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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1981)
Section SANDY OREGON THURSDAY NOVEMBER 5 1981 The Sanity Post Area News .. Tim eshare given until Nov. 11 to comply b\ MICIl \EI. I’ JONES Post Correspondent Mt Hood Timeshare of Welches has until Nov 11 to comply with the demands of the Oregon State Heal Estate Commission, or else be forced to halt the sales of their 30 year vaca tion plan In a desist and refrain order issued in October by Gwinn F Willaim, Heal Estate commissioner, five com panies related to the timeshare sides were given 20 days to provide necessary information related to con sumer protection statutes Named was Resort Timesharing Inc of Welches. Mt Hood Timeshare Sales Inc of Portland; Mt Hood Vacation Club of Welches Mt Hood Clearinghouse of Incline Village, Nev , and Am erican Guaranty Financial Corporation of Portland, which owns the Green Tee Motel that is being purchased for the vacation plan In October Jon W Pegg Jr , of the Washington State Heal Estate D ivi sion, issued a cease and desist order in that state Pegg said deceptive advertising tactics and consumer complaints forced the order Also, proper licens mg within that state was not secured Monday, in a telephone interview, Pegg said timeshare is still not licensed in Washington, and that the main shareholders involved Carl Bright of Welches and James Vincent and Joe Carribus, both of Incline Village will have to show up for a hearing and give public testimony He said that he had talked to a representative of the timeshare operation who said that they would cooperate He said he demanded a letter stating that, but had no, receiv ed it Pegg said that all sales made in the state can be challenged by buyers un til the licensing is secured He said he is considering sending the matter to the Washington State attorney general's office if the matter is not resolved Questions have arisen in Oregon and Washington concerning the use of a direct mail promotion scheme that offers a number of prizes, in cluding a four day, three nigh, cruise to the Bahamas Recipients of the prize claim that they were not informed they were to pay their own transportation to Florida until they had made the trip to Mt Hood and attended a tour of Rippling River Red Lion Representatives of the Better Business Bureau in both Oregon and Washington have been looking into the mailings for the last few weeks Last week Robert Love of the Bet ter Business Bureau in Portland said that an employee of timeshare in formed him they were no longer us ing the c o n tro v e rs ia l "winnergrams" sent by the direct mail marketing firm , Mt Hood Clearinghouse of Incline Village He said that a new firm out of Pittston. I’enn , is now sending out "In stagrams ” The new company was selected because they can mark«*, the plan nationally However, last week Portland residents were still receiving the "winnergrams" from the Mt Hood Clearinghouse They were mailed from San Francisco Love said that he was no, aware that the "winnergrams" are still lie ing used He said that he had re quested the company review their direct mail literature with his office, bu, this was never done Also, a list of prize winners that have been repeatedly requested have never been received On Oct 29 Dennis B Atchley, the attorney for James Vincent, who is president of Mt Hood Clearinghouse and a number of other timeshare cor porations in California, Nevada and Oregon, said in a telephone interview from Fallbrook, Calif , that the com pany will have its problems resolved with Oregon shortly after the firs, of November Atchley, who according to corpora tion papers filed with the state of Oregon is listed as a member of the board of directors of the Mt Hood Clearinghouse, said that timeshare filed the necessary papers with state on Oct 22 He said they are currently awaiting the Heal Estate Division s approval G Wesley Preis, an examiner with the subdivision of the Heal Estate Division, said his office has not rece ive d a ll the necessary documents He said that the timeshare operation has until Nov 11 or else timeshare sales in this state will no longer I m * legal Atchley, on the other hand, main tains that once the company is of- ficially registered in Oregon, the W ashington problem s w ill be alleviated " I im a gin e th a t they (the Washington Real Estate Division' are gonna go along with the state of Oregon." said Atchley When Oregon lifts the decease and refrain order, so will Washington " Arson cause o f $47,500 house fire h> Ml( IIAEI. P JUNES Post ( orresondent The fifth arson fire in two and a half years struck a home along the "old emigrant tra il" jus, off Dewey Avenue in We,nine Halloween nigh, Don Arnnntrout. chief of