Cleves Clip-its... and previous Tidbits from California

One more crack at it...

2010-01-25T12:53:00.002-05:00

Since this blog was about my adventures in California and then a few in Cleves once I returned home, I decided to start a brand new blog for the current chapter in my life. We'll see how it goes. You can view it here. Peace out. :D

Get it now

2009-01-19T10:58:00.002-05:00

Get it now. What is it you ask? It's ibethel.tv. If you can't make it to Bethel to experience it, this is the next best thing. You can watch video of worship and messages. It's way cool. They have packages available for every budget. I got the middle of the road, but I'm thinking about upgrading to top of the line. I'm diggin it.

4.0 miles 29.50 minutes. 30 minutes weights. (I don't have a calendar yet for this year, so I'm trying to keep track of my workout times somewhere.)

If only

2009-01-14T19:10:00.003-05:00

4 miles 31 minutes 25 seconds. Feels good. Endorphins are truly a gift from God. Now if only I had more time to do this more often. And if only my face would retain some moisture. Of course this frigid weather doesn't help that situation. If only I could stick to this new year's resolution this year of healthier eating...so far so good. If only this low fat popcorn tasted as good as the buttery kind at the movies. If only an Indiana teaching license didn't require so much paperwork to be filled out. If only I could get a sweet snow day...if only. :)

Apartment Hunting

2009-01-11T16:48:00.001-05:00

I'm tired of looking at apartments. I just want to find one I like and be done. We may have found one, but I'm not sure.

The end.

some randomness

2008-12-14T20:27:00.004-05:00

It's time for my monthly update. So here's some random tidbits from the past few weeks...

I'll have to make it quick though b/c my battery is going to die.

1. Wedding planning is coming along, but just when I think I'm done I think of something else. All the big things except the invitations are done.

2. I ate way too much food this weekend. Cottage ham, potatoes, and string beans on Friday (mmmm), 2 trips to Starbucks, 1 to McDonald's, 1 to Dewey's, and 1 to Maggiano's (Ben had to taste it to see if it was okay for the rehearsal dinner). Oh man. I need to workout, but it sure was tasty going down.

3. I'm still not done with my Christmas shopping. :(

4. I forgot eyeliner while I was out this weekend, even though I passed dozens of stores where I could have purchased it. Bummer.

5. I was sick over Thanksgiving. That wasn't too fun, but I don't really like turkey anyway.

6. Haven't had time to make Christmas cookies yet, but I think I have it planned for a day soon. Yummy.

7. I'm realizing more and more that time is so precious and valuable and that I'm too busy. I need to set better boundaries.

8. "Ms. Horgan, your hair is wild."-one of my fourth grade students as my hair was blowing on the way back from the Aronoff Center

9. I'm watching the second Narnia and it's way better than staring at this computer screen, so I'm out.

Merry Christmas and to all a good night.

Venting with a cherry on top

2008-11-07T14:14:00.006-05:00

Yep, it's been over a month. I had to think pretty hard about what my password was. Last night was the first free night I had to myself in about two months. It's terrible that I have become this busy, so the night off to do whatever I want was much welcomed and needed. I've been thinking about shutting this thing down because I really don't have too many things to ramble on about, but alas I'm typing today. It might turn more into a rant, but I'm going to try and keep it civil.

The last several weeks have been REALLY hard. My spirit has been grieving for weeks now by the things that I watch go on around me and while I pray and try to let them go, it seems something is always popping up to remind me. Don't get me wrong, I've still had joyful moments, but I can't put my finger on what God is doing with me. Here's my biggest beef about it all: I can't stand laziness and I can't stand non-authentic Christianity.

We've had some extremely nasty e-mails go around at work that have been both untrue and hurtful. What bothers me most is that people who call themselves Christians are certainly not acting like Christians. What's more is that they are totally unopen to having a conversation where they have to listen. I'm also really tired of hearing Christians make excuses for the way they vote/voted this past week. The Church has got to grow up and take a stand and quit being worried about offending people. The gospel is offensive and the only way this nation is going to change is if the Church takes her place.

Laziness. Can't stand it. I'm so tired of people being lazy and looking for handouts. It's an epidemic in kids today, they always want to know what they're going to get out of it and if there is no reward they often don't want to do anything. I've seen it in a lot of Christian leaders though too lately. And once again, people don't confront it in a Christian way, which just adds to the Church's problem of not being authentic. If we're not going to teach people by example of what it means to be a Christian, how do we expect anyone else to implement it?

Now, I'm not saying we should go around pointing out everyone's faults, but for Heaven's sake let's be real. Honoring, but real.

I feel slightly better.

This was excellent the other day though. Yep, count 'em...7 cherries. I didn't even ask for extra cherries, the person at UDF just knew I needed them.

Random update

2008-10-05T20:04:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted in forever, I know. Someone, who will not be named, just reminded me. In my defense I've been ill all week. Someone else also told me my blog was boring, which I admit it is sometimes. Isn't the whole purpose of a blog just to ramble on about silly things though? yes. Maybe someday when I have kids I'll have a cooler blog. It seems like all the cool blogs have kid stories. Oh well. I could tell kid stories from school such as when my kids saw me for the first time with my hair down and said, "Dang Ms. Horgan, you look better with your hair down." But see, that's the end of the story.

Dad and lilly buddy also are champions again of their triathalon division. He's all happy right now singing "We are the Champions." Geez. :p

Wedding Poll

2008-09-18T20:37:00.001-04:00

Hello peeps. I'm taking a poll on a wedding question. We may have an unbalanced wedding party, so what have you seen at weddings? Do uneven parties just have the ladies walk down by themselves? Do they share a groomsmen? What goes on? Thanks for answering. :)

Men should not work here

2008-09-05T16:33:00.003-04:00

I was deeply disturbed last night. I finally got to go shopping with my sister and mom since I now have a small paycheck. I can't go crazy, but it felt good to buy a new pair of shoes even if they were clearance. Although unless I was a millionaire, I don't think the thrill of finding a good deal will ever fade. Anyway, back to the disturbed part. We all headed into Victoria's Secret because we had coupons. Coupons to that store is heaven because it's expensive, but they are the best. So, we pick up what we need and start heading for the register. And then, we see it...a male species working behind the counter. WHAT? I'm all for equal rights and everything, but come on, men should not be working at VS. It's really not logical for one thing. They're going to have to schedule an extra person when he's on the floor because I would hope they don't allow him to assist ladies in the dressing room. I mean hello? It's just wrong.

Fireworks

2008-09-01T10:56:00.005-04:00

I know, I know. It's been forever since I've posted something. My first excuse is that I got a new job and it has taken me a while to reorganize my schedule. My second excuse is that I'm not sure what to write about most of the time. When I started this it was to keep people informed of my escapades in California. It was a good way for me to stay in touch with people. Now that I'm home I see people in person and I most of the time feel I have nothing cool to talk about. But alas, I can't escape the need to blog every once in a while, so here are some pics from yesterday's Riverfest. Oh how I love fireworks. Nobody does it like WEBN in Cincinnati on Labor Day either. It's truly an experience. And although we ended up having some people behind us who were smoking pot and being extremely obnoxious we all managed to enjoy the fireworks. Dad and I were scoping them out in case we had to take them out. We were on a hill so Dad said we would have just had to roll them down it. LOVE WINS. Hehe. Anyway...

Kelly's big mouth. :)

Inside Newport on the Levee waiting for a table at Dewey's.

I dared Dad to do some push ups while we were waiting.

He's a geek and closed his eyes, so here's the retake. Not very good form, but we'll give him points for being a sport. :)

Mmmmm. Dewey's Pizza. We carried out because they were so crowded. It's not quite the same without the red cream soda though.

Cheese.

Gorgeous sunset before the show.

Look at all the orbs in the sky. So cool. That little bright puff is a firework, not an orb.

They had some people parachute in with fireworks. That was different.

Self-portrait, about the 4th one that finally wasn't blurry.

Bird Poop and Cute Elderly Couples

2008-08-13T15:24:00.003-04:00

It's been a good, busy week. I've had several lunch dates with people and some good times outside. (If you haven't been outside in the last week, you should make it a priority. It's been GORGEOUS.)

Monday I went to the zoo with some kids I used to babysit. They're not so little anymore though. The oldest is going into 7th grade, which made me feel old. I've watched her since she was an itty bitty newborn. Anyway, after eating some Skyline we went to the zoo. It was the perfect day, not too hot. We were walking around, the kids were reading their maps and having a great time. And then it happened. The first time in my life ever. A bird pooped on me. Now, it couldn't have hit my shirt or my shoe or anything. Nope. Had to hit me in the face. Right in my eye. It was really gross. I didn't freak out or anything, but I was seriously squirming on the inside. Even after I had gotten home and showered just thinking about it made me squirm. Thankfully, most of it landed on my sunglasses, but I did have to wipe some from underneath my eye. After getting cleaned up and walking around a few more exhibits (probably about 20 minutes worth) the five year old looks up at me and says, "You still have poop on your face." Great. For the past 20 minutes I had still been walking with poop crusted up in my eyebrow and he was the only one nice enough to tell me. Yuck. Other than that it was perfect and the giraffes are amazing.

Today I was walking down at Fernbank and there were lots of people picnic-ing. It was a great day for it yet again. Some people brown bagged it, while others drove through the local McDonalds. There were lots of older couples enjoying lunch together and they just looked so content and happy with each other. By the river, there was a couple just relaxing in the shade in those old lawn chairs that are latched together with the extremely uncomfortable plastic/tweed material that always leaves horrible imprints on the back of your legs. They've probably had the chairs for the last 40 years but, they were content. I'm not explaining the feeling I felt looking at them very well, but it was good.

Monopoly

2008-08-05T09:34:00.002-04:00

I played Monopoly the other day for the first time in years and I literally mean years. It was beautiful. I landed on Free Parking 7 times...if only I could collect this much money in real life. :p I also had the only monopoly on properties (I didn't even know this was a rule) so I put some hotels on those puppies and cleaned out the competition. And, I got into a really hard laughing fit at one point and I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Laughter is good for you, it justs makes everything better.

I also made a visit to King's Island over the past weekend. I was a little sad that the Racer doesn't go backwards anymore and at how rough it has gotten (or perhaps how old I have). However, Firehawk, the new rollarcoaster completely redeemed my sadness about the Racer. Good ride. As for the waterpark, they need to do something about all that concrete, it seriously hurts your feet and I've got pretty tough feet.

I don't know what happened to the weather today. Last I heard it was supposed to be 95 and sunny. Pool day. Then I wake up and it's storming. Guess I should do more job hunting. It looks like teaching is out for this year, no one wants me. :p

Christmas in July

2008-07-26T14:04:00.002-04:00

July has been extremely good.

Reason #1: will not be disclosed. I know this defeats the purpose of making this reason number one, but one can't start a list of reasons with reason #2.

Reason #2: We went to Florida, which I've already blogged about. It was relaxing.

Reason #3: It seems like there may be a job opportunity brewing, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Reason #4: I just downloaded Bethel's Live Worship CD. It's like Christmas. I think someone even shouts something about Christmas. Hehe. Check it out here.

Pet Peeve #7

2008-07-17T10:13:00.002-04:00

So I was on my way to a table at Olive Garden last night and I discovered another pet peeve. What is it you ask? I'll tell you. I can't stand this new small talk that restaurants are making their hostesses initiate. Like they really even care if I'm enjoying the weather. Not to mention, I'm sure they rattle off the same 3 or 4 questions to every customer. It's lame. Half the time I'm trying to talk to whoever I'm with. Seriously, I'm not offended if you don't talk to me. Just smile, take me to my seat, and give me a menu. That's more than enough.

true clip-its

2008-07-15T16:32:00.002-04:00

We're back home now. Vacation was good, nice and relaxing. Not much to update about. I've been busy since I've been back...again. Summer needs to slow down.

Finally checked Claddagh's off my list, monte cristo sandwich...mmmm...

Also finished my ironing that's been sitting in my closet since I got home in June.

Now it's onto some administrative tasks that need to get done today.

