OBERAMMERGAU KEPT THEIR PROMISE

Where in the world is Oberammergau?

Last Sunday was Easter, the day that Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a special day for believers, but I want to tell you about a whole city that commemorate this time more than any other I know about.

While traveling through Germany in 1989, we arrived into one of the most attractive and interesting little towns I had ever been. The buildings and homes were all painted with beautiful frescoes depicting the history and religion of the quaint mountain village nestled in the Bavarian Alps. The shops were so unique with items not viewed in many of the other shops where we had previously been. My wife had a field day, and if you won’t tell her, so did I, because shopping is not my thing.

As we strode about town, I glanced down one of the streets and saw what appeared to be a large building that seemed totally out of place with the rest of the city. As I inquired of a shop keeper he advised this was the place where the city citizens present a Passion play every 10 years and that the next presentation would be in 1990. After our conversation was over, I sat down and began to read some of the booklets about it he had given me. At that moment I determined to return to see it. That we did!

On the set day in 1990 we arrived early since the pageant began at 9 a.m. and would last all day until 5:30 p.m. My first thought was, I will never stay through this entire presentation. Was I ever surprised as my attention was never away from the stage.

While the actors spoke only German we had been given a large program written in English. Other programs had been provided to people of other countries of their respected language as well.

At first, I didn’t think they would be able to pull it off by making a presentation that would be understood by only one language. Was I ever wrong!

I was immediately overwhelmed by the huge cast of actors and animals. (More than 2155 participants moved across the beautiful set.) The presentation was outstanding and its casts had been made up by the town folks, etc. The oldest participant was Karl Eitzenberger (born 1907), who will celebrated his 90th birthday in July before we saw the enactment. The youngest performer was only 6 years old. Both participated in one of the large crowd scenes.

How did such a play began I pondered? Why did the pageant present just the last week in the life of Christ and His final suffering? With a little research I discovered this little village was in danger of loosing all its inhabitants due to the Black plaque during the terrible thirty years war, so the elders of the town met and prayed and vowed if the village be spared they would present a pageant depicting the last days of the life of Jesus Christ. The town was spared and thus the beginning of such an event. The first play was in 1634 and since then 40 performances have occurred every 10 years as an expression to the testimony of the religious faith of the people of Oberammergau. The event, with a history of more than 370 years, records nearly a half million attendees each year to the play which runs from May to October on the first year of each new decade.

The 41st Passion Play will takes place in 2010 beginning in May and ending in September.

The city begins to plan for this new event on Ash Wednesday of 2009. It is when men respond to the "Hair Decree" because from this date on all the men in Oberammergau taking part in the play are requested to let the hair on their heads and faces grow.

My wife’s keepsake is a beautiful fancy umbrella she bought to keep dry. However, when the play started the son (Christ) began to shine for the whole day.

“For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who believe it is the power of God.” -1 Cor. 1:18

VIEWS TO SEE THE BEAUTY OF THE SWISS ALPS

Gornergrat is a my recommendation to see the Matterhorn

Many people have asked me where was the most beautiful place we have ever visited. To be honest I have many spots like that, but sometimes the climate or brightness of the day, helps to determine that. One of my first choices is Gornergrat because the sun was perfect and it showed the area so well. This made it a perfect excursion because it gave a complete different view of the Matterhorn a well known mountain peak in Switzerland..

The Gornergrat Bahn takes you from Zermatt up the 3089 meter high Gornergrat. Through aromatic stone pine and larch forests and across alpine meadows in summer time full of flowers and in winter time deeply snow-capped you arrive in the midst of 29 snow and ice-covered four-thousand-meter-high mountains including such famous greats us Matterhorn (4478 m), Liskamm (4527 m) and Dufour-Spitze (4634 m). On a culinary level too, the Gornergrat offers everything you could wish for. The Kulmhotel Gornergrat, the highest hotel in the Swiss Alps (3100 m), and other restaurants located along the route treat you to the very best food.

Zermatt, at the foot of the majestic Matterhorn, is a world without cars. Electric-cars and horse-drawn sleighs and carriages are the only transport allowed.

Gornergrat, above Zermatt, is Switzerland's highest open-air train station where you catch the Gornergrat Bahn electric railway which opened for business in 1898 hauling tourists from Zermatt.

In the course of this winding ascent that lasts about an hour we see the Matterhorn as a whole, take possession of it and study every detail of its structure. The proud peak seems conscious of its glory; it stands apart, as if in all the Alps there were none beside itself.

