A Foretaste of Heaven

Everybody needs a special place to relax and think about
things good - like family, God and the wonderful world
he made for us. So come into our garden - it is such a place. These pictures are a sample, like the beauty found here on God's earth. Look around you and try to imagine beauty ten thousand times (plus) more beautiful than anything you see on this planet. Why would anybody chance missing it?














Walk across our bridge for a relaxing brunch. Enjoy the sounds of birds singing and water running over rocks. You might hear frogs, or even see a hippo spouting water. Close your eyes and imagine wonderful things.

God gave us beauty in the form of flowers and plants, rocks, water, a hillside, and retirement. He seemed to be saying, "Put these things together and see what you can come up with. With a shovel, a pump, some pipe, and lots of work we put together our own little Eden - it even has an apple tree. It has taken three years of loving labor to create a 70 foot stream, waterfalls, pond and garden - God did the whole earth in six days; now that's impressive! I did it for Phyllis -- She did it for me. God did it for all of us, then he said, "just wait until you see the real thing."

It's amazing how we have come to rely on our transportation to get us where we want to go, when we want to get there. We leave with just enough time to get where we are going. If it is 50 - 60 miles, we allow an hour, if 100 - 120 miles we allow a couple of hours. Friday we were going to the Metro church family retreat at Camp Yamhill. Our plan was to meet another couple in Newberg at 5:00 PM for dinner. Being Friday evening we figured there might be some extra traffic, so "let's leave a little early." We left a little before 4:oo know it was only about 40 miles. (Actually it was 42.) It was 6:30 PM before we pulled into the parking lot. 2 hours and 35 minutes to travel 42 miles. Bumper to bumper the entire distance. The news said the highways were clogged in every direction from Portland. We had rain - the first real downpour since July. You would think that Oregonians would know how to drive in the rain. Of course the truck which crossed the median and wiped out 10 southbound vehicles near Wilsonville, didn't help matters - actually that was the main cause of our problem. We were wondering what would happen in Portland if we had a hurricane here - I hate to think about it. Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe is about all we heard from others. Then we thought about some of the people we know of in Africa who must allow more than a couple of hours just to get to church - walking or riding a bicycle. To travel 42 miles they must allow a day or two in the hot sun. We were in a comfortable dry car, with our choice of heater or air conditioner, our choice of radio or CD (stereo), no pot holes, tilt back leather seats [I didn't exercise that option while driving]. We could have stopped at any one of 50 restaurants along the way if we had wanted to. We weren't concerned about the other couple because they were only a couple of miles ahead of us and we were talking with them by cell phone. Really rough, wasn't it? God forgive us for our selfish griping, when he has blessed us with riches beyond the wildest dreams of most of the world.