A hope and a dream...

A dream and a hope...

My young husband and I pulled into Reno, Nevada on a hot day in August, 1969.
We arrived with a 14 foot UHaul  trailer and a Ford pickup laden with all of our worldly goods...
We had time to set up our bed in our second story apartment, haul in our hand me down furniture, clothes, assorted boxes and wooden desks...our couch was one which we stood against the wall for the back not to collapse into a flat bed, a hand me down from Don's parents...our dining room set was a chrome and gray Formica table with plastic covered chrome chairs, also a hand me down....our bed was one I had had forever, with a kapok mattress that I had gotten as a child, assorted wooden dressers, boards and cinder blocks for bookshelves....assorted wooden boxes  for bookshelves painted to match...what a conglomeration of items...
The apartment was within "walking distance" to the university, but we didn't walk it, a little too questionable. $90 per month, two bedrooms, a kitchen the size of my bedroom closet....but it was home for two years...

Reno, at that time had no freeways, the "big mall" was Parklane in south Reno.. Virginia and Sierra were the main north south streets..Keitzke was practically in the country. Mill street east  was lined with farms and ranches and barely two lanes... Hidden Valley was truly hidden. Kmart on Oddie was the big shopping center near us. Carson city was a long drive...you could go to a big time show dinner for $25 a couple...

but we had a dream and a hope...my husband's dream  and confidence was that he could find a piece of ground which would turn into a producing mine...a dream that probably most geology students have...a true prospector like the men who found and searched for gold in California or Virginia City or the Yukon...those rugged men whose stories young boys read about...

But, first we needed to finish college...which we set about doing...he was awarded a graduate student job to help with expenses...he fired assayed rock samples sent in citizens to see if there was any gold.   One particular sample I remember was a quartz crystal about the size of my fist, crystal clear with tiny stringers running through it...a beautiful specimen..much too good to pulverize into fine dust, but that is what he finally did-that was part of the job...to find out the gold content... I don't know what happened to all of the tiny gold beads he found in the samples after they were measured and reported...we  didn't take them...they went into the archives somewhere in the bowels of the mining building..

School was  ongoing for us both.  Don was a graduate student with McKay school of mines and I was an undergrad at the then Sarah  Fleishman School of Home Economics...I finished and graduated in 1971, he finished in 1972.  His thesis area was north of Lovelock off of the Oreana exit.  He mapped it, wrote about it...I hand pencil colored all of the maps to finish.

The summer of 1970, he worked for Bear Creek Mining company under Pete Hahn.   We were given a 16 foot travel trailer, and an old Scout for living accommodations and transportation...and sent off into the mountains west of Winnemucca off of the Jungo Road...near an old homestead with a cistern for water....to explore and map the area...then to Denio to look at the moly prospect south of town...Imlay to look at mining district of Mejuba hill...

In 1971, he took a job for Cordilerain, living in Winnemucca most of time while I worked in Sparks.  His bosses were the late John Livermore and Pete Galli.

We  had purchased a small home in Sparks, cleaned it up, painted the whole interior, cleaned up the yard. The monthly mortgage bill was $110.00. Our combined wages were $1200 per month ...we rain up a $1200 credit card bill for building supplies-couldn't believe we had done it soooo fast and decided we would never do that again...because we had to make payments on it rather than pay it all off... ( our early lesson in credit cards)...the price of that first house was $19,000. We sold it the following year for a $7000 profit, moving to Winnemucca to a brand new home built by Boise Cascade.
That profit was our first test in tithing...we gave 10% to a small local mission church we had started to attend...

he continued with the same company until the fall of 1972. He resigned, " knowing he could do as well as they" on his own... We had a huge sum of $1300 in the bank and I was pregnant with out first son,...he consulted for many companies, including Harvey ranches, Freeport-McMoran,  Cordex, always looking for ground which he could pick up for mining.   His first was the Adelaide claims near Golconda, NV.  We held those claims for many years, finally selling them. He also had claims near Battle Mountain which we sold to build our first house in the 1980's. He ended up with claims all over northern Nevada, many of which he held to his death in 2012. Another set of claims was the Marigold district in the 1970's leasing ground owned by the University of Nevada adjacent to the Marigold claims. We bought patented claims held by a Mr. Wasden for more that we had, around $30,000, a huge leap of faith...
We lived mostly on consulting and some mining lease fees.  It was Feast or famine, never falling behind on bills, always tithing that 10%, until one famine year, we felt led to increase the percentage. We had established a modest lifestyle, our children were fed and clothed, we were able to help others and were able to give/serve others.

His first partner was Paul Holmes, two former grad students with the saying that their vehicles had the combined experience of over 35 years...they hunted for minerals as well as meat for provisions...until Paul was called into full time ministry..with more schooling first...their lifetime friendship is a testimony to faithfulness...to each other and the giftedness for which each was called...

Another partner was Joe Hebert, who is still looking for those gold mines in far flung places..

His last partner was Alan Branham...who helped him sort through mounds of paperwork, file cabinets of ideas, dreams and potential mines...until they exhausted themselves...with myriads of plans, and probables...handing off those to their widows much too soon...but providing others with data to search for more mines in the future...

Giving was his motivation for making money, besides the thrill of finding the minerals that God had graciously put into the ground for discovery...One of Don's dreams was to build churches...by giving, he was able to do that....bodies of believers throughout the world benefitted from that dream, Uganda, Mongolia, South America, Central America, Papua New Guinea, as well as local bodies where we attended over the years, Winnemucca, Elko 2x, Corvallis, Quartsite...that legacy has continued on and now I see grandchildren going to far places doing similar things, with different spiritual giftings, but the same servant's heart...as well as others we have been able to support down through the years...

One of the songs sung at Don's funeral was, "thank you for giving to the Lord"... Picturing people that were affected by his giving....near and far, ones we knew of and others which he will see in heaven...I can picture him walking those streets talking to friends and strangers about the times they all had here...to God's glory...how all the times fit together, the reminiscing, the praising...

There are so many stories ...but it all started with a dream and a hope...put there by God...facilitated by God...thank YOU for the path You prepared...the many chapters in our book, the provisions in the lean times, the faithfulness through the years...the  twists and turns, the friendships along the way... The harvest....



Sarah Young, "Jesus Lives"
HOPE
BE STEADFAST AND PATIENT IN SUFFERING. Affliction is a largely unappreciated gift among My children. Decades of “health and wealth” teaching have obscured the benefits of suffering. As a result, a secular worldview that despises pain and sorrow has infiltrated the church. When painful circumstances are weighing you down, I encourage you to rejoice and exult in hope: to leap joyously upward. Although physical jumping is sometimes impossible or inappropriate, your soul can leap upward at any time.
As you lift your soul to Me in hopeful anticipation, My showers of Joy fall upon and within you. The longer and more expectantly you wait in My Presence, the more abundantly I can bless you. One way to enhance this transaction is to lift your wide-open arms up toward Me—as if you were celebrating a triumphant moment in your life. This posture expresses exultant Joy, and I respond by filling your soul with more Joy. This puts you on an upward spiral of rejoicing. If you want to verbalize your jubilation, one of the best ways is to speak, sing, or shout: “Hallelujah!”

Rejoice and exult in hope; be steadfast and patient in suffering and tribulation; be constant in prayer. ROMANS 12: 12 AMP
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ROMANS 15: 13
Rejoice the soul of Your servant, for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. PSALM 86: 4 NKJV
After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God. . . .” REVELATION 19: 1