4. Creation and New Creation
4.1 Creation
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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, including the future site of Idaho Falls.
The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep.
Genesis 1:2, referring to the whole earth, means much more than what early Idaho explorers observed and have written about Southeast Idaho in the early 1800s, but their accounts of this small portion of creation describe a land that was by and large empty and hostile. These reports from the early history of Southeast Idaho are a distance echo of the much earlier period referred to in Genesis, a period known by geologists as the Hadean Era.[1],[2] During that time, much or all of the earth was covered with water and the atmosphere was so dense from dust and other space debris that no light reached the surface of the earth. When land masses appeared, they were in part molten due to frequent and intense collisions with asteroids and meteorites, including one about the size of Mars, and also in part due to the greater rate of heat release from the earth’s core due to radioactive decay. Another characteristic of this period was frequent violent solar flares and solar bursts of intense X-ray and ultraviolet radiation. Thus, during this early time period, this place that we now call Idaho Falls, wherever on the face of the earth that was, was indeed formless and void. Because of destructive processes occurring then and since then, no path can be traced for this spot on the globe now to a particular location then. However, in spite of these hellish conditions, God was at work preparing the earth for habitation.[3]
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And darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
The Spirit of God was moving in Eastern Idaho long before man arrived, preparing a home for those that would live here, leaving hidden treasures of God’s glory. There were times that this geographical location we call Idaho Falls was covered with water. Specific evidence of these seas are outcroppings of limestone, shale and sandstone seen on mountains east, southeast and south of town, and found during drilling of deep wells in Bonneville and nearby counties. These will be described shortly.
But here I want to jump ahead in time[4] and focus on another of these hidden treasures, one that is underneath us – the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer.
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Figure 7. Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer. Taken from State of Idaho Oversight Monitor, May, 2005, p. 1; also available from other sources including Boise State Public Radio, Adam Cotterell, Jan 29, 2015, http://boisestatepublicradio.org/post/pollution-increasing-idahos-snake-river-aquifer and paper written by Doug Geller, Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer, Idaho, Emporia State University GO 571, Spring 2006, http://academic.emporia.edu/schulmem/hydro/TERM%20PROJECTS/Geller/Eastern%20Snake%20River%20Plain%20Aquifer.html. Both sites accessed Sept. 13, 2017.
The Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer may contain as much as a billion acre-feet of water,[5] 35 times the amount of water in the Great Salt Lake, or twice as much water as in Lake Erie. If equally distributed over a surface area of 10,800 square miles, the area of the Eastern Snake River Plain, the water from the aquifer would be 145 feet deep.[6]
God’s work forming the Eastern Snake River Plain aquifer involved processes of volcanism and tectonics that display God’s wisdom and power.
There are geysers in at least 20 locations in the world, but our backyard of Yellowstone contains about 500, half of the world’s total. The total number of thermal features in Yellowstone – geysers, hot springs, mud pots, fumaroles, travertine terraces etc. is estimated to be about 10,000.[7] These thermal features are evidence of a tremendous amount of energy, in the form of heat, near the surface of the ground. In fact the heat flow coming out of Yellowstone is more than 30 times the average of the continental United States.[8] Or put another way, containing only 0.1% of the land area of the United States, 5% of the total heat released from the country is released from Yellowstone. There is obviously a source of heat under Yellowstone Park.
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The most convincing theory of the source of that heat is what’s called the Yellowstone hot spot or the Yellowstone magma chamber.[9] Magna from the earth’s core is thought to rise in a convection cell up through the lower mantle and into the upper mantle.
Curiously, the Yellowstone hot spot has not always been under Yellowstone; at one time long ago it was under southeastern Oregon and northeastern Nevada. There is evidence for 142 volcanic eruptions leaving calderas from Northeast Nevada to Yellowstone Park as the US continental plate moved west-southwest over this underground magna chamber. A few of the larger calderas are shown on the map below:
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Figure 8. Major Calderas left by Yellowstone Hotspot. Taken from "Yellowstone," http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Yellowstone/Yellowstone.html; original source Branney et al., 2008, Bull. Volcanol. 70, pp. 293-324.
These eruptions are not what we commonly think of as volcanoes, and calderas are different from volcanic craters. Calderas are bowl shaped depressions caused by the collapse of the land surface after magna has been released by a variety of means, including highly viscous flows or eruptions at multiple points. Many of these calderas, including the Yellowstone caldera, were formed from super-eruptions which released hundreds of cubic miles of rock and ash. It’s estimated that the three eruptions which formed the Island Park Caldera, the Henry’s Fork Caldera and the Yellowstone Caldera released between 900 and 1000 cubic miles of material. 1000 cubic miles is equivalent to a land mass 32 miles long by 32 miles wide by a mile deep.
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Here’s another diagram showing the motion of the North American Plate over the Yellowstone hot spot:
Figure 9. Formation of the Snake River Plain; taken from http://castle-kaneloon.tripod.com/images/yellow-3Calderas.jpg; also available at http://www.dailygalaxy.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/03/15/308619yellowstone.jpg
As you can see in Figures 8 and 9, the future site of Idaho Falls lies within the calderas formed as the North American plate moved over the magma chamber known as the Yellowstone hot spot. Specifically, the location of Idaho Falls is within the Heise Caldera, also referred to as the Heise volcanic field. Evidence for four major eruptions from within the Heise volcanic field has been found. It’s estimated that 970 mi3 (4,050 km3) of material was ejected in these four eruptions.[10] Idaho Falls sits within, but near the edge of, the nested calderas left by the two largest of these eruptions.[11]
Many of the volcanic rock features we see now in and near Idaho Falls are much younger than these supervolcano eruptions. The East Butte and Big Southern Butte west of Idaho Falls were formed approximately 600,000 and 300,000 years ago respectively.[12] The Menan Buttes north of Idaho Falls formed just 10,000 years ago.[13] Evidence for sixty lava flows has been found at Craters of the Moon National Monument, and they have been dated between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago. Closer to town, coming right to the southwest edge of Idaho Falls, is Hell’s Half Acre[14] Lava Field. One portion of this lava field has been dated as forming 4,000 to 5,000 years ago;[15] the lava flow at the I-15 rest stop south of Idaho Falls is about 20,000 years old.[16]
Let the earth bring forth living creatures…
When did the life that God created, described in Genesis 1, first reach Southeast Idaho?
Evidence of the earliest life in this region is buried deep beneath our city.
About 20 miles east of Idaho Falls, an exploratory well was drilled from 1928 to 1930. Shale was reached at a depth of about 260 feet and continued down to 335 feet. From there to the final depth of 3,331 feet, various forms and colors of limestone, lime or lime mixed with sand or shale were reported. The description recorded for several layers was “lime shells.”[17] Both shale and limestone are sedimentary rocks, formed when either clays, ultimately resulting in shale, or skeletal remains of marine organisms, resulting in lime and limestone, are deposited on an ocean floor. Thus long ago, this place was a sea.
The closest exploratory oil or gas well to Idaho Falls recorded in the Idaho Geological Survey Data Base was drilled about one mile west of Rigby in 1953 by Idaho Oil and Mining Corporation.[18] The well log indicated that the first evidence of oil was seen at the 311 to 315 foot level, in brown shale. Additional oil-containing shales were found in most subsequent layers down to the maximum well depth of 455 feet.[19] The oil found in this well likely came from algae, zooplankton and other marine life in the sea.
The wells that supply Idaho Falls’ water supply draw from ground water in the volcanic formations underlying the city. Below those layers are older, sedimentary limestone layers formed in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras.[20] Outcroppings of these older formations can be seen on Taylor Mountain south of town and other mountains east and southeast of town.[21] [Add more detail about the limestone and other formations directly under the city if we can find it.]
