Our Lord Jesus said "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." So we, by the grace of God, are another voice in the wilderness to bring the message of salvation, healing and deliverance to a lost and dying world. May you be blessed, strengthened and encouraged as you take some time to have a look around our website.

Bob Riggle takes his message to the masses in a simple, visible way.

Your in thick traffic getting onto the Sen. George Sellar Bridge, heading to East Wenatchee.

You glance at the sidewalk on the west end of the bridge. There he is again... That guy with the wooden cross.

He usually wears an Australian style hat.  He smiles through his goatee. If you wave, he waves.  If you nod, he nods...

Sometimes he sits on the concrete bridge wall, swinging one leg over the sidewalk.  Usually he simply stands. Always holding the cross.  Not just any cross. It's a big cross, taller than he is--and he is not short...  With a cart wheel on the bottom, for ease of moving it around, it's 9 and a half feet tall.
The cross is made of fence posts, lashed and bolted together with rope.

An American flag has been duct taped to the top since Sept. 11th.
"This isn't something I've chosen to do," Bob said. "I'd rather be somewhere else than standing on that bridge smelling thousands of exhaust fumes."
He said he's there because he feels God's call to be there to point people to Jesus Christ and to challenge Christians to boldly proclaim the gospel.
He said his approach may be a little radical, but that God challenged him to take the message beyond the "four walls of churchianity."

Riggle, 47, is the pastor of Crossroads Mission, a small, nondenominational church in Malaga.  He knows some people think he's a little strange.
The first time he carried his cross onto the bridge in July of 2000, four cop cars showed up.  He was on the sidewalk in the center of the bridge. "They thought they had a jumper on their hands," Bob recalls with amusement. He says the police asked him to stand elsewhere, that they didn't want him in the center of the bridge for safety reasons.

He moved to the sidewalk alcove at the west end of the bridge that he's used since.  About 2,450 vehicles cross the bridge daily between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., according the state department of transportation. Riggle likes the fact that the cross can be seen by lots of people. But, he says, he's also at the bridge because it's illustrative of Christ as the bridge over sin which otherwise separates man from God.

It's also a gateway between Wenatchee and East Wenatchee.  So as he stands there, he sings hymns and he prays for the two cities. He doesn't always stay on the bridge. Sometimes he carries the cross down Wenatchee Avenue or sits with it in Centennial Park. He tries not to stop in front of businesses, as he prefers spots where people can't readily stop because he doesn't want them thinking he's panhandling.

He's quick to share the gospel when people ask what he's doing.  "It's all about Jesus, not Bob Riggle," he says.

He isn't trying to imitate Arthur Blessit, a better known cross bearer, but he is inspired by him.  Blessit has carried a twelve foot cross, proclaiming the gospel, 34,800 miles through 292 countries since he started in Hollywood, California in 1969.  The Guiness book of World records lists his accomplishment as the world's longest walk.

Riggle was born and raised in Pennsylvania, not in a Christian home. He first "called on God" in the Navy. He spent 16 years in construction work, went through the drugs and alchohol scene and was searching, wanting to find a way out of the "rat race of the American lifestyle" and all the "fast paced materialism" when he met his future wife, Leslie, while working construction in Colorado.

They talked about God on their first date.

She was a travel agent and got them tickets to Christchurch, New Zealand.  That's where they both committed their lives to Christ and got married.
"When the revelation came to me that I could be forgiven of my sins and restored, I basically wept for many hours. I knew Jesus Christ was real and that God's forgiveness and love was real.  Ever since that time, I've wanted to share that love with others.  That's what motivates me," Bob says.  "I have this incredible burden to have people come to know His saving grace.
The Riggles stayed in New Zealand for more than four years.  They ran a mission shelter for the homeless, they did mission work amoung the Maoris.

They returned to the states, to Klamath Falls, Oregon. "Within one week, I didn't know a soul, I was pastoring an Indian (Klamath/Modoc) Church," Says Bob. "God just put it together. They had been praying for 18 months that God would send them a pastor."

It was in Klamath Falls that he felt inspired by God to make a cross and begin carrying it in the streets.

Bob and his wife were living in a converted bus and holding tent revival meetings in Montana in the summer of 2000 when a friend asked them to help with a youth camp at the Crossroads Mission in Malaga.

They came. Young people responded, making decisions and being baptised.
Velma Fulwiler, then 91, had been running the mission for 40 years, she had been waiting for God to send someone to take over, Bob says. Shortly after the Riggles and their five children arrived, Fulwiler died.

So this is the guy that you see holding the cross on the bridge. And Bob Riggle sees you. "What I want to see is joy.  I see that a lot.  There's a lot of people real happy to see me there," he says of the faces he sees.  "But there are all types of looks, if you're any good at all at reading body language." He gets looks of indifferance, of wishing he'd jump.  He gets thumbs up and he gets the middle finger. The bad stuff doesn't bother him.

"How people respond to me isn't important, It's how they respond to Jesus Christ, that is whats important."

Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

We are presently living in Omak Wa. on the Colville Reservation.

 Our address is 711 S Dayton St. Omak, Wa. 98841

Phone # 509 422-0822

You can also join with us on-line at Pal-talk in the Christianity category, we have a room open there called Bravehearts: "All Nations Bow before Him" and  my Paltalk nick is Braveheart4Jesus. For a free download of the program check our links page on this site.

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The background music on this site is all done by Broken Walls. Please check our links page to visit their web- site.

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