"Up from here" Chapter 14: Refiners Fire Church
In May of 2007 is when I met Mike and Arlene Sheehan who were involved at the time with a church called the “Refiners Fire Church” of Redding. I was in Caldwell Park praying that the Lord would help me and Feisty find a place to live or even park my van where we both could sleep.
When out of nowhere came these two young people handing out flyers about an event that was going on at Library Park and other locations throughout downtown Redding, California. I decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I walked Feisty back and put her in the van and drove to Library Park to listen to the bands performing. It wasn’t long after I was there that I met Mike and Arlene Sheehan where Mike Sheehan mentioned I could park my van in his backyard. Mike Sheehan even mentioned if I needed I could take a shower too.
I shared with Mike and Arlene Sheehan about my Mom and what I had been through since February 2007 the month Mom passed away. It was nice to meet people who had no idea about my history or past with my family. It was a chance to start over, except it still was in Redding, California where I was sure someone would cross my path from the past sooner or later.
I had just come down from Alturas in May 2007, after my second van a 1994 Voyager had broken down the month before in April 2007 on my way back up to Alturas. I was still taking care of my Mom’s stuff and my stuff that I had in two storage units. Good thing I had another van in Alturas, a 1998 Trans Sports minivan, the only problem was it was in Alturas. The question was how was I going to get back to Alturas now?
I had just got on to 299 E heading to Alturas on I-5 in April 2007 in the 1994 Voyager, when the transmission went out and I had to pull off at the next exit. The night before I spent at a campground with all my computer stuff or my office on wheels as I liked to call it and had made some flyers to hand out and post on the outside of my van. As I have been known to put flyers on my van promoting my latest adventure or event.
Here I was stranded. Thinking to myself as to whom I could think of that I could call, since all the friends I thought were my friends had abandoned me after all the help and things I had done for them when my Mom was alive. The same thing had crossed my mind when it came to my so-called family. The only family member I could think of was my niece Amber Prevost, the only living relative that took the time to drive, not only once but twice to see Mom for a day trip to Alturas, to visit with Mom, but at least she did. She will at least have those memories to carry with her, the same way I will. I have memories and pictures that my brothers and sisters, will never have.
When Mom was alive and I made a trip to Redding I would rent a motel room at Motel 6 (pet friendly) handicap room for one to two days, depending on what I needed to do, while I was in Redding and the purpose of the trip to Redding, other than to pay for a motel room where my sister’s relatives could visit with my Mom. My niece Amber would come to the motel room, after we checked in and pick up Mom, depending on how Mom felt after we first arrived. It would take a little while before Mom would recognize my niece due to Mom’s Dementia and my niece would have to remind Mom, that my niece was her grandchild and Mom would say, “She is? And my niece would say, “Don’t you remember me grandma I am your granddaughter.” And Mom would say; “Now I know who you are you are my granddaughter.”
Then my niece Amber Prevost would take Mom to their house which I was not allowed to know where it was they lived for fear of the hatred they had for me and that I might try and cause them problems if I knew where they lived. I could care less where they lived. Shoot they only took her for the day and evening and could not handle to keep her overnight for fear they would not be able to handle it. And that is shameful, yet it was okay for me to pay for the gas and motel room for them to spend time with Mom in Redding. It is a three-hour drive from Alturas, California to Redding, California.
The main reason they hated me so much was because I had control of Mom’s small income as her (POA) and they hated that I was in control, yet they would not lift a finger to help me or give me a break, other than take her for a few hours and then bring her back at night to the motel room. Where I would have to meet them there if I wasn’t back there already from taking care of my business. I always gave my niece Amber a key to the room in case she needed to get something for Mom when they had her in her care. After their little visit with Mom, they would bring her back to me. My sister Cher Carder and her family were the only ones during this time that I was at least on speaking terms with through my niece Amber. My brothers and their hatred of me that is another situation I will discuss some other time. I am the baby in the birth order except that I have a younger brother and sister back east who grew up with their father in Macon, Georgia. So for those of us who lived in California, I was the youngest, the baby.
I had my dog Feisty, Mom and I to take care of in the motel room and it was not easy due to the fact of trying to keep Mom from wandering off and getting lost due to her Dementia and my dog who if she got out the door would also take off and not come back until she was ready too. Mom would try and open the door not realizing if she did, Feisty might get out and I would have to make a choice, go after Feisty or stay with Mom so she would not wonder off and I would then have two on the loose.
Feisty whines when I leave her alone in the house or in my van, but at the slightest moment where Feisty can get loose, she takes off until she is ready for me to catch her, like a game. I cannot take her off her lease for that very reason. So having Mom with her condition of Dementia and my dog to tend too, I had my hands full.