In the early history of Idaho Falls, coal that was mined locally was an important fuel that heated homes in the city, and a few homes still have coal furnaces today. The best quality coal in Idaho came from the Horseshoe Creek deposit, east of Driggs. Nine separate beds over 14 inches thick are found in places in this deposit.[22] A coal shortage in Idaho Falls in the winter of 1916-17 prompted a survey of coal fields throughout Southeastern Idaho to determine if new sources could be found and utilized.[23] While numerous coal deposits were found east and northeast of Idaho Falls, none other than the Horseshoe Creek deposit were determined to be rich enough to be commercially mined.[24]
Based on fossil evidence, the origin of the type of coal found in Southeastern Idaho is likely the result of forests becoming flooded and buried. After an initial but limited period of microbial decay, anaerobic conditions at sufficiently high temperatures convert this dead wood and vegetation to coal. Based on fossil leaves found in the coal in the Horseshoe Creek deposit, it is believed to have formed in the Cretaceous Era.[25] Additional evidence for this time period being important for the region just east and southeast of Idaho Falls comes from fossils found in the Wayan Formation, in the Caribou Mountains of southern Bonneville and northern Caribou Counties.[26] The only remains of dinosaurs found anywhere in Idaho have come from the Wayan Formation, and include partial skeletons, teeth and eggshells. Remains from Oryctodromeus, nodosaurs, iguanodonts, dromaeosaurs, theropods, Macroelongatoolithus and other dinosaurs have been found in this part of Bonneville County.[27] The Wayan formation also contains fragmentary remains of large and small crocodilians, turtles, small mammals, semionotid fish, as well as petrified conifer wood and foliage from angiosperms and ferns.[28]
If we, on this spot on the globe that we now call Idaho Falls, go back in time far enough, we would find ourselves in an ocean. Thus the first living creatures that made this place their home were most likely prokaryotes, archaea and other life forms that filled the oceans in ancient times. Sometime after God caused dry land to appear and He created vegetation, plants appeared and flourished. Evidence of what those first plants were may or may not be present deep in the rock formations below us. This early vegetation likely went through many cycles of change as the climate varied between warm and cold periods, and also as the earth experienced multiple extinction events. Based on the coal deposits not far away from Idaho Falls, it’s likely that at times there were forests covering this part of the state at various times.
Then came the age of the dinosaurs, an age thought to be four orders of magnitude longer than the period that humans have lived in Southeast Idaho. The end of the age of the dinosaurs in Southeast Idaho, like in the rest of the world, came at the time of the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. Caused by a massive asteroid impact 2000 miles from Idaho Falls as the crow flies (or a little more than 3000 miles by roads), the impact energy of this asteroid hitting the earth has been calculated to be equivalent to 3 billion times the combined energy of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[29] The shock wave from this impact very likely killed all life in Southeast Idaho. If any life did survive the shock wave, it would have then experienced multiple earthquakes of magnitude 11 or greater and suffered from the earth’s destroyed ozone shield. Sulfur aerosols in the earth’s atmosphere blocked sunlight and hence stopped photosynthesis for several years, and dust, aerosols and smoke in the atmosphere caused a drop in global temperatures by as much as 18ºF for decades or possibly centuries.[30] Three-quarters of all species on earth went extinct because of this event.[31] [Look for references documenting the K-Pg boundary in Southeastern Idaho formations.]
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Yet life recovered quickly, on a geological time scale, and no doubt due to God's hand. And not only did it recover, but many new species of plants, insects, birds and mammals appear in fossils dating to this time period. God was at work, filling the earth, including Southeast Idaho, with life.
Very near Idaho Falls, bones of an elephant (actually a mammoth), an ancient and extinct species of bison and camels have been found, which brings us to the next step in creation.
Figure 10. Elephant Hunters highway marker on Highway 20 seventeen miles west of Idaho Falls
God created man in His image…
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…”
The Lord scattered them abroad from [Babel] over the face of the whole earth…
Southeast Idaho is rich in evidence of God’s handiwork in creation — the Eastern Snake River Plain, the SRP aquifer, the Snake River running through town, the canyons of the South Fork, Teton and Henry’s Fork rivers, limestone formations, traces of oil in wells dug east and north of town, coal deposits in the area, bones and other remains of dinosaurs in the Caribou Mountains of Bonneville County, and also … evidence of very early human activity. About 17 miles west and a couple miles north of town, the Wasden site includes three collapsed lava tube caves – Owl Cave, Coyote Cave and Dry Cat Cave. On private land for many years, the caves were acquired in 2013 by the Archeological Conservancy and are currently administered by the Wasden Archeological Association.[32]
According to Ernest S. Lohse, professor at Idaho State University,
The Wasden site is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the western United States. The cave shows evidence of Native American use from about eleven thousand years ago to the early historic period.[33]
Figure 11. Entrance to Owl Cave at the Wasden Site. Taken from Artifacts, Vol 23, No. 2, Idaho Archaeology Society, October 2006
While many archaeological sites have been found in southern Idaho, on the Idaho National Laboratory grounds[34] and elsewhere,[35] the Wasden site is the closest one to Idaho Falls, and according to an archaeologist with the Idaho Natural Resources Conservation Service, is unique in its age, size and diversity of animal remains.[36] The Wasden Site provides abundant evidence of very early inhabitants of this region and hence of Genesis 11:8, the Lord scattering people over the whole earth.
The Wasden Site caves were discovered by Idaho Falls residents Helen and Richard Gildersleeve in the mid-1960’s.[37],[38] Under the direction of Idaho State University archeologist B. Robert Butler, Owl Cave was first excavated from 1965 to 1971 by the Upper Snake River Archaeological Society. The cave is about 35 feet wide and 35 feet deep, sloping down toward the back.[39] In the initial excavation, 10 to 16 feet of soil were removed from the east half of the cave, screened and examined.[40] From 1972 to 1975, work at the site was led by Dr. Earl H. Swanson of the Idaho State University Natural History Museum, and from 1976 to 1978 by ISU doctoral student Susanne J Miller.
Evidence for human activity at the Wasden Site comes from the relative abundance of artifacts found, including projectile points, markings on bones, bone and rock tools, and charcoal.
At a level of about four feet below the surface, a layer of ash characteristic of that from Mount Mazama, the volcano which left Crater Lake in Southwestern Oregon, was found.[41] Major eruptions of Mount Mazama occurred about 5900 and 5680 BC.[42]
Radiocarbon dating has been performed on 13 samples from Owl Cave, 3 of ash and 10 of bone, and obsidian hydration dating has been performed on 14 samples of obsidian. Several of these samples were taken from layers just below that of the Mount Mazama ash, while nearly all the others were taken from 4.5 to 5.4 meters below the surface, just above the volcanic rock floor.[43]
Bones estimated to be from 70 bison were found in a layer from 20 to 50 cm thick, along with 62 artifacts, mostly projectile points.[44] Analyses of bone and charcoal samples just above and below this layer gave dates of approximately 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. While the vast majority of large mammal bones found at this level were bison, a few were identified as being from other animals, including carnivores, canines, a coyote and a marmot.[45] Finding only 60 bison rib fragments in the set of large mammal bones that totaled over 6000, it appeared that bison ribs had been removed from the site as a preferred food item. In addition to these bones from large mammals, bones from 7248 small mammals were also found, mostly rabbits and pocket gophers.[46]
Samples from the bottom layers yielded dates of 10,000 to 13,000 years ago. Bones from several extinct mammals were found here, including those from an extinct bison, camels and a mammoth, with markings that evidenced butchering.[47]
Figure 12. Fluted points and mammoth molar from Owl Cave west of Idaho Falls. From http://www.wasdenarchaeology.org/photo-library.html
While a lot of gaps exist in records of the history of Southeast Idaho, the land formations around us, the aquifer and rocks beneath us, fossils and artifacts found near Idaho Falls all provide evidence of God’s activity and creativity.
