Our apologies that it's been so long since our last post... Tim has been exceptionally busy with outreach and classwork on top of that. Ethan has been doing schoolwork... and a lot of playing with the other children! I have been working away at my regular job, plus doing all the cooking and housework that Tim and I usually share at home. Oh, and I started taking piano lessons - a daunting task at my age! Mom and Dad (Elaine and Franz) have visited here since our last post also. They were here in September for just over a week, and Mom and I celebrated our birthday together, as usual. While they were here, we went to Yosemite National Park, which is where the pictures in this post came from. Tim couldn't go with us, of course, because of classes, and we missed his presence, but still had a good time. I also took them, mainly for Dad's pleasure, to the highest bridge in California - the Foresthill Bridge at the Auburn Ravine. It stands over 700 feet above the American River at the bottom. I think he enjoyed seeing the construct of it and we walked across on the sidewalks they have on each side, so that was another of his pleasures - being high in the air. The van was having issues just after their arrival, so we had to rent a car just to go to Yosemite, but other than that, didn't go far because of travel troubles with the van. Mom enjoyed the property here at Weimar Inst., especially the farm and the view from the water tanks (the highest point on the property I believe). Ethan and Mom went on a walk on one of the trails and saw Moses Rock together. Dad and I also went on one of the trails because I wanted to show Dad the flume, and he also got to see Moses Rock. I'd forgotten that I wanted to take them to Auburn to watch a glassblower and so I still need to set that up to do with Ethan, but I wish I'd remembered when they were here. Oh, and we also went to the Empire Mine, the oldest and largest gold mine in California. I hope to post pictures of some of that here, but our internet is so slow that it's difficult to do much of that sort of thing.

The prophecy series that Tim and the other AFCOE students have been doing outreach for is starting tonight. It will go five nights a week for several weeks. This has been a hard area to work in as far as the Lord's work is concerned. Apparently there is a lot of the occult here and also much in the way of drugs (especially marijuana growing), even though it's a somewhat affluent area.

Well, I should go and get ready. I really don't want to dress up to go, but since the AFCOE students are required to wear at least khaki's and polos for the guys and dresses/skirts for the gals, my husband didn't think it would look very good if he was wearing dress pants and a button-down shirt and I was in jeans and a t-shirt. I tried to persuade him that someone needs to make the general public that comes to this feel comfortable and that it could be my ministry, but he wasn't convinced!! Ha ha!

Love to you all,

Shannon