Our trip to Redding, CA

Thank you to everyone who prayed for our trip to Redding - we had a wonderful time! The travel down on Friday was amazing - the kids did great. Our van was packed with lots of activities (thank you Aunt Michelle & Brynna for the use of your DS & games), snacks, movies (thank you Weldon's for the portable DVD player), coloring books and of course we made lots of stops for potty breaks and stretching. :)

One of the highlights of our trip down was a stop in Corvallis to see Shawn's brother and his family. What fun we had hanging out with Jason & Olivia and seeing our neice, Teagan and nephew, T.J. - the kids got to play at a jumping gym (even Shawn & Jason got in on the action). It was the perfect pit stop on our trip - we LOVED hanging out with you guys! The rest of Friday was pretty much a travel day - checking into the hotel at 9:30pm, getting settled in and then heading to bed for some much needed sleep.

Saturday morning we headed over to the healing rooms at Bethel Church. There were about 120+ people there for healing. Because of the numbers of people that come each week to the healing rooms, they have it very organized. We registered, were assigned a group letter (we were in the "H" group), and then proceeded to the sanctuary to spend time in worship and in the presence of the Lord. They had the chairs all moved around the room in small groups and you could sit anywhere you wanted, worship was going on constantly and it was very peaceful but declarative, and in the back they had a section with toddler toys and then a table set up for the older kids with crafts and painting activities. It was very welcoming for both the adults and the kids that were there. For the two hours that we were in the sanctuary waiting for group "H" to be called, we witnessed a lot of people experience healing miracles. There were many people who were either deaf or had significant hearing loss that were healed and received their hearing back. There was a woman who was healed of a severe ankle injury. There was a man & his wife from Montana who had a severe back injury from 30 years ago when a large piece of machinery fell and hit his lower back. He could hardly walk and spent 6-7 hours a day in bed, had had 8 surgeries, been to multiple pain clinics, on lots of pain medicine, etc. As we were in the sanctuary, over about an hour & a half time he went from hardly being able to walk to completely bending over, jumping, running, etc. They brought them up for testimony and he was just praising the Lord and his wife was sobbing as they shared that God had just healed his back - it was amazing! Praise the Lord! It was awesome to witness these miracles taking place all around us - it really built our faith. Group "H" was called at 11:30am and we were taken to a fellowship hall type room where 2-3 people from Bethel's ministry team were praying with each family/couple/individual there for healing. So we waited until Josiah's name was called. Two older gentlemen prayed with us. They introduced themselves, read through our form, asked a few questions about Josiah's situation and then began to pray for him. They also coached us that while we witness some miracles being instantaneous, that some miracles happen progressively. So they coached us on how to continue praying for Josiah which was very encouraging. Lastly, one of the men praying for us felt the Holy Spirit tell him that we were like the story in the Bible (Mark 2:3-12) of the four friends who cut a hole in the roof and lowered their paralytic friend down on a mat so that he could reach Jesus and be healed. He said that we are like those four friends to Josiah, bringing him to the feet of Jesus to be healed and that God would honor our faith. We also attended service on Sunday morning at Bethel and had Josiah prayed for again after the service at the ministry time for physical healing. We very specifically felt the presence of God while Josiah was being prayed for then. Dana also took the opportunity to be prayed for as well for her PCOS (poly-cystic ovary syndrome) and Dara was prayed for as she had burned three fingers earlier that morning on the waffle maker at the hotel's breakfast bar (poor thing!). On the way to church her fingers really started to blister badly despite our efforts to soak them in ice water and she was in a lot of pain. During the ministry time when Dara was prayed for the pain left her fingers and the blistering on her hands was almost completely healed - you could barely tell that she'd had a burn that morning. God did a miracle in her fingers because her burn should have blistered up and been painful for the next week, it's like God just stopped the progression of the burn and healed it - Dara was really excited and we were too - praise the Lord! We left Bethel feeling very encouraged in our faith and in the conviction that God will heal Josiah's back. We are continuing to contend for that healing in our prayers as we look forward to his MRI on Aug 24th.


We headed home on Monday and the trip back was good - not quite as "amazing" as the drive down had been. The kids were tired from the traveling, Josiah had had it with his car seat (how do you tell a 19 month old there's 8 hours of driving left?) and it was time for us all to get home. :) However, we had a wonderful visit with a good friend, Robbin and her kids (including her beautiful new 9 week old little girl). We made it home late Monday night about 10pm and we all crashed. We are SO glad we made the trip but it's always good to be home! It was quite an interesting transition home, although, because we had been in 110-114 degree weather down in Redding and then we came home to a week of 104-110 degree weather here - all week we kept saying how much it felt like we were still in California, crazy! What a relief that it's finally back in the 90's again. :)


Thank you for all of your prayers! We will continue to keep you all updated about Josiah. As a side note, Shawn finished his last shift at Starbucks this weekend - yippee! He begins his new position at Adventist Hospital tomorrow morning. He's SO excited and we are thrilled to have him home with us again every evening.
Love & blessings,
The Klinkners