In the Old Testament, at least five different Hebrew verbs are used to describe God’s work of creating. God created the heavens and the earth. God formed or fashioned the heavens and the earth and man from the dust of the ground. God founded the heavens and the earth. God established the heavens and the earth. God made the heavens and the earth.
While there may be considerable overlap in the meaning of these Hebrew verbs, the fact that several different words are used to describe God’s work of creation suggests to me that creation encompasses a broad range of activity.
Isaiah 45:18 uses four of these five Hebrew verbs, rendering them into five English verbs, to describe God’s work of creation:
For this is what the LORD says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited—he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.”
This verse and others as Romans 1:20 and 10:18, Psalm 19 and Psalm 65, state or imply that God’s creation is a witness to His glory and divinity.
Standing in Idaho Falls, in whatever direction we look, we see evidence of God creating, forming, founding, establishing and making. We look up and see the clouds, reminding us of the water cycle so crucial for life, so necessary for life here in the high desert of Southeastern Idaho. Then as we look through the atmosphere to the moon and sun and comprehend how “fine-tuned” earth’s placement is in the solar system, we see evidence of God’s wisdom and power fashioning a planet fit for an abundance of life, unlike any other yet found in the universe, a planet that would display and ultimately be filled with His glory.
If we could see underneath us, below the floors and pavements and disturbances caused by human activity, we would first see that layer of soil so intricately designed that with a little care most anything we plant in it will grow in it – grass, flowers, trees, potatoes. After some relatively thin layers of alluvial gravel, we come to the bedrock layers of basalt that are the remnants of powerful volcanic activity of past ages. As we continue looking down we find the porous layers comprising the eastern edge of the ESRP aquifer, and then older volcanic layers. Then we reach very thick sedimentary layers of limestone, evidence of God’s activities long ago – evidence of the life He created in the sea, and His movement of continents to the places He desired.
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Looking north across the Eastern Snake River Plain toward Yellowstone we’re reminded of God’s awesome power displayed through the supervolcanoes that left behind a series of calderas, including the Heise calderas that our town sits in. As we swing to the east the Tetons come into view in the distance, and the Big Hole Mountains closer by. The beauty of the Teton peaks and the canyons that fan out from them may cause us to praise God for his handiwork, but as we seek to understand how God formed these mountains, uplifting and folding and faulting layers of earth and rock, some thousands of feet thick, we gain a deeper sense of awe for the Creator.
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Looking east, we see across Bonneville County to the Wyoming line, in a line of sight that crosses many types of rock formations. The large green area shown in Figure 13 indicate rock formation from the Cretaceous period, when this place was home to dinosaurs.
Figure 13. Geology of Bonneville County. Taken from http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/counties/geomaps/geomap.htm. For the key to colors and map codes, see that webpage.
Turning to the south, we might see Sandy Downs, and the sand dunes from which Sandy Downs got its name. These dunes actually extend in a northeast to southwest direction for about 5 miles. Where did the sand in these dunes come from? Likely it came from the Lake Bonneville Flood, [add reference] an event about 14,500 years ago that is estimated to have released 380 cubic miles of water. The peak flow from Lake Bonneville, an ancient lake that covered much of Utah and a small part of Idaho, was 15 million cubic feet per second,[1] more than 700 times greater than the typical annual peak flow of the Snake River through Idaho Falls. The waters of this flood, as great as they were, just barely came up to Ammon, as the flow washed through the Portneuf River Valley and into the Snake River near Pocatello.
Then as we turn west we again look out over the Eastern Snake River Plain. Catching a glimpse of Kettle Butte, we think of the Wasden caves and can imagine the mammoths, camels and ancient bison that once roamed over these plains. And peering into the past we “see” families or groups of people coming from the north or the west, the first to live in this area. How did God reveal Himself to them? Did they recognize His hand in volcanic flows they witnessed, in the climate changes they had to adjust to, in the animals He had put here for their food?
That brings us to the next section……God’s work of new creation.
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[1] Much of what is known or theorized about the Hadeon Era is based on lunar events and analysis of lunar rocks.
[2] In 2010, a proposal was made to add the Chaotian and Prenephelean Eras preceding the Hadean, covering the period of earth’s formation, but as of early 2017, this nomenclature has not been adopted by the International Union of Geological Sciences.
[3] For a good discussion of how God was at work during this period see Chapters 5 and 6 of Improbable Planet, How Earth Became Humanity’s Home, Hugh Ross, Baker Books, 2016, pp.43-77.
[4] In terms of geological eras, this is a jump all the way from the Hadean Era past the Archean Era, Proterozoic Era [these three combined are known as Precambrian Eon], Paleozoic Era, and Mesozoic Era to well into the Cenozoic Era, which includes our present time. The next section discussing evidence of when life first appeared in Southeast Idaho jumps back in time to the Cretaeous Period, the last period of the Mesozoic Era.
[5] Estimate of 1 billion acre feet from “Idaho’s Treasure, the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer,” State of Idaho Oversight Monitor, May 2005.
[6] From “Our Changing Aquifer,” State of Idaho Oversight Monitor, March 2006.
[7] http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/geothermal.htm.
[8] The heat flow from the Eastern Snake River Plain, 75-110 mW/m2, is 2-3 times higher than much of the rest of the country
[9] Robert Smith and Lee Siegel report that the Yellowstone hotspot is one of about 30 currently active hotspots in the earth. Almost all the others are beneath oceans or near coastlines, including as those that produced Iceland, the Hawaiian Islands and the Galapagos Islands. See Windows Into the Earth, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 28.
[10] Lisa A. Morgan, William C. McIntosh, "Timing and development of the Heise volcanic field, Snake River Plain, Idaho, Western USA," Geological Society of America Bulletin, March/April 205, pp. 288-306; http://www.rcn.montana.edu/Publications/Pdf/2005/GSA_Heise_final.pdf.
[11] See Figure 2 of Morgan and McIntosh, http://www.rcn.montana.edu/Publications/Pdf/2005/GSA_Heise_final.pdf.
[12] Dallas B. Spear and John S. King, "The Geology of Big Southern Butte, Idaho," Cenozoic Geology of Idaho, pp. 395-403; John E Bretches and John S. King, "The Geology of East Butte – A Rhyolitic Dome of the Eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho," Lunar and Planetary Science XV, pp. 90-91, 1984, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc1984/pdf/1046.pdf. According to http://geology.isu.edu/Digital_Geology_Idaho/Module11/mod11.htm, the estimated age of the Middle Butte is less than 1 million years.
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menan_Buttes. Another reference, http://www.imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/geog/rrt/part2/images/pg89.gif, gives the age of the Menan Buttes as 70,000 years.
[14] Hell’s “Half” Acre actually covers about 150 square miles, or 100,000 acres.
[15] The 5,000 year age (more precisely 3250 BCE +/- 150 uncorrected radiocarbon years) comes from Kuntz, et al., "Radiocarbon Studies of Latest Pleistocene and Holocene Lava Flows of the Snake River Plain, Idaho: Data, Lessons, Interpretations," Quaternary Research, February 1986, p. 163, as cited in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell's_Half_Acre_Lava_Field; other websites, e.g., https://www.recreation.gov/recreationalAreaDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&recAreaId=1199 give an age of approximately 4,000 years ago.
