thirty years and was getting a little tired. Not enough to quit, but enough to want to step back. The wisdom of the decision was more apparent when I knew I would need to leave the district, but had no idea that was going to happen when I began including more and more people.

Besides adding quizmasters and encouraging several others to coach at Internationals, there was score keeping. I hope I have this right, but I believe it was Mr. Beatty who approached me about designing an automatic score-keeping program. I was very enthusiastic. It took some time to get it right, but he did an absolutely fabulous job. It made it so much easier to do that job and to determine the top quizzers and quickly determine averages. That improved the program immensely.

NEXT: some of the fun, the newsletters, and observations of others

ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR chapter 246

I have always believed that the biggest joke perpetrated on Canadian Bible College was 1985 when they selected me as the Alumnus of the Year.

I’m not denying that things weren’t going well for me, they were. The Pacific Northwest District was recognized as one of the most aggressive districts in the field of Christian education. We had large a delegation to LIFE, I was now on the LIFE Committee at the program director, I was being asked to fly around the country to various training venues, our quiz team, while not National champs were doing well, we were aggressively hiring youth pastors in as many churches as could afford one and our newsletter was going all over the country being read by many national leaders. Things were going great from most people’s point of view.

What made me laugh was my history with the school. I almost got kicked out. They tried. The only thing that stopped them was I had not quite sinned enough.

Bill Russell was on the CBC Alumni Association and pushed my name through, and he wanted someone from the infamous years of deans as spies to be selected. No one who was actually kicked out was going to get through the selection system, but I had a hope. I had only been away from the school for five years. I was still remembered for The Portrait Players and Youth Conference and I was building a descent reputation in the USA as key player in Christian Education. My name had already been discussed as a possible CE representative on the national Board of Directors and I was the heir apparent as the next National Youth Director. I had a lot of what people want in an alumni selection.

What no one knew but Bill and I was that it was his joke on the school. If would have been pretty funny if we hadn’t recently begun a major conflict with our son. I had made some huge mistakes, was embarrassed by him and my actions were certainly questionable. I had had so many emotional conflicts that I was seriously considering resigning and the personal turmoil had cause me to cancel many speaking engagements. I had nothing to say and if I did, I didn’t want to say it. I was accepting engagements and canceling them after I published the travel calendar. I was keeping up appearances.

I had explained all this to Bill when he called to ask me to leave my name in the hat for consideration. I didn’t think I should, but Bill felt the time was ripe and he loved the idea of the conflicts I was in. Since I have had serious doubts about any real abilities most of the life (a childhood issue, no doubt) I left my name reasoning that no one in the right mind would vote for me anyway. I won, now what?

They flew me to Regina to accept the honor, and it was an honor, but I was struggling to even speak coherently. I had a descent opening but got lost after that and wandered aimlessly through the rest of my talk not knowing enough to shut up and sit down. I made many people regret selecting me. That was no my intention, just my state. I swear Bill had a sadistic streak as he thought the weekend was wonderful. It may have been tolerable, but it was far from wonderful.

I did get myself together by that summer.

ON THE HOME FRONT chapter 245

Both Rodney and Rhonda had been involved in competitive swimming from the second year of our arrival in Canby. In High School they also competed for the local swim club, “The Gators” and their high school. They both held held swim records of Canby High briefly, Rod in the breaststroke and Rhonda in the backstroke.

I tried to be around for all the swim meets, but didn’t always make it. The kids both earned lifesaving badges and began working as lifeguards at the Canby pool when they turned fourteen.  Rhonda went on to work for Canby Grove Conference Center as a lifeguard for several camps through the summer. She never was a lifeguard at family camp as she always went at a camper.

A little side note: The Seidel family was attending family camp from our first year in Canby. They camp with a large group from Arbor Heights. Their oldest son is Chris Seidel. He and Rhonda were at camp together for many years together. After high school the both went off to Simpson College. Rhonda began dating a young man named Todd; She brought him home for a visit on was long weekend. Neither Della nor I were impressed. He was nice enough, but lacked clear goals and ambitions.