the Hoodland Fire Department, said the fire broke out a, 7 15 p m in a vacant house, and was fully involved when firefighters arrived The blaze was fought with three company engines, two tankers, one rescue rig and 23 firefighters Eire department personnel battled the blaze for two hours and 15 minutes The building was a total loss with the value assessed a, approx imately $47,500 Amintrou, said the fire was set, and that flammable liquids were in volved Eye w itnesses say that there was a large explosion prior to the fire A five gallon, wire handled gas can was found at the scene the two fires set at the new Welches Grade School annex while it was under construction, and a fire at a beauty salon at the junction of Highway 26 and the Brighw<xxl Loop Road last year. Arnnntrout said tha, this fire "had a similar m o i method of operation) to ,he other fires over recent years " He said eight similar fires in the Mt Hood Corridor were also set with flammable liquids, and all occurred between 7 and H 30 p ni The residence is owned by Konrad L Daae of Portland, who recently purchased it for a vacation home Armintrout is urging anyone with information related to the fire to con tact his office as soon as possible Also on Oct 31 a serious auto acci dent occurred two miles east of Government Camp at 5 52 a in Two vehicles were involved and hit head on Three persons were injured, two of them seriously. Black ice was blamed as the cause of the accident The Hoodland fire department and the Oregon State Police arson divi sion is currently investigating the fire and will actively pursue all leads Armintrout believes that this same arsonist was responsible for Building church was secondary to building peoples’ lives by SCOTT NEWTON Although the new Mt. Hood Evangelical Free Church was dedicated Sunday, it is the building of peoples lives tha, is exciting. Pastor Stan Wall said following the after noon service "We've had many tha, have been on the verge of suicide because of th e ir g u ilt, and the se lf- destructiveness of their lifestyles, who have found Christ here, and are jus, filled with joy and peace and pro sperity today,” he said "Our whole body is full of them " Although it ’s the people, and not the building itself tha, counts. Wall did admit a feeling of satisfaction " I t ’s been a long time coming," he said "I, feels g<xxl ” The sun shone through the Douglas firs and into the windows of the chapel during the service It is just far enough from the road tha, it doesn't seem as though it's next to Highway 26, or across from the Hoodland Shopping Plaza "Actually, with just a few excep tions, our people built it a ll," Wall said "They cleared the ground, chopp<»d the trees down, sawed 'em up, peeled 'em All these trusses were all put together by them," he said, motioning toward the ceiling in the chapel "It's a real mountain top ex* periene. A lot of them have been working real hard for a couple of years ” The church was founded by Wall, Steve Bielenberg, Jim Olsen and John Cook The four of them used to have prayer meetings together early in the mornings The prayer meetings expanded to include their families, and has now grown to a church that draws about 150, if the children are included About 200 attended Sunday's dedication Olsen,. Bielenberg and Cook, however, have no, been around for some time They lived in the area in 1976, when the church was founded, but began moving away, any time from less than a year to two years after things got started " I think what happened, when I look back on it now, is that I think the Lord sent them here to start the church," Wall said "Each of them came in for jus, a short period of tim e." And then, different circumstances necessitated their moving By this tim e the c h u rch had grow n somewhat " I t was scary for awhile," Wall said, "because when they all left, I though, 'Oh boy, we re going to sink for sure now ' "But God just sen, the next people in and we wen, on." Bielenberg, who lives between Cor vallis and Albany and teaches physical education at Scio, had jus, moved to the area and was teaching and coaching at Welches Middle School when the church go, started He and his wife, Paula, had attended a few churches in the area, but hadn't found one that really me, their needs He said that he never had pictured what he saw Sunday, explaining tha, he thinks more in terms of "a month at a time type of thing " He said, " I couldn't l<x»k down ,In line four years and see that that this could happen, a church of this size with so many people in a structure like this " Olsen, who works for the Fores, Service and was stationed in Zigzag bu, is now in Portland, said that Wall and his wife, Mary, have "really shown an community " in te re s t in the He said, "Stan