Mount Sherman & Bailey Church update

Jim and Duke at the summit of Mount Sherman

A solitary mine shaft on the climb up

It's always encouraging to see how far you've come!

  

On Monday I climbed Mount Sherman with a
 new friend named Richard.  I chose Sherman because it's fairly close to Conifer (a little over an hour's drive) and is supposedly one of the easier peaks to climb.  I chose Richard as my companion because he's retired and has the time, and because he's climbed over 70 14ers and 13ers.  We headed out at 5 am because I wanted to pick up a load of firewood down in Denver that afternoon (hardwood. Burns MUCH longer than pinewood, so I mix the two together).  We got to the parking point at around 6:30 and headed up.  The day was overcast and cool.  Richard has had skin cancer in the past, so I was grateful for his sake that we weren't going to be exposed to the sun on this hike.  We made it up and back by 9:30 - a fact which amazed me, since I felt like I was stopping every 30 feet to catch my breath.  As we climbed the ridge to the summit we could see the dark clouds of an approaching storm to the east, and while I wasn't too worried for myself since I carry rain gear, I was concerned for Duke.   The temperature dropped consistently as we climbed, and when you added the windchill it was probably in the upper 30's by the time we reached the top.  Getting soaked by rain at that temperature could easily give Duke hypothermia, so I was watching the storm closely as we climbed.  Richard felt like we had plenty of time, and I trusted his experience and judgment.  As it turned out, it started to rain when we were 3/4 of the way down.  Others we'd passed on the way down were way up near the summit by that time, and it must have been absolutely freezing.  It was a great morning, and another fourteener (my second) I can add to my short list of accomplishments.

Duke, the intrepid climber

Bailey Church Update

Full Steam Ahead for the launch of the Bailey Campus of the Journey Church.  Daphne and I will meet again tonight with our launch team, which has now grown to almost 20 people.  I am hoping and praying that I'll have some good news to share with them this evening. 

For the past couple of weeks we've been in negotiations with the current owner  of

Rusted boiler that ran the steam engines for the mine

the Bailey Country Store - an historic building that dates back to 1878 - so it was one of the original buildings in the town of Bailey.  The store has been closed for three years, leaving no other grocery store in town.  It is in deplorable condition and in desperate need of a serious facelift, but my heart is to make use of the manpower army we have at the Journey Church to help us with the labor - a new roof, a new floor, a new paint job.  This building is a Bailey icon, and it would be a perfect way for our church to help revitalize the small downtown area of Bailey.  I also feel strongly that our launch team needs to see that our God is great, that He still answers prayer, and that we can trust Him for great things.  Renovating the Country Store would give us a project that we can all sink our hands and hearts into - just like Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem.  The Jewish people at that time desperately needed something and someone to give them hope and to help restore their sense of dignity and self-confidence.  My sense is that re-opening the Bailey Country Store would do the same for this community. 

It's in God's hands now.