Reaching Filipino Muslims with Living Water

Bringing fresh water to a remote area in the Philippines has opened the door to share living water. When Life Resource Foundation graduates Bebot*, Inday,* Dudong* and Yeye* moved to an impoverished area on a small island at the Southern end of Mindanao, they had to walk two hours to get fresh water! The well they brought to this isolated area served to earn a hearing for the Gospel.

The need for church-planting teams among least-reached Filipino Muslims is staggering-far greater than a handful of Christar missionaries can meet alone. However at the Life Resources Foundation (LRF), Christar partners with the existing evangelical church in the Philippines , training Filipino men and women to plant churches.

The Filipino missionary team of Bebot, Inday, Dudong and Yeye has seen 14 from this community trust Christ for their salvation and several have been baptized! The team continues to live and work in this remote area.

To read more about the LRF, see http://christar.org/life-resource-foundation.html.

Incredible Energies of the Global Flood quickly created the Appalachian Water Gaps

Mainstream "millions of years" scientists oscillate back and forth between failed explanations for the formation of water gaps. But the Global Flood described in the book of Genesis leads to a very reasonable explanation!

The retreating waters started with sheet flow that ultimately deposited the continental shelves. The sheet flow then diminished to channelized currents with ultra high velocities and scale, the only kind of flow powerful enough to form aligned water gaps in a series of perpendicular ridges, seen throughout the Appalachians. This ultra high energy channelized flow stopped so quickly that it left many water gaps high and dry to make wind gaps. 

Once again, a creationist explanation is the one that holds water!
Selections from the second section of Origin of Appalachian Geomorphology, Part III: Channelized Erosion Late in the Flood, by Michael J. Oard.

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 48, Number 4, Spring 2012)

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The Appalachian Mountains are a complex fold and thrust belt in the eastern United States. There are five uniformitarian hypotheses for the origin of water gaps in these mountains and other mountain chains around the world:

1. relief inversion plus reversal in drainage
2. faults
3. the antecedent stream
4. the superimposed stream
5. stream piracy

But uniformitarian geomorphologists seem to bounce from one hypothesis to another, stuck in the rut of their failed paradigm.

"What was written in 1932-33 can still be quoted today: 'The Appalachian problem, like the poor, we shall have with us always.'" (Bryan etal., 1932/3 3, p. 318, quoted in Clark, 1989, p. 225, 229).

If all of the classical uniformitarian hypotheses are insufficient, then we must conclude the necessity of searching for an explanation within a completely different paradigm. Ironically, the features of these landforms readily can be explained by the great nemesis of modern geology- the Genesis Flood. The retreating stage of the Flood, with its two phases, readily accounts for all of these features, including erosion surfaces, plateaus, and the many wind and water gaps cutting through the mountains along its entire length.

Sheet Flow created the Continental Margin

Sheet flow produced extensive erosion surfaces, mainly on the Piedmont and on the plateaus west of the Valley and Ridge Province. As the combination of uplift and base-level decline caused the Appalachian Mountains to emerge from the Flood, the flow diverged from either side of the rising peaks. Sediments eroded west of the Appalachian divide were transported west, where they merged with water flowing east from the rising Rockies, carrying vast amounts of sediment that would form the massive Gulf of Mexico coastal plain and continental margin sediments. Erosion surfaces were later formed on either side of the Appalachian Mountains.

As the sheet currents began to diminish into large embayments and channels, they would have still been flowing perpendicular to ridges (Figure A), initiating the water gaps. Water gaps appear to be the last large-scale features formed by the Flood’s recession off the Appalachians. The water (and wind) gaps indicate that the water was at first flowing perpendicular to the mountains when the Appalachian erosion surfaces were formed, since it takes perpendicular flow to create water and wind gaps. When the water and wind gaps were first started, the flow velocities would have been incredibly high, and locally variable (Schumm and Ethridge, 1994, p. 11). The water flow may have taken advantage of possible structural weakness or a low spot on the ridge.

This type of process is seen on a small scale in the breaching of an earth dam by water flowing over its top. Finding a zone of weakness, the sheet flow over the top rapidly cuts a narrow deep notch that channels the water through. Most of the remainder of the dam wall usually remains intact. Also, the anomalously high velocities and the scale of the channelized currents is the only feasible explanation for the phenomenon of aligned water gaps in a series of perpendicular ridges.