The panorama at the Gornergrat is of dazzling beauty. At the foot of the ridge stretches the immense frozen river of the Gorner Glacier where the moraines have marked out thin grey tracks. And into this central valley great glaciers from the mountains have poured the floods of their snow-drifts into the chaos of their ice-blocks. Above, high in the heavens, there is an indescribable alignment of white domes, an architecture springing all divine from earth at the call of the Spirit.

Gornergrat is generally regarded as a "must-see" excursion for Zermatt visitors for those who can afford the steep fare.

At the Gornergrat station, you'll find a hotel, an astronomical observatory, and an aerial cable car to the Hohtälli, where you can connect to cable cars for the Stockhorn and Rote Nase. This area ties itself to each other like we do with roads.

Another exciting tour started from Zermatt to the Matterhorn glacier paradise which took about 40 minutes. We were told you will always find snow here 365 days a year. So anyone venturing up to the Matterhorn glacier paradise will also find him or herself in Europe's largest summer skiing area. A lift, built into the rock, transports visitors to the highest sightseeing platform in Europe, offering a breathtaking 360° panoramic view of the Swiss, Italian and French Alps with a total 38 four-thousand-metre peaks. You can't get any higher!

These views described offer some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. But I am looking for another land made by the same master craftsman we know as God.

Psalm 102:19
For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth;

RESTING PLACE FOR GEORGE WHITEFIELD

Recently, my wife gave me a bright red sweat shirt with Newburyport, Massachusetts, imprinted on it to wear. I remember buying in there because the weather was raining and rather cold. Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, 38 miles northeast of Boston and is accustomed for that kind of weather.

The shirt brought back some interesting history about the evangelist who was preaching in New England when the founder of the northern region of my denomination was converted.

Following the ministry of the Methodist evangelist and preacher George Whitefield in the region, the First Presbyterian Church "Old South" of Newburyport began meeting in the 1750s, He died in Newburyport in 1770 and his remains were buried under the pulpit of this church at his request where his tomb remains to this day.

I stood in the pulpit and gazed over the auditorium, with a large seating area on the floor, and about as much in the balconey, that surrounded the large assembly area.

My memory recalled the hundreds Whitefield had preached to there in times past.

After departing the evalvated platform, the church organist asked if we would like to see Whitefield’s grave underneath where I had been standing.

We entered a doorway behind the pulpit area and went down a number of stairs to a lighted area where Whitefield and two other former pastors had been buried. It was a solemn occasion for me.

In the New World Whitefield preached from Georgia to New England, always raising money for the orphanage he had established in Savannah.

New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the Carolinas, and Harvard University: all were beneficiaries of his ministry as he was anything but "the generality of preachers who talk of an unknown and unfelt Christ."

On another occasion, I visited Harvard and tried to find the famous picture of Whitefield who was reported of his being cross-eyed. Sure enough he was and a picture on my Blog page contains a photo of it.

In a time when crossing the Atlantic Ocean was a long and hazardous adventure, he visited America seven times, making 13 trans-Atlantic crossings in total. It is estimated that throughout his life, he preached more than 18,000 formal sermons. In addition to his work in America and England, he made 15 journeys to Scotland, two to Ireland, and one each to Bermuda, Gibraltar, and The Netherlands.

When he returned to America in November 1739 he preached nearly every day for months to large crowds of sometimes several thousand people as he travelled throughout the colonies, especially New England.


He is considered to be one of the fathers of Evangelicalism. He was the best-known preacher in England and America in the 18th century, and because he travelled through all of the American colonies and drew great crowds and media coverage, he was one of the most widely recognized public figures in America before George Washington.

Another interesting fact about the Old South church is that the bell in the clock tower was cast by Paul Revere.

Among the notable people to attend church were "Lord" Timothy Dexter, Capt. Abraham Wheelwright, Isaac Wheelwright, Caleb Cushing, Adolphus Greely, and Samuel Tufts.

Whitefield parted company with John Wesley over the doctrine of predestination. Three churches were established in England in his name. Whitefield acted as chaplain to Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and some of his followers joined the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, whose chapels were paid for at her sole expense and where a form of Calvinistic Methodism similar to Whitefield's could be spread. Many of these chapels were built in the English counties and Wales, and one was erected in London.

Like his contemporary and acquaintance, Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield preached with a staunch conviction: "Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ.”

IN HIS STEPS

In His Steps -

In my travels I have had many opportunities to meet great men. One such person was Garrett Shelton, a professor at the University of Virginia-Wise and pastor of the First Baptist church in Big Stone Gap.

He wrote What Would Jesus Do which paralleled the WWJD excitement a few years ago.

However, Garrett’s additional claim to fame is he is the great-grandson of the infamous Charles Sheldon who wrote In His Steps.

