Catching Up with Long Time Friends

Hello everyone,

An official welcome to all of you who might be following my personal blog. I hope you are enjoying the news updates and continue to have your interest piqued to follow up on the info we give and the sites we introduce you to.

We had a wonderful time Wednesday night with Ron and Karen Hutchcraft for almost four hours over dinner. Stopping in their home town of Harrison, AK, we caught up a bit on each other’s lives and ministries. Ron and I graduated from Moody and worked together on the staff of Youth For Christ in Chicago many years ago.

Ron heads up an evangelistic ministry called Ron Hutchcraft Ministries which also has a very effective work with native American youth. Ron Hutchcraft’s website is http://www.hutchcraft.com/ if you are interested in viewing his ministry.

Continuing our travels we had the opportunity to stop at the Natchez Trace trail headquarters outside Tupelo, Mississippi. The Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail is a National Park drive which is 444 miles long! In addition to our interest due to historical data, there are two mounds sites along the trail! Mounds are of interest to anyone interested in Ancient Man history and research! More on this subject to come.

We hope to be home in Jackson by Saturday.

Reflecting upon God's Sovereignty

Pastor Don and Beverly outside Boca Raton Bible Church

Boca Raton Bible Church

Geibel Family at the beach

During the latter half of this week, Beverly was able to get some time on the beach with her family It was overcast most of the week with rain one day and also lots of wind. Beverly enjoyed two days with sun at the beach but the second day had high wind so they did not stay long. Beverly’s best time however was with family; her sister and husband, Beverly’s niece and nephew with their families, and today her nephew’s wife’s family joined us as well!

Today we visited Boca Raton Bible Church for services. This church used to have the name, "Bibletown" many years ago. It was an emotional service for both Beverly and myself, because about 40 years ago we visited Bev’s parents and attended this church while on vacation. On a Monday morning, 40 years ago, Bev’s Dad and I attended a prayer breakfast where I told the men we were heading west to Jackson, Wyoming to start a camp for young people. They responded with such enthusiasm in contrast to the folks back home in Pennsylvania, that it shocked me. While riding a bike on the way back to the Geibel home it dawned on me that we could not do what I said because we did not have any money. I vividly remember stopping the bike by a bridge over a canal and having a time of prayer and telling the Lord we would go to start the camp if He provided, but if He did not we could not go.

The prayer meeting was on a Monday morning, then on Tuesday my dad called from Pennsylvania and told me to sit down, he had bad news. Our trailer home we were renting in Pennsylvania caught fire and burned us out! A propane heater, located in a very small room which was Holly’s bedroom caught fire (during her normal nap time). The Lord used that fire to supply fire insurance money, and after bills were paid, we had about $2300.00 to move to Jackson.

Within a few days of the prayer meeting, the men of the church we attended today in Boca Raton, gave us a check for 200.00! What a surprise and confirmation to us from the Lord.

While I listened to the pastor, a Moody grad, preaching a message on paying a tribute or a tithe, it dawned on me what a blessing this church had on our lives a long time ago. After the service we met with the pastor and gave him a short letter Beverly wrote with our story on it and I told him a little of our story as well! This church had given some seed money to us and along with the help of family and other friends we moved to Wyoming. God used all these folks in our lives to bless us and today share in bringing the Lord glory for what He has done.

Beverly was able to share with a Jewish woman at the motel we stayed at this morning. On Saturday we traveled to the Coral Castle to visit this very unusual museum which is about 20 miles south of Miami. Two of our Ancient Man researchers visited it after the cruise an spoke highly of it, so we took time to go to see it for ourselves. It was very unusual. You can google this site to read more about it. Photo/video

Saturday night we had a great time with the family showing them a presentation on the Ancient Man research project with a lot of interest shown. They seemed to enjoy it very much and we quit about 1:00 am!

We have heard that the marriage retreat was a big success. Thanks to the church leadership, Martin, and John, and Mike for their work on this on behalf of the whole church!!!

Thanks for your prayers,

With love, Don and Beverly

Congratulations from Ken Ham

This is an encouragement from Ken Ham while we were at the board meetings:

"Last week, the AiG board of directors met for three days at the AiG headquarters, as they do three times a year. During this time, the chairman of our board (Don Landis) and his wife (Bev) celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary. Congratulations to Don and Bev. Don is pastor of Community Bible Church in Jackson, Wyoming, and is also the president of Jackson Hole Bible College."

Travel Pictures

Beverly at the beach in Florida with her family, enjoying the warmth.

