Beit Tikvah

upcoming Jewish festivals at a Messianic congregation in Newcastle, WA:

• Erev Rosh Hashana Monday October 3rd, 7:00 PM
• Erev Yom Kippur Wednesday October 12th, 7:00 PM
• Erev Sukkot Monday October 17th, 7:00 PM
• Chanukah 6th Night, Friday December 30th, 7:30 PM

Mosaic

We got to practice last night with our worship team, Mosaic, again from Cross of Christ in preparation for Sunday's service. It was exciting to get ready to lead worship musically again; Rob was particularly stoked. Afterwards, we all went to Applebees and caught up with life and each other.

Tonight, we're going to see Serenity with some friends from Mountain Ridge church here in Redmond.

Road tripping-and-falling

Actual Route

Originally Planned Route

We came back down to Bellevue yesterday, hoping to meet Kate in Woodinville to see a house she was looking at. Let's just say that it didn't exactly work out. What should have taken 1 hour and 45 minutes total ended up taking closer to 3 hours. Accidents on every road we diverted to; rain after days of sun will do that here.

Funny thing about technology; if we didn't have Streets & Trips on the laptop, we never would have been bold enough to go off-highway and try to bypass the traffic jam. Therefore, we would not have ended up wandering in the middle of nowhere. We might have actually gotten there faster without out potentially time-saving navigational device. Sigh. Who can predict such things?

Bellevue

We left Sutherlin Hotel shortly before 10AM and made it to Eugene around 11:15AM. Met there with Adam, a premiere Neverwinter Nights module creator. That was pretty cool; he's the first online NWN guy we've met in RL (real life).

Made it to Bellevue in time to grab a quick dinner and go to a Young Living seminar on Ningxia Red. Gave us free peppermint oil and samples of Ningxia Red juice; it was pretty much worth the trip just for that. Here's a random essential oil blog I just tripped over.

We're going to get our driver's licenses switched to WA when we go up to Bellingham, later today. I'm thinking about getting some books at the local library system before we leave town.

Gas cap

We had a bit of an adventure today on the road. After gassing up at Dunsmuir, CA, I had a strong inclination to tell Rob to make sure he took the nozzle out when he was finished pumping the gas. I couldn't bring myself to do it and was surprised that I would think of telling him to do that. Talk about nitpicking, right? So, I said nothing, let him go about his business. We drove away.

We drove 20 miles before Rob noticed that the gas hatch was open. We pulled over and he got out to check the situation. Sure enough, the gas cap hadn't been put back on. I called Roadside Assistance to see if driving without a gas cap was dangerous but the guy couldn't help me or direct me to anyone who could. So, we prayed for protection and headed back to Dunsmuir to find the cap. It wasn't at the gas station or on the road where we had driven after leaving the station so we didn't know what to do. Also, we were being kind of tailgated so we had to go around the block in the area where we were most likely to have lost it off the top of the car. In doing so, we found a car parts place! I got out, checked with the guy inside to see if he had a replacement cap in stock for our car; he did indeed. I rejoiced openly. I asked if it was dangerous to drive around without a gas cap; he said it was. He said that gas could slosh out and ignite. Again, much rejoicing. What could have been really awful turned out to be an opportunity for God to show how much he cares about the little things.

Now, if only I had been nitpicky when I had first gotten the inclination to do so. Rob advised me to go ahead and nitpick next time I get that feeling.

Next Summer Greek

Was just talking to Dennis this weekend and discovered that people don't know the latest news; I can go back to LTSS to be a Greek teaching assistant next summer! All I need to do now is attend a couple of courses in the spring and keep my Greek "skillz" up. Yippee! Looking forward to this, much.

Events recap

The busy last half of the week went off relatively hitch-free. The missions conference started on the 23rd in the evening and we attended a potluck and chatted with people at our table about what we're planning on doing. On the 24th, I went with Rob to the church where he had a men's breakfast at 7AM and left him there while I got coffee and primped for the fashion show at 10AM. I had straightened my hair with Lyn's flatiron the night before, trying to get my indelible waves offa my head; it lasted through the night.