The extent and speed of these currents is evidenced by the extent and nature of the erosion, as well as by the gravel veneer deposited on top of the erosional surfaces. But the best way to visualize the energy involved is to understand that the shelf-slope system on the present continental margin was rapidly deposited from eroded Appalachian sediments.

Continental margin off the northeastern United States.

Channelized Flow then Created Water and Wind Gaps

As the Floodwater transformed from sheet flow into channelized flow, the erosion became narrow and linear. Valleys, canyons, and water and wind gaps would then be cut until the Flood ended. This is similar to the two-step erosion on the Colorado Plateau: (1) the Great Denudation from sheet flow, and (2) the Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, and other canyons from channelized flow (Oard, 2010, 2011a, also see the excerpted article Did Noah's Flood make the Grand Canyon?).

Once a notch was cut, water would have sought that channel, increasing flow velocity relative to the surrounding area (Figure B).

The notch would quickly grow as more water was forced through the narrow opening. In addition, the faster water would have carried abrasive particles, cutting the gap even faster (Figure C).

The Flood explanation also differentiates between wind and water gaps. Wind gaps represent early water gaps that were left high and dry as the water level rapidly dropped or the current velocity diminished quickly, leading to the cessation of erosion (Figure D). These would have remained as remnants at high elevations while the lowering water carved new gaps at lower elevations, establishing the basic post-Flood drainage patterns. Today, only wind traverses the higher gaps, while the rivers naturally take advantage of the low water course through the water gap established at the very end of the Flood.

Conclusion

Mainstream "millions of years" scientists oscillate back and forth between failed explanations for the formation of water gaps. But the Global Flood described in the book of Genesis leads to a very reasonable explanation.

The retreating waters started with sheet flow that would have been flowing perpendicular to ridges and ultimately deposited the continental shelves. The sheet currents initiated the water gaps by cutting narrow deep notch that channeled the water through. Most of the remainder of the mountain wall remained intact.

The sheet flow then diminished to channelized currents with anomalously high velocities and scale. They are the only feasible explanation for the phenomenon of aligned water gaps in a series of perpendicular ridges, as seen throughout the Appalachians. This ultra high energy channelized flow stopped so quickly that it left many water gaps high and dry. These resulted in the many wind gaps, unexplainable by any uniformitarian model involving millions of years.

Once again, a creationist explanation is the one that holds water.

References (selected)

Clark, G.M. 1989. Central and southern Appalachian water and wind gap origins: review and new data. Geomorphology 2:209–232.

Oard, M.J. 2010. The origin of Grand Canyon part IV: the great denudation. CRSQ 47:146–157.

Oard, M.J. 2011a. The origin of Grand Canyon part V: carved by late Flood channelized erosion. CRSQ 47:271–282.

Schumm, S., and F.G. Ethridge. 1994. Origin, evolution and morphology of fluvial valleys. In Dalrymple, R.W., R. Boyd, and B.A. Zaitlin (editors), Incised-Valley Systems: Origins and Sedimentary Sequences, pp. 11–27. SEPM Special Publication No. 51, Tulsa, OK.

You can switch off the loudspeaker now, I have found God

During Stalin's time in the country of Czechoslovakia, a leading communist named Loeb was imprisoned by his comrades and subjected to brainwashing. Alone in a cell, he had to listen day and night to a loudspeaker blaring at him maddening words: "Spy! Traitor! Counter-revolutionist! Oh, no, I beg your pardon. Dear and faithful comrade, no, spy! Traitor! No, comrade! You will be hanged! It is a confusion; you will be released soon. Your arrest has been a mistake. Rogue, rascal, beloved comrade, innocent victim of injustice!" This went on for weeks.

Then he had a moment of illumination. The thought occurred to him: "If communists torture Christians or other enemies, it makes sense. We cannot triumph without destroying them. But if communists torture communists, this is wickedness without any sense; it is evil for evil's sake. I have now seen the final depth of evil. But there is no electricity without two poles, no coin without two faces. If there exists an extreme depth of wickedness, there must also be an extreme height of love. This then is God."