In 1889 he moved west to become pastor of the fledgling Central Congregational Church in Topeka, Kan. He announced he would preach "a Christ for the common people. A Christ who belongs to the rich and poor, the ignorant and learned, the old and young, the good and the bad . . . a Christ who bids us all recognize the Brotherhood of the race, who bids throw open this room to all."

The most successful series, In His Steps, concerned the inhabitants of a town who pledged themselves to live for a year as Jesus would live. It was first published serially in 1896 and in book form in 1897. The unifying theme of these sermons was based on posing the question, "what would Jesus do?" when facing moral decisions.

In 1900 Dr. Sheldon proposed that the local newspaper should be operated as Christ would operate them. The owner allowed Dr. Sheldon to serve as "editor" for a week in March. The "Sheldon Edition" sent circulation from 12,000 daily to 387,000. The Capital's pressroom was swamped, and other printing facilities, one in New York and one in Chicago, each printed 120,000. The Daily Capital printed the other 120,000 papers by using an extra work force.

The Advance, a Congregational weekly magazine in Chicago, purchased the story for $75.00 and published it serially in thirty-one installments beginning November 5, 1896. Sheldon offered the manuscript to three book publishers who turned it down. Finally J. C. Kilner, manager of the Advance Publishing Company, which had never before published any fiction, decided to bring out In His Steps in book form. The first printing of a few thousand copies consisted of cloth and paper bound volumes, the former priced at one dollar; the paperback, twenty-five cents. Two years later a ten cent paperback edition was published. By 1900 Advance had published nearly 600,000 copies in five editions.

Because "In His Steps" was in the public domain virtually from the get-go, companies could print copies of it without the author's permission, not owing Sheldon a cent. More than a century later, some 50 million copies had been published, making it second in sales among religious books behind only the Bible.

Dr. Eric Goldman of the Saturday Literary Review singled out In His Steps as one of eight books which have changed America

Charles Monroe Sheldon was born in 1857 and grew up in the Dakota Territory, where his parents homesteaded in a log cabin he helped build. His father, Rev. Steward Shelton, was the Territory's first home missionary superintendent, founding 100 churches in 10 years. Young Sheldon "hunted with the Dakotas, fished with them, slept with them on the open prairie, and learned some of their language."

Sheldon graduated from Andover in the class of 1879.

One of the remarks I recall from my friend Garrett Sheldon was, "By the time he left home to go to school, he had heard the entire Bible read aloud five times. Now think of that!"

Besides the Bible this is one book everybody should read.

“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” -- Proverbs 22:1

MONUMENT VALLEY

Beautiful Monument Valley a Navajo Holy Place

A couple friends and I rented a plane in Page, Arizona to see one of the most glorious places in America. The sights from the air are unsurpassed and the only way 99% of the area can be seen. When the three hours was up I still welcomed more of this place.

It is not only beautiful in a unique sort of way, but Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, advertisements, and holiday brochures. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar, even on a first visit, but it is soon evident that the natural colors really are as bright and deep as those in all the pictures. The valley is not a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region.

The area is entirely within the Navajo Indian Reservation on the Utah/Arizona border with the state line passing through the most famous landmarks. It preserves the Navajo way of life and some of the most striking and recognizable landscapes of sandstone buttes, mesas and spires in the entire Southwest. There is only one main road through the valley, US 163, which links Kayenta, Arizona with US 181 in Utah. The stretch approaching the state line from the north is the most famous image of the valley, and possibly of the whole Southwest - a long straight empty road leads across flat desert towards the 1,000 foot high stark red cliffs on the horizon, curving away just in front.

As well as eroded rocks, this area also has many ancient cave and cliff dwellings, natural arches and petroglyphs.

As we flew over the area in a grid-like fashion I knew I was experiencing one of the most majestic - and most photographed - points on earth.

This great valley boasts sandstone masterpieces that tower at heights of 400 to 1,000 feet. framed by scenic clouds casting shadows that graciously roam the desert floor. The angle of the sun accents these graceful formations, providing scenery that is simply spellbinding.

The landscape overwhelms, not just by its beauty but also by its size. The fragile pinnacles of rock are surrounded by miles of mesas and buttes, shrubs, trees and windblown sand, all comprising the magnificent colors of the valley.

Such a flight slowly revealed the natural wonders of Monument Valley and once again I was reminded of the beauty of God’s handiwork.

