Life @ Montrose, July 24

This Sabbath Gordon Reichard is going to share with us about the importance of listening to God's Word. His message is entitled "2 Good Ear" . . . "and you still can't hear." We live in grave peril when we refuse to hear the Word of the Lord, or more frequently, when we simply ignore the Word of the Lord. Stick around after church for our summer church potluck.

Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I gave presentations at Wyoming Camp Meeting about Ellen White as model evangelist. We had a great time meeting with church members from Wyoming and northern Colorado. As I met with people I heard many people tell me they belonged to a church with 20 members or less. So Wyoming Camp Meeting is an extra special opportunity for people to get together from across the least populous state in our country (I learned that Wyoming has a population of just over 500,000).

On Friday afternoon we drove up from Wyoming Camp Meeting to Yellowstone to speak at the Yellowstone Lodge and for our family to take a few days of personal time to spend time together in nature and as a family. On our way down to speak at the Lodge we saw two wolf puppies (there was no mistaking them since as puppies they were bigger than Coyotes!). In fact we saw a lot of wildlife while we were up there. On Sunday we saw a mamma grizzly with her cub (we couldn't see the cub since the grass was so high). Later on we saw two more grizzlies that popped out of the bushes near where our car was parked. A real highlight for us was getting to see two bull moose on the way out of the Tetons as we headed home on Tuesday. This past year, like down here, was a great winter for snow and all the extra moisture has made for the best wildflower season in more than a decade. There were flowers everywhere. It helped me to imagine just how beautiful heaven is going to be.

Have you started on your summer canning/freezing? Today our family is going to go out this morning to pick apricots and hopefully pick up some Olathe sweet corn. It is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. We've also been enjoying all of the yummy vegetables from our garden. Emma really likes beets. We have to take her down to her diaper because she becomes red just like the beat. She is a very enthusiastic eater of beets.

Last but not least I want to tell you another Emma story. While we were setting up camp Friday evening I was putting up the tent and Heidi got the campfire going. As soon as I was done I lit the small backpack stove we have. I turned around to stoke the fire and before I had a chance I saw that Emma had picked up the red bottle of fuel. Some of you probably know that Emma has a red water bottle she likes to carry around. So there she was twirling like a whirling dervish with the campstove on fire going in circles. I quickly grabbed it and we went on with our meal. Emma did not know how dangerous that was. It is sometimes just like us how we get ourselves in trouble and look with innocent eyes to God wondering why we get ourselves in trouble. We need to trust God and by His grace avoid fiery situations.