Finishing feels good

We finally finished building the floor in the Bailey Country Store, and it feels good!  Neither Brian (teammate) nor I had ever laid a floor before, so not a bad day's work for a couple of rookies (who had the help of a couple of experts, to be fair).  I can finally see some light at the end of the hallway that leads to the staircase that leads to the corridor that leads to the end of the tunnel.  We had to raise the floor so much (15 inches) that I feel like an NBA player when I stand in there now (except I'm not black and I can't jump worth a darn).  Now we just need to tackle the plumbing, the walls, the broken windows, insulation ...


Last night we watched the episode of Finding Bigfoot that was filmed in Bailey last September.  A friend of mine took several screen shots as proof positive that Gwyn and I do exist, and that we were present at the town hall meeting.  They even had a shot of my Sasquatch cut-out holding a sign that said, "I do not believe the evidence supports the existence of humans."
Of course, several guys from church texted me about Unicorns and fairies and such nonsense.  Skeptics can be so immature.  You'd almost think I believe in some mythical, hairy, 8 foot beast that roams the woods around Bailey.  Now THAT would be crazy.

Believe it or not, there is a recent report that an adult male Bigfoot was shot late last year while a British film crew was making a documentary about Bigfoot.  Apparently, they'd set a bait trap high on a tree and a Bigfoot came to investigate.  The crew's guide woke up, saw the bigfoot, jumped out of his tent in his underwear and shot it in the back of the head.  The film crew wrestled the gun away from him, but too late. According to the article (see the link below), the Bigfoot measured 7'8" tall and weighed 490 pounds.  I would be highly skeptical myself except for the fact that the film company - Minnow Films - is well known and has made a number of excellent, award-winning documentaries.  They claim that they're keeping the carcass until the film comes out in April.  We'll see.  Here's the article I read on this project - the film is tentatively going to be called, "Of Monsters and Men".

http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/bigfoot-news-december-12-2012/


They apparently filmed several seconds of the Squatch eating the bait from inside their tent before it was shot. Below is a clip of that video; judge for yourself.

Bigfoot news

For all my Bigfoot skeptic friends, this blog entry should be amusing.  A few days ago, a friend of mine who lives in Bailey sent me an email that she'd found some "interesting" tracks on her property.  I went over to investigate the next day, and took a few photos.  Unfortunately, we had a light snow after the tracks were made, so the definition was poor.  What was clear, however, is that something walked across her property with 7 foot strides, in a straight line, and the prints were 16-18 inches long.  One of the prints - see below with my boot next to it - still shows what might be the imprint of toes and a mid-tarsal break (believed to be a sasquatch characteristic). 

Of course, my skeptic friends - I'm talking about you Brian - say that it is clearly a hoax.  OK, let's go down that road for a minute:  the prints are located in a remote part of the property, and had to have been made during the night in sub-zero temperatures, on stilts (7 foot stride), without making one mis-step in the process.  I'm not saying the tracks definitely WERE made by a Sasquatch, but to believe this is a hoax is an insult to my intelligence.

Speaking of Bigfoot:  Apparently, the episode of "Finding Bigfoot" (Animal Planet channel) that was filmed in Bailey will be airing this Sunday evening.  I'm hoping that Gwyn and I will show up in our bright, green Sasquatch Outpost T-shirts on the front row of the town hall meeting, and that they'll show my Life-Size Sasquatch cutout as well.   Maybe this is the beginning of something really big... (no pun intended)...

New Floor

We made huge progress on the new floor in the country store yesterday, thanks to all the Journey staff guys who came down to lend a hand.  Basically, we're raising the whole floor up 14 inches over the original floor.  You can see the new joists in the pictures on the left - the floor will go down on top of those joists.  We have some technical issues to overcome - namely how best to raise the front door up to match the floor, and then we'll need to build a handicap deck and ramp out front.  Still, it feels good to get so much work done in one day!  The old girls still needs a huge amount of work, like repainting, fixing the walls, fixing many broken windows, adding shelving and counters... and the list goes on and on.  However, we're still shooting to open at some level by the first of February. Q This continues to be a faith adventure, as we do not have the funds to finish the renovation work and we're trusting that God will provide what we need, when we need it.  He already provided the resources to build the floor, so we keep trusting Him for the rest.