[16] David D. Alt, Donald W. Hyndman, Roadside Geology of Idaho, Mountain Press Publishing Co, 2011, p.257.
[17] http://www.idahogeology.org/Data/Oil_Gas_Scans/1928-01/1928-01-reports.pdf.
[18] http://www.idahogeology.org/Data/Oil_Gas_Scans/1953-02/1953-02-reports.pdf.
[19] ibid.
[20] David D. Alt, Donald W. Hyndman, Roadside Geology of Idaho, Mountain Press Publishing Co, 2011, p. 255.
[21] George Mansfield, in "Geography, Geology and Mineral Resources of the Ammon and Paradise Valley Quadrangles, Idaho," Geological Survey Professional Paper 238, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1952, p. 74, states that the total thickness of strata in southeastern Idaho is 46,000 ft.
[23] George R. Mansfield, Coal in Eastern Idaho, https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0716f/report.pdf.
[24] Ibid.
[25] The Cretaceous Era lasted from 145 to 66 million years ago.
[26] http://idahopaleo.weebly.com/cretaceous.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayan_Formation.
[27] Ibid.
[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayan_Formation.
[29] Curt Covey et al., "Global Climatic Effects of Atmospheric Dust from an Asteroid or Comet Impact on Earth," Global and Planetary Change 9 (December 1994), pp 263-73.
[30] Hugh Ross, Improbable Planet, Baker Books, 2016, p. 193.
[31] David Jablonski and W. G. Chaloner, “Extinctions in the Fossil Record [and Discussion],” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal London Society B 344, April, 1994.
[32] See http://www.wasdenarchaeology.org/american-archaeology-acquisition-article--spring-2013.html and http://www.wasdenarchaeology.org/.
[33] E. S. Lohse, Jason Anderson, "Reclaiming Old Data: The Wasden Site Research Project," Proceedings of the 2001 Computer Applications in Archeology Conference, pp. 483-490.
[34] More than 850 archaeological sites have been found on the Idaho National Laboratory according to Jay E Anderson, Kristin T Ruppel, James M Glennon, Karl E Holte, Ronald C Rope, Plant Ecologies, Communities, Ethnoecology, and Flora and Flora of the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Environmental Science and Research Foundation, ESRF-005, June 1996.
[35] Ranking near or equal in importance with the Wasden Site is the Wilson Butte Cave northeast of Twin Falls, where evidence for the oldest human habitation in Idaho. For other archaeological sites in Southern Idaho, see Figure 3 of An Introduction to the Archaeology of Southern Idaho, Mark G. Plew, Hemingway Western Studies Publication, 1986, or The Archaeology of the Snake River Plain, Mark Plew, Published by the Dept. of Archeology, Boise State University, 2000.
[36] Darim Vrem, Artifacts, Vol 23, No. 2, Idaho Archaeology Society, October 2006; Darin Vrem is the State Cultural Resources Specialist/Archaeologist for the Idaho Natural Resources Conservation Service.
[38] Richard “Gil” Gildersleeve passed away at age 94 at Morning Star Senior Living Center on August 10, 2016; his wife Helen less than a month later on September 5, 2016 at age 92. Richard worked on the design of the Palisades Dam, and was an engineering construction manager for the Atomic Energy Commission in Idaho Falls from 1957 to his retirement in 1978. His wife Helen worked as a registered nurse for the Department of VII Health Department for 19 years. Archeology and paleontology were shared hobbies for Richard and Helen; they were sponsored by Idaho State University to work at several important archeological sites in Idaho, including work at the Wasden Site for more than a decade. Both Richard and Helen were founding members of the Upper Snake River Prehistoric Society, and were also members of Trinity United Methodist Church in Idaho Falls.
[39] The Wasden Site (Owl Cave), National Register of Historic Places Inventory, Nomination Form, Received April 30, 1976.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Mark Plew, The Archeology of the Snake River Plain, Boise State University, 2000, p. 35.
[42] From http://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=322160. The date of 5900±50 BCE was obtained by radiocarbon analyses, corrected to calendar years. The date of 5680±150 BCE was based on ice core evidence. For more information about dating of Mount Mazama’s eruption, see http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/online-library/nature-notes/vol23-mazama-eruption-date.htm.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Ibid.
[48] http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/main/lbffr.htm
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4.2 New Creation
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If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.” II Cor 5:17 (NIV)
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“…what counts is the new creation.” Gal 6:15 (NIV)
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Both Isaiah (Is 65:17) and John (Rev 21:1) reveal that God will create a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus Himself, through His resurrection, is the first evidence of this new creation. But Scripture reveals that as God prepared the garden for Adam and Eve, so the new heaven and earth will be prepared for Christ's bride, and He is at work now forming that bride after the pattern of Jesus, the second Adam. Jesus has been at work throughout the history of Idaho Falls drawing men and women to Himself, giving them new life, forming them into His bride.
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That new creation is born of His Spirit and not always clearly evident. But like seeing the effects of the wind, we can observe over time changes in lives and effects of the new birth. We can only guess how many men and women and children in Eagle Rock and Idaho Falls have become living stones in that spiritual house that Jesus is building. And His work is not done shaping and refining those stones He has chosen. Here are a few stories of Jesus doing His work of new creation.
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4.2.1 Rob & Vicki Callantine
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This first story is – very appropriately – mostly about two lives and a marriage. People can get very messed up, both through situations that they have no control over, like families they’re born into, and through their own decisions, some made as responses to the pain of those hard and hurtful situations. As the Spirit brooded over the “formless and void” earth, Jesus is still creating order from empty and wasted lives. And as Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to the cross, so He can come to us in our pain, offering and giving us His love, His resurrection life, and the great value of being included in His family.
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Rob Callantine was born and raised in Pocatello. When he was only 7 months old, Rob’s 17-year old mother, his maternal grandparents and an uncle all died in a car accident. His father survived the accident, but was in a coma for 5 days and the hospital for 6 months. Being in the Navy, his father couldn’t take care of Rob. So he was shuffled between relatives for the next 14 years, never feeling like he belonged. Looking back on his childhood, Rob sees that he had reactive attachment disorder, resulting in an inability to form appropriate social relationships or to give and receive love. In one home Rob was abused, in a later one he molested a younger cousin. At age 15 he moved in with his dad, who was then a truck driver and rarely at home, and not a good model for Rob because of his drinking and cocaine use.
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In his high school years, having little supervision, Rob drank, smoked marijuana, tried meth and dropped out of school. His promiscuity resulted in a son, and he moved in with his girlfriend. But after a couple years, his girlfriend moved out, taking his son. That left Rob depressed and he got heavily into using methamphetamines. About this time his father moved in with him and the two of them began dealing drugs. His depression worsened, but until his money ran out, he was almost always high. Then he became homeless too. When another girl offered to help get Rob into rehab, he realized he didn’t have any better options.
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Vicki was born and raised in Ucon. Her family was one of only a few non-LDS in the community, but since both her parents worked she had LDS baby sitters and from them learned many LDS songs. When she was in the 4th grade, her parents got divorced. Following her mother’s remarriage, Vicki was sexually abused by a relative for several years. What little faith in God she had gleaned from her childhood was destroyed, and she considered herself an atheist.
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In high school Vicki’s grades went from straight A’s to D’s as she got into smoking pot and drinking. After graduating from high school, a boyfriend proposed – twice – and Vicki refused twice, but then accepted. They were married in August of 1987, and seventeen months later moved to Guam. While there she gave birth to a daughter. However her marriage was not good, as her husband was unfaithful to her and had a drinking problem.