wanted to be a minister He wanted to minister to people, and he wanted to do that in a way that God had led him to do " I guess G<xt leads you to do things, and that's wha, we wanted to do, to support him in that " Olsen had envisioned a church "When you say a vision," he explain ed, "that sounds mystical It’s ac tually a situation in which I thought when we had a church, it would be in the character of the mountain." Cook, who was superintendent- principal of Welches at the time, and who now is principal a, Molalla Primary School, said, "Steve was ,he one tha, talked to me firs, He said, 'I think I'll go talk to Stan and see if there's any way we can maybe ge, a church going here After the early morning prayer meetings had gone on a while, they started to Itxik for a place to hold ser vices They were allowed to use Camp Ar rah Wanna "We didn't know from week to week which building we would use," Cook said During the dedication it was joked about a couple of times that they are no longer a "fly by night" church Finally they go, enough money together to buy a house, which is now the parsonage, and they started meeting in the basement "Then a friend of Stan's came along, who was a carpenter and a builder, and he converted the base ment into a sanctuary He put rugs on the floor, and put some paneling up We had a pretty nice sanctuary in there that would sea, 25 or 30 people comfortably," Cook said "But there were times when we got over 100 people in there, packed in and scattered out all over the laundry room.” Cook left the area about this time, and like the others, hasn't had as much contact with the church as he would have liked to have had. " I probably don't dream as big and I'm probably more realistic than Stan is when it comes to visions,” Cook said with a smile “ Maybe I don't trust the Lord as much as he does, bu, 1 never envisioned this. "We were looking for property, and we were looking around here at v a rio u s places, and a lm o st everywhere we looked something would happen and the doors would be closed and we just couldn’t buy it "Finally this piece of property opened up, and I didn't think we'd ge, this because of the proximity to the shopping center and the value of the property "They had a meeting here one day. and there were enough contributions to put a down payment on this pro perty About Wall, Cook said, "He's very- personable, and he motivates you th ro u g h e xa m p le . As Steve Bielenberg says, he's a good salesman, a good salesman for the Lord "He has that charisma about him that people just want to help and you can tell he's doing it for the Lord He’s not doing it for himself.” About the dedication service, Cook said. " I t was very nostalgic for me earlier, especially listening to Cheryl (Adams, who sang "One Day at a T im e ")," "She was our singer when we firs, started," he pointed out " I t was very nostalgic to listen to that and see what's happened here "Most of all, I like to see the infor mality that takes place in this church Things just seem to happen It's not a very formal church To me, it's just kind of hard to put it into words ” Wall admits to being a salesman A fo rm e r d is t r ic t m an ag er fo r F a rm e rs In s u ra n c e , and a stockbroker for a year, he said, " I started kind of late This is the firs, church I've ever pastored And it may be the last one, I don', know," he added with a laugh i B "Bu, I got started late I really wasn’t taught how to pastor a church About the only thing I had going was that I felt like the Bible was the secret " I f I could teach the Bible, preach the Bible, live the Bible Jesus could build a church And that s the way it works That really is the way it works ” Wall said that the word evangelical pretty well describes wha, they believe "Basically, evangelicals believe two things They believe that the B i ble is the inspired word of God, that it ’s without error, and that it's our guideline for faith and practice in the Christian life "(And), Evangelicals believe that you have to be born again, and basically what that means is dying to the old life and (being) born again to the new life in Christ "And it happpens when you uncon ditionally surrender your will to the w ill of Jesus Christ I t ’s a major transformation, and that s where Christian life begins." One member of the congregation pointed out that they do no, think, now that the church is built, that their work is over She most likely agreed with Dr Ir ving Hedstrom. superintendent of the Pacific Northwest District of the Wy alt Hlrssmg stands at the front entrance of the Ml H«xx, E vangelical Free Church "It’s a neat church to belong to." he said Evangelical Free Church, who dedicated the building He said, "To whom much is given, much is required ”