Quote from Steve Brown's book, "A Scandalous Freedom":
     (regarding the common viewpoint that Christians should always be "nice")  "Christians can be dangerous!  No, not those.  The real ones.  The weenies aren't dangerous.  They are irrelevant.  But those Christians who have discovered they don't have anything to protect and nothing to lose, who have learned that Jesus is Lord and that it doesn't matter what others think a bout them or do to them - they are dangerous... really dangerous."
     "Why are we so bound and so imprisoned that we feel afraid to speak up, stand up, and be Christ's witnesses in the church and in the world?  In other words, if we're free, why don't we use our freedom to be bold?"
     

Back to Blogging

After a hiatus of several weeks due to my computer being on the fritz (AND I fixed it all my byself) I'm back to blogging.  Duke (my yellow lab) is snoring on the floor next to me as we both try to stay warm by the fire.  Speaking of Duke,  I finally bit the bullet and bought an invisible fence to keep him contained on our property after getting at least 10 calls from neighbors... "Um, I have your dog here at my house; what should I do with him??"  I've never used one of these devices before, but even when I turn the collar up to the maximum setting Duke just strolls right across the wire without so much as a flinch.  I've thought about putting the collar on myself to test the shock, but in the end I'm just too chicken.  I've watched the YouTube videos and that's enough proof for me.  got to think on that some more.

The town of Bailey and the Bailey Country Store still take up most of my time now.  In the last 30 days we initiated a Christmas decorating contest among the businesses in Bailey, for which I created a "fitting" trophy made of a deer antler strung with battery-operated Christmas lights; I was elected to the board of the Platte Canyon Area Chamber of Commerce (think Mayberry);  and I wrote an article for one of the local mountain newspapers about "new beginnings" and the country store.  I was particularly happy about the article and several people commented on it last Sunday at church (I'd forgotten all about it by the time it was published).  The article describes well what the Lord has put on my heart for this little town and this forgotten country store.  So here it is:

She’s 130 years old, built when Bailey was young and steam trains still rolled past along the Platte River.  One of the first buildings constructed in the town (1878) the Bailey Country Store has always been there – providing not only groceries, but also a sense of history and stability to this little mountain community.   The past few years have not been kind to this old girl, however.  When the store was closed in late 2009, Bailey lost not only a town icon but the only functioning grocery store as well.  She’s sat quiet, dark and cold for almost three years – the paint peeling from the walls and the sign that once proudly announced her presence vandalized by bored teenagers.   Tourists would occasionally stop by for a few staples on their way to go camping, but the locked door and butcher paper covering the windows left no doubt that it was either back to Conifer or on to Fairplay to buy their marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey’s chocolate. 

Until now.  Three months ago we ( The Journey Community Church) leased the building from its new owners with the goal of re-opening the Country Store to provide a much-needed and sorely missed service to the town of Bailey.  If you drive to the bottom of Crow Hill today and look to your right you’ll notice that the store has a new paint job and a brand new sign… and a life-size Sasquatch holding a cup of coffee.  The new Bailey Country Store and Sasquatch Outpost Coffee House are on-target to open their doors in early February.  The exterior looks great now, but inside there’s still lots of work to do.  The original floor is rotten and unsafe so a whole new floor must be built above it for the old girl to be useful once again – not to mention painting, repairing pipes, fixing the heating… and the list goes on.  It’s a time of new beginnings, not just for this old store but also for a community that’s been hit hard in recent years by tragedy and recession.  Bailey folks need a fresh infusion of hope: hope that better days are ahead and that their lives – like the old country store – still have value.  We can all start over again if we just have a little faith in God and in ourselves.

