Our friends Brian and Peggy O'Rourke live at about 10,000 feet up, where summer lasts for about two months, winter for much of the other ten and, as our son Jim in Nederland, Colorado at about 9,000 feet says, it's all mud in between. Brian bought this home site well before Peggy and he were married so they built their dream home together up here above, and within, Russell Gulch, a once thriving community of gold and silver miners near Central City, CO. 
Along with their wonderful pet pup OPIE they live here in summer and in winter they drive down to their desert home north of Phoenix in Cave Creek, Arizona.
They love to have company so we are staying with them this week while our coach is being serviced in Arvada, Colorado.
They love to play games with their friends. Especially card games. Tonight they taught us "Hand & Foot", a game not unlike Canasta. Several card decks, simple rules, and high scores. And, at least tonight, the guys WON.
Last night we came home about 9:30 in the evening from spending all day with Jim up at Rocky Mountain National Park. What we came home to was just as beautiful for the ear and was that wonderful park for the rest of the senses. Brian had had a stressful day working on a new computer program for his custom kitchen cabinet maker customers and he had been relaxing with the Lord for over an hour already playing and singing just for the pleasure, and need, of his own worshipful rest.
He played another half hour at least as we joined in or hummed along to the tunes we knew.
Peggy later told us that Gilpin County, where they live, and Clear Creek County, where they attend church, has 85% of the residents classed as un-churched, or non-attenders at any church. The number was 75% in South-eastern Berks Country, Pa, when we started ministering there. It's near the O'Rourkes number now.
But high in these old hills, among the ghost towns, ghost mines, elk, moose and bear there are some surprising spiritual sites, like a Christian couple who relax alone together by praising the Lord in song. And with friends.
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To Christian readers of this blog I don't believe I have shared any news, either about the low church attendance numbers, or that believers can un-stress best not with an overdose of some substance but with a time of prayer and praise, in song or not, with others or not, whenever the world gets too filled with hurt for them to bear.
As Mona and I drive the highways down on the 'flat' (a mile high but still below as local mountain Coloradans say) or from 'peak to peak', we'll need to be in prayerful praise too when the road gets too narrow or the coach loses some of its fluxy.
In fact, our entire journey is one of worship. Praise God!
-Ken
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