2007 Highlights

2007 is coming to a close, which has put me in a somewhat contemplative/reflective mood. It was a good year, a year of lots of growth and adventure. Here's a recap of some of the highlights:

1. I completed my first year of teaching. Now that was an adventure. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. For any of those who may be rolling your eyes and saying "whatever, it's a 7-3 hour job and you're off in the summers," I assure you it's not. It's one of the most demanding but rewarding jobs, and also one of the least respected. It was bittersweet to leave in June.

2. In February of '07 I went to Redding, California to visit Bethel Church. I was hooked. I applied and got in to their Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry!

3. Jon Price started worship at Vineyard Westside. He's awesome.

4. I took the Omega course and the internship at the Cincinnati House of Prayer. Both were really good and led to new friendships and deeper levels in my relationship with Jesus.

5. Barb had baby Trenton and he's so adorable!

6. Mom and I made the 34 hour trek across the country to move me to Redding. We stopped at the International House of Prayer (where the Barrs also told me they were expecting baby #2-how exciting!), drove through lots of cow farms and very brown Nevada, absolutely gorgeous Lake Tahoe, and then finally to my little pad in Redding. (Where many other adventures took place like Mom and I moving a couch and a washer and dryer all by ourselves, driving a big ol' U-Haul truck, etc.)

7. Bethel School of Ministry. I would have never thought five years ago that I would be a part of a school like this learning from such amazing teachers and experiencing signs and wonders. God is so good.


Well, that's 7, fitting since it was '07. :) The number 8 is the number of new beginnings so I'm looking forward to 2008. I really have no idea how it's going to shake out. I'm thinking I'll be back home to Cincinnati in June, but I have no idea what I'll do after that. :) I'll definitely be visiting this place more



to get some more of these


I had a hot fudge sundae last night, which is my personal fav, but I couldn't find a picture of that. You definitely learn to appreciate the small stuff (like UDF) when you move away and there's no good local spot to get a yummy ice cream. :)

Happy New Year to all! May 2008 be even better than 2007!

Christmas miracle

It appears that I sent out my newsletter too early because I now have a new favorite story of the month. In school today right before worship, Ben Armstrong, one of our leaders, invited two fellow classmates to go up front while he told a testimony. On Friday night all three of them flew to New York. Why you ask? This is so cool. Buckle your seat belts. 13 weeks ago someone there overdosed on drugs (I don't remember his name, Steve maybe, and they never did say how they knew the person). When this person who shall be called Steve overdosed his brother was there. Steve was dead, not breathing, the whole bit. His brother prayed and he started breathing again, but he was in a vegetative coma state (Holy hole in the donut, raised him from the dead though). So, someone from New York paid for three plane tickets to fly Ben and my two classmates to NY this past weekend. They flew all of Friday night and then spent 10 hours with Steve on Saturday. When they arrived at the hospital Steve was still in a coma, had a trach in his throat, and a feeding tube in his stomach. The one classmate played guitar all day and they just sang over him. At one point during the day Steve opened his eyes and would widen them to say "Yes". Ben asked him if he was having dreams of God and he said yes (with his eyes). They continue to sing and pray over him. Steve began to cry. The doctor on the case said this was amazing and that tears were a really good sign because his brain was understanding conversation for the first time since the coma. Ben told him that they loved him. Steve actually mouthed "I love you". By the end of the 10 hours, the doctor said his condition had improved so much that they were going to take him out of the ICU and put him in a regular recovery room. PRAISE GOD!

Eichhorn family, if you're reading this, this is a testimony for the new little one! God can restore anything and everything!

Christmas Cookies

Well, today I had another first in my life. Normally "firsts" happen when you're little like first step, first word, etc, but even as we grow older we experience new and exciting things. I'm not so sure this one was exciting, but it was a first. I've witnessed this particular first before with little ones, but never in a formal school setting. Last year, I made it very clear to my students that I didn't want to experience it; if they needed to they could just run. So, if you haven't guessed it by now, one of my little students tossed her cookies today. Right before dismissal too. 10 more minutes and she would have been with mom. One of the other teachers was trying to clean it up. I was like what are you doing, we don't do that, custodians have special stuff for that. Hopefully, that will be the first and last time I see it this year.

In other news I made Christmas cookies today. Fun! They weren't my normal batch of homemade sugar cookies, but they will suffice. The teachers at preschool are doing some kind of gift exchange, but I didn't have a clue what to get them so they're getting muffins and cookies. I would like that gift. Let's see, I also did some laundry and light cleaning today. It's been productive and it's only 4:30. We'll see what else I can get into.

Back to school tomorrow. 2 more days...which is good because I've totally checked out. I'm ready to be home.

Financial Testimony

I have a cool financial testimony for you. Today in school Kathy Vallotton came in to announce who had money paid on their account. She went through the students and then she had Tracey Cooper come up (she's on staff with the school of ministry). Kathy said, "I have this envelope for you and I think I'll open it for you." Tracy was really excited (you have to know Tracy, she's spunky). So, Kathy proceeds to count out 10, 100 dollar bills. By the third one Tracy was in tears. Then Tracy took the mic and told us that their car had broken down this week and it was going to cost 848 bucks to fix it. Her husband and her had decided that they had to take back some of their kids' Christmas presents because of this unexpected car work. On the way to work that day, Tracy and her husband were talking about how God had never let them down before and the devil was going to have to pay for what he did. Then she gets a thousand bucks. Crazy. God is good.