I believe in Bailey, and it’s time for this community to stand up tall and declare: “We are strong.  We are resilient.  We are community.  We are Bailey!”

checking back in

It's time to check back in after a hiatus of several weeks.  After losing two friends in quick succession, life became rather hectic when we launched our first Saturday evening service for the Journey Church Bailey Campus.  We held our second service last night, and though our learning curve is rather steep we're all excited about what lies ahead.  Daphne, Gwyn and I are still the only full-time staff for the Bailey campus.  We need God to raise up a worship leader and a youth pastor soon, as most of our volunteers are my age or older (ie, wise, mature, and "seasoned").  We are passionate to reach the youth in Bailey, but we need an influx of young blood.  God knows.

After almost four weeks of waiting and (unsuccessfully, in my case) learning to be patient, we are about to get the permit to rebuild the floor in the country store.  God has provided much of the lumber and materials we'll need to build it - which is in itself ironic; the donations only came a week ago, so even if we'd had the permit to build we would not have been able to do the work.  The Lord knew all this, and while every impatient bone in my body has popped out of joint over the past 30 days, He was working behind the scenes to provide what we need.

After preaching the past two Saturdays I am gaining a new appreciation for the challenge that Michael faces every single week to come up with a new sermon from a fresh perspective.  I find it very difficult to set aside even a few focused hours to think, pray and write... and I have only a fraction of the responsibilities that he does.  I can only imagine how much harder this will be once we start working on the remodel of the store!  I'm already A.D.D on my best days, so throw in a very enticing and long-awaited building project and ... yikes.  I still have one gainormous problem:  I depended completely on Mark's know-how and passion for this project, and now he's gone.  The Lord must have someone else waiting in the wings to fill Mark's very big shoes.  I wonder who it is?

A Grief Observed

They were both dear friends.  I'd known Bud for a little over two years.  Mark, for only two months.  Bud was 80, and his death was not unexpected given the extent of his cancer.  Mark was only 56, and none of us were ready for him to die.

I met Bud and his wife Bev after Bev's single car accident on hwy 285.  She had apparently blacked out on the road and ended up in a drainage ditch - disoriented and unaware of how close she'd come to death herself that day.  I drove her home, met Bud (who I immediately liked) and decided that this "chance" encounter was arranged from above.  For the past two years I've visited them on their 40 acre spread every other week or so to fill up their firewood shed, fix a tractor tire, unclog the fish pond drain - whatever needed doing.  Or we would just sit and chat over a bottle of Coors (Bud had been a career Coors employee).  Bud was in poor health when I met him - multiple cancers, knees that had long since given out after 30+ years of climbing on and off of Coors trains... a shadow of the larger-than-life man he'd once been.  After several weeks of emergency room visits and hospital stays, Bud seemed to just give up.  I was with him on the Friday that the hospice staff arrived.  On Monday morning the hospice nurse went in to check on him and her eyes were drawn to the window by a pre-dawn shooting star streaking across the sky.  When she turned back to Bud, he was gone.  Bev wants the service to be held at the Kingdom Hall, since she is a devout Jehovah's witness.  The only date the elder could give her was this coming Saturday-  three weeks after Bud's death, and while I am out of the country for a crisis management training.  No family members allowed to speak, no music, no slideshow.  I offered the daughters the use of the country store to hold their own service for family and close friends, and to plan it the way they wanted.  They agreed, and we arranged it for yesterday (Sunday) afternoon. 
___________________________

Mark and Jaime started coming to our weekly meetings down in Bailey two months ago.  Their daughter Missy invited them, and even though they live here in Conifer they came to our Wednesday evening service with her... and just kept coming back.  Mark has been my right-hand man in planning the new floor in the store.  He drew the floor plans up himself,  and on his own contacted Home Depot to challenge them to help us with donated lumber and materials.  We worked, and painted, and fixed stuff together - and all this while they're in the middle of building an addition on their own home!   In a very short time I grew to love both Mark and Jaime; it doesn't take long to build a friendship when you share a common heart and the same vision.
___________________________

