One of the definitions of promise is, "a ground for expectation usually
for success, improvement or excellence." Promise land is defined as a
place or condition believed to promise final satisfaction or realization of
hopes.
Last week the court case from an automobile incident that I was involved in
some three and a half years ago, finally came to trial. As we began these
proceedings, I realized that this, while only a token of other things, would
have to be cleared up before I could truly move on into full expectation of any
promise. The incident was going to be completed one way or another and new
vistas await.
My attorney, provided by my insurance company through these proceedings,
within the last few months, had moved his office from downtown Seattle out into
the Wedgewood area. The major reason was the prices of renting office space
downtown. As we discussed this during one of out breaks, I realized that for
what I could rent 500 square feet of office space in downtown Seattle on a
monthly basis, I could buy the twenty acres including house, barn, shop and
other assets in Palouse country of SE Washington. Perhaps it was time to go
over and take a look at the property I had received information on a couple of
months ago.
After the case went to the jury, I decided to go for lunch in one of my
favorite restaurants in the Pike Place Market. After all just getting this
burden over with was a reason to celebrate. After lunch, as I was waiting for
my bus to go home, I got a call from my cousin who lives in Spokane, asking me
to come over and help him for a few days on his garage. Well, that would sure
help the cash flow or pay the rent, especially in these times of trying to
start something new. "If I can get these things done this afternoon, I
will probably come over tomorrow." was my reply.
As I was in the office supply store looking for some supplies the call came
from my attorney stating that, "The jury had found for the
defendant!" We had won. "Hot digety (sic?) dog and praise the Lord!"
That was truly an unexpected lift. We had proved that the injuries, or problems
that the plaintiff had sought restitution, when I touched the back of her car,
were not caused from this incident. Our expert witness had analyzed all the
aspects of the collision on the July rain-slick street and had calculated the
impact of the accident at about one-tenth of a g (gravity) or about the same as
riding in an elevator. Palouse promise here I come.
My search for a promise land began about five years ago. Mainly, I felt that
the overhead in the city was way too high. To support a reasonable life-style
took too much time away from what I really wanted to do, which was missions
support and church development. After I got out of the service, I had fallen in
lovewith the Palouse country , when I had been miraculously given a job so that
I could attend Graduate school at WSU. The real estate agent who I met at that
time, told me that the little farm I was looking for was very difficult to
find, but I could perhaps buy a job (purchase a business), or find a job to
move over. Until I saw the advertisement for the farm this spring, while I felt
this is where I was one day going to be, nothing seemed to work out. I never
felt the peace or could raise the capital required to do anything that offered
any potential.
The asking price for this farm is $230,000 and is situated between Pullman
and Colfax. It's eleven miles from Pullman partially, when passable, by a dirt
road, 17 miles the rest of the year. Downtown Colfax is about six miles away
all the time. The basic population of both Pullman and Colfax are about the
same, but Pullman has all the college students that add to its population and
really alter the culture in some strange ways. For example, in Pullman there
are twenty some churches, not counting campus ministries, or about one per
every hundred non student persons. In Colfax, there are ten churches or one per
300 real persons within the city limits. My first thoughts when I started to go
over to check out the region, was that it would take about $100,000 a year in
overhead to effectively establish a work in Pullman, without really any known
support base. I still feel that is a relatively accurate number.
To begin a work in Colfax however, you would not have that initial capital
requirement, and you could begin in more traditional ways, focusing your
programs toward Pullman and the university as funds permit. My real desire
however, is to work in missions and missions support. That is what the focus of
all the recent organization is about. There are over three thousand foreign
students in the area. Most are future leaders of their countries. Because both
WSU and the University of Idaho are agricultural schools, many of these
students are in some way related to agricultural development back home. The
little twenty acre facility could be a large farm in many of these countries,
but the possibility of similar technology economies of scale are even more
attractive as community development programs.
One of the things always discussed when looking to move into a place where
local jobs are not that abundant is to bring that job with you. As the internet
becomes a more important component of the business community, the reasons for
locating in urban areas, becomes less attractive. Quality of life issues can be
addressed at the present time, with only limited degradation of internet
services. Situated between Pullman and Colfax, you have the potential to
develop some opportunities that can be duplicated quite easily as the
technology develops. Colfax is a large, rural small town, the county seat,
Pullman has the university, and even though it is off the beaten track,
expertise is available to develop many of these opportunities. To put it
another way, you can use what is available at WSU to develop opportunities in
Colfax, that can be then duplicated in Russia, Tonga, or Central America.
The company I recently formed is called Justin-Grace Inc. It really was the
name of a man I met who was the treasurer of a chuch plant in Lewiston. You
have read the fictional story of John Justin and Paul Grace in the February 9th
message. Meyers Falls (meyersfalls.com) is the virtual urban area, forever the
community of friendly people. Oikosvirtual (oikosvirtual.org) is the virtual
frontier. In this case towns like Colfax. As I have begun to develop these
communities, I am seeing how it could provide a platform for community economic
development which can be moved and easily duplicated once all the kinks are
worked out. To attract people to visit these communities, the Good News Report
(goodnewsreport.net) provides secular good news stories from around the world.