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Vicki started attending the University of Guam, and then came back to the States to attend the University of Montana in Missoula. In a few weeks she came down with a severe case of chicken pox and also discovered she was pregnant. Her husband was not happy about the pregnancy and pressured her to abort the baby, which she did. He then left her for another woman.
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Vicki had started on a quest to discover who God is while in Guam, but was resistant when some Christians, whom they shared their living quarters with, shared the gospel with her. In Missoula she continued questioning and praying. In 1995 she dropped out of college and moved back to Idaho Falls. Here she had 8 or 9 visits from LDS missionaries, but when she went to an LDS service and saw that men and women were segregated, she wanted nothing more to do with Mormonism. Later when she became sexually involved with a guy who was young in his Christian faith and laid heavy blame on her for their affair, Vicki was turned off to Christianity too.
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In 1999, she got a job at a Maverik Store in Idaho Falls. Her supervisor was Rob. After going through rehab and spending a couple months in a halfway house in Tucson, Rob had come back to Blackfoot and was living at his girlfriend’s parents’ house. Rob was serious about this girl and had proposed marriage to her; she was also working at the same Maverik store. But he hadn’t gotten clean; he and his girlfriend were smoking pot together. Nor was he faithful to her, as he had an affair with Vicki, and she became pregnant.
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As Christmas of 2001 approached, Vicki took on a second job, working 80 hours per week. Knowing she needed to stay awake for long periods she went to Rob for drugs, and they began using them together. For Vicki, “life got weird very fast.” Rob’s relationship with his girlfriend ended, he moved in with Vicki, and the following July they got married. Things were cool when they were high together, but in between Rob was violent and abusive.
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For days at a time, Rob and Vicki would lock themselves in their bedroom, turning on the television to provide background noise to hide what they were doing from the kids. As they got high, they would often listen to Rick Brown on TV, preaching from the Bible. By New Year’s Day, 2005, they were ready to get off drugs and get their lives together. But for Rob it lasted less than two weeks. Vicki went 55 days without using drugs, but when she heard her ex-husband had committed suicide, she again used the excuse she needed to stay awake during the drive to his funeral in Denver.
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A few months later, Vicki’s mother, who knew about her drug abuse, made Vicki an offer – to come live at her house. Vicki thought about it for a couple days, got high one last time, and after verbally pushing Rob to violence, took the girls and left him. After staying a week and a half at her mother’s, she went to the Haven Shelter. While at the Haven, divorce papers were prepared, but Vicki decided to wait to turn them in. Rob went to live with his dad in Pocatello, but that environment was so saturated with using and dealing meth, he didn’t stay long, as he knew that to get his wife and family back, he would need to get off and stay off of drugs.
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So in early 2007 Rob came back to Idaho Falls, staying in a motel for a few days and then at the City of Refuge. There he met a man who talked about Jesus as if he knew Him personally, and that impressed Rob. Calvary Chapel was teaching their Pure Word classes at the City of Refuge on Monday nights, and Rob went. The leader of the class took Rob out for coffee two weeks in a row, and the last week Rob was at the City of Refuge, he stayed off drugs.
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Using some tax refund money, Rob got an apartment and celebrated by getting high. After the first night in the apartment, he realized he still wasn’t clean, and wouldn’t get his family back. Rob got so low that he decided to buy a cheap gun and end his life but in dispair he cried out to God, “If there’s any way You want anything to do with a piece of trash like me, now’s You’re chance. But You better do it now as I have no more hope.”
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Jesus took him up on the challenge, with some very clear, specific instructions:
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“Stand up!” Rob did.
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“Go in the kitchen!” Rod did.
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“Throw your drugs in the trash!” For the first time, Rob understood that his drugs were trash.
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“Go back into the living room. I have always loved you; you have always been one of my children.” Never had Rob felt such a sense of acceptance.
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“This pain and destruction you’ve been causing was never My plan for you. I sent My Son to die for you. If you will give Me your life, I will ‘blow your mind.’”
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To Rob at this point, giving God his life was a no-brainer, and the moment he did, he was overwhelmed by God’s love, and by a sense of being cleansed. He remembers, “I felt like I was underneath a waterfall; I felt crushed and cleansed under the weight of God’s love. I broke down in uncontrollable sobbing.” Rob finally fell asleep, and when he woke up, he relates that life had color and warmth that it hadn’t had before and that he was filled with hope and confidence that he could do the right thing. Rob was born again.
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Calvary Chapel was holding their Easter Service in the Civic Auditorium that year, and Vicki agreed to meet Rob there for the service. Vicki had been attending Calvary Chapel for several months. But as Rob tried to explain to her what had happened to him, she thought, “Rob got high and he’s crazy,” and refused to take him seriously for nine months.
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Rob was soaking up all he could find about this new relationship with Christ, asking questions at Pure Word classes, reading books recommended by a Calvary Chapel pastor, and living at Calvary Chapel’s halfway house. He got a job working for one of the leaders of Pure Word that gave him more opportunities to ask questions. At first he found verses in the Bible he just had to share with Vicki, but he learned quickly he needed to patiently give her time. Yet Rob still had a deep sense of loneliness and a longing to be back with his family. Vicki had been going to counseling, but wasn’t showing signs of coming back. So Rob was brought to another place of surrender to God’s will, allowing God to do whatever He wanted with Vicki and their marriage.
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A week later she called and told him, “I think I’m ready.”
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Rob saved up his money, found a house to rent, moved into the house in March, 2008 and Vicki and the girls joined him the following month. When Calvary Chapel had their annual baptism at the river the following August the whole family got baptized, declaring their faith in Christ and their new life through His death and resurrection.
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Both Rob and Vicki worked with the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission for several years. Rob started in May 2012 at the Ark, and later served as supervisor of FAITH Housing. More recently he reviewed all of the IFRM’s activities, looking for ways to focus them more in the IFRM’s core purpose of transforming lives through the power and grace of Jesus Christ. When Vicki was asked to be a case manager at the Ruth House in April, 2014, she wasn’t sure she was ready for the responsibility, but she was willing. A couple months later she was handed the position of supervisor of the Ruth House, which she’s been doing – with the Lord’s help - since. In December 2016 Rob and Vicki left their positions at the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission; Rob is now a case manager assistant at the Behavioral Health Community Crisis Center of East Idaho.
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Jesus takes the dust of the earth – lives that have been hurt, broken, destroyed – and breathes His new life into them. That’s what Rob and Vicki know from experience and what empowered them daily as they worked with people at the Ruth House and Ark and City of Refuge. His ways are not always obvious. Was it Jesus who held Vicki back from turning in the papers to divorce Rob, and gave Rob the persistence to pursue his marriage after Vicki walked out on him? How many people did He send to each of them as a witness of His grace and healing love? Jesus not only gives new life, and brings people out of what destroys life, but He also restores relationships – such as Rob and Vicki’s marriage – and invites us to share in His work of inviting people into His family and building the house of living stones in which He Himself dwells.
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4.2.2 Shawn & Devon Wakeman
This is the story of Shawn and Devon Wakeman, a young couple who have lived most of their lives in Idaho Falls. Their story cuts across several of the ways Jesus is doing what He said He would do. Jesus saves, but then He continues His work sanctifying, delivering, comforting, strengthening, and giving peace. Jesus speaks to and guides His sheep, and this story is laced with Jesus answering prayer, as Shawn and Devon petitioned Him and sought Him. It includes in dramatic ways how Jesus works in what can seem somewhat ordinary – bringing two people together in marriage and blessing them with children. It touches on how Jesus works through others in His body and how Jesus sends out His disciples in mission. It was taken from two sources – Shawn telling the story of his life to Charles on Feb. 1, 2023, and the Wakeman’s Christmas letter, written by Devon, in late December 2022.