It's been a good July thus far

2008-07-07T19:05:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since my previous post...my apologies to all of my loyal fans. :)

July has been a good month so far, let's hope this trend continues. We had some family in from out of town for the 4th and it was really fun catching up with them. I also had a lot of fun with worship this weekend at church and then teaching Sunday night at C-HOP. I just felt so alive. It was exhausting doing all of this in the same weekend, but I made it.

The fam left for Florida this morning at 3am. Yeah, that was early. We arrived here at Treasure Island around 12 after getting the rental car and stopping for some Dunkin' Donuts. :) We walked on the beach and then went to the pool which was super warm. After getting over the initial disgust of the dreaded swim suit, it was nice to just hang out and not do anything.

After dinner we ran to the grocery and when we came out there was the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen in my life. It was so BRIGHT. I only had my stupid cell phone camera with me, so the picture isn't worth much, so you'll have to take my word for it. Then when we got back to the condo, there were dolphins really close to the shore that we could see from our balcony. God has certainly blessed and refreshed us today with His goodness.

We'll be hanging out at the beach and probably checking out the Lakeland Revival tomorrow...stay tuned for details. :)

Laundry Boycott

2008-06-19T11:25:00.003-04:00

I don't want to see or smell any laundry for a long time. The truck came and all my clothing smelled musty so I had to wash it all plus all the sheets and blankets that were covering stuff. I know, some of you have families and do laundry like this all the time. But, when I go from three loads a week to 7 loads in one day, it's painful. I do have a small pile of things to iron, but other than that everything is moved in and pretty much done. My table has a slight crack in it, but everything else made it okay.

I have nothing else exciting to say at the moment. I don't think I've adjusted. I still don't feel like doing much. I'm waiting to hear on a job, but I don't like to think about that either. :)

Food update: I have experience UDF once again. Thank you Jesus. We're gonna have some Papa John's tomorrow. Oh yeah. Melanie-don't feel un-West-sideish. Claddagh's is not really a west side thing-I ventured out. It's an Irish Pub kind of restaurant and there's one at Newport and out by Fields Ertel. They have the best Monte Cristo sandwich, oh I'm salivating just thinking about it. They also have a really cool atmosphere inside their restaurants.

The Checklist

2008-06-16T08:37:00.002-04:00

Dunkin' Donuts: check
O'Charley's : check
Skyline: check
Zip Dip: check

Still to go...
Papa John's
UDF
Claddaghs

Just sitting here waiting for the truck to come...

I'm Back

2008-06-10T08:55:00.000-04:00

I arrived in the 'nati yesterday morning about 1am. It was a looonnng drive, but very worth it. It felt/feels absolutely wonderful to be home, especially on the nice plush, fluffy carpet. Apartment carpet is not very fun. I will admit there were a few moments of panic on the way home that went a little something like "Oh my God, am I doing the right thing coming home and not going to second year? What if I'm not? I can't drive all the way back out there in August. I don't really have money, but if I'm supposed to be there, God will provide," and on and on. By the Indiana border though that had stopped, thankfully, (I was wearing myself out). Below are a few pictures from the 'ol cell phone. I have some more scenic pictures on my camera, but I don't know where my USB cable is at the moment. I also need to decide what to call this blog now...

Our lovely packing job on the ABF truck. Let's hope it all arrives looking exactly the same.

Mmmmm. Sonic.

Breakfast at champions a la Holiday Inn.

Dad trying to be funny and once again feeding his face. Hey, this is what you get after 20 something hours in the car together with 10 more hours to go.

Dangit.

2008-06-03T17:43:00.000-04:00

I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair and just about ready to get out of the shower when I remembered the only two towels I hadn't packed were in the laundry. Not only were they in the laundry, but they were in the washer. Couldn't even have a nice fluffy, warm towel. So, I had to dry off with a little wash cloth. The joys of packing.

Speaking of packing, I hate moving. Everything is in boxes and stacked. I hate clutter. Only 2.5 more days until departure...

Nap time

2008-05-31T19:16:00.000-04:00

I stole this off someone's been up 2 page, but I laughed out loud when I saw it. Poor kid.

Bodies

2008-05-30T22:53:00.000-04:00

I went on a field trip today with my preschoolers. After they got on the bus I stuck around the little museum place to see the Bodies Exhibit. I have to say overall I was disappointed. It was shorter than I thought it was going to be. There was a lot of reading too which I expected, but I guess I was a little sleepy from counting heads all morning that I really had to concentrate harder than usual on what I was reading. The dyed blood vessels and the baby section were my favorite. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing to think how God crafted all the different systems of our bodies, but the exhibit was just shorter than I thought it would be.

In other news, I feel like I'm running out of things to write about. Sad for me. Oh well, I'm sure the drive home with Dad will produce some material. Down to 6 more days in Cali.

Mayday Jesus

2008-05-25T15:38:00.001-04:00

The Redding Newspaper has a section on their website labeled "Strange News". I found this article there. Doesn't sound strange to me, sounds like a normal day in the Kingdom. :)

And the winners are...

2008-05-25T12:16:00.001-04:00

Jillian and Fin gave me these mugs for my birthday with a bunch of yummy tea. Don't these just make you smile? I smile not only because they're incredibly cute, but also because they make me think of Jilly and Fin. And props to them for getting a fabulous gift simply by remembering my favorite animal and the fact that I love tea. Very creative and unexpected. Love you guys.

My other favorite is my new ear phones. I was a little scared when I saw the skull (just looks like a little alien blob thanks to my phone camera) on the side of the ear bud, so I read some reviews before I opened the package. After reading some good reviews I decided to try out the "skullcandy" product...they are fabulous. Quite comfy and amazing sound. I'm listening to Narnia:Prince Caspian soundtrack right now...such good music. (Good movie by the way too, saw it yesterday.) Thanks for doing the hunt, Dad, and to Mom who most assuredly did the shopping. :D

Thanks for all the birthday voicemails as well. :)

The Perfect Ending to the New Beginning

2008-05-19T01:25:00.000-04:00

I have officially graduated Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. It's so bittersweet. I started off the night discovering that I had an aisle seat. Why? Because Jesus loves me. We had a super short time of worship, 20 minutes, which is so unusual for Bethel, but we had 600 graduates to get through plus speeches. There were some personal favorite songs sung (Light of Your Face-Misty Edwards, one of Brian's new songs This is What Heaven Look Like or something like that, Oh Happy Day), but the atmosphere was so electric with the Holy Spirit that it probably wouldn't have mattered what songs we sang. When it finally came time to walk across the stage I was overflowing with joy and gratitude at what Jesus allowed me to do this year. It was such an amazing opportunity. Thankfully they pronounced my name correctly and said I was from Cincinnati, not Cleves. Thank you Jesus. My favorite bible teacher handed me my diploma and then I got to hug Kris Vallotton and Beni & Bill Johnson. Mark Brookes and Bernie Ooley also were giving out hugs at the bottom of the steps. You may be thinking that I have some new found love of hugs and while that is not necessarily the case, it was amazing to be that close to kings and queens, mommas and papas, and forerunners in the Kingdom.

The evening was rounded off with a beautiful full moon and a delicious bowl of ice cream with my best buddies Jillian and Fin. It was pretty perfect. And now, I must go to bed because I still have to go to work in the morning. ;)

I'm coming for you Dunkin'

2008-05-12T23:37:00.000-04:00

Less than a month until I get to taste the best donuts on the planet again.

No problem mon

2008-05-12T18:40:00.001-04:00

My car is fine. Turns out a bolt from the A/C was loose; apparently it was not tightened enough the last time they worked on it. Thank you Jesus.

This may be the shortest post ever, but I have nothing else to say. :D

Car Woes

2008-05-11T17:42:00.000-04:00

Had to take my vehicle to the Honda dealer AGAIN. This is getting old. I love my car, feel fabulous in it, all that good stuff, but I've never heard of such a young Honda needing so many repairs. Since I have arrived in California I've had to replace the water pump, rear differential, and the complete air conditioning unit. To Honda's credit, they have been wonderful about giving me a break on the cost of repairs, but geez louise, give me a break. I have no idea what's wrong with it now, but I hate not having a car. Yesterday when I put it in reverse, it made this awful grinding and then a clunk noise. When I put it in drive it was fine, but a few minutes down the road it started vibrating horribly and then grinding when I accelerated. Today when I started it I thought the engine was going to drop out it because it was so loud and shaky. I made it to Honda, wrote them a little love note, and walked home.

The walk home was good. It was a gorgeous morning and I walked across a bridge over the river. I'm really going to miss the river and the scenery here. Everything is kind of centrally located around the river, so I'm by it a lot. I stopped and got a Starbucks on the way home and the lady asked me if I was a mom. (I guess I looked old today or something.) I politely said no although I can't wait to be one and she said, "Oh not yet anyway." That's right, thank you very much, I'll take that for myself.

I missed church this morning, but apparently it turned into a healing meeting again. Bill was praying for people and then Danny Silk got up on stage and was completely drunk. Even though I only have a few weeks left at Bethel, I enjoyed my walk this morning and don't really feel guilty about missing church. :)

I did some packing today. I was supposed to save that for when school is done and I have nothing to do in the afternoons, but I was bored today, so I got it done. 26 more days until departure...

Relevant

2008-05-10T13:47:00.001-04:00

Well da boyz have gone back to Cincinnati and I'm left here to wrap up my year. I know I've said it a thousand times, but I can't wait to get back home!

I heard an amazing speaker yesterday at school, Mario Murillo. Very dynamic, in your face, this is my opinion speaker. Just the way I like it. He was talking about relevance and it was sooooooo good. I can't stand it when churches water everything down to be relevant to a certain people or age group. What we possess in the Kingdom of God is so amazing that we should just be who we are. Raw power and the love of God will draw people in. People don't need another seeker friendly church where they can here an uplifting message about how great we are or a message about how wrong they are and they better repent or they're going straight to hell. People need authenticity, love, and people who can back up what they preach. People need an ENCOUNTER with the love and power of Jesus. Being in tune with the Holy Spirit is relevant because He'll tell you what to do and what to say to people to be relevant.

Such good stuff. Can't wait to download it and listen to it again.

Stuff you prolly already knew

2008-05-06T22:51:00.000-04:00

I thought maybe I should blog before another week passes by.

Jon and Don are here! It's great to have some of my favorite people from home, here in Redding. I think they're enjoying their experience at Bethel (for the Pastor's Leaders Advance Conference), but I'm sure they are being filled with more than they realize right now. I can't even comprehend everything I've gained in the last nine months, but I'm doing my best to wrap my mind around it. I only wish I had more time to hang out with my amigos while they're here, but exactly one month from today I'll start the trek home to Cincy. Now that is something to get excited about. Yet another person at Bethel asked me what I would be doing once I got home, but the answer is still the same, "I have no idea (with a bit of a nervous laugh)". However, it's all good and I'll just carry the Kingdom wherever I go. :D

My preschoolers are so stinkin' cute. It's going to be ridiculously hard to say goodbye at the end of the year. I wish I could find a job like this back home until I get my dream job. :D

Nothing else is really shaking, so over and out.

Just kidding. I totally forget to post (I think) that I saw river otters at the river the other day. It was AMAZING! I know, easily amused, but they were so cute. Now, I'm done for real.

Lightning Bugs

2008-05-01T20:32:00.000-04:00

I've become one of those people who has a blog and doesn't blog. Oh no.

Not much to update on, just finishing up the school year. One of our bible teachers got totally blasted today on stage. She never did give her lecture. She was drunk and on the floor for her alloted time, so we just turned God TV on the big screens and watched the healing revival. It was so good.

Today was also the last day for outreach. We went to this really cool park and had pizza with the kids we mentor. It was pretty fun. I went swinging for the first time in months, maybe even years. I love swinging, it's one of the best things to do on the planet. It's relaxing and so joyful at the same time. I'm definitely going to have a swing set when I grow up.