Adventures with Dad

My dad was here this weekend and it was fantastic! Saturday we got up and took a loooonnnngggg walk down by the Sacramento River. We saw five deer on the way down to the river and one was a buck. Dad of course had to make weird noises at them to see what they would do. We stopped at the little coffee shop over the bridge on our way back, so that was fun. After our walk we came home, got cleaned up and went out again. He washed my car, then we got some lunch, and then we headed for Whiskeytown lake to do some hiking. We decided to do Boulder Creek Falls because it looked the coolest and we were running out of time. The guy at the visitor center gave us directions, so we followed them. We were on the narrowest, littlest gravel road that I've ever seen for about three miles, but it seemed like forever. Their were no trailhead signs whatsoever! I was getting quite frustrated because I wanted to see some waterfalls! We finally found another sign, but it still didn't give clear directions. After some more narrow gravel roads, we found a trailhead. It wasn't clearly marked either, but we just went with it. It was way cool! We even ended up climbing up this really narrow ledge to get closer to the top of the falls. The pictures don't do it justice, so you'll just have to believer me. Only bummer was that Dad got stung by two bees while we were there.

Dad also completed everything on my to-do list. :) The best part is that I now have a working bike trainer in my room, so I can get back to doing some cardio.

On Sunday after church, Dad and I drove out towards Mt. Shasta. We ended up going into the Shasta-Trinity forest and it was beyond beautiful. The trees were covered in snow; it was unbelieveably peaceful. We drove as far up as we could (the rest of it was closed due to snow) and got out and played in the snow a little. When we came back down, we drove over to the headwaters of the Sacramento River. It's just a little stream.

We ate dinner at a little Italian place called the Piemont. It was really good. It's the oldest restaurant in Mt. Shasta and the inside totally looks it. They have really old lighting, this big vinyl booth, lounge seating by the bar, and some way old dark, textured wall paper on some of the walls. It was way cool. The food was yummy too. Mt. Shasta is so small. Their main road is barely a mile long, but this restaurant was a find.

Dad and I had lunch after I got off work today and then he headed for San Jose. Way fun times. You all should come visit, there's lots of parks to play in out here...

Random extrapolations from the week thus far

I haven't posted in a few days, which is odd for me. It's been a super busy week. When Tuesday rolls around, it's a blur until the end of the week. Work, school, night classes, homework, sleep. There's little time to eat let alone type. :) I had a nice break today. I normally have Spanish on Wednesdays, but I had a small group leader training brunch that conflicted with Spanish. The nice thing was that I got to take a walk this morning. I extremely miss (I don't know what kind of English that is, but nothing else is forming at the moment) my morning walks, so it felt fantastic. Then I undid it all at my brunch. :)

I'm winding down for the night. I did some cleaning, laundry and homework. It was productive, but I'm tired. I have some more of the same for tomorrow night, but it will be worth it because I'll be completely free to hang with my dad this weekend.

I survived my first fifth grade Sunday school class. :) I think we'll still have to get used to some rules, but this weekend we don't have regular class so no planning. I'll have it again next week and then I'll be home for Christmas. The real test will be when I come back. I have a feeling I'm going to like it. I think I was put with that age group for some specific reasons.

Last night at Children's Home group we wrapped 500 presents. That was fun. The girls seriously outwrapped the boys too. It was funny watching some of them wrap. (Bethel does a huge Holiday Feast where they bus in 800 people and feed them a huge, fancy meal. Then the people get to pick out brand new clothes. The kids get to play games upstairs, or in those bouncy jumpy things and they get presents. Hence the need to wrap 500 presents.)

We're currently learning a lot about identity in school. It's good stuff, but some days are rough. Not always a barrel of fun when Papa exposes your yucky stuff. That's okay though because once it's exposed you can get free from it. We yell FREEDOM a lot around here. :)

14 more days until Christmas vacation...Family, please put up the decorations. :D

Fried Bologna and $800

I thoroughily enjoyed a fried bologna sandwich today for lunch. I bought some low-fat bologna when I got back from Cincinnati and I kind of forgot about it. Frying it is the only way to eat it and my bread is getting kind of stale, so I thought today was the perfect day to fire up the stove. The fried bologna made the stale bread much more enjoyable. You just can't eat peanut butter and jelly on stale bread so it will be toast or fried bologna until this loaf of bread is gone. I encourage you to revisit this childhood favorite if you haven't done so in a while. Switch it up a little.

Backtracking to Thursday...Someone from the Bethel staff often gets up to announce who had money paid on their account. On Thursday, they probably called at least 10 people who had $800 come in either for their tuition, rent, mission, or just to spend. It was wild. They just made one student after another stand up and proceed to tell them they had 800 bucks come in. This one guy from Canada in my revival group was just telling us on Wednesday how God has been providing for him. It usually comes down to the wire of when something is due, but it comes in. On Thursday he was one of the ones who got 800 bucks. 8=new beginnings. Amen.