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Shawn begins:
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“My parents were wild, baby boomers, and products of the free-love movement in the 1970’s. My dad told my mom, “I never want kids, I never want to get married!” And my mom responded, ‘Ok, then, let’s do it.’ They lived together for 5 years. During this time my mom’s mom started to have really bad cancer and also during this time God saved my grandma and grandpa. God healed my grandma from her cancer. And my parents were like, ‘Wow - ok, God works.’ My grandma’s doctors had told her that her cancer was in remission, and that her health was good, but just a year later she died. At her funeral, my parents, having seen his grandparents trust in the Lord in the midst of difficulty and hardship, came to Christ and decided to follow Him. They got saved, at her funeral, and got married, at her funeral. Around ten months later, along came Shawn. “
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“I was 4 years old when I received the Lord and dedicated my life to Jesus. I wanted to pursue the Lord and know everything I could about Him. I got baptized at age 6, at Rigby Lake.
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“When I was about 11 or 12, I started having constant headaches. To this day we don’t know what kind they were. For a while it was labelled a pseudo tumor cerebellum. We spent an enormous amount of money going to doctors but nothing they prescribed helped. I would get visual disturbances; I would kind of see a field of blue as a weird overlay, with weird flashes and disturbances. And so, I spent an enormous amount of time in the dark, as light was overwhelming and hurt. I had a basement bedroom and I pretty much just stayed in there. This got to the point to where by 6th grade I could not get school done, the headaches were so severe. I stopped going to school the next year. And all this led to chronic depression. We had tried various drugs, different types of diuretics, different types of pain management schemes, and finally the doctor said we should try to lower my spinal fluid pressure to see if that would make a difference. When they did it, they botched it, as all my spinal fluid leaked out onto the hospital bed, leaving me in incredible pain. The next step was to put a permanent shunt, with a reservoir and tubing, inside my body, to drain off spinal fluid. That didn’t work either.
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“Seeing no way out I started making plans to commit suicide. I broke into my dad’s ammo case and got some guns together and counted out bullets. I loaded a gun and set it on the side of the bed and prayed, ‘Lord, I just don’t see another way out – I want to follow you, I don’t know what to do, I feel like I’m a financial and emotional burden on everyone who knows me, I don’t want to keep this going if this is going to be my life, with constant suffering, living in a basement; I can’t do school and I just feel like a failure on every level.’ In that moment the Holy Spirit impressed on me very firmly, ‘Why not then just live for Me, instead of for your own dream?’ And I replied, ‘I can do that.’ So I unloaded the gun and put everything away and really tried. I started reading the Bible and tried to find mentors who would guide me.
“When I was 16, one day my dad took off on a bike ride and didn’t come home. A month and a half later a fisherman found his body in the Snake River. It affected me terribly. ‘Lord,’ I prayed, ‘if you had just let me die, if you had just let me kill myself a year ago, then it wouldn’t have been my dad. He could have been here to comfort my mom and my sisters, and he would not have done this terrible thing.’ If this is the outcome of my actions, my life, I thought that I would be doing the world a favor by ending it.
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“During this period, while most people would close up when I started to open up to them, there were people who helped me – the youth pastor of the church we were going to and others, people who included me in activities and sought to turn my thoughts to more productive things. And about a year later my mom asked me ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ and I told her ‘I want to be a pastor.’ At the time I mistakenly thought that this was the way to get closer to God. In the midst of my crippling depression, I understood that God had done an incredible work in my life. So we looked around and found a Bible school that would take me in spite of my not having a high school education. The Bible school was hard at first, but several fellow students saw my struggles and helped me write papers and get through classes. I still had constant headaches, but the classes were only in the morning, giving me time to rest and study the rest of the day. That was 2004, I was 17.
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“After Bible school I didn’t know what to do, so I came back home and got a job and learned that some diet choices kind of made a difference with my headaches. I also got tough in regard to it, I decided that I couldn’t let it control my life, but I could try to live as best I could with the pain. So then I spent a couple years doing volunteer work with a rescue mission in Great Falls, Montana, the meth capital of the country because of the nearby Air Force base. I ran the youth outreach program of the mission in 2006 and 2007. I had a really grizzly front row seat to the destruction caused by drugs and sin and the power of God’s grace in this outreach and homeless shelter – it was really hard but really good at the same time.
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“Then I came back to Idaho to work in a paying job, to Twin Falls. I worked for the Transportation Department driving a little truck around and mowing lawns at rest stops. It was a fun job. But unbeknownst to me sometime during this period my shunt broke. The reservoir that provided pressure broke in half, and that along with all the tubing and other stuff that had been put in my body proceeded to slither down coming to rest at the bottom of my pelvis. It led to having horrid headaches as all my spinal fluid would drain out. But after about a year, my body (on its own, but I’m sure directed by the Lord) plugged the hole and everything kind of stabilized.
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“Up until this time I had fled from girls because while I was now 21 and couldn’t deny the desire for a relationship, I couldn’t fathom making someone share the burdens I had. But now I thought I was finally ready to start dating. Devon had been in and around some different groups that my mom was involved with. I kind of noticed her and was attracted to her. So I started praying very seriously, ‘God I need to know. Is this somebody that would work?’ I saw that she had a heart for missions; I saw that she was dedicated to living dangerously in the hands of the Lord. So I decided to pray and fast until God answered, even if it would take a whole week. After 20 hours of fasting the Lord spoke to me in an unusual way – He never has since in the same way – but He told me, ‘Marry Devon.’ I wanted to make sure it was the Lord that I heard but when I became convinced, I quit my fast and went and got some food and said ‘Thank You, Lord, for the answer.’
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“So I met with Devon and said in part, ‘Would you be willing to pursue a relationship toward marriage with me, to live in the Lord’s hands, and to sacrifice everything for the sake of the cross?’ And nine months later we were married. But we had each signed up for short term mission trips earlier that year and so we went on them, Devon to Jordon and Israel to do outreach while I spent two months on a mission to India. When we came home, we had only six days to prepare for our wedding.
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“Right before that mission trip to India I had this outrageous weird food poisoning experience. I had nausea like I never before felt in my life. I had incredible pain in my lungs. And then just uncontrollable vomiting for 14 hours, every 20 minutes. I went to the emergency room but they couldn’t figure it out.”
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Now switching to Devon, from their Christmas letter:
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“Shawn and I are both ‘oldest kids.’ We can both be stubborn, prideful, bossy, and struggle with submitting to others’ decisions. Both of us also love Jesus and desire to serve him in any way that we can. There are a variety of things that we prayed for as we were preparing for our wedding, but the most common was this: ‘God, we know that no matter the circumstance, the best place to be is in the palm of your hand. Please, keep us there and do not let us wander.’ As we come to the end of this year, we have been married for almost 12 and a half years. We can say that God is definitely fulfilling this prayer and has been to this day. He has taught us that His goodness, power and wisdom are unmatched and are an essential part of His character.
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“Throughout our marriage, Shawn and I have experienced a lot of challenging life events. The first of which was Shawn’s health. Right after we got married, Shawn started experiencing seeming random spells of sickness that would usually end him in the emergency room because he couldn’t stop throwing up, endlessly for more than 18 hours. It was bizarre and strange, and we had no idea what was going on. Eventually we found out that Shawn has Crohn’s disease, of a very severe form. We tried medication, surgery, natural medicine. Nothing was working.”
