I went to California with my brother Barak, my Mother Nyla, my Father Gary, and my Grandmother Evlyn. I was mainly in San Jose, but I also spent a night in Woodland west of Sacramento.

We took a day trip with my cousins Daniele and Derek and my uncle and aunt, Mark and Laura to visit the Pacific coast south of Half Moon Bay (25 miles south of San Francisco) along highway 1.

Thank you God! (Myself on a plateau far away)

We also became friends with a family in the mountains near Los Gatos and had desert at their home one night and visited one of their churches in Morgan Hill. Their daughter, Cristal is in the picture with Barak and I in front of Los Gatos meats standing with a smoker shaped like a pig. My Dad's birthday was also on Thanksgiving this year, and Barak Cristal, and I bought him jerky from the meat shop in Los Gatos where my Grandfather Bendixen lives nearby to.

Some of the Thanksgiving dinner guests at my uncle's house in San Jose.

Barak, my brother, and Derek my cousin decorated Derek's house and trees with lights.

Jerri Coleman, the Oakland County C.E.F. director and I were working in a club at Chinese Gospel Church in Livonia last weekend. She is wearing the pink dress sitting in the chair.

     I helped the five year old boy named Jason with coloring this picture he's holding over his chest. I helped him with fading the two shades of blue in the sky. It's an oil bleed through coloring. Jason also made a harp in Barak's club to remind him of David's harp from the book of Samuel, which he was pretending is prison bars over his face. The other young lad is Vincent. His parents sat in on the last portion of our club on Saturday. His Mom is behind him inquiring of Jerri how she could start a C.E.F. club in their church.

 I helped five to eight year old's in my class memorize several verses using visual aids, short stories and games during my time there. My brother, Barak helped teach younger children, three through five years old in his club. There were about eighty kids on Frinight and about 30 children on Saturday. At lunch on Saturday we ate a meal together the church had prepared of rice with tofu and sauce over it, shrimp and sauce, and bok choy seasoned with garlic. The older people were having a conference upstairs while three teams of C.E.F. clubs were being held in the basement. The pastor of the church a Mr. Wu told me that one of the speakers at the conference was from Los Angeles, CA. 

Currently Reading Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is): Sexual Purity in a Lust-Saturated World By Joshua Harris see related

It's back to chimney sweeping season again!

Our family had the joy of attending the Basic Seminar this summer as presented by Bill Gothard in video format. He teaches about youth conflicts that continue into adult years from Biblical principles and his past experiences as a youth minister. One of the last sessions that affected me was a teaching on engrafting scripture by meditation. I would like to express my thankfulness to the Krugers for offering their company's theater for the use of the seminar. Also a thanks to the Shervish family for sponsoring the seminar.

Some of us in the family also had the joy of attending the Advanced Seminar as presented by Bill Gothard, Jim Sammons, Otto Konning, and Pastor Ron Dunn. Of the most impressionable moments in this seminar to me were the teachings by Jim Sammons on children are a heritage from the Lord, and asking friends to reveal to us our "blind spots". Unfortunately I missed the session on Spiritual Gifts taken from the book of Romans. I would like to express my thankfulness to the Hacklemans for opening up their home for the use of this seminar and sponsorship.

My cousin, Derek Aubrey Bendixen visited our family from CA

It was the first time anyone from my Dad's brother's family in San Jose, California ever came to Michigan. We had invited them many times before. We'd gone to CA, and had visited them many times before. Derek was the first Bendixen that had ever breached the long standing fear of visiting Michigan! Hoorah for Derek Aubrey Bendixen the 13 year old little man!

Currently Watching The Last Sin Eater By Louise Fletcher, Henry Thomas, Liana Liberato, Soren Fulton, A.J. Buckley see related

Church at the Heyworths

Yesterday on Sunday our church met at the Heyworths of Davison, MI. After the general assembly we had  a puppet show for the children upstairs, that finished up our series about Samson, then we had a shared meal. After the shared meal My brother Barak and I directed a Good News Club. I taught a special part on Confession of sin using Magnetic icons on a sheet metal display. After that, Barak and Eleazar and I went to the Buckingham's in Orion Twp. and had a Hymn Sing with two other special friends we know from church that didn't go to the Heyworths for the church meeting. That's a quarterly event at their home. Levi stayed at the Heyworths to play a game of baseball. Then we drove back up to the Heyworths where we found that Joe Grahm had been arm wrestling my little brother Levi, and Richard Gilbert of Flushing, MI at the same time, and had separated his biceps from his shoulder and had to go to Mc Laren hospital. After he left with his children and Richard to McLaren, we ate pizza that we had just bought. We hung out for a while there till we watched a movie called The Last Sin Eater. Have you ever heard of it before? It was really good.