Yesterday I was on my way to church the phone call came:  Mark, my new friend, had died during the night.  What??  That's not possible!  He wasn't even sick!  There must be some mistake!  I turned around and raced to their house.  Jamie and the kids were all in a state of shock.  Oh my God - this can't be happening!  We had so much to do together, and Mark was such an integral part of everything.  What in the world will I do without him?  What will Jaime and Missy and her brothers do without him?  In one night their entire lives are turned upside down - and with no time to prepare for life without Husband, and Dad, and Grandpa.  We wept, and wept, and wept.  What words can a pastor possibly give at such a time as this?  My own grief after losing a second, dear friend left me emotionally numb.

Sometime in the blur of yesterday morning I remembered that I had a memorial service to do for Bud at 2 pm.  I left Jaime and the family and drove back to Bailey, and with the help of two wonderful friends got the room cleaned up and ready just about the time Bud's family started arriving.  Only then did it hit me that I hadn't prepared ANYTHING to say, and I'm supposed to lead the service.  I prayed a quick SOS prayer, got up in front and totally winged it.  God must have somehow made sense of the nonsense that came out of my mouth, because they all said it was wonderful. 

Now, this morning, the reality of yesterday's events is beginning to hit me.  Daph and I are heading back over to visit with Jaime and Missy and the family, then she'll drive me to the airport for my flight to Frankfurt.  This is going to be an interesting week.

Makeup on a Redneck Woman

Before

During 

We're moving ahead with our plans for the Bailey Country Store and Sasquatch Outpost Coffee House.  We have almost all our paperwork ready to submit for our remodel permit, and then (by faith) we'll be off.  I managed to convince the building inspector to allow us to paint the exterior of the building (he wasn't going to allow us to do anything on the building at all until we have our remodel permit) because we wanted to give the high school kids a community service project to do for Kindness Day.  20 kids showed up, and we painted the whole lower part of the outside of the building... and what a difference a coat of paint makes!  A couple of other men and I finished up the upstairs paint job a few days later, but the old lady kinda looks good!  I told the guys when we were painting the upper part that it felt like putting makeup on a Redneck woman.. but hey, when you need it, use it!  The final effect
is pretty impressive.  We've already had people come by to shop, thinking that we're open.

This whole adventure of starting a country store and coffee house has proven to be one of the biggest faith challenges I've ever faced.  I thought we were living by faith the whole time we were serving overseas, but now that I look back on those years I realize we weren't really living by faith at all.  We had a team of very faithful supporters, and for 20 years we honestly never lacked a thing.  Fund raising was always a challenge, but God was

Painting the letters for the new store sign

faithful and our staff account was never in deficit even once during all those years.  Those days of relative financial security are long gone however, and we find ourselves trusting God on a daily basis to provide not only for our own financial needs, but for the funding to complete the renovation of the store, stock it with groceries, pay the bills etc.  There's a principle here that I am only now beginning to understand: as long as we had a healthy bank balance and plenty of financial support,  I never really gave much thought to trusting God.  Now we're forced to trust Him on a daily basis, and this reality has pushed us far beyond the edge of our comfort zone.  But out here in the "trust zone" we're learning that God is always faithful and always has our back.  As Christians we will always pray things like, "Lord, help me to trust you more" - not realizing, of course, that He will do just that!  So my prayer has changed to, "Lord, help me to REST in your promises today no matter what may happen because you are always trustworthy." 

The final effect.  We only need to add the sign for the Sasquatch Outpost coffee house

Keep the fire burning

I lit our wood stove upstairs for the first time this season.  It's not really cold yet - maybe in the upper 30's outside - but maybe the warmth of the stove will give Nicole and Jacqueline a little more motivation to get up and going today.  It won't be long before the first snow falls, and the aspens are already blazing on the mountainsides - patches of brilliant yellow and orange that pop out among the evergreens.  I think Daphne and I will take Gwyn for a drive up to Kenosha pass this afternoon where the entire side of the mountain is on fire with aspen trees.  It's a sight you'll never forget.

