Jason and Jonie Mellinger Connecting You to Tribal Missions 
One of the things that Mom has always wanted to do was to visit the Focus on the Family campus in Colorado Springs. Due to the fact that she’s always given up her dreams to see ours fulfilled, she had never lived her dream and been to Colorado. The timing was perfect since Jonie and I would already be there for our meetings, it seemed a good time that we would have a car and could be free to wander the area as we willed.
Thursday afternoon we picked them up from the airport in Denver and stopped by Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs. Another one of the things she paid for us to do when we were in high school was to spend two weeks here at Summit under the teaching of Dr. David Nobel. Summit is a worldview seminar that equips young people, high school and college age, to be able to discern life from a Biblical worldview and also to see the differences that others view the world through secular humanism, socialism, atheism and others. His book, ‘Understanding the Times’ was a standard textbook in both Jonie and my Christian high schools. Mom and Dad were pleased to spend some time walking the cold vacant halls of the old hotel that Summit uses for their summer sessions. It was a very rundown place, though I don’t think that it’s changed at all since I was there. I guess when you’re a teen your standards of living are pretty low. It’s changed so little I was able to find my room by the marks in the closet door from hours of laying on my bed with my throwing knives, chucking them at the door. That was 1998. Over 11 years later, the “marks” I left on that place were still there!
On Friday morning we left our hotel for the Focus Center. Arriving just after opening at 9, we were informed of the monthly chapel service at 11. While Mom and Dad met with some of the staff there to ask questions about the ministry, Jonie and I stepped into the radio show recording studio to watch a taping of a broadcast. The topic of the day posted on the door said “Vampires.” I thought this would be a neat subject. Who doesn’t like to talk about vampires? I was disappointed though to find that they were talking about the Twilight book/movie series that’s drawing teen girls by the droves. Though I could see why this would be alarming to parents, I didn’t really find myself attracted to the main character so I didn’t really identify. There really wasn’t much talk about vampires. Oh well.
At 11 we joined the staff and a few hundred guests in the Chapel for chapel. Seemed to be a fitting place to do that! The guest singer that week was Rebekah St. James, and Jonie was so excited to listen to her and meet her at the end. The speaker was the father of one of the girls who was killed in the Colombine High School Shooting. It was an emotional service, but very well done.
By the time the service was over we were hungry, and what more natural place to have lunch than Whit’s End! This was always something Jonie wanted to do, and as a personal fan of the show I was very much enjoying the surroundings. Yes, I know it’s a kids show, but Biblical truth is Biblical truth, and they have found a very neat way to dramatize life lessons, and I enjoy listening and learning from them.
After lunch we toured the rest of the facility, made our way back over to Whits End for ice cream, which for you other hardcore Odyssey fans would include of course a Wodfamchoksa. Don’t know what that is? That’s too bad. It’s better than I imagined!
The whole downstairs of the Visitor Center was dedicated to their kids radio programs. Whits End was just a corner of the place. There was a replica of a B17 from the Last Chance Detectives show, an old mining tunnel, scenes from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, including a wardrobe, that when you go in, pushing your way through the fur coats, brings you into a winter wonderland with pictures, characters and props from the series.
After an hour or so in the book store, they were closing up for the day. We certainly got our days worth of Focus, and had a great time doing it!
Saturday we had just the morning and early afternoon before dropping Mom and Dad at the airport. We had planned to drive to the top of Pikes Peak, but a snow storm the night before closed the roads, so instead we spend several hours at the Garden of the Gods park (we like to call God’s Garden). Throughout the park, red rocks jut up at all angles, a testament to the power a lot of water can do over a little amount of time, like 40 days and 40 nights and the ensuing year of waiting for the Flood to dissipate. Though it was cold and windy, we found shelter in some of the rocks and really enjoyed the beauty that God gave us there. Nothing like it for miles around!