After this, when he was called to a new interrogation, he told the police officer: "You can switch off the loudspeaker now. I have found God."

(from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, August 2012)

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Water Gaps could not have Formed over Millions of Years

As Michael J. Oard tells us: "the origin of water gaps has not been explained, despite all the attempts. What was written in 1932-33 about water gaps in the mountains of the eastern U.S. can still be quoted today: 'The Appalachian problem, like the poor, we shall have with us always.'"

"Uniformitarian geomorphologists seem to bounce from one hypothesis to another. They have tried the antecedent stream hypothesis, the superimposed stream hypothesis, even stream piracy. They are stuck in the rut of their failed paradigm."

"We must conclude the necessity of searching for an explanation within a completely different paradigm. Ironically, the features of these landforms readily can be explained by the great nemesis of modern geology- the Genesis Flood."

Selections from the first section of Origin of Appalachian Geomorphology, Part III: Channelized Erosion Late in the Flood, by Michael J. Oard.

(These selections by Marko Malyj are of the article published in Creation Research Society Quarterly Journal, Volume 48, Number 4, Spring 2012)

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Water Gaps

Many master streams flow in deep gorges through ridges of resistant rock, with the Valley and Ridge of Pennsylvania having the most dramatic examples. The problem of how streams were able to cut through such obstacles has fascinated many geomorphologists.

Water gaps are numerous in the Appalachian Mountains (VerSteeg, 1930; Thompson, 1939; Strahler, 1945; Ahnert, 1998). Hundreds of them have been cut through resistant ridges (Thornbury, 1965). Speculation and controversy over the origin of water gaps have been going on for about 150 years. Although the major rivers Bow through water gaps of the Valley and Ridge and Blue Ridge Provinces, many tributary streams also Bow through water gaps, especially in the northern Appalachians (see Figures 23 and 24).

One of the most famous is the series through which the Susquehanna River flows. The river cuts through the folded and eroded ridges of Blue Mountain north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Figure 4). The river, on the 37-km stretch upstream from Harrisburg, could have flowed around four out of five of the resistant ridges, had it followed the expected course at lower elevations over softer rocks (Strahler, 1945).

Figure 4. Coogle Maps Image of Susquehanna River water gaps north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Note that the last two water gaps are aligned and the third to the north is almost aligned (© Google 2010).

Figure 9. Shaded relief map of New River. Downstream toward top. Note that the river cuts almost straight through the Valley and Ridge Province(© Google 2010).

The New River starts near the Blue Ridge Escarpment in North Carolina and cuts northwest through at least four ridges of the Valley and Ridge Province via major water gaps (Figure 9) (Bartholomew and Mills, 1991; Ward et al, 2005).

Uniformitarian Hypotheses and Problems

A water gap is "a deep pass in a mountain ridge, through which a stream flows; esp. a narrow gorge or ravine cut through resistant rocks" (Neuendorf et al., 2005, p. 715). This applies to any perpendicular cut through any topographical barrier, including a plateau (Douglas, 2005).

There are five uniformitarian hypotheses for the origin of water gaps, also called transverse drainage (Oberlander, 1965). William Morris Davis was one of the first to attempt an explanation in the early twentieth century, by relief inversion plus reversal in drainage. This explanation is not taken seriously today. The second is that gaps are the surface expression of faults cutting through the mountains. However, most water gaps in the Appalachians are erosional and cannot be attributed to faulting. In fact, many well-known faults have not resulted in water gaps (e.g., Strahler, 1945, pp. 46, 63-65).

That leaves three current uniformitarian hypotheses: (1) the antecedent stream, (2) the superimposed stream, and (3) stream piracy (Stokes and Mather, 2003, p. 76).

Antecedent Stream Hypothesis
The antecedent stream hypothesis, defined above and illustrated in Figure 1, seems to have been the first invoked to explain transverse drainage. John Wesley Powell simply assumed the Green River
through the Uinta Mountains and the Colorado River through Grand Canyon had been eroded by antecedent rivers. Most other geologists accepted this hypothesis until the mid 1900s, when
it ran into severe problems.

Figure 1. The antecedent stream hypothesis shown on a plaque near a Yakima River water gap, Washington. First, a stream is established; then, as a ridge slowly uplifts, the stream erodes through the barrier.