One of my friends on outreach is from Georgia and we were talking about how we really miss the east coast (even though we don't live on the coast). I've loved being in Redding, but Cincinnati is one of the coolest cities in the world. I know many would roll their eyes at this, but we have some really cool things to do. Baseball and football games on the river, the Aronoff center ( I do love a good musical), Music Hall, not to mention some cool restaurants. Redding has us beat on parks and outdoor activities, but we can pray in a river trail. And...we have lightning bugs. Can you imagine a summer without lightning bugs? I can't. I have a friend on outreach who has never seen one her entire life. That my friends, is sad. It's the small things in life that matter.

Watch it on God TV

2008-04-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

So the feed on GOD TV is better than the fresh fire website. GOD TV is also going to do it live now. People, get online and watch this stuff. God is amazing. Bob Jones told Bill Johnson last week that Redding is next. Crazy. God, come to Ohio!

Revival in Florida

2008-04-21T21:44:00.000-04:00

Dude, revival is busting out in Florida. They've extended this meeting because crazy things are breaking out. Check it out online at www.freshfire.ca/ffstream.

God is soooooooooooo good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Testimonies

2008-04-19T19:53:00.000-04:00

I haven't been in the mood to blog lately. Sad, I know. I'm still not really feeling it, but I said I would be posting more testimonies, so I need to do it. Here's a good one from the South Africa trip.

Two guys from Bethel went into this hospital to pray for a man who had lung cancer. He was at the hospital receiving chemo. The two guys could sense the despair and hopelessness in the room. The man who was receiving chemo also had his two brothers there. The two men from our team weren't really sure where to start because all three people in the room were so depressed. They decided it would be a good idea to start worshipping God. The two brothers thought it was weird and left. The man receiving chemo continued to lay in his bed as our two guys worshipped and prayed for him. Soon, he began to feel heat in his chest. They prayed a little longer and the man's countenance had definitely become brighter. The next day, one of our team member's got a call on his cell phone stating that morning the man was sitting on the edge of his bed laughing. When the doctors took an x-ray of his chest they couldn't find any cancer. It was all gone!

I like this one from Ecuador.

A team of ours was ministering in a church somewhere in Ecuador. On the way to the church all of them had gotten quite drunk with the Holy Spirit and had been laughing pretty hard. When they got to the church they went upstairs to continue interceding for that night's service. When the pastor saw what they were doing he told them it was unacceptable to do that in their church. Our team was excited to hear that. They sat in the first row of the church with the interpreters and pretty soon one of the interpreters was laughing pretty hard. Another interpreter said, "You don't understand, my joy is deep inside." As soon as he said it he doubled over in laughter. By the end of the night, our team had most of the congregation laughing and dancing around. One of the fruits of the Spirit is joy. :)

A little taste...

2008-04-13T22:16:00.000-04:00

It is true that I'm back in the great land of the USofA. To hold you over until I muster up the energy for a proper post, below is a picture of how our team had to shower. 1 bucket every other day. Yes, it was an adventure. :D

Crazy Rainbow

2008-03-31T19:55:00.001-04:00

Today was a nice day. I don't go back to work until tomorrow, so I slept in. Then I ate a little breakfast, played my keyboard, and went for a walk. After I got cleaned up I decided to go to the prayer house. It was good. To continue this play by play entry, I'll tell you that after the prayer house I went to Walgreens. It was on my way there that I noticed the awesomeness below. This rainbow went all the way around the sun. I've heard that they do this, but I've never seen it. Then there was another one coming off the circle too. It was crazy gorgeous and I was the only weirdo trying to capture it with my cell phone camera. They don't work all that great, but I'm glad I had something to capture the moment. After I took a bazillion pictures I continued about my day. Hope you enjoy.

Easter Reflections

2008-03-20T21:31:00.001-04:00

I love Easter weekend. For the past couple of years Easter is such a monumental weekend of my year. It's not because of the Easter basket filled with candy or getting to hang out with family, but it's honestly all about Jesus. Every year I get rocked to my core when I think about what went on over these three days. Good Friday is always crazy for me. I can't even imagine what Jesus went through for all of us. He was beaten so badly, carried a heavy cross knowing He would die, and then hung on it for hours realizing that His sacrifice would give all of humanity the chance to live under the grace of God. He died so that we might have the greatest access to God than any other person in history. Prophets of the old covenant longed for the day we live in today. I can't even put into words my emotions for I feel as if I could explode into tears or laugh hysterically about how good He is.

Tuesday at school was one of the best moments of my life and it's been a whirlwind of goodness since then. Pastor Bill could feel a heavy anointing when he got up to talk to us, so he decided to lay hands on every student in the room. It was the fastest 2.5 hours of my life and the greatest. Better than any miracle I've seen or any award I've won. Again, I'm at a loss for words to describe to you the emotions I felt that day. Someday, if you would like to hear it in person I will try to form words that would do it justice.

I can't even listen to worship music right now because I just weep at who He is. It's amazing and better than anything in this world. Anything.

God is on the move

2008-03-13T22:38:00.000-04:00

I've been seeing such as increase of God lately. Bill Johnson was also just talking about the increase the other day in class. More and more people are experiencing healings and miracles. What's amazing to me is the increase of testimonies of people healed over the phone or from prayers across state lines. Also, what God is doing in children is completely astounding. So, here are a few testimonies to get you jazzed up.

1. A student in the school of ministry recently found out that her mom was having seizures and that they found a nodule on her lung. After the daughter received this news she announced it in school and all 500 of us stood to pray on this woman's behalf. A week later, the doctors did an x-ray and could not find the nodule and an MRI of her brain came back completely normal!

2. In children's ministry here at Bethel on Sunday mornings, the kids have chapel time for an hour where there is hang out time with pastors, worship, and a lesson. Then there's an hour of Sunday school (with awesome Sunday school teachers like me :D). 5th grade students who go to Sunday night school of ministry get to be "interns" during Sunday service and help the adults out. This one Sunday during the hang out time, an intern noticed a child complaining that her knee hurt. He went over to her and asked her if he could pray and she said sure. The intern prays for a brief moment and then says, "On a scale of 1 to 2, 1 being completely healed and 2 not being healed yet, how is your knee?" (LOL, this is awesome! It's either healed or it's not. :D) Of course the child's knee was completely better. I love how no one had to encourage him to pray though. It's become a lifestyle for him and he just looks for the opportunities.

3. On Thursdays Bethel sends 700 students out to blitz the city with outreach. One of the outreaches is an elementary school program where Bethel students go into elementary schools and teach the kids about Kingdom stuff. This past week one of the students was teaching kids about healing and how to raise the dead. Deborah Reed, the children's pastor here at Bethel, has great curriculum on this stuff. After the student had finished teaching the kids how to raise the dead, it was time to play outside. Get this...the kids decided to play war outside on the playground and when someone would get killed they would raise him from the dead! Look out public schools, the Kingdom is invading! Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Never a dull day at the park

2008-03-09T21:45:00.000-04:00

I went down to the river to walk again. The geese have started to hiss at my other walking spot so I won't be hanging out there for awhile. The river walk has been crowded since it's so nice out, but today topped all other days. As I'm approaching the trail head I notice this family walking their two pets. These weren't ordinary pets, these were llamas. One "blond" one and one "chocolate" one as I call it. The brown one was a little anxious around people so it was making noise and jumping around. A bunch of kids naturally wanted to pet them. I just laughed and walked around them. I didn't want to be around when the brown one decided to spit.

There were also a bunch of people walking puppies (so cute!) I want a dog so bad, but wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with one as far as training. There's a little girl in my preschool who's labrador is about to have puppies. I would so take home a chocolate one! It's a good thing we can't have one here at the apartment and the fact that I'm never home. Otherwise...

I'm so glad the sun will be out longer after dinner. More workout time. Really need to get back into shape.

The plans are coming together for the family Easter road trip. So excited. We'll be stopping to see the Redwoods and Napa Valley. Those are just a few of the highlights.

As far as Mexico mission trip plans, argh, not very organized. The dates will be somewhere around the 6th-12th, but I heard different dates at our last meeting. We're supposed to have another meeting this Friday so we'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

I remember now...

2008-03-06T22:23:00.000-05:00

On my previous post I knew there was something I was forgetting. So here it is...

This is important...

I have to decide which name I want on my certificate of graduation from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Should I go with

A) Jenny Horgan
B) Jennifer Lynne Horgan

Vote now. Whatever silly names you come up with will not be accepted and then Bethel will just choose for me. :)

Cool little diddies from the past couple of days

2008-03-06T00:18:00.001-05:00

Last night was Children's Ministry home group and we always have dinner first. I took some Double Stuff Oreos for desert because my mom and sister didn't even crack into them when they were hear and I didn't want the whole package sitting here because I would surely eat them all. They were a big hit. This really cool lady from England was sitting next to me. She was about to bite into her cookie when she announced that she had never tasted an Oreo and she was so fortunate to get the last one. I felt bad that she didn't have a glass of milk to get the full experience, but she enjoyed the cookie nonetheless. Can you imagine never eating an oreo until your adult life? I can't.

We soon began discussing our favorite foods and of course I was asking the people at the table if they've ever heard of Dunkin' Donuts. One guy quickly chimed in that he too was a big fan. I was describing some of my personal favorites and then explaining to them how they advertise on tv out here and it drives me nuts because there isn't one any where around here. The same lady who had never had an oreo before said very seriously, "You know, I think we could pray about this. Like, God there is a real need here in Redding for a Dunkin' Donuts." We all laughed about it, but I like the way she thinks.

On Tuesday Pastor Bill was in and he was talking to us about the weight of God's glory. Last week he was reading a story to us about Smith Wigglesworth (a great healing evangelist from back in the day) and how people would have to crawl out of his meetings because they felt like they would die (because of the weight of God's glory). There were times when Wigglesworth was the only guy left in the room. Well, last week Bethel had the Prophetic & Arts conference and Kris Vallotton had invited some friends who were not yet Christians. The one guy was a Hollywood producer whom he met on a plane and has since been dialoguing with. This producer brought a few of his friends to see what Bethel was like. (By the end they were totally wowed and had never felt so loved, but back to the story.) So one day during the conference the worship was flowing along and this producer and his two friends had to leave the room. They told Bill and Kris later that they felt like someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room and they would die if they stayed in there. Incredible! Bill went onto say that not all of us had to exit because we had created an atmosphere within ourselves to house God's glory. Our goal though is to cultivate within us the ability to carry that presence everywhere we go.

One more story. A student in the school had his mom and her friend in for the conference last week. The mom's friend had bought some DVDs from John Paul Jackson, but when she was due to go back home she couldn't find them anywhere. They looked all over the place and nothing turned up. They prayed that they would be in her suitcase when she got home. Once the lady returned home she still couldn't find her DVDs, so she called Bethel one more time to see if they had found them. Still nothing. The next morning the woman got up and went to turn on some worship music. Directly on top of her cd player laid the DVDs that she had bought at the conference. God is amazing.

Okay, I know I'm forgetting something that I wanted to write about, but I'll have to save it for another day. Pray for Holly, she's still hacking like crazy. (No, that wasn't the something I forgot.) Peace out.

Conference

2008-03-02T18:58:00.000-05:00

Mom, Kelly and I just had a great time at the Prophetic & Arts Conference at Bethel. It was amazing. Deborah Crone, Akiane, John Paul Jackson, and Kris Vallotton were the speakers. Deborah just started painting two years ago and now has her work in top art galleries in Hawaii. The owner of the gallery gave her the premiere spot because people are so drawn to her art and keep buying it. (We heard lots more during the conference about how believer's artwork can totally lead someone to an encounter with Jesus) If you haven't heard of Akiane go to this website www.artakiane.com. She's amazing. She's only 13, but she paints these amazing pictures and writes poetry. She's literally been to heaven several times (one time the police were called because her whole body actually went-she appeared right in front of the police 5 hours later). We also were "activated" in doing prophetic art. It was so FUN! We didn't know there would be hands on sessions so it was a nice surprise. It was probably the best conference I've been to. Mom and kelly also got to experience their first fire tunnel on the last night of the conference so they were pumped about that.

I got a great shot of Kelly asleep in the car, but she really doesn't want me to post it. I crack up every time I look at it though.

Alright, lots more to get done today. Got to go.