 I was awake again early this morning, lost in my own thoughts.  The work on the country store has been stalled for two weeks now as we work on gathering the necessary paperwork to apply for the remodel permit.  I can tell that our little church team is beginning to drop their arms, and we're losing the excitement that we all felt when we first leased the building.  How do we keep everyone engaged when there's nothing we can work on together?  If we could at least be painting it would help, but the inspector won't allow ANY work on the building until we have the permit.  Dan is building our log furniture, but he's also feeling discouraged because he's working alone the majority of the time.  I would love to help him more, but I'm preoccupied with finding a contractor, an engineer and an asbestos inspector who will work with us on a pro bono basis; not an easy task in a depressed economy when everyone needs all the work they can get.  I'm finding that it's a balancing act to keep the team engaged in Bailey, stay engaged myself with my own family, and stay in touch with our church team here in Conifer.  Yesterday Daphne and I went to look at a log home that's for sale in Bailey - right down the street from where we used to live on Tincup Terrace.  It's a beautiful home on 10 acres of land with a magnificent view of Mt Rosalie, and the price is amazingly reasonable.   If it were just she and I we would move in heartbeat.  But we have three girls who have ties to Conifer, and I can't see us moving at least until after Nicole graduates. 

While I'm writing this, Duke has his head on the armrest - looking up at me with his big, sad, Labrador eyes.  I know it's his breakfast time, but I pretend like I don't know what he wants.  After about a minute he will stick his head over my keyboard to keep me from typing.  If that doesn't work he climbs half-way up on my recliner - which is as far as he can fit - and then he stares at me from six inches away.   The more I ignore him, the closer he'll get to my face till I finally give in.  He won't leave me alone until I get him what he wants...  

Bailey Big Brother

I love the town and the people of Bailey.  Tucked away in a valley, surrounded by beautiful wooded mountains, with the Platte River running right through town - it's an absolutely gorgeous setting.  I also love that this is a real community where everyone knows each other by their first name, and where people really help each other out.  We are here to stay, and God is going to build a brand new community of people - many of whom are still far from Him today. We want to bless Bailey by re-opening an historic country store, and create a space where people can not only buy groceries without having to drive 15 miles away, but where they feel loved and cared for at the same time.

 If I'm really honest, however, some days I feel like I'm living in a small town episode of the Twilight Zone - eyes peering out of every shuttered window, glaring at the "newcomer".  Call me paranoid, but I know for a fact that someone, or several people, watch everything that we do in or around the store - looking for some reason to report us to the authorities.   As of yesterday afternoon, we are now shut-out of the building for which we have a legal lease.  But to explain the bizarre nature of how we ended up here, I need to go through the chronology of events. 

1. Last Wednesday:  We were paid a visit by the county building inspector.  He blessed us with a red tag Notice of Violation because we did not have a permit to remodel the store.  He cited - as his rationale that we are remodeling - the fact that "shelves were moved around" and "there are things that were here that aren't here now".  I guess permits are required if a tenant wants to throw away garbage and scrap old fridges and freezers.  As he left, John said that he'd already received three phone calls about us that day (complaints) that prompted him to come by.  He also casually mentioned that his sister-in-law owns the coffee shop across the road.  Hmmm... we're also trying to open a coffee shop. 

2.  Two hours later:  A deputy sheriff pulled up, saying that he'd received a call that "people are in the building".  We talked for a few minutes, and turns out he's a big fan of the Journey Church - so ended that conversation.  He agreed that we had every right to be in the building

3.  Two days later, county building inspector comes by again - this time because I was showing my men's group around the store after breakfast.  "Got a complaint that you have a work crew in here".  Work crew?? What - do you just hang out down the street and wait for a complaint?  He's the only inspector in all of Park County, but he always seems 5 minutes away.

