Daily News & Testimonies
Sally: So, quite truthfully, I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for my sections of speaking and worship for the Something Beautiful conference. And almost no time for the Sunday morning service. I was somewhere between hoping and trusting God would give me everything I needed in the moment, and He did!
Dave: Around 11:30 pm on Friday I was thinking about Saturday’s duties and I started feeling a little overwhelmed. I felt that way in part, because I was tired in the moment and I was concerned about my knee and back pain. So when I thought about Saturday I thought it would be an all-day pain-fest. But God is good. I was able to help in the kitchen. Some accommodations were made. I was able to do more than I thought I could. I started to really enjoy myself as I helped in the kitchen. It all built up to the moment we actually got to serve the ladies. I really felt God’s grace to serve the women wholeheartedly. It felt like that was a birthday present from God to me, and I was totally thankful.
Yara: Saturday was the womens conference and I was very nervous about speaking. But Rita encouraged me the night before. God used her to speak to me about what I was going to share there. I am very uncomfortable about speaking. I prefer to remain behind the scenes. But I know God helped me yesterday and have me the words to speak. And I want to thank my prayer partners, especially my dad who messaged me an hour before I spoke, to encourage me and to tell me he was praying For me. He said, “Just open your mouth and let God speak through you.”
Note: This is the final report from me (Michael) on the Paradise ATOR mission. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve as your tour guide and part time comic relief. For those of you who have enjoyed the ride I’d like to ask a favor. We at Improbable People Ministries started a blog about a year ago. We stopped for around six months because it was hard to keep up the pace. So what we’ve decided to do is cut back the posts to one or two per week and re-launch From Here To Eternity: Spirited Musings From An Improbable Family. We’ll be rebooting in about a week.
The content is often spiritual but always spirited. We try to steer clear of politics, but other “non-God” topics can be fair game. An here’s the fun twist: The entire O’Connor clan–all five of us including Sally, Michael, Dusty, Bonnie and Shannon, though we are spread across the country now we, who are all writers, come together and share the good, the bad and especially the funny from our own unique perspectives.
Anyway, the favor is if you enjoyed our sensibilities here in these updates perhaps you will give our blog a try. All you need to do is wander over to the upper right hand column of this page to where it says Subscribe. Just give us your name and email. Whenever we make a post we’ll send you an email with a link directly to that current story. If you’re not sure if this is your thing I encourage you to look to the right column again for the Categories section where you can sample archived work from each of us. Unsubscribing is easy too. So why not give us a try? We promise to never give or sell your private information to anyone. Thanks very much for considering this.
And thank you for your faithful prayer support for A tour Of roses, Paradise. May God bless each of you.
–Michael O’Connor
FRONT (L to R): Raul, Mallory, Sally, Stephanie, Rita
Middle: Yara, Joan, Heather, Randy
Back: Dave, Gary, Sam, Jurgen, Jaden
Bonus Pictures
Here are some shots that never found their way into the daily prayer updates. A special shout out to Yara Panther who, in addition to serving as the women’s pastor for the team, provided 95% of the photos you have enjoyed from Paradise.
ATOR Itinerary
2/10 – Monday
Joan departs Sacramento Airport @ 12:45PM on Delta Airlines Flight# 3654 and arrives in LAX @ 2:20PM. Departs LAX @ 3:50 on Delta Flight #1005 and arrives @ St. Paul, MN @ 8:49PM. Departs St. Paul @10:41PM on Flight #2650 and arrives in Winnipeg @ 12:15AM, Tuesday
Jurgen is leaving on Monday (not Tuesday) @ 7:35PM from Sacramento to LAX nd then onto MN and from there to International Falls and Fort Frances.
2/11 – Tuesday
Mallory departs LAX on Delta @ 1:50PM and arrives back in Phoenix @ 4:22PM.
Congratulations, ATOR Team! I really enjoyed reading all the sharings and encounters, even though it has taken me several weeks to read them all….Special shout-out to Stephanie, Good to see you in this ministry!
…As I shared in the beginning post, I forwarded this email to my cousin in Texas as she and her minister husband raised their family in Paradise during the 90s. Their eldest daughter in Paso Robles still had contact with her home-school friend in Paradise (her home was lost)…My cousin wrote back to thank me, maybe she will recognize someone in a photo!
Please keep Joe and I on your subscriber list, God bless!
Be blessed, Francesca