Probably the favorite story of the month

2008-02-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Pastor Bill decided to read a few testimonies to start off service today. They were all amazing, but one was particularly fun. Grab some cocoa and settle in.

A pastor from Colorado, Jim Rogers, who is part of the Global Legacy network was traveling back from Africa. He had been teaching at some conferences about the Kingdom and healing. He was preparing to partake in a cold beverage on the plane when the flight attendant accidently spilt his drink all over him. He found himself getting irritated, but he decided to not let it show. After getting cleaned up he settled in to read his book. Suddenly, he noticed a woman across the aisle fidgeting in her seat and he felt God tell him that she injured her back two weeks ago and He wanted him to pray for her. This pastor argued with God for several minutes because he was quite tired and didn't want to pray for her. He finally decided it was probably better just to go with God's plan so he leaned over and asked the woman if she injured her back two weeks ago. She said, "yes, how did you know that?" He proceeded to explain that God had told him this and asked if he could pray for her. She agreed and the pastor then asked, "Can I lay my hand on your shoulder?" The woman looked at him and said, "You mean now?" He said, "Yes, I don't believe God wants you to be in pain for the next eight hours." She agreed to let him pray and she was soon in the aisle "out" in the Holy Spirit. :) The flight attendant quickly approached and wanted to know what was going on. As the pastor was trying to explain what was going on, the woman "came to". The attendant asker her if she was okay and she replied, "yes, I'm fine and I don't have any pain in my back!" The flight attendant then told the pastor that she had hurt her knee four weeks ago and asked if he would pray for her. He of course said yes. With a serious look on her face she inquired, "Am I going to fall down?" The pastor responded with an "I don't know" and proceeded to pray. The flight attendant was quickly healed! In a few moments the pastor heard the flight attendant on the intercom of the plane announcing that there was a pastor on board and that he had just prayed for her knee and it was healed and that if anyone else wanted prayer they could come to the galley between first class and coach and he would pray for them. So...the pastor proceeded to pray for people. A rather large man from England approached him and said "Can I catch for you?" The pastor was relieved that someone else knew what was going on. :) At one point the man from England said, "Man, you got to slow down, I'm running out of room to put these people." The pastor looked around and saw several people slain in the Holy Spirit. After two hours of praying for people they had several healings and 5 salvations including a man from Saudi Arabia who was flying to America to have surgery on his rotater cuff. Needless to say, after Jesus healed his shoulder he accepted Him as his savior. The pastor eventually made it back to his seat and began reading his book.

Revival on the plane. Got to love it. We were going wild at church when we heard this testimony. Bill tells it better. They should have it up on the podcast in a few days. The message was good too, so feel free to listen to that as well.

Duck Duck Goose

2008-02-18T19:37:00.001-05:00

A while back someone told me about this great little walking trail not to far from school. I decided to check it out this weekend and I'm loving it. It's not as busy as the river trail and it's only for walkers and runners. There are quite a few ponds on the trail so as you might surmise it's a local hot spot for the geese. As I was walking today I noticed a few ducks in the pond too. Now both species can be quite entertaining to watch, but I think if I believed in reincarnation I'd rather be a duck. First of all they're not nearly as ugly as the geese. Secondly, they don't make that awful noise that the geese make. I watched this one goose get all upset. It was sticking it's neck straight up to the sky and lettin' out a bellow. Then it looked at the goose next to it, got right in it's face and bellowed some more. The ducks are much more docile and they just float along. I always thought I would want to be a bird, so I could fly far far away any time I wanted, but ducks have the best of both worlds.

I got some new patio chairs today. They are terrific. The view is not so great, but it's nice to be able to sit outside. Now I need to make some lemonade or iced tea or something to really live large. I want some flowers to add some color to my little back yard oasis, but I've never really had much of a green thumb. I absolutely LOVE gardens, so I'm thinking I'm gonna do some research and get some flowers. I walked around Home Depot and Lowe's today just to look and it was so hard not to buy. I don't want to buy stuff and then have it die right away though, so research I shall.

Speaking of Lowe's...I saw Bill and Beni Johnson walk in when I was leaving. I was wondering when I was going to run into them out in public, it's not like Redding is a big town. I still had that celebrity gasp when I saw them. I wonder how many other people still do that when they see them.

Today might have been the best

2008-02-13T00:36:00.001-05:00

Heidi Baker spoke at school today! (Pause to contain the excitement again.)

I've never heard this woman speak before today, but I've heard of her and read one of her books. She absolutely astounds my mind and spirit and after today even more so. I prayed in the beginning of the year that I would get to hear her speak because her ministry has offices here at Bethel and today my prayer was answered. For those of you who don't know who she is she is an amazing missionary to Mozambique Africa. She raises thousands of orphan children and feeds 50,000 people a day! They've started 9,000 churches in the last 11 years. (Can you imagine the awe in the room after that statement?) She goes into Muslim villages and says "Bring me your deaf people" and every single one gets healed. Recently one of their pastors on staff had his tongue and lips cut off in front of his family and subsequently died before them. His cousin, also a pastor on staff, went into the house and told the criminals that they were loved by God and that they forgave them for what they just did and they repented and came to know Jesus. She tells the story much better. They also have had 9 mosques given to them because the leaders say they don't have any use for them anymore because the people all converted to Jesus.

What I love most about her though is her passion for intimacy with God. There are no words to describe it. She's like a modern day David. Anyway, she spoke today and didn't really say anything I haven't heard before, but her words were just dripping with her love for Jesus. At the end she had us all get on our knees as she blessed us and told us about this vision. It was so good.

Go check out her book There is Always Enough. It will blow your mind.

In Honor of Valentine's Day

2008-02-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

I know it's still a few days away, but when you're lying around with a monstrous sore throat your mind is left to ponder. So, in honor of Valentine's Day I've decided to write about the material things that I love. While there are many people that I love I don't really feel like writing a sappy blog. Once again this year I won't be getting any flowers or chocolates (or any other over marketed "thing") from any certain somebody. Last year my dad sent me flowers at work for Valentine's Day and there's nothing better than that. :) While I try not to get too caught up in the materialistic things of this world, there are a few items that make me very happy.

1. Zicam. If you have yet to discover this great cold remedy you should go to Walgreens and get yourself some. It's clinically proven to get you over a cold 3x faster if you take it at the first sign of a cold. Let me tell you, it works. I took it during my last cold and it greatly aided in getting rid of my cold. Yesterday, I woke up with a nasty sore throat so I started pumping the Zicam. While it's not an instant cure I do feel better today than I did yesterday. By tomorrow I should be back in action with no problem.

2. My Honda CR-V. This is my second vehicle, but it's the first one that I got to pick out and have the pleasure of paying for. :) This may sound completely ridiculous, but I love the way my ride makes me feel, especially on a warm sunny day with the sunroof open, windows down, some good tunes playin', and my hair blowin' in the breeze. It's fantastic.

3. My MAC. It's awesome. My previous computer always crashed in the middle of what I was working on. This computer is quick and sleek. I probably still don't know half of it's capabilities, but I'm lovin' it.

4. iPod and the new version of iTunes. First of all, my iPod allows me to carry around thousands of songs for my listening enjoyment. And, the new version of iTunes, oh, I do love the radio feature. All kinds of radio stations at your fingertips to sample new music. My personal favorite at the moment is classical guitar. Perfect for the romantic, candlelight dinner out on the terrace, neither of which I have. :p It's a shame there are commercials, but there aren't too many.

5. The media room back home. I LOVE movies and I waste too much of my time watching them, but I'm a work in progress. We have a fabulous media room with a big screen tv and sweet surround sound back home. It's good stuff.

6. JIF peanut butter, angel hair pasta, Dunkin' Donuts, Skyline chili, the Montgomery Inn Boathouse, Papa John's pizza, UDF hot fudge sundaes, ZIP DIP orange sherbet cones, Claddaugh's Monte Cristo sandwich, Texas Roadhouse, and O'Charley's hot rolls.

7. My keyboard. It's no Steinway, but I can pop on over to it and play whenever I want. The world goes away when I play, it's just me and the keys.

Oregon Street Tea Company

2008-02-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Holly, Lula, and I ventured out for some culture in Redding. Redding really lacks good restaurants, but this little place (Oregon Street Tea Company) was quite fun. I must admit the place was girly, there was a baby shower going on while we were there, but the tea was most excellent and the food was pretty yummy too. Every month they change their menu, but they have a ton of teas to pick from. We had a butterscotch caramel toffee tea on Saturday and it was delicious.

It's been an absolute gorgeous weekend, so I'm going to try to get out today for a bit. I'm sorry for all you Cincinnatians who are freezing, but you know you're welcome to visit. It's 70 and sunny right now and for the rest of the week...

We had the best speaker so far this year at school on Thursday and Friday. His name was Sy Rogers and he speaks mainly on sexual themes as he calls them. He has an incredible story including living as a gay man and then as a woman in preparation for a sex change. He didn't have the operation and was subsequently saved by Jesus. He's now been married for 25 years and has a daughter and travels the world talking to people about some of the issues around sexuality. His perspective on how to treat people struggling with sexual identity issues or sexual traumas was amazing. Good stuff.

Okay, I've procrastinated long enough. Time to write a book report. Chao for now.

YEEEAAAAHHHH

2008-02-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

YEAH BABY! NY GIANTS WIN. ELI IS THE MAN. (And his brother was clapping so hard for him-it was so cool.)

Skiing

2008-02-03T16:32:00.001-05:00

I finally got to go skiing yesterday! It took us a while to get there and get back. It's normally an hour drive, but they were checking every car for 4wd or chains. On top of that, they don't sand or salt out here, so the roads weren't exactly clear. We finally made it there though and It was so fun. I'm definitely rusty and could use some more lessons, but it was fun. The snow was so powdery. It was up to my knees on one part that hadn't been groomed (or something). I got out though, obviously. The weather wasn't perfect, it was a little gloomy and snowing all day, but we had fun so that's what matters. I was reading an article in the Redding paper this morning though and it said that Mt. Shasta has the deepest base of any ski park in the country right now. How wild is that? A lady at a gas station that we stopped at for a potty break said this was the biggest snow fall she's seen in 7 years. Rock on.

Speaking of rocks...that girl is still finding diamonds. Between her and people who visit her house they've found over 30! CRAZY. I'm still waiting for mine to appear. :)

More diamonds

2008-01-31T21:19:00.000-05:00

Many of you might recall a previous post about a girl at school finding diamonds. Well, God gave her more. She went to check out a new home group and was praying that it would be something out of the ordinary, not just the same ol' usual small group stuff. During worship God started raining down diamonds. They found 7 at the meeting. Then her and her friend went back to her apartment and began asking God for more, so they received more. The next morning when she woke up her and her husband found a heart shaped diamond in the same spot that they found their first one. CRAZY! I want one so bad. Apparently, I need to start hanging out with her. :p

SNOW DAY

2008-01-29T16:46:00.000-05:00

Bethel cancelled school today. No, I'm not kidding. It's raining and sometimes it turn a little slushie, but they were worried about their steep driveway getting icy. Don't get me wrong it's nice having an off day (Holly and I rented some movies), but the weather is really not that bad. Then we got an e-mail saying they might cancel school tomorrow too. What?! Holly ran into a couple from Canada at the video store and they were like "We get a foot of snow and still go out." I can just imagine their faces. Oh man, it's so crazy it funny. Oh well! Yay for sweat pants and movies.

Here's your update :)

2008-01-28T20:56:00.000-05:00

The family has requested an update. While I don't have anything super outrageous to post, I think I can come up with something. For example, I was cleaning out my Hotmail inbox on Saturday because I'm a clean freak and having clutter even on the internet drives me up the wall, and I found these pictures that my dad took when he was in town in December. I had forgotten that they were in there, but they're kind of fun so I thought I would share.

Me and my ride

Look at the size of that leaf. That's huge. We found it on our morning stroll and being the geeks that we are we took a picture with my dad's camera phone.