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Shawn expands about when his sickness was diagnosed, and he had surgery:
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“There was a point when I was getting sicker and sicker, having episodes increasing in frequency to where they were hitting me every week. They got so bad that I would throw up blood and bile because I was splitting my esophagus. It was pretty scary. I was also losing weight like crazy. We kept going to the ER and they weren’t finding anything. Finally, we found a clinic that did a CT scan of my abdomen. It was inflamed. The CT scan also revealed the broken shunt and other dislodged pieces of plumbing from my earlier surgery. Eventually, we found a way to have an emergency surgery done in which I had a full colon resection. Surgeons lopped off about 8 inches of my small intestine and 3 inches of my large intestine, sliced it, reworked it, and sewed it back together. During that surgery, the broken shunt, reservoir and tubing were removed and the headaches that I had had for 12 years stopped. After this surgery doctors told me that I should be good for 3 years. But even before I fully recovered from the surgery, just 82 days later, I relapsed. I was then told by doctors, ‘Get your things in order; there truly is nothing more we can do for you.’ And so really what they were telling me was ‘Go home and die.’ It was hard, to put it lightly.”
Now back to their Christmas letter:
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“We had been married for about 6 years at this point and we were struggling with the question, ‘God, what are you doing?’ We know that you are powerful enough to heal Shawn, please do it!’ We fought bitterness, anger, frustration, pride, stubbornness, entitlement and so many other sinful struggles. Time and time again, God would bring us peace and comfort. He would settle our anger and doubt. He would show us our pride and stubbornness. We saw very quickly that God was using this trial to strengthen us and sanctify us. We would be reminded of our prayer and remember that living in the palm of God’s hand is the best place, regardless of the circumstance. We were grateful that God was holding fast to that prayer, gently leading and encouraging us through such a hard time.
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“We did what the doctor said; we started tying up loose ends. We took out a life insurance policy designed for the terminally ill. We bought a tiny little house that would be easy for me to take care of when Shawn was gone, and we tried to spend as much time as we could together. It was hard and sweet all at the same time. We were happily surprised that Shawn’s condition started to level out.“
Shawn explains:
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“Around this time, we started experimenting, doing a bunch of different stuff with my diet. While I was still very sick, we got to the point to where it was not uncontrollable. I think I discovered the world’s strictest diet - I would eat only potatoes, chicken and sour dough bread. That’s all I could eat. I knew it was not well-rounded, and did not have good nutrients, but it was what caused the least amount of irritation. That got me down to having an episode every two days instead of every single day.”
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Back to Devon:
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“On the side lines, I was enjoying being a teacher. I loved my job, and I loved working with my students. They brought so much joy and growth for me throughout the whole time. In my position, I had the privilege of working with hundreds (maybe thousands) of different people, each one different and unique. I found that I really liked working with the stubborn kids who struggled with math. They were my favorite. I love the moments they experienced success for the first time, the shouts of joy because they had a good grade in math for the first time ever. Funny enough, working with kids and encouraging them to keep trying really encouraged me in my walk with the Lord. My students had no idea what my home reality was, but I needed to be encouraged to keep running the race.
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“Once Shawn stabilized for a couple years, I started getting the crazy idea that I wanted kids even though Shawn was probably going to die relatively soon. I got pregnant very fast, and we were stoked. We had always wanted to have tons of kids, but had chosen not to because of Shawn’s health. Again, God was showing us that a life lived for him can be done by anybody in any circumstance. We had been walking this difficult journey and ultimately it led to us loving the Lord even more. As Shawn and I, individually, were in a much different state, we both loved the Lord and came together to be a great team. We watched Him rescue us and satisfy us in a multitude of ways.
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“My pregnancy was easy. We were overjoyed and scared. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but we were excited for this new adventure. I went into labor a month early and both Ethan and I almost died. I had a placental abruption and hemorrhaged. As I sat and stared at Ethan in his little NICU bed, I was angry. Why? I felt like the whole journey had just been a terrible game. I wanted to punch and kick a wall. In the midst of all that anger, I felt the most incredible peace wash over me, as God, in His mercy and grace, clicked a puzzle piece into place in my mind. When I submitted my life to the Lord, I submitted to the fact that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts higher than my thoughts. God owes me nothing. He gave everything for me when He died for my sin on the cross. Jesus is the gift. He loves Ethan so much more than I ever could. To know Jesus is the best thing that I could ever ask for, and He had definitely made Himself known through all the trials I have faced. Thankfully, Ethan did come home, but I knew in that moment that even if he didn’t, God is still faithful and good. Ethan is a miracle baby and we are so thankful to God for creating Ethan and giving him to us.
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“We braved pregnancy again and had Grabriel. He, too, ended up in the NICU and almost died. Thankfully, Gabriel also came home with us, eventually. Gabriel, like Ethan, is a miracle baby. We are also so grateful for the gift that he is to our family. Through all these hard moments, my pride and stubbornness were whittled down. There was never anything that I could do. I couldn’t make my husband healthy. I couldn’t do anything for my kids when they were knocking on death’s door. But I could pray. I did, a lot. Sometimes I had to think my prayers because I was crying too hard for words. God continues to be gracious with me as He continues to mold me into the person He wants me to be.”
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Now Shawn shares the rest of the story:
“At the beginning of 2022 I was 34, and was getting really, really anxious. One of my doctors had told me that when I turned 35, it would like turning 60. My risk for intestinal cancer was super high, my risk of inflammation was high, and he told me I would need to get colonoscopies at least every year. And since my symptoms seemed to be getting much, much worse I began to really despair once again. ‘God I do not know what You’ve got going in all of this, but I trust You; You’ve taught me enough in the midst of it; You’ve grown my faith enough in all these struggles; You’ve got this; so do as You will, I know You love my kids more than I do, so let’s go.’
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“We knew Devon needed to get a different job so that we could afford my healthcare. When that was in place I went to my doctor, a gastroenterologist, and told him all my symptoms – cramping and bleeding and pain, constant every single day. He told me that we would do some tests to check it out. ‘Well, this is probably it,’ I thought, ‘they are going to find something really bad.’ This was August of 2022. Two weeks later they called and started going through the list: ‘You do not have cancer, you do not have IBS, and they continued to click off all the diseases expressed in various acronyms corresponding to the tests they did, concluding with, ‘You are perfectly healthy.’ I sensed they thought I was a hypochondriac.
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“But about a week before - after I had the tests but before I got the results - I had felt somewhat better. I thought it was because of my ‘diet righteousness’ - I was really sticking to it, staying on the bread and chicken and potatoes lifestyle, to minimize irritation. So when I got off the phone and Devon got home we both kind of panicked. We asked each other ‘What on earth does it mean?’ So we prayed together and dedicated the whole situation to the Lord and I picked up a peach and took a bite. I knew I would know within three hours, because if I was the same I would have a horrible reaction. So I ate the peach and it was so good I wept because I hadn’t had anything sweet for so long because sugar was wildly irritating. But I was fine. And so I ate a little bit more. Every day I reintroduced a new food and had no problems.
“I started gaining weight like crazy. I hadn’t been able to break out of the mid-130’s for all of my adult life. All of sudden I was putting on pounds, five to ten pounds a week. After two months I had put on 30 pounds. That was to me undeniable evidence that something was different. And I also had energy; I was running circles around the kids and Devon; loading the kids in a bike trailer and hauling them up a hill and over to a park multiple times a day. Until now I had only had energy about 2 hours a day and I really had to use it wisely. But now I could walk and run and chase my kids until they ran out of energy.
