Pastor Donny Garner of River of Faith Church in Jacket drives a tour bus for Viking Trail Ways of Joplin, Mo. When he mentioned that he was taking a tour group for Making Memories of Washburn to the Creation Museum and the Ark Experience in Kentucky, his friends said, "Can we go, too?" But the tour was full, so Donnie replied that if we could get a group together, he and his wife, Lora, who sometimes serves as tour hostess, would take us in their church bus. The bus is one of the older charter coaches he had bought from Viking.
Members of Garner's church invited friends from Pea Ridge First Baptist and Pleasant Hill Baptist of Rogers to go with them. Donny, Lora and their son Klay developed a trip brochure. They scheduled frequent rest stops with points of interest along the way. Unfortunately, Sharon Wood and Barbara Merritt, who recruited riders for the trip were unable to go since they stayed to care for their sister, Betty Jean Williams, who was in hospice.
On Oct. 10, 28 of us departed Pea Ridge to a beautiful sunrise. We visited Redmon's Candy Factory in Conway, Mo., and ate lunch at Cracker Barrel in Fenton, Mo. We looked at the Gateway to the West Arch in St. Louis. After spending the night in Louisville, we toured the Kentucky Derby Museum and enjoyed country cooking at Joe Huber's Farm and Restaurant. We toured beautiful and historic Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Ky., before checking into Hampton Inn. That evening, we enjoyed a Captain's Dinner Cruise on the Ohio River with a nearly full moon silhouetting the Cincinnati skyline.
On day three, we visited the Garden of Hope, a replica of Jerusalem's Garden Tomb, in Covington before going to Ken Ham's state-of-the-art 75,000-square-foot Answers In Genesis Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., where Bible history comes to life. The museum, a "Time Tunnel" transported us back 6,000 years to the dawn of time: We saw Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, children playing and dinosaurs roaming by Eden's rivers. We saw the serpent cunningly coiled in the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil enticing Adam and Eve to doubt God's Word, "Did God really say?"
The museum includes a fascinating insectarium, sculpted dinosaurs of all kinds, a full-size Allosaurus skeleton, botanical gardens, a planetarium tour of the universe and a petting zoo. We explored the Bible and science "through the seven Cs of biblical history which are: Creation, Corruption (the fall of Man), Catastrophe (the flood), Confusion (the tower of Babel), Christ, Cross and the Consummation."
The climax was a theater production of The Last Adam which contrasts our fall in Adam with our salvation in Jesus Christ. Klay Garner wanted to try the zip line adventure course but we were out of time. It would take two days to leisurely experience the Creation Museum.
Thursday, we experienced the Ark Encounter in the massive biblical-sized boat: 510 feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high; made from 3.3 million board feet of timber. It is the largest timber-frame structure in the world. A team of Amish builders assembled the post-and-beam frame from: 64 Engelmann (48-inch by 48-feet) spruce logs from Utah; Douglas fir framing timber from Washington/Oregon; Radiata pine planking from New Zealand; and bamboo flooring.
The ark could easily carry two of each "kind" of animal. There are fewer kinds like (dog, cat, cow, horse) than there are of "species." In one pair of dogs, there is enough "DNA information" to produce chihuahuas, coyotes, labs, wolves, etc. One pair of medium-brown people has enough "DNA data" to generate all the human skin colors, from black Africans to blond Europeans. If the pairs were juvenile, they would have been smaller and eaten less. As God brought in each pair, He could have put them into a state of hibernation, too.
We experienced close-up encounters with life-like animatronic recreations of creatures from Noah's day and today's living animals. Scripture says that there was no death before Adam's sin, so there were not millions of years of death evolving up to mankind. Many ancient cultures believe dragons and men once lived together, and were saved from a flood by a huge boat.
Dinosaurs existed in Noah's time. Scientists have found dinosaur fossils in sedimentary rock layers laid down during a Global Flood, even on the highest mountains. Dinosaurs could have become extinct any time after they got off the Ark, just like many other animals have since the Flood. The Bible, ancient legends and cave paintings from around the world depict dragons/dinosaurs seen and drawn by man. Dinosaur bones buried in sedimentary rock layers laid down by water all over the earth is a testimony of the Global Flood that happened during Noah's day. The evidence we see in geology, biology, archaeology, ancient history, etc. confirms the truth of the Bible.
"What we believe about God's Word and the creation account will determine what we believe about the age of the earth, dinosaurs, humans and so much more."
When asked where they got the names of Noah's son's wives, an attendant explained that much extra-biblical data in the exhibits came from ancient Hebrew texts and: The books of: Jubilees, Jasher and Enoch which are mentioned in and quoted from in the Bible.
In the Museum and the Ark, we learned that there are many scientific and historic reasons to trust the Bible. Jesus believed the early chapters of Genesis and spoke about the Days of Noah. "In the Beginning God Created" is easier to believe than, "In the beginning, nothing exploded into everything; disorder progressed into order; and life evolved from non-life." The Theory of Evolution is just a theory with no provable/repeatable scientific facts, and most dating methods are questionable.
At the appointed time, we rendezvoused at the Ark's restaurant and boarded our bus. Everyone was tired, but glad to have experienced the great Ark. Donny drove us south to Patti's 1880s Inn and Restaurant in Grand Rivers, Ky. All week, Donny had extolled Patti's Restaurant which was similar to a privately owned Cracker Barrel. Like many of our nicer meals which were part of the package deal Lora had arranged for us, Patti's treated us royally in a private room. Each morning, we put our luggage outside our doors, and Klay and Donny loaded the bags for us. During the trip, Lora kept us supplied with treats, cold drinks and led word games. Klay occasionally strummed his guitar leading us in favorite songs. Each day, Margaret Jump entertained with stories and poems. We ended our tour with lots of hugs and plans to do another bus trip next year.
We recommend that you plan a trip to Answers In Genesis' Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. Check them out at: answersingenesis.org. Another Pea Ridge group may visit the Ark and Museum over spring break.
Community on 11/09/2016