I was the lead teacher today again at school, but everything should be back to normal tomorrow. We only had 12 students, but it was a rough day. One of my little friends was really struggling and throwing huge fits. I've never seen such fits out of this little one. It was frustrating don't get me wrong, but I really just wanted to let him know that he was loved. I can't go into details, but it was so sad. After the second fit, I just sat there and held him for a while until he calmed down. Somedays it's hard to know if I'm making a difference in their lives, but I know there's no such thing as a wasted prayer so I keep trekking on.

In other very exciting, earth-shattering news...it was finally sunny again! The weather people predicted rain again, but it was sunny. Thank you Jesus. I went outside for a walk then rode my bike for a bit. Good day. I don't know if the weather is really hard to predict here or what, but they sure do get it wrong a lot. I like when they get the rain part wrong. :D

Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to have more "can't live without news" soon. :D

SNOW!

2008-01-21T15:17:00.000-05:00

Check it out. It's so exciting!

Wow

2008-01-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

We watched this today in Children's Ministry. If this doesn't stir your heart, you might want to check your pulse.

Check out this video: A New Generation of Praying Children

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Another great Preschool story

2008-01-18T14:39:00.000-05:00

WARNING: If you don't like graphic details don't read this post. :)

One of our little preschoolers got sick today at recess. She was really good about staying in one place on the playground, but then she was pretty upset. Her sister helped her into the room though and that was so cute! Of course some of the students didn't see what had happened and being the inquisitive 3 to 5 year olds that they are we had to have a discussion. I was dialoguing with this one student in particular.
He asked, "Why did she go inside?"
I replied, "Well, she got sick, so she's going in to rest." (This went back and forth a few more times.)
The little boy finally asked, "So, she threw up?"
I said, "Yeah, she did."
He paused for a moment and then said, "Was it white?" (You have to love preschoolers.)
"Yes, yes it was."
He goes on to inform me with this: "Oh, mine is never white. I have baked tomato throw up."
Ah yes, thank you for the visual. It makes me laugh though how honest they are. It's such a picture of how we should be child-like in our walk with Papa in heaven.

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to check out yesterdays post about other bodily functions. Never a dull moment in preschool. :D

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

2008-01-17T22:51:00.000-05:00

Whew. It's been a few days since my last post. Busy days. There have been some crazy testimonies at school. My personal favorite from the week is about diamonds.

There's a young married couple out here and the wife is in the school. Money is tight for them so they didn't exchange Christmas presents, just cupcakes. :) The husband had been kind of down and doubting whether or not they should be out here. When they were going to bed after their Christmas cupcake celebration, he noticed something shiny in the middle of their bed. He picked it up to toss it out, but when it got to about his ear he realized it was hard. He brought it back down and noticed it looked very similar to a diamond. They were both excited and decided to have it looked at when they were back home at their jeweler. So, over Christmas break they took it to their jeweler and the jeweler said it didn't match any of their charts and tests. It was the most perfect diamond they had seen. They offered this couple 10,000 dollars to study this 1 carat diamond. They of course said no way. After Christmas break, the couple found another one on their floor next to a pile of laundry. So, now they have two. Amazing! (I want one, or an emerald, sapphire, pearls...)

This new work schedule is rough, but it does make time fly. A funny story from today and then I'm done. There's one little girl in my class who is particularly cute. During recess today she had to go to the "potty" so I took her in. Preschoolers are great for being blunt and just laying it all out there. There will be quotes in this story, so if you're not one for direct preschool language when it comes to potty talk, don't read any further. On a typical potty break this little girl bends over and touches her toes when she's finished with her business and waits for someone to make sure she's nice and dry. I've taken it upon myself to encourage her to practice wiping her own behind since she's a big girl who comes to school now. So, today when she's going potty I ask her, "Are you finished?" She replies, "No, I have to poop." (Okay, thanks for the detailed info, a "no" would have been sufficient.) I then proceed to ask her, "Have you been practicing at home?" (Oh Jenny, you need to be specific with such young children...) The little girl looks at me for a moment, with a straight face I might add, and then says, "Don't worry, I can push it out." Oh man, I cracked up for a good minute while she continued to sit with a straight face. I then composed myself and said, "No, what I meant was, have you been practicing wiping your own butt when you're at home?" She thought for another moment and then said, "I think I did yesterday." Ah, preschoolers. She soon finished her business, but before bending over to touch her toes she proceeded to count what was in the toilet. I kid you not. Everything is truly a teachable moment I suppose. Preschoolers are good stuff.

2008-01-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

2 posts in one day, y'all better catch up.

So my walk today was absolutely fabulous. It's January 13th and I was in shorts. It was sunny and about 65, but the sun felt sooooo warm. I even had my sun roof open. I just wanted to sit it in all afternoon. I'm not trying to rub it in, but it just blows my mind that it can be this warm in January, plus we've had such rainy weather that this felt really good. The weird thing though is that I could see snow all around me on the mountains, yet I had shorts on.

Part of the trail that I walk on had gotten kind of swampy so there were all these frogs making this noise that they do. It was wild.

I had to go to Sunday night service tonight and they were doing baptisms. Those are always fun. When they were over, Kris Vallotton got up and said there are two people here whom God has rescued over and over and over and you always say you're going to give your life to Him, so you need to come up and get baptized. After a few moments, a man and a woman went up. The man went first and he was crying so hard. It was amazing. Then all of his friends and family stormed the stage after he was dunked to celebrate with him. Lots o' tears.

After the baptisms, Kris said he saw God healing tumors, so he had everyone in the room with a tumor stand up and we prayed for them. A few moments passed by and the ferverant prayer died down and Kris had a young lady up on stage. He said, "We have an awesome testimony." This girl told us how she had a tumor/mass of fat on her back for many years. If it got any bigger, the doctors told her it would rupture and cause serious damage to her organs. Everytime people asked her to check it out it got smaller. On the third time, before the people asked her to check it out, she heard Jesus whisper in her ear, "It's healed, baby!" No more tumor!

And on that note, I'm off to bed. Work so early in the morning.

Bucket List

2008-01-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

After biking for the first time in a couple of weeks, I took my shocked hammies out and about for a bit. I had some errands to run and then I was going to see a movie. Holly has another cold, so I wanted to get away from the germs. I drove down to the outlet mall to kill some time before my movie, plus I was looking for this specific pair of shoes. One store had them and I was so excited! They're so comfy. My little rant about the outlet mall though is that even they have reward cards. I opened two new reward cards yesterday even though I probably won't shop in either store for the rest of the year. More junk mail coming my way is probably all I'll get.

I go to get my movie ticket at 1:20, but the showing isn't until 3:00. Apparently, I had mixed up my movie theaters and times. Bummer. I had to kill some more time, but that was okay because I didn't feel like coming back to the apartment. 4:00 finally arrived and I bought my ticket for Bucket List. I liked it. The beginning was a little sad, but the point of the whole movie was this "bucket list" where you make a list of things you want to do before you die. Morgan Freeman is a genius and one of my favorite actors so I liked it all the more.

Well, I'm off to do some homework and then go for a walk. It's sunny and 60. Supposed to be like that all week, which is so good because it's been raining for the past 3 weeks.

Holy Moly

2008-01-09T01:13:00.001-05:00

It's days like today that remind me of why I came out here in the first place. Tuesdays are days when Bill Johnson comes in to talk. Often, he's gone on conferences, so it's always exciting to see him. He wanted to hear about people's testimonies from break and they were soooooo good. My personal favorite was from a young lady who's pretty wild. She knew a lady back home who's been in a coma for 14 years. Yes, years. Before she left for Christmas break, she had some people pray for her and the lady so she might go back and have some breakthrough. She returned home and her and her mom went to the hospital to pray for this lady. As soon as the student broke the spirit of death off this person she woke up. They continued to pray for her brain so she could show emotion, for her neck and body (she was paralyzed), and her speech. By the time they left the lady who had previously been in the coma was crying, speaking faintly and moving her limbs. HOLY MOLY, GOD IS GOOD!

I also had my first career ministry development class today with Kevin Dedmon. It was amazing. He'll be in India for the next two weeks, but he has some more great teachers lined up for us.

Okay, off to bed. Have to get up at the crack of dawn for another super packed day.

Back in Cali

2008-01-07T14:13:00.001-05:00

I'm back in Redding. It's sunny today which makes me so happy! When I left it was raining and when I returned it was raining. It's supposed to rain again tomorrow and for the next four days, so I got out and enjoyed it today. I have all my blinds open high too, let the sunshine in ya know. Supposed to be sunny on the weekend though so I can get out and play again. Enough about weather.

I'm pretty much adjusted already I think. It's so much easier flying west than it is east. Not much planned for today. I have a few more errands to run, but other than that I'm gonna take it easy because tomorrow the hectic schedule begins.

This post is going no where and it's boring so, I'm ending it. :D

2007 Highlights

2007-12-31T10:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-18T20:33:00.001-05:00

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

2007-12-17T19:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-14T22:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-10T18:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-06T00:48:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-01T14:54:00.000-05:00

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.

Finally...

2007-11-28T23:33:00.000-05:00

After Spanish today I checked my phone and noticed I had 2 missed calls and 2 text messages. They were all from my dad. We're talking 4 messages in a matter of an hour and a half. He knows how to send a girl into a panic because of course I think "4 messages in 1.5 hours and they say to call him asap so what the heck happened at home". My heart is pounding of course as I frantically dial home, but he was just calling to tell me he was coming to visit before a trip for work and he was trying to book airfare. AAAAAAHHHHHH! We get to go HIKING! For those of you who don't know, Redding has all kinds of crazy parks and waterfalls within an hour of here and I've been to very few because I don't have any friends yet who like to hike. I'm sure I won't be able to walk for a week after we're done hiking because I'm out of shape, but it will be worth it.

Kids say the darndest things

2007-11-27T23:53:00.000-05:00

I was out on the playground today and one of my favorite little students came up to me and said, "Miss Jenny, I stuck my tongue out at (another little student who won't be named), but I was just kidding." So after a short discussion, I simply said, "well, thanks for being honest with me." The little boy played for a little bit, but then went up to one of the other teachers and said, "Miss Sue, I told Miss Jenny that I stuck my tongue out at ____ and she honored me." LOL.

More news in children's world...I have to teach 5th grade Sunday school. All the other teachers yelled out the younger grades and I didn't really want to argue so 5th graders here I come. I hope Jesus gives me some creative ideas because they're not impressed with the cheesy stuff like the little ones are! I do have a co-teacher who seems pretty nice, but we don't really know each other yet.

Okay off to veg for an hour. Another busy day tomorrow.

Prayer Please

2007-11-25T18:13:00.001-05:00

Me again. Twice in the same day. Holly arrived home and is still quite sick. She left here last week with a cold which turned into pneumonia. She's taking some kind of medicine, but it makes her throw up. I obviously don't want to listen to that and I'm sure she would like to stop. If you could please pray for her that would be great.

In other news, I don't think I've ever experienced this kind of jet lag or however you spell it. It's only 3:15 and it feels like it should be at least 7. At least I should be awake for work tomorrow. :)

Thoughts so early on this Sunday morning

2007-11-25T09:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back in California. It was wonderful being home in Cincinnati for a week. I really didn't want to leave, but I know God's not done here yet. Flying is so not enjoyable anymore. The snacks are way lame and our movie screens were broken. I've never been one to fall asleep on planes, so I can't even do that. There always full flights nowadays too. Oh well, it's better than driving home at every break. :) The week went by really fast, but I did manage to get in 3 movies with the fam and visit some of my favorite Cincinnati restaurants. We saw Dan in Real Life, August Rush, and Enchanted. Dan in Real Life was a little slow for me and not as funny as I expected it to be. August Rush also started off a little slow, but had some great music and acting. Enchanted was entertaining and kind of funny. Even funnier was how Dad was squirming in his seat because it was part cartoon. :) I know you're dying to read about what restaurants we visited so here goes. O'Charley's was the first stop on Saturday when I got in. This may sound like no big deal to some of you, but I love their rolls and we don't have anything like it out here. I had Frisch's and Papa John's on Sunday, also two faves, but my pour stomach was feeling the grease. I had Dunkin' Donuts with Barb, best donuts on the planet, Skyline twice, and a UDF malt. Yum. I'll have to hit Whiskey's at Christmas time because they have excellent peanut slaw (cole slaw with finely chopped peanuts on top!) and potato skins. And by the way, I'm praying in a white Christmas so please join me. It was so nice waking up on Thanksgiving and seeing a little bit of snow on the roofs, but it was gone by noon. It can't snow until Christmas Eve though because I don't want any travel problems. :) Okay, I'm off to get some homework done. Chao for now.