The ladies' brunch and fashion show was fun. Wished Rob could have been there not only to see me running around all dolled up but to help me present. When I get all excited, I lose track of where I'm at in the presentation sometimes. Perhaps I end up saying what needs to be said. I hope so. We spoke together at the evening service at Trinity Lutheran.

Went back to Trinity on Sunday morning and spoke again at the 8:15AM service. We then biffed off to Redding Christian Fellowship for the rest of the morning. Pretty tired by the afternoon, we must say. We topped that off with a nice lunch with the Rostens (Steve & Kati plus Jesse & Lyn), followed by packing when we got home. We aimed to leave pretty early on Monday morning but quit packing at dinner time, took the rest of the evening to unwind and hang out with Steve & Kati.

Fashion show

Yay! I got in! I'll be wearing a nice pair of jeans with a multi striped shirt and purple velvet jacket for the casual section. I also have a formal outfit to wear; black Hollywood-glam shape with a black beaded capelet. Too cute. Too bad that Rob can't be there for the show. They promise to get pictures for me, though. :)

Documents for my citizenship application

Here is what I need to accumulate over the next 3 months:

• tax returns
• leases
• bank account statements
• marriage certificate
• proof of Rob's citizenship; birth certificate or photocopied inside of front cover and signature page of his passport

Not too hairy ... nothing like the last application. If I get everything ready to mail as soon as January hits, I should be able to complete this whole thing some time next summer. It would be nice if the Interview and Oath ceremony could happen while Rob is in country. LBT is talking about him going for an internship in Namibia during May and June of 2006. The Seattle, WA INS office is currently processing citizenship applications (form N-400) filed on May 10, 2005. Given the current processing times of citizenship applications, mine will be processed sometime in May 2006 if I file right away in January.

Here's the address where my application will need to be sent when complete:

USINS Nebraska Service Center
Attention N-400 Unit
P.O. Box 87400
Lincoln, NE 68501-7400

Why am I posting that? I don't know. Just looked up the information and thought I'd throw that in there, for future reference.

Linguist joke

A woman was in labor with her first child. Things were going pretty well
when suddenly she began to shout, "Shouldn't! Couldn't! Wouldn't! Didn't!
Can't!" The husband asked, "Doctor, what's wrong with my wife?"
"Nothing. She's just having contractions."

Busy week

We visited St James Lutheran Church here in Redding, CA on Sunday and met a bunch of neat people, including Roberta, who invited us to lunch at Cheescakes Unlimited and hooked us up with many events at St James to be a part of this week. These events include a confirmation class last night, a ladies' brunch on Saturday morning and a fashion show on Saturday morning. I'm pretty jazzed about the fashion show idea. Someone will be getting back to me this morning to see about going in for a fitting at Macy's today. I hope it works out that I can do this. We're definitely having a good week.

The rest of the week looks like this:

• Tonight - Bible study at St Paul Lutheran in Red Bluff, CA
• Friday - Missions Conference booth at Redding Christian Fellowship
• Saturday - Fashion show and ladies' brunch at St James Lutheran for Eshinee while Rob mans the booth at the continuing Missions Conference, evening service at 6PM at Trinity Lutheran, also here in Redding
• Sunday - 8:15AM service at Trinity Lutheran

And that's the week for us. Next week, hopefully on Monday, we head north to unload our stuff in Bellingham and establish residency there.

Tooth

I have a weird wisom tooth thing happening and I need to find a dentist. I've been looking half-heartedly for the last bunch of months but now it has become a necessity. Insurance websites are nigh-on useless. I went to Cigna and found hundreds of dentists but I have no way of knowing if any of them are any good. Yuk. Trying to find a dentist is nightmarish for me. They always want to do their own x-rays before they'll even talk to you and they always want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. You'd never know that it was my mouth at stake. The last 2 were tough for me.