These are stories of people making a differenceand most of the reporters are in
some way associated with missions work. Christians are really the only
religious people who care about the plight of the suffering. The Report will
provide a way to broaden their basis of funding to those who are not part of
their sending church or for that matter not even Christians (yet). When things
are really the pits sometimes you just need a good news story to get you
through the day.
The key is to be able to generate sufficient good news stories to keep
people coming back too read, contribute and potentially to shop in Meyers Falls
or Oikosvirtual. My goal would be to have 365 reporters from around the world
each submitting a series of stories about the good things that are happening in
there respective communities. Right now 90% of the stock of Justin-Grace Inc.
is owned by PREFER. Dividends of profits from Justin-Grace Inc. operations are
then funneled back into missions work.
As Bill Gates and many of his contemporaries know, common corporate stock is
the means for creating wealth in this new era. These stocks are really freely
exchanged monetary units of the corporate city state culture. They exist
outside of the political regulation of national currencies. Unlike national
currencies however, there is limited infrastructure to support there value
other than some value of intellectual property and some potential earnings,
sometimes perceived many years down the line. In a sense it is truly virtual
wealth.
Over the course of human history precious metals (gold and silver) and gems
have been the source of maintaining wealth in turbulent times. Paper money (and
corporate stocks) may come an go, but hard precious assets always have value.
Gold is the only commodity that is welcomed duty free into virtually all
countries. I bring all this up to not only point out the illusion of some of
our new found wealth, but also to mention before I got focused on this
Christian missions stuff. I had a company that manufactured gold mining and
refining equipment. We ran out of money before we had any thing on the market.
But over these last few years in my spare time I have continued to work on
refining that process. Now working out of a shop on a small farm in the Palouse
we could build that equipment and make it operational for really an
insignificant fee. Justin-Grace Inc. also has those assets as part of there
intellectual property rights. Justin-Grace Inc. sounds more like a hard earth
company to me. The potential there remains earth moving.
To proceed onward, some source of funding through the issuance and sale of
common stock needs to take place. If no other source of funding appears, such
as signficant donations etc., by about this time next week I will make an offer
on the Palouse farm with stock from the PREFER stock pool. Just for an example,
if along with the farm we found some other assets that were very missionary
oriented, that totaled a million dollars, that would reduce the potential
dividends available to missions by about ten percent. If the Lord were to
provide those funds from another church, mission organization, or a similar
philanthropic person, it is no big deal, but the whole idea of this Palouse
promise is to be able to generate as much money as possible to support missions
work worldwide. The thought of that stock eventually being part of a
circulating pool of common stock really is not something I would like to see
occur. Please pray for this situation and I would appreciate hearing any ideas
you may have to contribute.
There is a requirement of a placement of some operating capital directly for
Justin-Grace Inc.. The goal is to provide an investment opportunity for small
investors of limited means. That program as I envision it, could not have been
done before because of the need of internet email for stockholder
participation. While I believe that there are no problems with the legality of
this program, the wording of all the documents as well as some registrations
and other details need to be overseen by my securities attorney and I haven't
had the time or the resources to get there yet. With that in mind, it is
desired to have a pool of stock available to those reporters, correspondents,
consultants and other people who make the whole system work as part of their
compensation package. That process gets much more complicated if you have a
number of large investors who do not share the company vision, but only looks
at it as a financial investment. Therefore the whole thing is in the Lord's
control, but I need proper wisdom to proceed. Please pray for that also.
The real key however, to making this concept work is not the money, but the
people. People come together and communities are built, by communication.
Communication is really words put together in some order that make sense in the
specific situation. Meanings of words are relative to the individual. As we
move from the individual into the realm of the personality in community, a
harmony of understanding begins to emerge. The Good News Report follows that
role of community development. One of the things I have tried to do in these
weekly messages is to provide "Real News of Good Substance" as it
says on the mast head of the Good News Report page. The real good news in this
life is found in the saving knowledge that your sins have been forgiven and
your life has been made acceptable to God, not through your own fleshly works, but
alone through the cross and the saving work of Jesus Christ. That inward
dwelling of the Holy Spirit gives all true believers the understanding that
there is no true promise land on this earth at this time, but because of our
spotless standing within Christ, we will one day walk the streets into that
eternal celestial city. Our work here is to restore the true vision of that
hope, not a hope of adapting a moral Christianity to this world. That
restoration must however be content to work along this earthly path and not try
to escape to some gnostic spiritual heaven. Such is the tension of this life
and the hope of the blessings to come.
Mighty God, to thy dear Name be given highest
praise in all the earth and heaven.
All souls distress, all men oppressed, their voices raising, unite in praising
Thy glory.
Highest hills and deepest vales shall vanish,
earth and heaven both aline be banished.
As in the dawning of every morning the sun appeareth, so glorious nearth God's
kingdom.
Petter Dass, 1647-1707