Before Rhonda returned to Simpson she told us of another guy who kept after her even though she was dating Todd. That was Chris. Chris had remembered her from their days at camp together and was interested back then. Rhonda had no memory of any Chris Seidel.

We knew the Seidel family and liked them very much. Della and I began to pray that Todd would drift out of her life and Chris into it. Having been a college professor, I was keenly aware that most couples met and marriage their college sweethearts. While we didn’t really know Chris we knew his family and were sure that would be a better match. When we met Chris we were convinced he was a better match. They married and have three terrific kids and at this writing I live about twenty minutes from them.

Rod began to be a problem at home when he was in eighth grade. As it got worse, I seriously considered leaving ministry all together, Ralph Shellrude talked me out of it, Around the same time, Della was beginning to be hospitalized ever year for a weekend because of pneumonia. It never failed. She would go in on Friday and come out on Monday all the time. Part of the problem was the she never wanted to go and it seemed to always take a few days before I could convince he to go or made her go.

Our lives wee beginning to fall apart. We were only at the front edge of all that we would face and had no idea how bad it would become.

NEW MINISTRIES chapter 244

My great joy was always working with the various district Christian Education Committees. I was never very good at leading (or being part) very formal committees meetings. I loved the free flow and give and take of creative meetings planning and preparing for the future. The DCEC was like that: always fun, always creative, and always thinking of the future.

With the national LIFE conferences coming every four years we were looking for a ministry to bring the district youth together in between the LIFE years. LIFE was a unique bonding experience and we wanted to build on that. District Youth Congress (DYC) was the result.  We already had camps in the summer, but they had a greater regional emphasis. Neither did we want it to feel like camp. As a result we decided to put the conference eon between Christmas and New Years because we wanted to start in a hotel and their lowest occupancy was in that time period. We would get our best price then.

There was no central location for the district. At the time we were drawing youth to events from Salem to Smokey Point and Bremerton to Spokane. We considered somewhere around the Tri-cities, but ultimately settled on Portland. The reason was the number of choices and the price\ and available set up. I had checked out several cities. There was nothing in the tri0cities that was workable. Seattle was too expensive. I looked at Everett who courted me with a bottle of wine in my room. That did not impress me. Their building was too small. We selected the Red Lion Lloyd Center for the first DYC. Great location. Right next to the Lloyd Center and the MAX train that could take one downtown for free.

We stayed in Portland for the second one but moved to the Lloyd Center on Hayden Island on the Columbia River. It had easy access from I-5 and gave us access to a river cruise for one event. Author Frank Peretti was the speaker that year and I was having lunch with him the day he learned his book had gone to number one on the New York Times best seller list. He had been making skis on Vashon Island and excitedly told me he could now quit is job and be a full time writer.

This was the first time we choose to spend the extra money for a full color brochure. Daryl Smithgall was my intern this year and he ran around taking "glamour" shots of the youth pastors as thought this were some fashion magazine. We had a terrific Mens quartet called "Commission" from Nyack College.

For number three we moved to the Red Lion across the highway from the previous one. It was a little larger and we needed more space. I loved the fun we had with the 40's theme. The brochure included photos of all the youth pastors in 40's style clothing with nick names included with their name. Most wore those clothes for the program. I was on the front listening to the radio.

For the fourth one under my leadership was moved near May Valley to Camp Barakah. I was paranoid about hosting any event that cost more than $100. $99.99 was my limit. Barakah was large enough to hold us, and the cost fit my price range. The hotels were such that we would have been paying $120 or more. That was not acceptable to me.

Somewhere along the way we chose to do an Alfred Hitchcock ting and have me appear on the cover. It may not have been made at the first DYC, but it happened for three of my DYC’s. The fourth and last DYC under my term was designed by a real artist. It was at this conference where we introduced "Maximum Impact"a district wide teen outreach program. To introduce the program we made a video that worked its way around the district. It had a clip of me in my office supposedly in the planning stages of this program. It was a total mess with junk food and pizzas boxes and papers everywhere. The youth from the Portland Church were used to tell the actual story.

