Good, Better, Best!

Dara has been busy lately, teaching our children, moving and unpacking, encouraging the female students who we work with, and now teaching a Sunday School class at Sunnyside Christian Church.

The class is entitled "Good, Better, Best: A look at physical and spiritual health." Dara has gone to a lot of effort to present some very helpful material, and has also blessed us all by sharing it on the web. If you are interested, please take a look at her material at
http://goodbetterbesthealth.blogspot.com/

Good, better, best - never let it rest - 'till your good is better and your better is best!

UCCS 14er club

On top of Mt Columbia, with Pikes Peak just to the left of my head!

I find that for most of us, the longer we are Christians, the less people we have in our lives who don't believe in the Christian faith. So we need to reach out and pursue those relationships. Or, perhaps there is a way to invite them into our lives?

We have found that many different people like to hike, so we have created a "hiking club!" What an opportunity to invite your friend to go climb a mountain, and then for many miles and hours we get to walk with them, talk with them, and develop real friendships with them.

As we have begun these hikes, I am amazed at the discipleship and depth of conversation that can go on while you are hiking a mountain. Hhmmm - didn't somebody else already have this idea???

So, we just wanted to invite you to join the hikes – via pictures and journal entries. And if you ever want to come out for a specific hike, just let us know!
http://www.uccs14ers.blogspot.com/

PICTURES!!

We have finally figured out a good way to share our life with you through pictures! We are going to be using this web site: http://spaces.msn.com/members/wadedara/

They say that a picture is worth 1000 words, so here are a few volumes for you...

Colorado 14ers

So, with the stress of moving for the third time in one year, it seemed like a good time to take a break and head for the hills! Barry is a new intern at church, and he was itching to head up a 14er. So, he arrived at our new home at 2:30am (that’s right, it was early!) and we hit the road.

We made good time, and were actually hiking up Mount Belford at 5:30am. It was still dark, but we only had to use a flashlight for about 20 minutes. It was a steep start with lots of switch backs. The 3.5 miles to summit Belford took us 4 ½ hours. Nice weather all the way. Barry was wearing down, but wanted to give Oxford (another 14er) a go, which was another 1 ½ miles. I went on ahead, as the storm clouds were moving in. When I summitted Oxford, I could see the lightning moving in, plus Barry was having trouble with his ankle. So he turned back and I caught up with him. We were both praying that we wouldn’t die from a lightning strike! As it turned out, the rain and lightning went around us, but the snow hit us straight on! Fortunately, it lasted only about 15 minutes before letting up.

Finally we descended Belford together. The Belford descent took about 3 hours. All in all, it was a good day, with great conversations about faith and grace. God is good!

That makes summit #12 and #13!!! Anyone else want to climb a mountain with me??