Newsletter

Winter 1999: Notes from Pacific Rim

A Year of Blessings: Land purchase enhances educational opportunities at Pacific Rim
By Dr. Calvin DeWitt

In February of 1999, we learned of 175 acres in the Pacific Northwest well suited for a new campus for the programs we have been holding in the region since 1997. With scores of people helping, we purchased this property near Coupeville, Wash., on June 30 from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for $700,000. It came complete with a rare 3.5-acre remnant of native prairie, many useful buildings and a grand view of the Olympic Mountains. Its former use as a game farm and its facilities and location on Smith Prairie on Whidbey Island promise a fine new campus for land and Creation stewardship!

Friends, students, alumni, faculty, staff, and board members thus far have pledged $70,000 for this project, the National Park Service is considering buying a $200,000 scenic easement from us and grantors have invited proposals in the amount of $250,000. Plans are underway for upgrading the site and transforming the buildings for teaching and field study.

We have been immensely blessed during the past 10 months! We now look toward a wonderful unfolding of Au Sable - Pacific Rim! Thanks for your prayers, time and resources that have so blessed this effort. Please continue this by letting possible donors know about this project, by making an additional gift or pledge and...if you would like to help in a unique and tangible way, you or a group can roof one of our 50 leaking cabins for $314.12! Ten cabins were covered in December, with 40 to go!

Thanks! And please remember Au Sable in your prayers as you and all of us work to serve the needs of a growing Institute with a growing opportunity for service in God's creation!

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