First Day

First day of school was glorious. :) They never did give us a head count of how many people are attending, but we filled the entire room where they have Sunday service. Pastor Bill said it was like a whole separate church landed in Redding on one day. Anyway, Mark Brookes got up to do the intro and he's so funny to listen to. He kind of draws everything out that he's saying, but he's trying to give this hyped up speech to get us all ready. You had to be there. We had about an hour and 15 minutes of worship to start the day off, which was phenomenal. Then Kris Vallotton got up to introduce the first year staff. BSSM has this tradition where you get up and clap to welcome each teacher to the stage. Let's just say I got up and down so many times that I shouldn't have to do squats for a few days. Next, Pastor Bill came out and taught. It was excellent stuff as usual. I think my favorite part of his talk was a story about a leader's conference he recently had...

There were about 800 leaders at this conference and they don't even advertise this particular event because so many leaders want to attend. Anyway, Pastor Bill through out the question one day of "How many of you saw miracles consistently every week 10 years ago?" About 3 hands went up. Then he rephrased the question, "How many of you saw miracles consistently every week 5 years ago?" 11 hands went up. Lastly, he asked, "How many of you have seen miracles consistently every week in the past year?" Almost every hand in the room shot up! Pastor Bill said that pastors who wouldn't even talk to him about miracles several years ago were now starting to experience them in their congregations whether they liked it or not. We are certainly living in exciting times.

One more favorite...Pastor Bill was teaching at some conference when all of the sudden this lady screamed in the middle of the message. When he looked over at her she kind of shrunk down in embarrassment. So, he sent his assistant over to see what had happened. Apparently, this woman had been very involved in drugs, but had been radically saved by Jesus. Over time though, her teeth had rotted and fallen out. In the middle of the message, one of her teeth had instantly regrown in her mouth and she was so shocked that she screamed. Over the course of the meeting God also healed many of her other teeth that were missing and/or rotting. Cool.

There were so many other good points as well. Kris Vallotton closed out the day and he was hilarious. There wasn't one particular story, he's just very funny.

It's still a little surreal that Holly and I are here, but we're excited. Pastor Kris asked who was anxious in the room and almost all the hands in the room went up, but he prayed and then assured us that in two weeks we'd be just fine. :) More adventures to come I'm sure...for now it's the adventure of having to write a book report, something I haven't done in a loooonng time. Thanks for all of your prayers!