DYC 84

DYC 86

DYC 88

DYC 91 designed by a real artist.

FAMILY CAMP chapter 243

There were a couple of difficult years with Family Camp right at the beginning, but the program dropped into a nice rhythm and mostly went rather smoothly. However, there were exceptions. There was the night of an ice cream social after an evening service. Della and I were sitting in the dining room next to the main entrance when Daryl Smithgall came in looking for me. He came to the table and told me there was a cabin on fire. You have to know Daryl to understand my reaction, but I said something like, “Right!” Daryl was one of those people who seemed to always be smiling. I didn’t think he was serious.

“No really, a cabin’s on fire. Come look.” As Della and I walked out the front door I could hear the fire trucks coming onto the grounds and see the flashing light. There was indeed a cabin on fire. We watch with nearly everyone else the firemen put the fire out and block off the area.

The boys cabin in the youth area was a total lose. The cabin, bunks, all the boys possession were completely gone. In addition counselor Don Anderson’s car was scorched beyond repair. There was a woman in attendance that immediately swung into action and secured sleeping bag, clothes and hygiene and personal items for everyone. She had a history of community work of helping families secure fundamental needs lost in fires. By the end of the next day, she had nearly everything people needed.

What I am sitting here trying to remember is where we put those boys for the night. I am sure I left the decision to the youth leaders, but the night was so significant I should remember. Neither do I remember how Don got back to Spokane. I do know he got insurance money to help him replace the car.

The family camp band continued for several more years. I’m sorry if this seems to blunt, but the decision was made to let it fade out du to natural causes. In the third year we celebrated Herman Bohls’ fifty years of leading the band. We had two years of playing off the summer Olympics having our own family style Olympic games. We had a craft sale opened to the public at which few from the public came. It was still successful as many bought each other’s wonderful works.  

I completely lost track of the family camp of the summer of my departure. I know the literature was already out and families were registering, but it was also the summer after Della passed away. That occurred in on Father’s day in June of 1992. I had already resigned as Della and I had accepted a position at Salem Alliance Church. He illness was getting worse and I left the district to find a job where I could be home every night. Oxygen had been delivered and her strength was waning. We both knew she was going to need help and I no longer wanted to be on the road at all. The decision came at a difficult point. I had been asked to accept the National Youth Directors position, a job I had wanted for a number of years. But I had no intention of moving Della to Colorado Springs where we did not know anybody and where I would be on the road for even long periods of time that in the northwest. I didn’t even want to take a job far from Canby. Della had too many close friends whom I know would help care for her. Salem seemed to be a good fit.

No only did I have family Camp to complete before leaving the district, I was the administrative director of LIFE ’92 and regretfully, that could not go on without me. I still had too much stuff in my head and little of it on paper. Rob, a member of the LIFE committee came and spent a week with me helping to get the logistics on paper and then was my right hand man for the event. In addition, Rhonda and her then boyfriend Chris Seidel, came along and worked in that area for the week.

A few of the Family Camp flyers.

I'm not sure why I did a patriotic theme, but it was bold.

This was the other brochure using a an Olympic theme.

Big mistake. Thought I was being so clever. This was the height of generic promotions. The plain white label was all over grocery stores. Got plenty of feed back that there was nothing generic about "our" family camp.

This is one of my favorite camp brochures. It had the application inside and could also be used as a poster. I hadn't drawn people for years and loved the change to draw and not just design. Planned big family olympics.

Tried to give the brochure a =n antique feel to celebrate 50 years with Herman Bohl. One night we had a giant cake in his honor.

I sat over by the camp office and drew this view of the old lodge. Took two days but both were beautiful, relaxing and I was alone both days. Need this break.

I'm not sure I design this brochure. It may have come out while I was dealing with Della's illness, It doesn't look like my work. We all have a certain touch that marks things as out own.