I'm looking for minimalist (rather monitor a suspected cavitation than fill at the slightest shading on the x-ray) and a holist (doesn't insist that mercury is perfectly safe in an amalgam filling). Anyone in Washington state have a dentist like that? Let me know ...

On I-5

I'm writing this in the car but won't be sending it until later. Today,
we've been on the road since just after 10AM. Spent the night in Paso Robles
with the Stevens, Rob's pastor family from Eastminster in the days of his
youth. We've been on I-5 most of today, hence the blog post title. Had lunch
at the Apricot Tree restaurant somewhere along the way. Found my favorite
dried apricots in a dried fruit store near the restaurant; the dark, tangy
kind, not those chubby, insipid apricots. Gotta look up sulfur dioxide (a
preservative in dried fruit) to see if it has any harmful effects.

Our newsletter went out on September 6 so the people who signed up to get it
in the last week won't be getting the most recent one. I'm going to do up
little packets of past letters to send them, catch them up to date on our
lives this year. I'm trying to decide if I have the initiative to pull
together a Veith website, a timeline of since the wedding. I've done one
every now and then ... before the free web-hosting shuts down and I lose all
that work (every time!). This time, I can host it on the LBT server so it'll
have some longevity. I just think, what if people are curious about what
we've been up to? I know I google people all the time, old school pals,
former co-workers, extended family. I google myself at least as often,
making sure my cyberface is clean. So far, so good.

If you're reading this and would like to get our newsletter, just email me
or comment to this posting with your address. I'll delete your comment as
soon as I get your newsletter request.

Clueing up

We had a few more meetings today but we're done for the day. Sitting in Underground coffee house, online. Just had some really yummy blackberry cabernet gelato; not only do I love gelato but it's probably better that I don't get coffee at this hour.

Local photography student was set up here at the coffee place, taking photos for a series called 25 strangers. Used Rob and I for that. 2 photos apiece; one smile, one silly face. She'll send us a link when she uploads.

Tomorrow, we hit the road for Paso Robles on our way back to Redding.

Kelli in Japan

Just got an email from a friend of mine from YWAM Tyler, TX days; Kelli. She's teaching English at a junior high school in Japan, just starting this week, if I understand correctly. One of her students featured her in a webpage ... too cute.



Kelli is one of my world-favorite people; so many of those in my life keep bipping around the globe. Rarely in the same place with them these days. Cherish that when it happens.

More road trip photos

This was the road we travelled (under major construction) to get to Young Living farms.


Rob, viewing the filtering of clary sage essential oil up close and personal.


Eshinee, pretending to smell essential oils ...


... and actually smelling them.


This was the view for oodles of miles of driving through the Utah salt flats.



Us in Nevada ... self-portraits are tough but we did try.

Ventura journey

We rolled into Ventura in the afternoon on Saturday; had Baja Fresh for lunch ... Rob was made very happy by this. We got to the Greenslates and settled into our room-for-the-week. After cleaning up a bit from the road trip, we went to Rob's childhood church, Eastminster Presbyterian, for the kickoff of their 40 Days of Purpose. It's amazing how we've been to so many churches in the last couple of years but have never actually been available for the full 40 days at any given church. This was our first kickoff. It was good to finally see what all the fuss is about.

Sunday was great. We spoke at Peace Lutheran in Camarillo; our first joint speaking engagement! It went quite smoothly. Of course, my favorite part was the one-on-one afterwards. We met one guy who had just come from a safari in Namibia mere weeks before. Another knew the Borchards, fellow LBT missionaries. Another shared our interest in the Messianic movement in Judaism. Great conversations and encouragement ... fellowship, right? Love to be there when it happens.

This morning, we met with the pastor at Mount Cross Lutheran. That was pretty encouraging. And not only is he gung-ho about missions, he has a fun giraffe collection. We just came from a meeting with DeDe Taylor, missions elder at Eastminster. Also a good time. It looks like a November trip will come together. We're also looking forward to being able to come back to this area on furlough ... we've been very well received and cared for.