4.  Last Wednesday: I'm trying to fix the fuel pump on my truck and i get a call from the State Health Inspector - stating that they'd had a complaint about the sign in the store window: "Free Asbestos - inquire within".  "It's a joke" I said.  Apparently, the State of Colorado has no sense of humor.  He looked through the window and determined that we "likely" have a major asbestos spill - and wrote up an inspection report.

5.  Next day:  My favorite county building inspector shows up yet once more, saying he'd received a complaint that there are people in our building.  "The State Health Inspector says no one can be in this building".  Another call to the health inspector:  yes, your building is a veritable toxic waste zone, and you have to vacate.  Wow, all this based on hearsay and rumors, and zero proof that we even have any asbestos at all.  I call him back and leave a message:  I want a list of all the businesses in this community that you've shut down based on heresay and rumors."

6.  Yesterday:  State health guy returns my call and backs off of his "vacate the building" statement.  "I'm just concerned about the safety of everyone involved.  You've got a serious asbestos risk there."  All the current research states that it takes 15-20 years of occupational exposure to friable asbestos to contract mesothelioma.  But according to Park County and the State of Colorado, one whiff and you're as good as dead. 

So, Gwyn and I moved our office supplies back into the country store.  We'll both be working in Has-mat suits and respirators until further notice.

My latest sign in the window of the store:  "We are grateful to our county building inspector and our state health inspector for helping us to be both safe and legal in our remodeling.  To all other concerned Bailey residents: we've already contacted the CIA, FBI and NSA to keep them informed of our progress... just in case you're wondering."

Finding Bigfoot... in Bailey

On Saturday night I made my debut on national television.  Well, sort of.  There have been so many reported sightings of Bigfoot in this part of the front range of the Rockies in recent months that the Animal Planet show "Finding Bigfoot" came to Bailey to film an episode of the show here.  They always start by organizing a town hall meeting to hear stories from eye-witnesses, or those who have either heard vocalizations or seen footprints. I found out about the meeting from a friend who (along with another woman) both saw a Sasquatch at the end of May this year.  They were close enough to see the color of the hair, and they estimated that it was at least 7 feet tall.  Anyway, I digress.  When we found out that Animal Planet was going to film this for national TV, we quickly printed some t- shirts with the name of our (as yet unopened) coffee shop: The Sasquatch Outpost.  I also rushed to finish the life-size cutout of a Sasquatch that we plan to put on the outside of our building to advertise the coffee shop so I could bring it to the filming.  We arrived at the location of the meeting an hour and a half early, and the parking lot was already almost full.  I went and talked with one of the producers of the show, and told him that I'd brought a Sasquatch cutout if they were interested in putting it up somewhere for fun.  The Squatch is holding a sign that says, "I do not believe the evidence supports the existence of humans. signed, Sasquatch".  He consulted with the executive producer, and they gave me the O.K., thinking they could use if for some B shots.  Well, it was a big hit, and I was able to get a couple of members of the cast - Bobo and Cliff - to pose next to the Squatch cutout.  In the end, the producer loved it and he had the cast walk past it going in to the hall for the opening of the episode.  Hopefully it will be shown when the episode airs sometime in March! 
     There were 15 or 20 people who came forward as witnesses, and the filming took over 2 hours (which they'll probably edit down to 10 minutes).  It was a lot of fun, and maybe we'll get some free advertising for the coffee shop when "Finding Bigfoot" puts Bailey on the map.

Me and Bobo with my Sasquatch cutout

Another cast member Cliff with the big guy.  Cliff is a genuinely nice guy, and he offered to advertise our coffee shop on his website!

Some of the crowd waiting for the show to start.  Our friend Gwyn came with me - she's on the front row with her friend, both wearing our green Sasquatch Outpost T-shirts.  We got some great advertising, and maybe all three of us will be on national TV!

The cast at the end of the filming.