The Manitou Incline!

Wow - now that's a hike! One mile in length, gaining 2100 feet of elevation! The Manitou Incline used to be a train line, but the tracks are now gone, leaving about 5,000 railroad ties to hike up!

Anyway, a group of 13 of us (including Caleb and Anna!) met at 5:30am to begin the assault. Anna and Dad made it about 3/4ths of the way up before bailing out on a shortcut to the trail. Everyone else made it! The record time that I heard was 40 minutes, set by Eric Gaston. (Hhhmmm – when my broken toe gets better I am going to have to challenge that record!)

Great fun, good exercise, God’s mountainside!!!

Offer accepted!!

God is good, ____ _____ ______ ! Thanks for the prayers! Our offer on the house was accepted, and now we are moving forward with all the other hoops and hurdles. We are still working out the details of the loan, and trusting God to bring in the necessary finances!

All the time, God is good!

Future Housing?!?

Well, we have all been praying for quite some time, and now here we are – on the threshold of seeing a major prayer request answered!! We made an offer on this house on July 25, and now we are in the process of seeing how the whole thing turns out!!!

Please pray that (1) the offer is accepted, (2) the loan goes through, and (3) that the money comes in for the down payment! This is a huge prayer request for us, as we have not spent the last ten years of missions work amassing a great fortune! If God would lead you to be a part of answering these prayers, donations can be made at http://www.impactministries.tv/ and click on the Donate button. Checks can be mailed to: Impact Ministries Int. PO Box 195, Odessa FL 33556. Make checks payable to Impact Ministries Int. and put “Gardner” on the memo line.

We have believed all along that this ministry is a Team effort, and God getting us into this house definitely shows that it is not about us and our efforts. Even as we pray about this, we do not want it to be a prayer of desperation, but rather a prayer of confidence in our God. Thank you so much for praying about all of this.

Wade's House Thoughts

We are so excited about this house! We had been looking at it before we went to Arizona, and felt pretty good about it. Then, when we came back from AZ we found that they had dropped the price $5,000! The only other available houses in the area of the campus just did not quite fit what we felt like God was calling us to, so we are so thankful for the opportunity to move forward on this house.

The house has 3 bedrooms upstairs that will take care of our family, and 2 bedrooms downstairs (with a separate entrance) where we anticipate students will be living with us. The house is big enough to host our college group meetings, and being 3 blocks from campus makes it ideal for hanging out with students! Wow – isn’t God good!!!???

Other Prayer Requests - July 26

• Housing: Offer to be accepted, loan to go through, and $ income to make it all work out! If it does come through, our closing date will be Aug. 19.
• Additional full time staff.
• August Personal Retreat Days will be: Wade – Aug 29, Dara – Aug 30.

Answered Prayers and Praises - July 26

• An encouraging week of camp with 5th and 6th graders in AZ!
• So many blessings from spending time with fantastic friends in Show Low, AZ.
• Good memories and a great ongoing relationship with AICM.
• We were able to stop and see Kat and Karen on our AZ trip. We were glad to see them doing OK; please pray that Kat would be able to fully receive God’s love. As of two weeks ago, she was planning to move from the rez to Phoenix to look for a job. Please pray that God would bring believers there into her life to love her and speak truth to her.

Wade's July Antics

Just to share a little bit into Wade’s world! This picture is of Crestone Peak, a great Colorado 14er to climb. Anyone want to vist Colorado and go climbing??!

In July I took my Mountain Bike to Show Low, to ride some of the old trails down there. Well, I quickly learned that I was not in the shape that I used to be, as a couple of friends down there worked me over pretty good! Whew – that’s some motivation to get riding again!

On the other hand, I was able to go to my first REI Garage Sale! Wow – I found some great deals on winter climbing gear and am all excited to go climb some more Colorado 14ers. But doing lots of traveling and looking for homes to buy kind of cuts down on the free time!

One other event of this past month was a trip to the lake with the Youth Group from our church. College students who have come through the ministry were welcome to come back for the trip, so it was a good opportunity for me to meet some of the upcoming college students, and to just spend time hanging out with some students who we already know. Some of you reading this will remember the “Baker Lake” trips that we took with the Youth Group from Seattle! What great memories!!!