Tecate Bound

2007-11-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

Hola amigos! I just found out that I'm going to Tecate, Mexico! Yay for getting to use my Spanish! I'll post more later, but I'm off to a Children's Ministry meeting.

Oh yeah, Intercession is my AMT this quarter and it's absolutely fabulous! Beni Johnson (Bill Johnson's wife) leads it and she has some spunk. She totally reminds me of Judy Flynn, my favorite fiery intercessor in Cleves. :D

Okay, really got to go, but yay for a super happy day! :D

We finally have some color

2007-11-11T20:04:00.000-05:00

Red Lion hosted an Art Sale this weekend. The art was beautiful! I spent almost an hour and a half just looking at the art. I did make a few purchases from the "Blowout" section. Good deals, good deals. The two Italy themed ones are in our main living space and the little cottage is in the first floor bathroom. And, now we have some color on our walls; it makes me very happy. If only I could paint like this...There are so many other cute accessories around town that would be really nice, but this is life on a budget. :)

Less than a week until I'm home...yay!

Mission Trips

2007-11-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

Today was the big day. No, I did not get married. Someday, but not today. Today, we found out which mission trip we will be going on in April. Eric Johnson came in and said, "Repeat after me: I'm the most flexible person in the world." He then told us that some us would be on the Free Agent list. This was a list of people who didn't get any of there top 5 choices, but had to pick their top 3 from a shorter list (mainly of trips to Mexico). He also reminded us that free agents in the sports world make more money. Good analogy.

We trek out to the hall only to find that the lists have not been posted yet. After waiting for about 15 mintues in anxious anticipation someone put them up. There was a mad dash for the wall. Holly is taller and was closer to the front so she quickly saw that she received her first choice of South Africa. I high fived her and continued to peruse the list. I didn't get Kenya, my first choice so I moved on to Israel:nope. Next, I looked for Nicaragua. Negative on that one too. I knew I didn't get South Africa because I wasn't interviewed, so I worked my way back toward the Cabo list. No on that too. As my heart dropped, I knew I had to make it back to the Free Agent list. Sure enough, there I was. I wanted to look at the trip descriptions before I made my decision so I went back to my seat in class.

I was confused and disappointed for about a half an hour, but trying to be positive. After that, I was totally fine with it. You have to understand, this is totally not like me, I usually don't get over stuff in a half an hour. But, I just let it sink into me that any mission trip is going to be great because God is good all the time. The trips that we had to choose from were mostly Mexico trips and my new first choice is Tecate. It too has an orphanage so I'm praying that I get to go on that one. I also have a good friend in my small group who is definitely on that trip, so it would be fun to travel with her. Not to mention that I am taking Spanish so I could totally use my newly acquired skills in Mexico. Perhaps this was the plan the whole time...

I also feel that I am going to visit many nations throughout my life and so this Mexico trip, though I did not pick it at first, may be the appointed trip for this time. I pray for the opportunities to see the many facets of Africa, my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel, and the countless other countries God has laid on my heart. For now though, I'm just ecstatic that I have an opportunity to be here in Redding, preparing to go to another country in April to share God's love with someone who might not otherwise experience it.

God is good all the time. What exciting adventures lay ahead!

Random tidbits

2007-11-08T21:46:00.000-05:00

First week of preschool came and went already. Lovin' the kids-they are so cute. Don't get me wrong they have their tempermental moments, but for the most part they are just adorable and funny.

Randall Worley was our speaker in school today and he will be in tomorrow as well. He's like a walking bible reciter, he rattles off verses like crazy. It was good stuff.

We are supposed to find out what mission trip we are going on tomorrow! I'm really excited! Any of the ones I chose will be excellent.

(I told you this was going to be random tidbits.)

My next AMT (elective class) is intercession so once again, I'm way excited. (I need a thesauras so I can look up the word excited.) We get to talk a lot about third heaven (place where God resides) so that will be way fun. Bill Johnson's secretary came in the other day and talked to us about third heaven and then we went there. It still sounds so crazy saying that, but it's so much fun. And, when I say go there, I mean in my mind, not like I left my body and went there.

Next Saturday, I get to fly home...yay! I really miss home, so I can't wait to see friends, eat at some of my favorite restaurants, and sleep in my very own, real bed for a whole week. Aero beds are great and everything, but nothing beats your own bed.

I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I can't think of anything else. My head is a little foggy, I have a cold. It is on it's way outta here though, thank you very much.

Ok, thanks for stopping by to read my random thoughts. Peace and love to ya whoever you are. :D

Little ones

2007-11-05T14:56:00.000-05:00

First day of work today was good! I forgot how little preschoolers are though, some of my third graders last year were tall. Oh yes, for those of you who don't know, I'm now a preschool aide in a classroom on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings. It's only 10.5 hours, but it's good to finally have some money coming in!

There are 20 little darlings in our class, but 6 of them were absent today. They have so much energy! I'm just glad I get to hang out with kids again. I don't have such a huge responsibility this time either, so I can just play and secretly pray over them. Hehehe. Some of them need it too. It's amazing the labels we put on kids at such a young age. I won't even go into the things I saw today that made me scream on the inside. Did you know it takes 10 positive words to right 1 negative word spoken to a child? Yikes! I'm gonna be busy. :)

Off to rest. I've had a sore throat since yesterday. Got to keep it warm with hot tea and Airborne (best herbal cold stuff ever).

Yesterday I made carrot cake all afternoon with a ginormous mixer in Bethel's kitchen for the pastor's conference this week. Hopefully, they will enjoy it tonight for dessert.

Okay, off to rest for real.

Burger and fire, yes fire

2007-11-01T21:24:00.000-04:00

I decided to try the infamous In-N-Out burger tonight for dinner after outreach. On the way home though I was re-directed because of a house fire. I don't think I've actually ever seen a house on fire that close, so it was pretty wild.

Then onto In-N-Out. I love their menu, it's so simple. Classic simple. And they were friendly. For those of you who don't know what it is it's a burger joint established 59 years ago by Harry and Eshter Snyder. They started it to "give customers the freshest, highest quality food and provide them with friendly service in a sparkling clean environment." This was all stated on my "lap mat". They asked me if I was going to be eating it in my car and I said yes so they gave me a "lap mat." I guess if I would have said no though, they would have put it in a bag, which would have made it easier to carry it into the house. Note to self to remember that for next time. The thing I like the best on this little piece of paper however, is that back in the day when they first opened burgers were only 25 cents! Craziness!

Crazy busy day

2007-10-30T21:22:00.000-04:00

I had to go back to Gateway to get more paperwork today. I have more stuff to fill out to be a sub than I did when I was an actual teacher. Craziness. Then I had to skidaddle on down to Public Health to get a TB test. Next I inhaled some lunch before school.

We had a fire drill at school today. Then Ben Armstrong got up and told us about his daughter playing with glory bubbles all Saturday night. She stayed up all night popping these things and when she did angels would appear. How wild is that? She was playing with them up until the time they left for church. She even asked her dad if he could see them. Ben said she wasn't tired or cranky at all on Sunday. Cool. Danny Silk got up after that and gave a good talk on Identity and Intimacy. We rounded out the day with our last class of our first AMT. We even had some visitors from Japan who have had Bethel missions teams come to their church, so they were very gracious and complementary about the work we do. Next week, we'll start our next "elective" or AMT. I don't really remember what I picked, so it will kind of be like a surprise. I think I picked intercession, but I'm not sure. :)

In a few minutes I have to head back to Bethel for a Children's Ministry meeting. Hope it's good, I'm sleepy.

It feels like I'm forgetting to write about something, but if that's the case I'll just post later. :)

I'll be back

2007-10-26T20:09:00.000-04:00

I had to find the Redding Police Department today so I could be fingerprinted. (I'm going to sub periodically for Gateway School District) Anyway, I turned on Carlos and hit Redding CHP. It was under the police menu, and it was only a couple of minutes away so I went for it. I pull in to the parking lot and it's the California Highway Patrol Office. Well, I figured they should be able to point me in the right direction of the police department and I was right. While I was waiting though, I was scoping out the place and I must say it's so weird that even though I know that Arnold Schrawzenegger (or however you spell his name) is the state governor, I guess I didn't really realize it. However, when you're standing in a California Highway Patrol office and Arnold's picture is on the wall and his name is on the door as the governor of California, suddenly it sinks in. It's just funny seeing him in a suit and tie instead of his Terminator get up.

Other tidbits from the day...I'm amazed at how many people don't know how to spell Cincinnati. In the last month or so, I've probably been asked to spell it at least 5 times. Strange.

Got to go get some milk, then eat dinner, then go back to Bethel (just in case you were wondering what I was doing with the rest of my day). :)

Open Heavens Conference

2007-10-25T15:02:00.001-04:00

They're having an Open Heavens Conference out here this week so there's people everywhere! All the students had to sign up to volunteer, so I worked the book table from 9-10 today. Super easy and they have so much good stuff that I want. Anyway, Bill Johnson walks in so I'm having a freak out celebrity moment again. He walks right over to where I'm standing, looks at a tag and says, "This book isn't new (it was one of his), I'm crossing this out." Then he proceeds to take out a pen and cross out the part that says it's new. He was laughing the whole time, but I just found it funny that he actually crossed out the "New!" Then he mosied on along to see what else we were selling.

During the first announcements of the conference they were announcing countries that people have flown in from. It's insane. Here are a few: Egypt, Australia, the Czech Republic, Cypress, UK, Norway, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Iceland, New Zealand, France (!), and Switzerland. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but I was amazed that these people travel that many miles to come to Bethel. Bill asked if he forgot any countries and one lady stood up and said, "I'm from Texas." :)

Time for a quick bite and then it's back to school.

OH...

2007-10-24T20:07:00.001-04:00

I passed Bill Johnson in the Hebrews lobby last night. It still has that awe factor of "Oh my gosh, I just walked by Bill Johnson." It is his church, but it feels funny seeing him there...surreal I guess.

I went to the Children's Ministry open house. Fantastic. Their children are learning and experiencing so much! I signed up to volunteer so I can't wait to find out what my job will be.

This may be the shortest post ever...

New pics

2007-10-22T13:55:00.000-04:00

It's supposed to be sunny and 80 all week. Hard for me to comprehend considering we're nearing the end of October. Anyway, it looked like a pretty clear morning so I decided to go down by the river and take my camera. I ended up walking on the other part of the trail that I had never been on. Way better than the other side! But, my camera died. How I could leave the house with 3/4 of a battery and then have it die after only 3 pictures is beyond me, but I'll just have to go back later this week. I also want to go out towards Mt. Shasta when it's clear like this. So, hopefully later this week I'll have a chance to do that.

The first two pictures are actually of some clouds we had after it rained all day (last Friday). I'm talking pouring rain all day long and then the sun came out and we had these huge, puffy white clouds. This picture doesn't do it justice at all, but I thought I'd put it up anyway.

The other two pictures are the Sundial Bridge (it's actually a sundial) and the Sacramento River. I'll have way cooler shots for you soon when I get some new batteries in my camera. :)

Who wants to hear a testimony?

2007-10-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

Some great testimonies this weekend!

On Friday, the children's pastor here at Bethel (Deborah Reed) came to talk to us. She had us picture God pouring out His Spirit and revival on all the countries of the world. After a few minutes she had us open our eyes and said, "If you didn't picture children in your mind, there's something wrong with your view. 52% of the world's population is children." Her message was that we need to be equipping our children and calling them into their destiny. Anyway, Deborah travels to several countries to train churches on how to lead their children. She has developed a year long curriculum that includes topics like prayer, worship, healing and raising the dead. She has visited this one particular place down by Hawaii several times. Recently, she received a call from this island church and they proceeded to tell her that their children had raised an older, grandmother from the dead! This team of children had been going door to door to pray for people and while they were in one house, this grandmother died. So they prayed for her and then even followed her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. Not accepting this, the children continued to pray and alas, she awoke! Deborah Reed has teams of children here at Bethel that worship, prophesy and pray for the sick. They prayed for a lady with very bad breast cancer for half an hour and then they went back to their pizza party. Two days later, the lady reported that the doctors could no longer find cancer anywhere in her body.