While I was trying to figure out what to do next or who to call, other than AAA to have them give me a tow to the nearest garage. I looked in the phonebook for transmission shops and I found one. I called AAA and gave them directions to where I was and where I needed to have the van towed too. It was not too long and they picked up the van. Feisty and I jumped in the front seat of the tow truck, as we had no other way to get to the garage otherwise.
When we got to the garage and they had time to check it out, they gave me the bad news. I would need a whole new transmission. That was I all I needed, just my luck. The way it had been going since Mom passed away this was nothing new. First I called my niece Amber Prevost knowing I was going to have to eat crow because of the last message I left on her voice mail blaming everyone in the family for not helping me with Mom. It wasn’t meant for her, but she took it at the time as if it was meant for her. I had no other contact with other family members except through Amber. She laid into me, yelling and screaming at me. I just hung-up and that was the last I tried or even spoke to her. Then I do not recall calling one of Mom’s friend’s at the time, Faith Rogers. Right after I hung up the phone the man behind the counter mentioned to me I had another phone call. At first, I thought it might have been Amber Prevost calling me back. So I picked up the phone and explained to Faith Rogers what my situation was with the broken down van. The only thing since it was not Amber calling me back, the only thing I could think of maybe, Amber called Faith and gave her the number where I was at, to see if Faith could help me, instead.
Faith agreed to come and pick me. I never did ask Faith if my niece Amber had called to have Faith come pick me up. Faith hung up the phone and was on her way to pick me up and it wasn’t long before she arrived. I went to her house to call another friend of mine. Her name was Lanie Bailey and she had helped me with Mom when we first lived in Newell, California, where I met Lanie out in front of the supermarket Jocks, in early October 2003. Then Lanie helped me with Mom after we moved into Tulelake, California from Newell, California in January 2004.
Lanie had a new husband and I met him only once before on the last trip Mom and I made to Redding back in October of 2006. The trip where I bought the 1994 Voyager Van. On the trip that I took Frankie Galli and her kids on, after moving them from Cedarville, California to Alturas, California a few days before. I got to Faiths and asked to use her phone to see if I could locate and get a hold of Lanie to see if she might be able to give me a ride back to Alturas, California to pick up my other van, the 1998 Trans Sports minivan.
I was in luck Allen was in town working and he could pick me up after he got off work and give me a ride to Redd Bluff, California where they were living now. Allen would meet me at the van and he would pick me up from there for the ride to Redd Bluff, California. I could then get my computer and office supplies and take them with me and anything else I would need out of the van for the trip back to Alturas, California. Things were looking up because Lanie and Allen needed to make a trip to Tulelake, California to work on her mobile home where she had when Woffie and Lanie were together, her ex-husband.
I had lunch with Faith Rogers and spent most of the afternoon with her until it was time for Faith to give me a ride back to my van, parked outside of the garage waiting for repairs that I had to figure out how I was going to pay for it. Faith Rogers dropped me off as I waited for Allen to pick me up and it was not too long before Allen showed up for the ride to Redd Bluff, California. We got out the things in the van that I needed, but we had to make one stop along the way and that was at Wal-Mart so Allen could pick up some things for dinner that night to barbeque.
When we finally arrived in Red Bluff, where Lanie and Allen lived, it was a place with a fenced yard with a gate where behind the gate were parked two travel trailers where they lived. There was a big garage warehouse type building where I would be sleeping. It was still a bit nippy at night, so Allen hooked up a heater to keep me warm for the night. I unloaded my computer and set it up with my scanner and printer and went to work designing flyers for when I did get back to Redding in a few days I could pass them out. In fact, before my van broke down I had talked Lanie into helping me hand out flyers too. She went looking for me at the RV park but I had already headed back to Alturas when the van broke down and I had to call her and Allen to come and pick me up.
We left the next morning and headed to Alturas, California to drop me off and for Lanie and Allen to go on from there to Tulelake, California. It was a little bit out of the way for them, but not by much. Along the way I was jabbering a mile a minute and it was getting on Allen’s nerves. Lanie and I were catching up on things that since we had not seen each other in a while. It got to the point that Allen went off and after that, I just settled down and keep my mouth shut for the rest of the trip and ride home.
When we finally did arrive in Alturas, California where my van was parked across the street from Alturas Mini Storage. I drove my van to the storage unit on the outside and pulled up to it and open the lock to show them what I had stored inside and I would show them the other one behind the gate. When Allen and I got into it and I got back in my van, (since I was home now so to speak and drove it to the gate,)I put in the code and drove inside. I didn’t say goodbye or thank you for the ride and I just left them outside the gate, as I was not going to get into an argument with anybody. They went their way and I went mine.