With Doug and Anna Maria Hanson at their home in South Carolina.

Beverly at the Florida border.

Hello from South Carolina!

Tonight we spent a delightful evening with the Hanson family here in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. Doug and Anna Maria are neighbors in Jackson Hole yet live the majority of the year here at their home at Traveler’s Rest. These dear friends have been an encouragement to us and to our children for quite some time and it is wonderful to fellowship again with them.

Our board meeting ended after three days of deliberation on various matters important to the work at AiG. I am very excited about the Ark Encounter project and you can keep up with this missionary venture by going to www.answersingenesis.org.

I will be encouraging all our family and friends to get involved in some way by helping us build the Ark a second time! There are different levels of donations, there will be life memberships to purchase and some of you might consider investing in the LLC, which has already been formed.

It is predicted that from 1.6 to 2.2 million people will visit the Ark Encounter during the first year. Can you imagine what a wonderful platform the ark will be to get the message of the authority of Scripture and the Gospel message to that many people!

We leave tomorrow to spend time with Beverly’s family in Florida. While there I hope to spend time writing on the book and we will be visiting a site having to do with our Ancient Man research program.

Kenton, thanks for preaching last Sunday, I hear good reports.

My many thanks to the staff, Jennifer and Cally for the work they are doing along with the rest of the staff of JHBC on beginning the newsletter for the JHBC alumni. Just after we left Jackson on the 30th of January, over 20 alumni met to talk about the school in a session to help us make the school a better experience and to work on helping past students keep in contact with the school and continue to grow in their personal faith.

Till then,

Pastor Don

Ancient Man Presentation to AiG Ark Encounter Staff

Hi everyone, February 3

Thanks for your prayers.

We were able to drive on the second day of our trip from Sidney, NE all the way to Mt. Vernon, IL.

Jared, brother Dave and Nick, were helping us by watching the weather news and relaying to us. Jared counseled us to go as far as we could so we drove through the evening until 2:30am. It was good we did. The Lord led us right through the weather window. The next morning it was raining and continued to rain most of the way to KY. Within hours that day I-70 was completely closed across MO behind us! The St. Louis area had ¾” of ice which made a bad time for people there, basically shutting the city down. It would have been a long trip and we would have missed the opportunity to present the Ancient Man material to some of the AiG staff. The Lord timed it just right for us.

We arrived in Kentucky and we had dinner that night with Mike Zovath, head of the Ark design project from AiG and he told me they had set the entire day aside for us. The next morning at the offices of the design team for the Ark Encounter, (also our new leased shipping area), we met with about 15 men in a conference room. They had set it up with all we needed and had lunch and refreshments brought in for us as well. We started at 10:00 am and I went for about 1.5 hours and then Mike McCurdy called in from Florida and presented for an hour before lunch. After lunch we resumed with Mike who went about another hour or more.

We had plans for Brian Mariani and John Burnside to share as well, but with more presentation to go and questions from the staff our time ran out. We shared more details and some of our views and axioms from JHBC and closed the meeting at 5:00pm! I said we would videotape John and Brian’s presentations and they were interested in viewing those presentations.

I think the AiG staff was very pleased with the info and were amazed at the work so far.

Wednesday night we had a dinner with some board members and today we began our first day of meetings. I spoke at the chapel for the AiG staff this morning for about 45 or 50 minutes on the stars. The information was new to many of them and they wanted to know more.

Tomorrow we work on the Ark Encounter project and end the board meeting on Saturday afternoon. One board member did not make it and another might get in yet tonight. The ice is really bad in Arkansas. One of our consultants got in late today. The weather in the Midwest is bad in large areas and it is also cold here in Kentucky.

Dinner tonight was with the board and some of our key leaders and their wives.

Cary Summers the head of the project for the LLC and the architect Leroy Troyer were at the dinner tonight. They will be at the board meeting tomorrow.

There is another important issue coming back tomorrow after discussion today.

Thanks again, I sent two pictures of the presentation to the 15 or so folks on the AM project.

Today, Beverly made about 320 bippies for the AiG staff. They all loved them and they love her and appreciate her ministry. Tonight she is tired and hopes to make bippies again tomorrow along with handing out lots of cookies we brought with us from the Manna Ministry. Thanks to all who are helping out while she is gone, it means a lot to both of us.

Thanks for all your prayers and support. It meant so much to us both.

Pray also for Kenton as he prepares for the upcoming messages at CBC.

Take care,

Pastor Don