The Call in Las Vegas was yesterday so they had some cool reports today at church. Bethel had sent a large team and as they entered Las Vegas they were reading the hotel billboards. These billboards often display who's signing or who has won the jackpot. The first billboard they say said "Jesus won". That was enough to stir them up. Anyway, there were lots of good healings and salvations throughout the day, but I'll share two favorites. First, 30 minutes into the event there was a lady running around the outside of the stadium. She hadn't even come into the event yet, she was outside. Why was she running you ask? She had been in a wheelchair for 20 years due to MS. Yesterday was the first time in 20 years she could get up and stand, walk, and run! Praise God. The other cool story was about a prostitute. Somehow she had found her way to the Call, a 12 hour prayer meeting. She came up and gave her life to Christ and to purity from that point on. I can only imagine the chills in the place when she did this. :)

Good stuff, huh?

There will be a Call in Cincinnati on January 12th (US Bank Arena). You can find out more information at thecall.com. Check it out for sure!

Hello White People

2007-10-18T21:45:00.000-04:00

Another rainy day here in Redding, but a most excellent one.

The past two days they've been teaching on the Father's Love and we've been doing some soak times to have an encounter with our Papa. Today, they had some people come up and tell testimonies about what they experienced yesterday. They were SO good. A black student gets up there and says "Hello, white people." Everyone cracked up! It was hilarious. Besides a few foreigners, there are only a handful of black people at Bethel. Anyway, this student was hilarious throughout his whole testimony, future preacher on our hands I think. The best part was his transformation of course, but his revival group leader ended up praying for him yesterday and asked God to break this vow he had spoken over himself. The student was amazed because he hadn't told anyone about this vow, but the Holy Spirit revealed it to his revival group leader. By the time he was done with his testimony everyone was on their feet cheering him on and God for doing this amazing work. Another girl from his home state, Alabama, stood up to pray in the gap for his family, hometown, and the black community for what he's going to take back to them. Then a bunch of people stormed the stage to bless him. It was crazy goodness.

We also went out on our first outreach today. I carved pumpkins with some kiddies. They were so wound up because they were excited to see us, but it was good.

No free Chipotle. The line was sooooo long. And although I feel slightly poor, I didn't feel poor enough to stand in the long line in the rain. I had leftover instead. :)

Yay for friends

2007-10-17T21:25:00.000-04:00

We had an excellent Bible class today. We were doing geography doodling and timelines-stuff I need and like! Dann Farrelly, our Bible teacher, is so funny too. You should definitely watch his video announcements online (welovethebulletin.com).

In other news, I received a package from home today from my beautiful, new mommy, friend, Barb. It was the perfect timing too. Yesterday and today I've kind of been in a funk missing all the people and comforts of home. Then during class today, I was like "Man, a Frisch's cheeseburger would be way excellent right now." So, I check the mail today and there was a package filled with all my Cincinnati favorites! Skyline chili, Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce, some cookies-like those yummy buttery ones from Busken, Frisch's tartar sauce, and some chocolate! When she asked me what I wanted I just suggested Skyline, but she definitely sent me some great stuff. Thanks Barb!

(I love everyone's e-mails and blog comments from home too, so keep those coming!)

Tomorrow is free Chipotle day. We have a new one in town and they're giving Bethel students a free burrito and a free soft drink. I'm not really a big fan of Chipotle, but hey if it's free it's for me. I will try it again. :)

Okay, off to SOZO training. For those of you who are like, huh?, it stands for saved, healed, and delivered. Learning how to get people free. :D

Update on prayer requests and Oil Story

2007-10-16T21:12:00.000-04:00

A few posts ago I had asked for you to join me in prayer for a fellow classmate's mom who was missing in France and for a friend who is pregnant and has a spider bite. The mom has been found! Apparently though, she has the last stages of breast cancer and that is why she wouldn't contact anyone. So, please continue to pray for her. Also, my other friend, Sarah, who is pregnant is doing okay. She still has a weird rash, but the doctors assure her that the little one growing inside her is doing fine. And, of course we're believing that God is protecting the baby from the antibiotics!

You can add me to your prayer lists-I keep getting headaches at school. :(

Now, for a cool story. So on Sunday night, I wrote about how Pastor Bill laid hands on everyone at the church. Well, he also annointed us with this oil. The oil happened to be from the church in Puerto Rico where it has been dripping down the walls and out of Pastor Dennis' bible. Anyway, Pastor Bill annointed every single head on Sunday night, we're talking close to 1,000 people. And...when he was all done...none of the oil was gone! WOW!

Everyone can come

2007-10-15T11:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon Holly and I went to see Tyler Perry's new movie "Why Did I Get Married?". It was pretty good. When we arrived home Holly checked her voice messages and found a nice surprise. Our friend, Angela, had called and said, "I don't know if you heard, but Pastor Bill has invited everyone to come to service tonight regardless of which service you've been assigned." What! So we took a quick pottie break and jumped right back in the car. Holly and I thought for sure Bob Jones was going to be there because he was in California this weekend, but it wasn't him.

Worship was an hour and fifteen minutes long and it was electrified in there. I can't explain how it felt. Danny Silk was supposed to talk, but gave it up so Pastor Bill could. He gave this great message about Pentecost being more than just receiving tongues. It was about receiving a fresh fire for Jesus, a boldness to do whatever He asked. In Acts, 120 people had stuck around and pressed in for 10 days and then God came. (There's more, but I'm not typing the whole sermon) We also watched this really cool video from Patricia King where she was interviewing Pastor Dennis (I don't remember where he was from) who is seeing a ton of signs and wonders in his church. His church is dripping oil everywhere. It even drips out of his Bible. He's also received over 1200 gemstones. You can watch it on extremeprophetic.com. It will stretch you. :)

So, at the end of the message Bill said he was going to lay hands on every person who wanted it. Everyone got in lines; some in the hallway, the overflow room, we were in the cafeteria. We were about 6 feet apart in case people fell out in the Spirit. Then he just came around with his oil and quickly prayed for each person. Some of his staff we're praying as well, so we had more than one person praying for us. It was GOOD stuff. We left about 10:30 and people we're laying all over the hallways. It was cool that that many people stuck around for a touch from God.

I was hoping to sleep in today, but I awoke to hammering next door. 7:00 hammering away. Holly was not a happy camper. :) She even went over there, but they didn't answer her. Oh well, I got lots to get done. Laundry, cleaning, homework...

Sweatin' it out

2007-10-13T12:05:00.000-04:00

When was the last time you were dripping because you were dancing so much before the Lord? Worship was crazy good last night again. Georgian Banov did the Friday night service so he was crankin' it up and bustin' out the fiddle. People were jumping and doing the dos-i-doe. It was way fun, but man I burned some serious calories. :) He also gave the message. We heard a little more about his ministry and it sounds phenomenal! He's going to Nicaragua over Christmas to feed the orphans. He'll go to Israel in February to do some supernatural conferences for the Palestinians. In July he's going to Romania, Turkey, and Bulgaria to minister to the gypsies. And, for the grand finale, he's going to Mozambique in September to help out at Rolland and Heidi Baker's orphanage. I want to go on all of them! I'm definitely going to connect with this ministry at some point, it's too good.

Homework and house chores today, then who knows. :)

Fiddlin' is cool

2007-10-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

We had Georgian Banov come to school today. He led worship and he spoke! Worship was so good. The atmosphere is often thick with God's glory, but it was really thick today. He led with electric guitar, but every once in a while he would put that down and pick up his violin. He is a crazy good fiddler. I want to find out more about him. It sounds like he has a really cool ministry. He travels to Jerusalem and loves on the Palestinian refugees and at Christmas he goes to Nicaragua and feeds 10,000 in an orphanage!

I met my outreach group as well today. I got my number #1 choice-mentoring! I'll have a buddy at the California Apartment complex and it will be great fun.

Okay, that is all for now. :)

This is serious

2007-10-10T11:54:00.000-04:00

Hola amigos!

I know my post sometimes ramble on about nothing, but this one is important.

Yesterday it was announced at school that one of our classmates, Jenny, needed prayer. Her mom is missing in France. We all stood and prayed, but I'm asking that you join us asking that her mom would be found quickly.

Also, a good friend of mine, Sarah, has an infected spider bite. Please pray for a quick healing! It's a little tricky for the doctors to treat her because she's pregnant, but our God is the master physician.

And as a testimony that prayer works especially in large numbers...last Thursday Beni Johnson announced that a hate group was coming into town to do a rally. All of the students stood and prayed against it and asked that these people would come to know Jesus. The hate group that was in town...KKK. The weekend passed without any hate rallies...praise God!

Got me a new pin

2007-10-09T21:26:00.000-04:00

Well this weekend started with an apple festival in Paradise, California. Paradise was pretty, the apple fest was not so great. They didn't even have apple cider! The little town had some antique stores though, so we mosied through those for a bit. Paradise happens to be right next to Chico, so we stopped back at their big antique store too. Holly bought some more pewter-she likes that stuff. We also stumbled upon a Farmer's Market that was way fun. Holly bought all kinds of produce and flowers. Then we went to Pluto's for lunch. Way good salad. They just have a big bar of all these salad ingredients and they mix up a salad for you. After lunch we walked around a little bit in Chico. We hit one more antique store in Anderson on the way home where I made my only purchase of the day. Check out my way cute (and what a bargain) new pin. Antique stores are so great because you feel like you're shopping, but I hardly ever buy anything.

Sunday was church and more job applications. I think I've filled out 9 applications so far. Nobody likes that I'm coming home for Thanksgiving. Winter breaks seem to be acceptable, but not Thanksgiving. So, I'll just fill out some more.

Monday was highly productive. I got up early and did my laundry, wrote my book report, did my Bible reading, and cleaned! And that was only the morning.

It was back to school today. It was pretty good. Some lady came very close to hitting me in the face three times during worship with her flag, but I survived. :) I was sitting in the back on the floor, all content taking my notes, but someone made me move back to my seat. I'm going to have to find a new seat though because I can't stand being hemmed in for so many hours at a time. I like space, what can I say.

Holly and Jenny got trashed

2007-10-06T01:49:00.000-04:00

Trashed by the Holy Spirit and the joy of the Lord that is. All these students get drunk in the spirit at school or they laugh (joy of the Lord) and Holly and I were just talking the other day that we hope it doesn't take all year to feel it. So Friday night services have been slightly hard to get psyched up since we're at school all day. We got there and worship was AWESOME. Then they introduced the speaker for the night, Kevin Dedmon, who imparts the ministry of laughter among other things. Sweet will take it. Some of the second years were wasted during the service. Holly and I started to taste a little of it during service. I had a few moments of extreme laughter, tears streaming down my face, the whole deal. Kevin Dedmon decided to end the night with a Joy tunnel. Those are way better than Fire tunnels. Oh my goodness. Holly and I laughed and shook down the whole thing. One lady touched my stomach and I totally lost it in laughter. It was sooooo fun.

Many of you are probably thinking we're crazy. We are. Crazy for Jesus. I hope the joy of the Lord hits you as you read this. It is so fun. I've never been drunk by alcohol so I don't know what that feels like, but this is WAY better. People just talk to you and laugh with you and prophesy over you. It's great.

Here's the best part. Some lady went through the joy tunnel and got out of her wheelchair. Yep, just an ordinary day in the Kingdom. Come on. That's a good word right there.

Interesting Talk Today :)

2007-10-03T21:35:00.001-04:00

So everyone was excited today at school because Pastor Kris was going to talk. His talks are always super good. Anyhow, second year joined us so we had 700 and something people packing out the auditorium. Pastor Kris was taking his sweet, merry time telling this story, but it was intriguing. And then...before you know it...we are in the thick of a sex and purity talk. People may have been uncomfortable at first, but it was SO good. Every parent and teenager should hear this message. As soon as I can download it, I'm going to. He's actually writing a book with his daughter-in-law about the whole topic which should be fantastic.