I got a few things out of the storage and headed to Cedar Pass to camp out and to spend the night before going back to Redding the next day. The first thing the next morning I left for Redding, California in the 1998 Trans Sports minivan. That is the same afternoon I met Mike and Arlene Sheehan at the Library Park in downtown Redding, California. People laughed at Feisty and I as she nipped at the back of my feet and barked at me. While dancing and singing to the Praise songs being performed.
When I got to Mike and Arlene Sheehan’s after I helped them pack their stuff up from the event in their jeep. What was interesting is the band that was playing that day, the lead singer I found out later attended and graduated from Simpson College too, like me. Jon Thompson had a Christian band and was the lead singer. It was Redding’s WER1 Band.
We arrived at Mike and Arlene’s where I pulled up to the front gate that leads to his huge backyard that as you drive around there were two older trailer homes parallel of each other, with one heading in one direction, the other heading the other way.
Mike Sheehan showed me where the shower was in the trailer if I wanted to, I could take a shower. Mike Sheehan also said if I wanted to I could sleep in the trailer where the shower was instead of sleeping in my van. I took Mike up on the offer and Feisty and I slept in the trailer after I took a shower. It was late by the time I got to take a shower and Mike and Arlene Sheehan had already said their good nights and how we would see each other in the morning. There was even a phone in the trailer, so if I needed to make any local phone calls, I could with no problem.
Mike Sheehan came up with an idea he wanted to talk over with Rick Bivens, the senior pastor of the Refiners Fire Church that was planning an event at the Redding Convention Center called, “His Fire West Coast Conference 2007” Saturday June 9th and Sunday June 10th. The idea was for me to build the Refiners Fire Church website and it would be a way for me to pick up a few bucks since I was running short and my SSI and Soc Sec had not started back up yet. I applied to reactivate it back in March and here it was April and still no money yet from them. I did it on one of the trips I made to Redding when I was dealing with the final arrangements for Mom’s Memorial Service, which was canceled and never happened.
My brothers and sister, nothing changed for them. They still had their same jobs, houses, and life. They only lost a mother, I had to start over after giving eights years of my life for my Mom.
Mike Sheehan talked to Rick Bivens and he agreed it would be a great idea and they needed a website for his church and the church would pay me to do it. I needed the money as I was almost broke and all my credit cards had been pushed to their limits. Mike set it up so I could use the trailer to set up my office on wheels inside the trailer. All we needed was a phone line and Internet service. Which Mike and I both set up. I put everything in the back bedroom, as this was an older trailer with two bedrooms. The kind where you had to walk down the hallway through one of the bedrooms. Starting from the living room to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the middle bedroom, through the bathroom to the back bedroom. The living room and the back bed-room both had doors on them that went outside. In the bedroom in the back I set it up so Feisty could be on the cable in the little-fenced yard, so she did have to get stuck inside with me all the time and she could have somewhere to play and run.
Mike Sheehan wanted to rent the trailer to me for $400.00 utilities included, because the last tenant had moved out and left owing him rent and left her belongings behind from clothes, dishes, to knick-knacks. At the time I did not have an income so I did want to commit to something I was not sure I could afford. In the meantime, I went on with setting up the office bedroom to start working and building the website for Refiners Fire Church.
There seemed to be a constant struggle between Mike and Rick on things revolving Church business and I kept my distance and out of it as much as possible. Pastor Nelson from Kenya, South Africa was a visiting pastor to help Rick promote “His Fire West Coast Conference 2007” by making trips to Sacramento with the Kenyans that were invited to come up to the Conference. Then there was the “Cloud of Glory Band” out of Oregon that would be coming to perform and preach on one of the days scheduled in the Convention Center in Redding, California in June 2007.
I was all over the place, as usual in the state of manic I was in at the time. From driving to Alturas, California, stopping to place flyers on bulletin boards along the way between Alturas, California and Redding, California and even one trip I made to Chico, California, when Rick called me on my cell phone and wanted to know where I was at, that he might have a small trailer in the Mobile Home Park where he was the manager of the Park Villa Estates Mobile Home Park on Lake Blvd in Redding, California.
I would stop in Burney Falls, California sometimes and have dinner at a church there or stop at the library there to check my email and reply and send emails to Mike, Rick and Jon to try and keep in touch because I had a Trac Fone, the kind that you pre-pay for the minutes for your cell time.
