West Main

 

 

YOUTH SUMMER MISSION TRIP

TO ARIZONA

 

 

 

Our youth group will be taking off on a new ministry adventure! For the first time we are leaving this state for our summer mission trip. We will be flying to Tuba City, Arizona, to work on a  Navajo Indian Reservation. We will be teaming up with the youth groups from East County Church of Christ in Gresham and the Newberg Church of Christ.  

 

 

We will be working in many ways while there. Tuba City is at poverty level, and most of its citizens struggle to make ends meet. So we will be working for them in the morning helping with building projects, house repairs, storing fire wood for the winter, etc. We want to serve them in love. In the afternoons, we will help lead a VBS for local children and several nights will host teen events for the locals, all in hopes of sharing the joy of the gospel message.

 

 

We are very excited! It is going to be a wonderful and life changing trip. We have eleven team members embarking from West Main. It is going to take LOTS of fundraising, as each person has to fund their travel, food, etc.  Some of you will get a letter requesting help. (We made sure that no one at church gets more than one request.)  We also want our team to EARN this, so as to have more ownership. So, now these kids are “FOR HIRE!”  They are willing to help you clean, do yard work, paint, babysit, ANYTHING you need, in order to help fund their mission efforts.  If you have a job, please contact Brian  and we will get you the help you need.  We can work with any schedule and any request.  Here are the “laborers in the vineyard”:

 

 

Jeremiah Bigboy, Zach Kirk, Jonah Michael, Courtney Denn, Michala Denn, Dylan Moreno, Paul Flock, Katie Covington.

Need help? They are willing!!!!  Please contact us ASAP.

 

– Pannell

 

 

 

 

DESALINATION

(The Lord first showed us how)

 

 

In the many arid parts of the Middle East, oil seems to be more plentiful than fresh water. However, oil wealth has come to their rescue with desalination of seawater. Even here in Southern California, our wasteful ways have humbled us to making fresh water out of seawater at great cost. To do this, man has mostly used distillation or one-way membranes. In this writing it gives us pleasure to recount how the Lord has been purifying seawater for us all the while – as a free gift.

 

 

Oceans may be thought of as recycling reservoirs for fresh water. River-caused land erosion adds a load of contaminants as excess rainwater returns to the sea. We have noted in earlier writings that these salts and minerals are welcomed by the oceans, where they are put to good use. They are not welcome in the water we drink, or in growing the plants that we eat. We need to remove these impurities for our use.

 

 

Salty water can be distilled by heating it and collecting the escaping vapors. Cooling the resulting vapors causes condensation and yields fresh water that is free of salts and other impurities. The heat wasted in this process together with plant equipment is costly.

 

 

The use of semi-permeable membranes is a still more expensive way to filter out salt and other impurities. Commonly known as reverse osmosis, this method is often used where the amount of salt and other minerals is less than found in seawater. In California, where fresh water costs are in excess of $1400 per acre foot, farmers sometimes bite the bullet and use this process for reducing salts in irrigation water for sensitive crops.

 

 

In contrast to our efforts in desalination, our Creator has employed the solar energy he has beamed to earth. Ocean surface waters are warmed and allow the escape of water vapor that is free of contaminants. When wafted over land by air currents, it is cooled when it collides with colder air masses, or pushed to cooler climes by mountains. Rain is the result of this marvelous design!

 

 

As for membranes that filter out salt, he has equipped fish with these. For even ocean life cannot handle too much salt.

 

 

There is still another way the Lord has separated salt out of seawater that man has not been able to copy efficiently. At the other end of the temperature scale from where vaporization occurs, the freezing of seawater also excludes salt during its crystallization. Small pockets of brine interspersed in the resulting ice take a long time to leach out. Since we are not on the same timetable as the Lord, we cannot wait for ice to become “old” and salt-free. However, arctic creatures that need fresh water are blessed with this source when melt occurs on floating ice.

 

                                                                  – James Gibbs

 

 

 

 

College Boxes  --     Please bring your donations for our college boxes this Sunday or you may give a cash donation to Denise Beeks for the boxes. Our college kids and Cory Murray, who is the military, really appreciate their boxes!Thank you for all of your help!