“And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.” - Isaiah 7:19

MORE THAT TWO GRUNTS

It took more than two grunts to get it back up into the air

One of the most hair raising experiences of my life came while visiting Ketchikan, Alaska. Two other couples were traveling with my wife and I and we decided to take a float plane to the beautiful Misty fjords region. The Misty Fjords National Monument was created by President Jimmy Carter within the Tongass National Forest in 1978 and Congress reconfirmed the wilderness classification in 1980. This area is a 202-million-acre national treasure where in flight you will see from a different perspective hundreds of waterfalls, shear granite and basalt cliffs shooting 3-4 thousand feet into the air, with trees growing everywhere, even out of shear rock, and a temperate rain forest from sea level.

During the 2-3 hour flight you will see wildlife that may include seals, deer, bear, marbled murrelets, bald eagles, guellemonts and others to numerous to mention.

To add to the excitement of the flight the pilot announced he was going to land the plane to give us a closer view of the surroundings. Well, I was already wondering where we would land if we had trouble with the plane, and now he said we would be landing. My eyes bounced from one solid rock mountain to another with nothing to land on or near. Then a small tiny body of water popped into view. That can’t be where he was referring, I thought. It was! In just minutes we were hidden between huge cliffs with snow covering them in every place. The float touched down easily on the calm lake. All six of us were invited to walk on the landing pontoons of the plane and for about 30 minutes we laughed and enjoyed the most serene place I had every been.

Time to go! The pilot commanded. With our seat belts snapped, he turned to us and told us he would need to back the plane all the way to the land because he would need all the water possible to take off. Hmmmm! I pondered. He got us down here, but getting out of here looks impossible. I began to have some concern as I looked ahead and to each side nothing but high granite rocks. The two engines started and he reveled them fast as the plane began its forward move. In front was the huge darken mountain and I was not able to see above it. The plane was now higher in the air, but the stone mountain was still ahead with no view of the sky above. I was nearly to resolve that we would hit it until all at once the plane leaned to the right at a 90 degree turn and I was able to see the valley between the two cliffs. I felt I could touch each one and dip out a hand of snow as he continued to climb until we were above both. What a relief! How majestic.

I was reminded of a book written by a friend entitled, “God has never failed me, but he has scared me to death a few times.”

There is another book full of truths beyond our thinking.

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or before you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Psalm 90:2

ENTERING CAIRO WAS FRIGHTENING

A Frighten entrance into Cairo

It had been a long flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Cairo, Egypt, having left Holland in the mid-morning and crossing a few time zones we finally landed in Cairo just after sundown.

After getting our luggage it had become very dark, but knew we had to make our way down a passage way that had wooden fences as barriers to find a bus that would transport us over to Giza about 30 miles away.

"Stock photos provided by http://www.aradise.com/."

It had been a long flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Cairo, Egypt, having left Holland in the mid-morning and crossing a few time zones we finally landed in Cairo just after sundown.

After getting our luggage it had become very dark, but knew we had to make our way down a passage way that had wooden fences as barriers to find a bus that would transport us over to Giza about 30 miles away. However, getting to the bus was somewhat scary as there were hundreds of Egyptians hollering, at us, and to us, which made the journey alarming as we speeded up to get away. It had the feeling of being in a gaunlet thinking they were harassing us and wanting to jump over the fences to get us. Of course, they could have been shouting the names of a person they were waiting for, or perhaps they really were expressing anti-foreigner saying. To this day, I don’t know! But rejoiced when we were safely out from those sounds.

After getting to a beautiful Swiss owned hotel we went directly to our room and collapsed. Due to the time zone changes, I woke the next morning about 3 a.m. thinking it was time to be up and about.

Not wanting to disturb my roommate I quietly slipped on some garments and departed outside and noticed the sky was clear and the sun was already lighting the horizon. To my surprise I saw the largest of three pyramids behind some of the trees. I moved over to the side of the tree barrier and sat down on a bench and watched the sun as it slowly explored the tomb of one of the old pharaohs of this land.

After a couple hours, I saw my room partner, who had been born in Lebanon, but was brought to America as a lad, come over and sat beside me. All of a sudden, he saw what I had been glaring at all morning, and he began to cry. His remarks of “ I have wanted to come back to the land of my people all these years and now I am able to view something I had only read about. With uncontrollable tears he loudly proclaimed. Thank you for letting me see this before I die.”

Before the day was over we had not only had a good look at the outside, but were able to go into a portion of this renowned structure. While there are over 80 pyramids in Egypt, these three in Giza are the best known and the largest. Before the week was concluded in that ancient land we had visited most the areas of historic prominence and the well-known Cairo museum.

For nearly a week and a half my friend and I visited site after site of the Middle East and always his remarks were the same.

Leviticus 19:34
“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”