We're at Latte 101 right now; free wireless. Well, with drink purchase. We're splitting a smoothie to keep legit. Catching up on blogging.

OUR NEW WEBSITE: Click here
Let us know what you think ...

Happy Birthday, Dave!

On the road again

We're heading out tomorrow for the Ventura, CA area. We'll spend the night somewhere along the way, in Paso Robles or Stockton somewhere. We have a church to speak at! It's Peace Lutheran in Camarillo, CA. The pastor was very pleasant and encouraging, particularly on such short notice. We got a callback from the pastor of Trinity Lutheran here in Redding as well. He said we could speak at 2 services, one Saturday night and a Sunday morning. We went for the weekend of the mission conference (23-25), keeping everything in the Redding area for that one week.

This is encouraging. I had problems getting through to pastors yesterday and began to wonder if calls were going to be returned. Kati "tagged" a request for us onto grace last night at dinner, that calls would be returned. Hey ... it works and we ain't knocking it.

We're currently in a coffee shop in Redding: Yak's Coffeehouse. We're pretty sure it's affiliated with the Vineyard church next door. Nice vibe ... free wireless. Does it get any better? I had enough bandwidth to post our new website. I'll toss the new web address for that as soon as Sharon (my LBT supervisor) approves it.

In Redding

Long time, no post! Here's the history:

Tuesday:
When we hit the road in the morning, the coolant light came back on! We figured they had forgotten to put it in so we went back before heading out to the farm. They said that they had put it in and suggested that there might be a leak. I said that we had looked under the car and had seen nothing in the way of fluids. However, the coolant level was right where we left it before we brought the car to the shop. So, the guy topped it off and told us to check back after our drive to the farm down by Mona, UT. We drove down, over dirt roads and everything, to the Young Living farm. What a blast! We got to smell every oil they make and pick out our favorites (Rob likes 'Transformation', I picked 'Endoflex'). We toured the essential oil distillery and learned more about the therapeutic oils, as well as why other oils found in the US cannot be used therapeutically (something I had been wondering about ...). I think the details of that tour will be a post in and of itself later on. Then, we went to the restaurant there on the farm. We both had lavender lemonade, split a blue corn roll with agave butter. Rob had buffalo pot pie and I had buffalo stew. We took a wolfberry apple pie slice for the road. I bought a pocket oil guide, something I've had my eye on for literally years now but didn't want to buy online because the shipping would have jacked the price too much. It was an incredibly satisfying and refreshing stop along the way. We checked the coolant level: almost exactly where it was when we left the shop earlier that morning. Hmm. Not sure what to think now. So, we drove to Elko, NV to spend the night there.

Wednesday:
Hit the road pretty early. I had gotten up at 5AM to blog but the wireless internet available in the lobby appeared to wireless dial-up, if you can imagine that. It took 5 minutes just to open the home page. Sigh. I gave up and went back to the room. We drove to Reno, where we visited another Sierra Trading Post outlet, a nice little rest stop. We made it to Redding, CA after 6PM, glad to finally be stopping the driving. Watched Rockstar:INXS with Johanna.

Thursday:
We were pretty much wiped today. We went into town to look for new computer backpacks for Rob and Johanna and to order glasses for me. JC Penney had a sale on ($79 complete) but my final price still ended up being over $200 because my eyesight chomps. Ah well. Johanna reminded me that, hey, it's eyesight. You can't really cut corners there. She's right. It's not like I'll need to buy any more for a while. We also went to a wireless coffee place so I could do the internet research I needed to do to finish my LBT budget. Watched Anchorman in the evening.

Friday-Sunday:
The tiredness totally kicked in on Friday. I worked a bit on our Powerpoint presentation for churches but didn't get very far. I wrote a bunch of letters. Met pastors at a local church (Redding Christian Fellowship) on Sunday. Watched Final Cut one evening. Our coolant is still at normal levels ... and we are still getting the coolant light coming on.

Today, I start the phone calls to churches, arranging for visits over the next month. I'm just gearing up for that right now, actually, waiting until people get into their offices before calling.