THE PLAYS THE THING chapter 242

For those of you who read this blog regularly, I apologize. I have taken on a huge task that is consuming my life. I am now writing 7-9 hours a day and when I finish that work, I am weary of writing. But I am not going to stop till I at least leave Canby, there will just be fewer entries, possibly only two or three a week and I have no idea when they will appear. The middle of the week is the most likely. I realize I am past due.

I couldn’t leave drama completely when I came to Canby. I began again with the Christmas program at my church during my second year. I put it together more as a pageant than a play. I pulled out all the old skits from my first Christmas program with the Portrait Players then added pieces for all the little kids, had adult music groups sing to help make transitions. By using short skits I could involve a great many people and not have many rehearsals. The approach worked, people liked it and it wasn’t to hard on my schedule.

The next year I mounted a production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I knew I wanted to do a play based on the book as soon as my first program was completed. I began contacting every company I could think of to try and find a copy of the play. The book is perfect for a stage production. No play distributer that I knew had the play. In February I had hit a brick wall so wrote the book publisher to get permission to adapt a play from the book. I didn’t hear back and didn’t hear. In September I decided to go ahead and adapt the book and hope and pray for the best. I hoped permission would come before we got too far in the play.

My kids loved the book. We had read it as a family that Christmas and Rhonda was a major influence on me adapting the play. She wanted to play Gladys, the littlest Herdman and the one who played the angel in the pageant. She had asked a number of times to be in a play I had directed and she was the right age and size and I didn’t know if I would ever have another opportunity if I missed this one.

I didn’t have much trouble casting the play. I had several kids with the ambition to act. Some were very good. I had to talk a few others into coming on board. I wrote my adaptation and we began rehearsal at the first of November. I had never worked with kids and keeping their attention was a challenge. There is a scene where one of the Herdman boys gets in a fight with another boy. We blocked the fight scene out and had rehearsed it several times, then came the explosion. Chad (the fighting Herdman) was accidentally actually hit in one rehearsal and he stormed out the church angry and mad more than hurt. He said he was never coming back. He hated this old play.

He reaction was a problem. He was the oldest Herdman boy and key to the show. I couldn’t replace him. I had no one. Even if I did have someone to replace him it was too close to the opening to change actors.

I talked with him, his mother talked with him. We tried to explain that what happened was an accident. No one meant to hurt him. In reality, he wasn’t hurt/ He was barely touched. It was just the idea that he got hit and he never really liked the boy who hit him. Fortunately he showed up at the next rehearsal and we went on.

The Monday before our Friday three day opening, I finally got a letter from the publisher about my request to adapt the book for a play. I was denied. We were too close to the show and kids expectations were too high not to do the show. I filed the letter appropriately saying to myself that they had ten months to get back to me. I did the play anyway without telling anyone I did not have the rights.

Wouldn’t you know it? The next year there was a stage production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and the script was now for sale. I was very pleased that their script and mine were very similar. I filed that under experience gained. The kids had fun, did a great job and Rhonda got to play Gladys. That was the end of her career. Acting was hard work. Too much waiting and too much of the same thing over and over.

In 1990 I pulled a few guys together to produce The Cell, another one I has done in Regina. As I would sit in church week after week and look at the height of the baptismal tank, I kept seeing the stage  as a dungeon. All we needed was a door at the top and stairs. We got a fair amount of publicity from this. The Canby Herald covered the story as did the Oregonian. All the actors knew what the set would look like as we had talked about it quite often. We had rehearsed the play many rime but the stairs were placed only for final week leading up to the performances. At out first on set and full costume rehearsal, my leader character was to have a fight on the stairs with a guard. When he gets up in place to do the scene he announces that he is afraid of heights. When one was aqt the top it did look a longs ways down, especially with no railing.

AYF in CANBY 241b

Our attempt at a sand sculpture. About 5' long.

Kites at Lincoln City

Can't to to the beach and not bury someone.

Don Esau

Canby was close enough to take the group to the beach at Lincoln City a couple of times. Oregon beaches are mostly sandy and the water is always cold. You can find a lot of washed up and in a few places. 

