High Pastures

Description

There is a mountain in the northern slopes of the Black Mountains in Western North Carolina. These are very old mountains.....well worn down and covered with a ragged mantle of trees, rhododendron thickets and wild flowers. The rocky sides are steep and rugged. Surrounding hills on three sides form a cove as if God's right hand were cupped around it, forming bulwarks reaching some 5,000 feet in elevation at Bolen's Pyramid and a little less at Blue Rock Knob. Cold mountain streams are numerous. According to botanists, the Southern Appalachians have the greatest variety of botanical species outside of the Holy Land. American Indians lived there when they occupied the Toe River Valley. It has been hunted and harvested by mountaineers, cut over and replanted by lumberman, sketched and painted by artists and etched by memory in prose and verse. Throughout the years it has been inhabited by a good variety of God's fury little creatures. In 1958, Elizsabeth Motsinger, seeking a hideaway in which to seek God found this place. She had been struggling for years to know if God actually exists, and, if so, whether He could be known. A year passed while her lawyer worked to clear the title. Betty attended Camp Farthest Out at Kanuga Conference Center outside of Hendersonville, where she received the Lord Jesus as he living Lord and Savior. That very night a telephone call came saying that the title to the land was clear and that she could purchase it. Isaiah says, "He that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, " is a biblical promise that Betty claimed. After making her 700 acre acquisition, Betty moved into the small four-room shack at the lower end of the property. The snow blew in between the siding on cold, windy winter days and nights, but the time seemed like a "honeymoon" in her newly found relationship with Jesus. The weather was not suitable for building, so it was the following Thanksgiving before her new residence was finished. And was she thankful! Having been touched so powerfully by the Spirit of God, she dedicated her all to Him, yielding herself to be His handmaiden. Her resources and her newly purchased property were joyfully surrendered to honor and glorify the Lord Jesus for His highest purposes. In her heart of hearts Betty committed her life to obedience to His direction and plan. And so High Pastures was birthed. As it emerged, God established it as a place where "His sheep" could be fed, find refuge and refreshing, be equipped and strengthened for service, and anointed for ministry. Soon after Betty moved into her house in 1960 she began receiving visitors send by the Father. Small groups began to come for weekends, and Betty was hard pushed to provide for their care. She says she didn't "found" High Pastures. The Lord send the people and all she could do was try to cope with that He was doing. As the number of guests outgrew the capacity of her house, Betty built more buildings as demand dictated and as she was able. By this time she felt that she was living in Isaiah 54:2: Each time another building as finished this scripture was dropped into her mind.

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