One must prove that the river in question predates uplift, but that is difficult (Twidale, 1976). Furthermore, uplift must be slow enough and steady enough so that the river's course is not deflected
(Ranney, 2005). If uplift was too rapid, a river in an enclosed basin would become a lake. If a water gap through one barrier is difficult to achieve, aligned water gaps through multiple uplifts, such as on the Susquehanna north of Harrisburg (Figure 15), would be much less likely.

Figure 15. Coogle Maps close-up view of aligned water gaps of the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Superimposed Stream Hypothesis

In the superimposed stream hypothesis, a landscape is buried by renewed sedimentation, usually by a marine transgression. Then, a stream or river is established on the generally flat cover of sediments or sedimentary rock, called the "covermass." As erosion takes place over millions of years, the stream erodes downward in the same location (Figure 2). In that way, after millions of years, the stream ends up flowing through structural barriers. At the same time, the rest of the covermass not in the path of the river is somehow eroded or mostly eroded, leaving behind the stream or river flowing through ridges or mountains.  If so, that surface would have been generally level, and rivers flowing across it were assumed to have cut down into older deformed sedimentary rocks.

Figure 2. Block diagram of the superimposed stream hypothesis. The stream maintains its same course as most of the covermass (top layer) is eroded. Drawing by Bryan Miller.

What is actually observed is that many tributaries do flow parallel to the ridges, but then they mysteriously jump across ridges through water gaps. Von Engeln (1942) also pointed to the aligned water gaps as evidence of superimposition, since these features would not be likely caused by antecedence or stream piracy.

The most significant problem is the absence of evidence for the proposed transgression, the great volume of "covermass." Cretaceous marine deposits do not occur within the Appalachian fold belt (Kaktins and Delano (1999, p. 382). Another difficulty is the tendency of modern rivers to take the path of least resistance. We would expect a downward-cutting river to change course as it encountered a more resistant anticline, and flow through the more easily eroded covermass.

Superimposition has a problem with removing the covermass in between the rivers. If the rivers are cutting vertically, then why would we expect laterally extensive erosion of these sediments on the ridges between the rivers? The hypothesis requires the river to maintain the same course and
downcut into both resistant and nonresistant formations, while at the same time having the drainage basin erode the covermass all across the remainder of the region. Thus, the soft rocks are cut into valleys and leave the more resistant rocks as ridges, while the main rivers do not change course through the ridges (Crickmay, 1974 ).

Stream Piracy

Figure 3. Schematic of stream piracy drawn by Peter Klevberg. As the stream valleys erode, a tributary stream supposedly erodes through the intervening ridge and eventually captures part of the stream on the other side of the divide.

In a flume experiment, Douglas and Schrneeckle (2007, p. 38) discovered hat the mechanism of stream piracy is very difficult and needs extra "help":

The final piracy experiment successfully produced a transverse drainage through headward erosion, but required the retreat of a strongly asymmetrical scarp ridge and required much more time than the other experiments. This supports Bishop's (1995) argument concerning piracies over utilization.

All Uniformitarian Hypotheses Fail

Hack (1989) acknowledged that the origin of water gaps has not been explained, despite all the attempts. Uniformitarian geomorphologists seem to bounce from one hypothesis to another, stuck in the rut of their failed paradigm.

"What was written in 1932-33 can still be quoted today: 'The Appalachian problem, like the poor, we shall have with us always.'" (Bryan etal., 1932/3 3, p. 318, quoted in Clark, 1989, p. 225, 229).

If all of the classical uniformitarian hypotheses are insufficient, then we must conclude the necessity of searching for an explanation within a completely different paradigm. Ironically, the features of these landforms readily can be explained by the great nemesis of modern geology - the Genesis Flood.

References (selected)

Ahnert, F. 1998. Introduction to Geomorphology. Arnold, London, UK.

Bartholomew, M.J., and H.H. Mills. 1991. Old courses of the New River: its late Cenozoic migration and bedrock control inferred from high-level stream gravels, southwestern Virginia. GSA Bulletin
103:73–81.

Bishop, P. 1995. Drainage rearrangement by river capture, beheading and diversion. Progress in Physical Geography 19(4):449–473.

