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 ”