AYF in CANBY chapter 241a

Pastor Tim Barton left Canby to return to school. I went to work on his Masters degree. That left the youth group without a leader and being a parent of a young teenager, I really wanted her to have a youth group. Diana Wrigglesworth, another parent, and I worked together to keep the program running. It was an opportunity to practice what I preached.

It was a bigger challenge that I expected. I started writing a series of letters about working with youth that circulated letters between myself, Len Kageler at North Seattle and De Hicks in Spokane. I wish I still had those as they were funny and encouraging. I was learning from two of the best our district had.

One of the strangest meetings we had was a “boring party.” We did nothing but sit around. Everyone was to act bored and the grad prize was an all expense paid trip to Boring, Oregon – about 30 miles of so from Canby. If a person laughed or smiled they were out of the competition. We ate boring food – maybe water and crackers, I’m not sure. We played a few slow and dull games. Julie Beko won. Diane and I took her to Boring to have her photo taken at the Boring, OR welcome sign. It was boring.

Tubing

We had a winter retreat at a cool place with a nice tubing hill on site. Don Esau, a young guy studying to be a lawyer joined Diane and I by then and he with several parent came along to help for the weekend. We had a great group of kids and plenty of fun until a large group piled on a tube ride (against instructions) that cause one girl to get a separated shoulder. That was a problem. We were not close to a hospital. That pretty well drained the joy. Fortunately it was near the end of our time together.

Lunch prep

Lunch

Meal Clean-up

Tubing hill. The black blobs are people
caring their tubes back up the hill.

YOUTH PASTORS chapter 240

      The retreat with the youth leaders I had was at small house on that Hood Canal that accommodated the ten of us. I can still picture that house in my mind, but I can’t find it. I have driven up and down the canal looking for it, but can find nothing familiar.

It had been a home converted into a retreat center. Two bedrooms were decorated with mementos of movie stars. I think one was Clark Cable the other might have been Jean Harlow or someone like that. The place was very small and we got to know one another rather well. When I think of Youth leader gatherings I always think of that one because it was just a dream of a session.

What could we do to bring our district together and help teens in smaller churches feel like they were part of something big! We may have laughed more than we planned, but out of that came the kernel for District Youth Congress (DYC). We felt like we needed (or wanted) an event in the winter to balance summer camps.

Ken Overstreet, Dr. Joseph Aldrich,
Ken Hutchinson, Northbound, Diller
and Anderson, Taproot Theatre Co.

We worked on the first DYC for two years and rolled it out December 26-26, 1984 at the Red Lion Inn at Lloyd Center in Portland. Hotels are nearly empty between Christmas and New Years. We got the best rental price at that time of year. It was a huge upgrade over the camps we were using and our prayer was that they would not destroy the place. We did all but demand that there be an adult or responsible party in every room. When that wasn’t possible we tried to assign adjoining rooms.

We did have a problem but I took the LIFE Conference approach. Come down hard, fast and make no public announcement. That meant sending someone home which we did it the first night. To make this really successful and a deterrent for others, they need to know the consequences. We make sure the punishment was leaked so you have immediate control. It always worked.

I’m not sure how the tradition began. Maybe we had seen to many Alfred Hitchcock movies where he always inserted himself in the film. Well, I was on the cover of ever conference flyer. We thought as much about the theme and promotion as we did about the program. There was always a tie in somehow.

There was a sense in which I felt like the days in the district office was my greatest success as a youth leader. I genuinely cared about the people I worked with in all sizes of churches, but I deeply invested in the youth pastors and tried to expand the number in the district. I recruited them and did my best to place them. We always had great teams.

DYC 88 Rick Enloe, Kenny Marks, Commission

DYC 89 Frank "Da Speaker" Peretti, Bill DRAKE and all sixteen district youth pastors

The core group was Greg Collard (actions chairman of the District CE Committee until my arrival), De Hicks, Bonnie Govinchuck, Tom Osborn, Brenda Carlton, Len Kagler, myself and I cannot remember the others.