It was like this throughout the rest of May until at the end of the Month, Jon had an event set up that I volunteered to help out with their set up with the WER1 Band at the Anderson, California River Park. I went there to help out, broke and nothing to eat. If Rick had not brought some chicken and pick nick food, I would not have had anything to eat that day and I felt like I was a bum and a beggar that day and me and Feisty with nothing to eat.
Jon Thompson liked all the help I gave him that day when I was helping to set up cables for the sound equipment for the microphones, speakers, and guitars to plug into. Jon wanted to know if I was interested helping his group at the Fair coming up in mid-June by volunteering to be a parking attendant to help pay off the debt for the new sound equipment. I did not think it would be possible because the Fair does not allow dogs and it would be too hot out there to keep Feisty locked inside my van. So I had to turn it down as I had no one to leave Feisty with or anyone that would want to keep an eye on her or watch her for that amount of time that it would take for me to help out at the Fair.
“His Fire West Coast Conference 2007” the first day had finally arrived and I found a place to park underneath a shade tree so when I went inside to help out with the event I could come back and forth to let Feisty out for a break out of the van and give her a walk and then put her back in and go back inside again. This is how I would do it for the two days of the event.
It was nice to start out with a big free breakfast; I even took some bacon and sausages for Feisty to eat. At least I was full with a full stomach for the first part of the first day of the event. There was a band set up in the amphitheater. There was a problem that came up with one of the events where they had run out of money for gas and Mike gave them all the donations in the jar for the water that was donated to be sold to raise money for the event as the “His Fire West Coast Conference 2007” was a free event, there was no cover charge to come. They accepted donations only and sold the water bottles to generated money to cover the event.
After Rick Bivens found out what Mike Sheehan had done, as Rick Bivens referred to it as being “God’s Money” to a band as gas money for their trip to the event. Mike Sheehan was on the bottom of the list and was left out of the meetings and other things that Mike Sheehan at one time was part of, plus when it came to giving credit at the end of the event Mike and Arlene Sheehan were left off the credit list and so was I because Rick felt the website was a commercial thing and he did not want to give credit to anything commercial. In fact, the “Cloud of Glory Band” was not allowed to sell their wares in the lobby for the very same reasons. Rick Bivens is like that when it comes to religion and his way of believing, but not everyone always agreed with his way of thinking. Even when people suggested his sermons were much too long, or if someone got up and left during one of them he would try and embarrass them because of it in HIS church. Even if they needed to get a drink of water or go to the restroom he wanted everyone to hear his message and did not want them to miss any of it, by taking care of their personal problems from being thirsty to go to the restroom with his two and half hour sermons.
After the “His Fire West Coast Conference 2007” many people started to leave the Refiners Fire Church and go their different directions. I stayed off and on in the trailer at Mike and Arlene Sheehan’s until Mike got me in touch with his friend Locke and I moved to a little cottage in Bella Vista in July of 2007.
Egotism
Egotism is the motivation to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself. Egotism means placing oneself at the center of one's world with no direct concern for others. It is closely related to narcissism, or "loving one's self," and the possible tendency to speak or write of oneself boastfully and at great length. Egotism may coexist with delusions of one's own importance, even at the denial of others. This conceit is a character trait describing a person who acts to gain values in an amount excessively greater than that which he/she gives to others. Egotism is often accomplished by exploiting the altruism, irrationality, and ignorance of others, as well as utilizing coercive force and/or fraud.
Egotism differs from both altruism or acting to gain fewer values that are being given, and egoism, the belief that gaining more values than given is permissible. Various forms of "empirical egoism" can be consistent with egotism, as long as the value of one's own self-benefit is entirely individual.
Egotism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at https://www.wikipedia.org/
History of Religion in the United States From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at https://www.wikipedia.org/
The religious history of the United States begins more than a century before the former British colonies became the United States of America in 1776.
Some of the original settlers were men and women of deep religious convictions. The religious intensity of the original settlers diminished to some extent over time but new waves of 18th-century immigrants brought their own religious fervor across the Atlantic. In addition, the nation's first major religious revival in the middle of the eighteenth century injected new vigor into American religion.
The result was that many of the people who rose in rebellion against Great Britain in 1776 cited reasons of a religious nature for their actions, and most American statesmen, when they began to form new governments at the state and national levels, shared a conviction that religion was, to quote Alexis de Tocqueville's observation, "indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions".
The efforts of the Founding Fathers to find a proper role for their support of religion—and the degree to which religion can be supported by public officials without being inconsistent with the revolutionary imperative of separation of church and state—is a question that is still debated in the country today.
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