June 24, 2001

Dear Friends of the Arensmeiers,

        For starters, we have not sent out such an item for entirely too long.  A number of reasons would include our having resigned from the position of senior pastor of the Fourth Street Church of God in November 2000, after an enjoyable seven years.  A change was in order and I was privileged to serve there through the end of December.

        In January 2001, Tim started serving the Sonoma Valley Community Church as their Interim Pastor.  That is a Reformed Church in America (the old Dutch Reformed Church).

        On June 24, the vote was that Tim should become their pastor, dropping the “interim” designation.   We’re delighted and honored to be asked to serve this church!  Naturally, this means that we’ll be moving again!  Surprise?

        Sonoma, California, is north of the San Francisco Bay Area, by 45 minutes, and is the city where our oldest daughter, Shireen Ellis lives with her husband ‘n three sons (15, 12 & 8).

        As Sonoma is ridiculously expensive, and the church is small, Tim will be a “bi-vocational” pastor, as are most pastors in Sonoma.  This means that once again Tim will have the opportunity to do what he loves and enjoys so much in addition to pastoring:  he will head up the Bay Area Christian Conciliation Service, Inc. (CCS).  This is an Alternative Dispute Resolution service for churchmen of all persuasions, in which we have worked for more than 20 years.

        The CCS already has an interested group of attorneys and business people desirous of again seeing it available.  It will take a little while and some effort to activate the ministry.  In the meantime, it remains a legal entity and still exists as a “501(c)3" tax-exempt corporation.  “Your gifts ‘n contributions are valued and appreciated.”  Seriously, it will take some “seed money” to make it fully functional again.

        Another prayer request sequence would be that we can sell our home in Madera, hopefully not at a loss as we experienced that when moving here from Marin County in 1994.  Of course, moving to the Sonoma area will require finding suitable housing, and work for Jan as this will be a stretching experience for both of us.  But, we’ll be together! (Subsequently, we did sell our 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath home . . . for $118,000. Same place in Sonoma would be $680,000. And, we made money on the deal: $68.86!!)

        Your prayers are truly needed.  We value the opportunity to trust God to do what for us appears to be utterly impossible!  Then again, the children of Israel felt that way when facing the Red Sea, knowing that Pharaoh and his army were hot on their trail.

        We will work at keeping you posted, both personally, as well as via our web site.  Please feel free to check there occasionally as we attempt to keep friends somewhat current that way.  Also, we do respond to all personal messages, sent via the Internet, or “snail-mail.”

              Yours, In Christ, anticipating His blessings,

                   Tim ‘n Jan

Arensmeier Web Site

P.S.:  (Effective November 2001) Jan is working for Kaiser Permanente in San Rafael, California, where we had lived prior to our move to Madera just seven years ago.  The $76,000.00 house we bought in 1988 (for which we had to pay $386,000.00. . .) recently sold for over $900,000.00, just to let you know that we didn't necessarily make the best moves financially which have ever been made, but . . . all this, too, is in the Lord's hands.  Right?  Right!  Jan's commute will be approximately 30 minutes and it is amazingly beautiful!

If you'd like to know our address, phone number, etc., just ask, by clicking on:  What are they?

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