Yes, another short post. I have homework. :)

School gets better and better

2007-10-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

We got our mission trip list today! Scream, scream! We had to pick our top 5 choices because they have to sort 720 students into teams. My top five were:
1. Kenya
2. Israel
3. Nicaragua
4. South Africa
5. Cabo

All of them would be amazing. The Kenya trip is visiting a large orphanage though, so that really intrigues me. I should find out in November which team I'm on.

We also got a list of home groups today, so I have to pick one. That is a task for another day because my brain is already fried from all the other excitment today.

I also had my first Missions class. That just has me all stirred up. It was good stuff and it was just basic overview stuff.

Okay, short post. I'm sleepy. ;)

Whiskeytown Lake

2007-10-01T22:30:00.001-04:00

Holly and I decided to do our Bible reading by a lake today. Someone had suggested Whiskeytown Lake and since it's only about 15 minutes away we decided to check it out. GORGEOUS! We stopped at several different sides of the lake, hence the differences in color of the water. The water was chilly, but it felt pretty good on my feet because the sun was warm. Lots of little salamanders or geckos or something running around. We also stopped at the visitor center and found out there are several trails that lead to waterfalls. When we have the proper shoe attire on we are going back to see those! Hopefully, next weekend because I do love waterfalls.

In other news, my Bengals are stinking it up once again as I type. So sad.

Back to school tomorrow. First day of Missions class too. Super excited about that!

The tears have started...they're good though

2007-09-29T11:23:00.000-04:00

Couple of highlights from this week...

On Wednesday we had our first Bible class. Boy, did I feel lost. Dann Farrelly is one of our Bible teachers and he is absolutely hilarious. (He also does video announcements that are fantastic. You can watch them on the web for free at welovethebulletin.com.) Anyway, he created this super fun-fun quiz as he called it to see what we knew about the Bible. Yep, next to nothing. Good thing it wasn't graded. This should be an excellent class though. I should learn a ton.

Wednesday afternoon, we met our revival groups. I have two leaders, John and Laura, and our intern is Candice (she's a third year student). There's about 40 people in our group I guess, maybe a little less. Most of them are young, but there's a few older people that I haven't met yet. Anyway, they made us pair up and tell three things about each other to the whole group. The best one was about this man who had formerly been a drug dealer and was sentenced to life in prison. While in prison he found Jesus and Jesus set him free from all of his addictions and prison!

Spanish is awesome. Our teacher is very energetic and really knows her stuff. She's been going to Bethel since the 60 when Bill's dad was the head guy. It's strange being in a language class where the teacher busts into prayer and we sing worship songs, but it's great.

Onto Thursday. Thursday was a good day. Tracy Cooper was our first speaker and she was great. (I'm running out of cool adjectives for these people.) First of all, she had an amazing testimony of growing up in the church, which was encouraging for me. So many of these powerful preachers have come from really negative backgrounds and I rarely hear of people who come from fairly normal, church backgrounds. I was way encouraged that God does use people who grew up in the church. I mean, I know He does, but sometimes it just seems like the ones who have been delivered from serious stuff are used more. Her best line, was that God delivered her and protected her from experiencing the horrible things of life like abuse, drugs, etc.

Later on on Thursday we had some prayer time. I don't remember who led it, but it was good. People were laughing everywhere, shaking under His glory. Not me. I just cry. I was good until the second year students started trolling the room to pray for people. I had so many students touch me. Someone even hugged me. It was like being hugged by Jesus himself. I can't explain it. That's when the tears started. (And for those of you wondering if I love hugs now, No, that hasn't happened yet.) :)

Chris Overstreet, the outreach guy, was one of our last speakers on Thursday. He's an energetic speaker, very cool. We'll be doing outreaches every Thursday afternoon, so he was there to explain our options. There are a couple of opportunities with kids so I hope I get one of those.

We closed out Thursday with a fire tunnel, which is where a bunch of people make a tunnel and they pray for you as you go through it. They get really hot because the presence of God comes, hence the name fire tunnel.

Friday was a long day. I had Spanish, then class, a revival group dinner, and then Friday night service which ended up being 3 hours. I was good until about 9:15 then I was getting really sleepy. They were doing prophecy in the service which was awesome. No words for me, but other people from our class were getting blasted. I had already cried again during worship so it's probably good they didn't have a word for me. :) Holly and I were hanging out with this guy, Josh, from Manchester, England. He's really cool and of course the accent is awesome. I was telling Josh that Holly isn't a true representative of the Cincinnati accent because she's really from Indiana and she lived in Wisconsin too long and she picked up their accent. He just kind of looked at us like we were crazy, but Holly and I were having a good time. Holly was asking him how far away Scotland is from his home and he said, "Pretty far, it's about 4 hours." We were like "What! That's nothing." We then preceded to tell him we drove 34 hours to get to Redding and he just couldn't wrap his mind around it. Apparently, in England, they don't like to drive. Then in church, there was another guy from England who's actually in my revival group. He's a Steelers fan though, so we only talked to him for a little bit. :)

And lastly, Missions is going to be my first elective so I'm super, super excited about that. Job hunting and a Feast of Tabernacles dinner today. More to post about later I'm sure...

Week-end

2007-09-24T19:10:00.000-04:00

Mom has requested an update. :)

On Saturday, Holly and I drove down to Chico which is about an hour away. It's a cute little college town with little shops and delis. It also had a fun antique store-25,000 square feet. I didn't find anything, but Holly did. It was kind of rainy and chilly, so we didn't do a whole lot. Apparently, they have some nice parks, but those remain to be seen.

Sunday we had church. I have the first service this month and Holly has second. It was good, but I was extremely tired on Sunday for some reason so I came home did some reading, actually took a nap, then watched some football.

Today was pretty uneventful as well. I interviewed with Kohl's (they're opening a new store here), but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a Dear John letter. They open the week of Thanksgiving and I'll be back in Cincinnati. I gave my resume to a family too who was looking for some childcare, but they never called. I was kind of getting a weird vibe there though, so I'm okay with no call back there.

I finished another book report today too. That feels fantastic. It wasn't due until next week, but I start Spanish this week and I'm not sure if I'll have additional homework, so I wanted to get ahead. I actually own the next book they're going to give us, so I may start reading that too.

Week 2 starts tomorrow...

Buckle up...this is probably going to be long

2007-09-22T00:44:00.000-04:00

First week down, lots more good stuff to come. Let me fill you in on my favorites from today.

Pastor Bill spoke to us today (3rd time this week, which is rare, but good for us). His main message today was prosperity of soul. The best way to be healthy in mind, soul and body is to focus on what God has done and is doing and not on what he hasn't done. Anyway, at Bethel's staff meetings they always take 1.5-2 hours to talk about testimonies and the miracles they have seen in the last week. Pastor Bill had been at a conference in Texas where he had seen 82 people with deafness healed in about five minutes. There were many other miracles as well, but the 82 deaf people was the highlight. One man even had some kind of nerve that was completey severed be completey healed. Pastor Bill's oldest son, Eric, who is also on staff at Bethel is 85% deaf in both ears. He prays for people with deafness all the time and they are healed, but his condition remains. Pastor Bill said that he looked at his son during the staff meeting after he had mentioned the deafness being healed for the umpteenth time and Eric looked back at him and said "We're one day closer, Dad." Now, that's focus on what God is doing. Gave me chills.

Favorite story #2. Pastor Kris did a question and answer session today and at one point he was addressing someone's question on prophecy with a testimony. So good. In the middle of the service he had a word for this man in the very back row, so he gave it to him in front of the whole church. He told him he was a "Holy Man of God" and went on and on. Four years later this guy comes up to Kris and says "Do you remember me?" Kris needed a little reminding, but then he did. Apparently this guy had been a heroin addict since he was 13 in and out of rehab and jails (he was around 40 when this prophecy happened) and he told Kris that the minute he told him he was a Holy Man of God he was delivered from his addiction! Not only that, but he took his girlfriend up for prayer (who was also in a halfway house) because she had Hepatitis C. When she went to the doctor they couldn't find any evidence of the disease anywhere. (Apparently, even if you're cured of Hepatits C, you can still trace it in your body.) Amazing! God is so good!

So Holly and I were both assigned to Friday night service, so we came home grabbed some grub and headed right back to Bethel. There was a guest worshipper, Suzi Yarzei, I think was her name. She was crazy wild and it was really good. Then her husband got up to preach. Yep, he used to be a Shiite Muslim and now he's radical for Jesus. He has had so many God encounters and he's only been a believer for 7 years. His whole family has now been saved as well. His brother has only been saved for 9 months and he's been to Heaven. It was an awesome testimony.

Then we're walking out and we see these two little boys in the lobby. The younger brother is praying for his older brother. Try to picture this. The older brother, probably no more than 6 has his Batman pajamas on and he's sprawled out on the couch shaking under the glory. His younger brother, maybe 4 also in pjs, has his hands on his brother's eyes and he's babbling something and giggling. When he lifted his hands his brother would stop shaking, when he put them back on he would shake again. It was the coolest thing ever. A whole group of BSSM students stopped to watch. Oh, to have childlike faith...Speaking of childlike faith, one more quick story.

Pastor Bill was telling us about his grandchildren today and how they have prophesied about their siblings. His one grandson pointed at his mom and said mom "You're going to have a girl and you shall call her Bella." The mother had not told anyone that her and her husband had decided that if they were ever to have a girl they would call her Isabella. The mom took a pregnancy test and sure enough she was pregnant. One of Bill's granddaughter's had a similar experience. The Johnson sons so far had all girls and they were hoping for someone to have a boy so they could carry on the name. So little Haley comes in and says, "Don't worry, I talked to God and told him we want a boy, so that's what we're going to have." So, the mom goes to the doctor and finds out they're having a boy. Haley said, "See, I told you." Kids are so great!

I've got some great new favorite worship songs too. Everything is great. :) x10

2nd Day

2007-09-20T11:16:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I'm not sure that I'll write everyday, but then again maybe I will. :) The second day of school was even more intense than the first. And when I say intense I mean your brain hurts because it's being expanded so much. It's crazy good in an exhaustive kind of way.

I began the day with what they call Prayer Encounter. It's 45 minutes of prayer before school starts. I get in there and Joaquin starts talking about praying from the third heaven. Just jumping right in and going for it from there. I'm still not completely sure what he was talking about, but I have some idea. I felt God's presence and everything, but I suppose I'm just not as charismatic as some people because it was crazy in there. When he asked us to brush anxiety off our neighbor's shoulders we did and then he starts yelling "Stop!" He didn't just yell it once either. He went onto explain that we had switched activities and gears. We had to start again only this time we were not to switch gears. When we switched activities we had to keep our hearts in the same place, the same gear. It was a very interesting learning experience. Crazy good.

We finally got to the rules and regulations on day 2. Those were not so fun. We have to park in the dirt, which there really isn't enough of so I'm not sure how that's supposed to work. So much for a clean car. :) We were assigned services as well. Not so fun either, but there's 500 of us and then all the normal church people. Bethel has never had a class this big. They had to order 5 trailers just to accommodate the other activities they have going on and the maintenace crew had to do some serious work on the plumbing after day 1 because the toilets were going crazy.

Pastor Kris also spoke yesterday and it was so good, again. I don't know how they do it. It was mainly about honor and how it has almost ceased to exist in our culture. Definitely changed my view on a few things. He was relating it back to laying on of hands too. I'll have to get my notes out and post about it, it was good stuff.

Last night, I decided to go to this prayer and worship thing at Breaking New Grounds. It's a Christian owned Coffee House that opens up to the Awakening 20 Ministry on Wednesday nights so we can have prayer and worship. I met some great people and the worship time was out of this world. I even met a girl from Columbus, OH, but I can't remember her name. oops. I hate small talk and going to places where I know no one, but I survived. :) This one girl even asked to pray for me as soon as she met me. That was good. Everything's good.

And lastly, I won my first item on ebay. Very exciting.