Clark, G.M. 1989. Central and southern Appalachian water and wind gap origins: review and new data. Geomorphology 2:209–232.

Crickmay, C.H. 1974. The Work of the River: A Critical Study of the Central Aspects of Geomorphology. American Elsevier Publishing Co., New York, NY.

Douglass, J.C. 2005. Criterion approach to transverse drainages. PhD thesis, Arizona State University, Tucson, Arizona.

Douglass, J., and M. Schmeeckle. 2007. Analogue modeling of transverse drainage mechanisms. Geomorphology 84:22–43.

Hack, J.T. 1989. Geomorphology of the Appalachian Highlands. In Hatcher,R.D. Jr., W.A. Thomas, and G.W. Viele (editors), The Geology of North America, Volume F-2, The Appalachian-Ouachita
Orogen in the United States, pp. 459–470. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO.

Kaktins, U. and H.L. Delano. 1999. Drainage basins. In Shultz, C.H. (editor), The
Geology of Pennsylvania, pp. 379–390. Pennsylvania Geological Survey, Harrisburg, PA, and Pittsburgh Geological Society, Pittsburgh, PA.

Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A.Jackson. 2005. Glossary of Geology, 5th
Edition. American Geological Institute, Alexandria, VA.

Oberlander, T. 1965. The Zagros Streams: A New Interpretation of Transverse Drainage in an Orogenic Zone. Syracuse Geographical Series No. 1, Syracuse, NY.

Ranney, W. 2005. Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery. Grand Canyon Association, Grand Canyon, AZ.

Stokes, M., and A.E. Mather 2003. Tectonic origin and evolution of a transverse drainage: the Río Almanzora, Betic Cordillera, Southeast Spain. Geomorphology 50:59–81.

Strahler, A.N. 1945. Hypotheses of stream development in the folded Appalachians of Pennsylvania. GSA Bulletin 56:45–88

Thompson, H.D. 1939. Drainage evolution in the southern Appalachians. GSA Bulletin 50:1,323–1,356.

Thornbury, W.D. 1965. Regional Geomorphology of the United States. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

Twidale, C.. 2004. River patterns and their meaning. Earth-Science Reviews 67:159–218.

Ver Steeg, K. 1930. Wind gaps and water gaps of the Northern Appalachians, their characteristics
and significance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 32:87–220. 

Von Engeln, O.D. 1942. Geomorphology: Systematic and Regional. Macmillan, New York, NY.

Ward, D.J., J.A. Spotila, G.S. Hancock, and J.M. Galbraith 2005. New constraints on the late Cenozoic incision history of the New River, Virginia. Geomorphology 72:54–72.

He always carries a copy of the laws of Vietnam, and the Bible in his heart

Ma was a deputy to the chief of police and a Vietnamese communist party member.

In 1996, his nephew showed him a New Testament. When Ma's entire family got sick, he remembered what he had read about Jesus healing people. Twelve members of Ma's family had died of illness, so Ma asked a pastor to pray for a young nephew. Ma' s nephew was healed, and Ma gave his life to the Lord!

But a year later, he lost his job when the party learned of his conversion.

So he returned to his village and began to tell others about God. Although he had no training - he knew only what he had read in the Gospels and what the pastor had told him - 100 people came to
Christ in the first year of his ministry.

In 1998 he was arrested.

"They kept me for three days and beat me because they knew me from when I belonged to the
communist party," he said. Ma used the time to share the gospel with his former comrades, and six of the party members became believers. He was released.

Ma, now 62 years old, at this point oversees nine house churches and nearly 1,800 believers. Christians face many restrictions in the region where Ma works. They are not allowed to gather in groups of more than 20, and, unlike other villagers, Christians are not provided houses by the government. In addition, Bibles are not allowed, so Christians must hide their Bibles and read them only after dark.

Ma leaves his Bible behind when he travels to preach, afraid that it would be confiscated if discovered. Instead, he writes his sermon on paper and hides the Scripture in his heart.

He always carries a copy of the laws of Vietnam so that when he is questioned he can confront the police with their own laws. Despite government harassment and restrictions, Ma has learned how to continue his ministry and continue sharing the hope of Jesus Christ.

(from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, August 2012)

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