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I’m continuing to do very well. As far back as 2017 Devon and I would say, “Jesus is the gift.” It’s not the miracle, it’s not the great event or the good times or the bad times, but being restored in our standing with God the Father through the sanctifying blood of Christ and His resurrection. Whether my symptoms come back or I develop new ones, whether this is similar to my grandmother’s story of only a short season of healing, our hope is in Christ and in Him alone. Jesus is the gift.”
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4.2.3 Steve Winn
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Steve Winn is the Look Up Idaho Falls Team Leader for the 2023 Will Graham Tour. But there was a period in his life when he hated Christians. There was a period in his life when he not only was a professed atheist, but he tried to pull anyone he knew who believed in God out of their faith. There was a period when he says he had so much pain in his life that, while not suicidal, he would have been happy to die. But Jesus changed him, from the inside out. Jesus took his pain away, transformed his mindset, revealed His grace and love and gave Steve a new life, full of hope and purpose.
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Steve grew up LDS and his family has deep LDS roots. While he went through a rebellious phase as a teenager, at age 19 he knew he needed to turn his life over to God. That decision led to his next decision, which was to go on a mission for the LDS church. He was totally dedicated on his mission, which was mostly in a small town in East Texas. There he talked to a lot of professing Christians, and in many of these interactions felt an increasing weight of condemnation and hurt in his heart.
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After his mission he followed the plan laid out by the LDS church for young men and women – get married and have lots of kids. He got married and they had five kids. He loved his family deeply, and was also fully committed to his church. But over the years this guilt and hurt in his heart kept growing, in part from words church leaders said to him as he sought to faithfully perform his duties as elder quorum president and other church callings. This all came to a head in 2004 when he suddenly realized that he was spiritually dried up. He knew something was wrong and was determined to find out what it was.
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That search probably lasted longer than he anticipated. He quietly visited a church in Idaho Falls and heard a sermon on Jesus’s atonement. Then he launched into a two-and-a-half-month study on grace in both LDS and Christian Scriptures. While this resulted in some intellectual answers, it only added to his anger, depression, anguish, loss of identity, and confusion. And marital tension. As Steve went further and further away from his life-long religion, his marriage fell apart and he lost his family. Still loving them, this loss added greatly to his pain.
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To ease the pain he turned to alcohol, but it wasn’t long before he realized that drinking provided only short-term relief. So again he decided to turn his life around, this time by going to an AA meeting. He started through the steps, but one particular night found himself in a wretched state, as his body was shaking because of alcohol withdrawal. He called a man he had met in the AA group, who he knew was a Christian, and spilled out the despair in his heart. The man responded, “Steve, you need to pray, and you need to say exactly what you said to me.” Steve, although he admits that he didn’t know who he was praying to, did it and was amazed at what happened next.
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He describes it as experiencing a presence of absolute, pure, unconditional love. He says it filled his body, and adds that it was like a sword that simultaneously laid to waste all his opinions, all his views, all that he had experienced, all that he thought. Though he would have said in this period in his life that he didn’t believe in love like this, now he experienced it. So much so, that he could not stand in the presence of this unconditional love. So he crumpled to the floor and wept.
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Steve had remarried a few years prior to this, to a woman he knew from childhood and who, like him, had left the LDS church and abandoned her faith in God. So when, getting up from this experience of unconditional love, he went to her seeking forgiveness for the man he had been, she was confused.
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Just prior to this experience Steve had started going to a church in Idaho Falls and had a conversation with the pastor. Given his atheism at the time, he was surprised at the acceptance and grace he felt from this pastor. So he kept going to the church. And he started reading C.S. Lewis’s book Mere Christianity, at times getting mad at what he was reading and throwing the book across the room.
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But also at this time he started hearing a “voice” inside of him telling him to ask for forgiveness. He could understand his need to ask forgiveness from his wife, but was curious about why he was hearing this voice, what it was, and what it meant. As the voice persisted and got louder, he brought it up again with his wife and she, somewhat annoyed, told him “Would you quit talking about it and do it?” Steve hadn’t really considered that the voice could be instructing him, but with the words of his wife, the light came on. So he went into a room and confessed everything that he could remember and asked for forgiveness for things that he couldn’t remember. When he was done he looked around the room, wondering what was going to happen. And nothing happened, except that the voice stopped telling him to do it.
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The next event that has led to change in Steve’s life came one day when driving to work. He was reflecting on things he read in Mere Christianity, thinking about who Jesus was or is and whether He actually has authority to forgive sin. After getting to his office he realized that the voice that had been telling him to ask for forgiveness certainly wasn’t his voice, and so the question came to him, “Well who then has been asking me to ask for forgiveness?” And that was immediately followed by another question, “Jesus, has it been you, has it been you all along?”
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And then, Steve says, he became so weak that he immediately went to the floor and had an experience with God that lasted for 20 minutes. When he stood up, he said that everything was different, everything was new. And in this moment, he says that he was thinking, “I’m saved, I’m saved, I’m saved. That’s what those Christians meant. I’m saved.”
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Now Steve knew his life was different. The pain was gone. His confusion was gone. His despair had changed to hope. Putting absolutely no pressure on his wife, it wasn't long before she too experienced God's love and grace. Others saw the change in his life as well and were won to Christ, including his son and two of his brothers. And in a dream, which his pastor helped him understand, God called him into ministry.
4.2.4 Anthony Harper and the Shiloh House of Idaho Falls
The Shiloh House in Idaho Falls was a place where lives of young men were transformed by Jesus. Located at 286 12th Street, it opened in 1971. George Bryson, founder of the IF Shiloh House in Idaho Falls,[1] was an 18-year-old hippy in 1968 when he and some friends were hitchhiking in Southern California. Pastor Chuck Smith picked them up and took them to the original Shiloh House. Knowing nothing about Christianity, George was converted and after a couple years worked his way up through Oregon, Washington and then came to Idaho Falls to start the Shiloh house. From Idaho Falls George went to Pocatello to start another Shiloh House, then Denver, St Louis, Columbus and then back to Oregon and then California where he had contact with Brother Andrew who challenged him to work with him smuggling Bibles into Russia. For the next 30 years he made many trips to Russia first smuggling Bibles and then planting churches.
One 18-year old who lived at the Idaho Falls Shiloh House and greatly benefitted from it was Anthony Harper, now in Boise, the publisher of the Intermountain Christian News
According to his testimony,[2] “Though I had a born-again experience at the age of nine, I never quite fit into the church scene. The youth group seemed extremely cliquish, making me feel like an outsider. By the time I reached my senior year of high school, the only people at school who seemed to be having fun were classmates who drank, smoked and took drugs. The temptation to use drugs was strong.
"Temporarily, I managed to avoid serious trouble. But when family finances prevented me from accepting a partial music scholarship to the University of Wyoming, life degenerated into a downward spiral. Depressed because I had told all my friends about the scholarship, I drifted through a succession of menial jobs like washing dishes, bagging groceries and working as a laborer. When I was suicidal at the age of 18 I called the Idaho Falls Suicide Hotline, and the counselor I talked with befriended me turned out to be a drug dealer and introduced me to drugs. How I wish I would have told my parents about this experience. This experience led to many other experiences cruising the streets of IF at night and to bars and parties, where I used drugs like alcohol, hashish, marijuana, mescaline and LSD.
"That same year, I was helped greatly by the Shiloh Youth Revival Centers. I lived in a Shiloh home in Idaho Falls, Idaho in 1971. At the Shiloh home people prayed for me and I rededicated my life to Jesus. As a result, I developed more excitement about the Lord and found a new boldness to talk about Jesus...."
[1] Post Register, March 19, 1971.