Sharing – Where have you seen God at work this week?
Camille - This week I received news of my cousin, Jim’s passing. He has been a very special part of my life the past 10 years. I was thinking that he had “gone over the rainbow” in the early morning, and I’ll be doggone if a few hours later as I was on the back deck I saw a beautiful rainbow arching over the whole sky; I don’t remember ever seeing a rainbow off my deck in the 5 years of living here. God, and Jim, were telling me he is doing fine and in a VERY good place.
Gerry – My God Sighting this week: Last Sunday afternoon I had a surprise visit from Sal & Dave. It was nice seeing them in person. We had a good chat and they brought gifts including the red Christmas hat which I am wearing today. It cheered me up! Also, they had a remarkable - How to cook and decorate cookies last night; connecting with so many people.
Krista – My God Sighting is pretty obvious for our family – my mom doing daily grocery runs, Paige bringing Costco goodies and chatting with me through the window, Laura for the yummy dinner last week, Stephanie for the gift card for another dinner; everyone texting and checking in on us.
Kari – Joe and I did the Immersed Advent Journey on Friday evening and it was really great; it was fun to hear everyone’s voices. Thank you to everyone who put so much time, effort; energy into making that a really neat experience.
Jan – I want to share that my husband is doing better. Last week, Gayellyn passed it along that he had fallen. He was so short of breath, it really bothered me, and his pulse was real rapid & it didn’t seem to go down. So, I wanted him to see the doctor because Saturday night he had a very poor night; was up a lot and he couldn’t get his breath. Sunday morning I called my son who works at an urgent care and asked – Is your urgent care open today on Sunday? He said – Yes mom, I’m here because I had to get a Covid Test (it was negative). Wayne was very comfortable then, because he knew Dan was there; he really thinks a lot of Dan. So, I got him to go to the urgent care and of all things, the doctor that I had worked with for 20+ years was on duty at the urgent care. She doesn’t work at the hospital anymore, she works at the urgent care. It seemed like it all dove-tailed. She told Wayne – Well, I think you should be seen at the ER because you are breathing so hard. Long story short, he said he wasn’t going to the ER, so that was that. So, she did an EKG & lab work. The lab work really looked pretty good & there wasn’t anything real unusual. The EKG was a little abnormal, but not tremendously bizarre. So, it made me feel better, I don’t think it really did a lot for Wayne – he went out about the same. But it did something for me, because I knew that it appeared there wasn’t anything real serious. I was just amazed at the way the Lord worked that all together. Just to kind of comfort me. Thank you for your prayers.
Pastor Brett – Amen, thank you Jan. Yes, we did pray for you last Sunday during the service. I am so glad the Lord was up to something!
Gwen – Me and my mom’s God Sighting was actually me reading to Sally & Dave.
Martha – My God Sighting is that in 1975 I graduated from Oregon College of Education, which is now Western Oregon University. When I graduated, I said goodbye to my wonderful roommates that I had lived with for 3 years & friends. And although we’ve connected, we’ve all gone on to get married and have our own families and that sort of thing. Well, this past year we’ve connected more. So, this Christmas I have gotten Christmas Cards from two of my roommates and then from a friend who lives in Florida who connected with me. It was so nice, God is kind of bringing us all together & bringing back such good memories, because we really did have fun college years.
Wendy F. – My God Sighting for the week is through two people who gave us great opportunities to give back. Thanks to Bonnie and everyone who was involved to organize all of the food baskets & presents. I had one last delivery yesterday morning and I got to see what Bonnie and the Walkers had organized. They had taken all of our deliveries and put them nicely into food baskets all organized for the families. So, it’s just truly amazing…Most of us spend a little time moving in and out of these opportunities, but there is very heavy lifting behind the scenes. Thank you Bonnie for everything that you do to organize and to be able to have so many of us give back; it’s echoing out throughout our communities. I know that several of us are posting online or just connecting in with our communities. So, it’s not just our church who’s giving back, it’s people that we know and it’s fun to see this ripple effect that wouldn’t happen without that strong organization. So, thank you so much Bonnie for doing that. And then another parallel group, our church works with the Western Farm Workers Association and thanks to Merry Goldthorpe, and all her work as our Liaison to that group. They organized toy deliveries to their community members; we are able again to just go and do small parts to deliver those toys, but what a wonderful structure that organization provides for everyone to give back and to take care of their community members. So, just really, really grateful for that behind the scenes work that so many of our families get to participate in.
Bonnie – Wendy, thank you for the kind words. It’s a team effort, that’s for sure. The Sullivans have some friends who donated $1,000 worth of gift cards for our families; we’re going to able to give every family a $100 gift card above and beyond the food & gifts and things. I wish I could deliver every one of them, because I can’t imagine the looks on some of the faces, particularly the women from Family Promise. I’m sure they’re going to be just overwhelmed by what we are bringing them. So, I want to thank everyone for all of the good stuff that you brought in. I know how appreciative the people are and I’m just thankful that Westside is such a giving church; that we’re able to do that.
Pastor Brett – Amen & Amen. Speaking of behind the scenes, my God Sighting is also in that vein. I want to highlight & lift up Rich Holt and Fred Cooper to everyone for their work on the Virtual Advent, which is taking our Lighthouse Immersed Journey and making it available for everyone who’s not comfortable coming in person to the building; for people near and far, this is a strategy where we can share the good news broadly and widely as far as the internet can take us. Rich learned how to do video editing in just under a week, right Rich? Or something like that. So, if you have a chance to check it out and share the good news with other people. The Worship Team and in particular Fred & Rich have made that whole experience possible alongside all of you who read scripture, all of you who created music and songs. I just want to lift you all up and say – What a wonderful gift we have to offer the community and the world wide community on the web. So thank you so much for that guys. Fred just posted the link: https://www.westsidejourney.com/virtualadvent
Merry – The toy drive went well for Farm Workers and there were some great stories. Pacific University Students donated gifts even though there is no school; they mailed them to our office. Thank you Wendy for your help.
Martha – It brought great joy to my heart to hear Merry mention Pacific University Students. And although I probably didn’t know them as students, it just brought great joy to my heart! Because, they really are good students; they always were. In the 18 years that I was there, I always loved each and every one of them I came across. So, Yeah!
