Podcasts about Hillsboro

Gentry Wigginton | 02.22.26 | ethoschurch.org

February 22 through 28, 2026, is Engineers Week. The commemoration was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers to celebrate how engineering shapes our world, inspire the next generation of innovators, and strengthen connections between engineers, students, and communities. Engineering is one of those professions that can seem daunting, but with early exposure to science, technology, engineering, and math activities, an invitation to participate, and encouragement along the way, students can gain the interest and confidence they need to pursue engineering and other STEM-related careers in the future. Did you know that engaging your child in even simple process design tasks like setting up dominos in such a way that they will all fall in sequence once the first is pushed, is an example of engineering design? Asking them questions about what might happen if the dominos were spaced farther apart or if an object was placed in the middle of the arrangement, having them test their theories, and then make adjustments engages their critical thinking abilities and shows them they have what it takes to complete fun, inquiry-based activities. HSD exposes students to engineering careers through elementary career kits, middle school electives, and Career and College Pathways options at our high schools, in addition to career exploration events, guest speakers, classroom volunteers, and more. One of our primary partners in this work is the Portland Metro STEM Partnership - one of 13 STEM Hubs in Oregon that connect schools, districts, educators, community-based organizations, industry, and government organizations to promote STEM learning. Through PSMP, we receive professional development, curriculum and curriculum support, STEAM programming support, and much more. Check out their latest informational video that features our own Mykle Rojas, principal of Imlay Elementary School, on our website.  For fun engineering projects you can do at home or with your students, visit Discover Engineering's activities website. Our featured event is Farmington View Elementary School's third annual Multicultural Family Night. The event took place shortly before winter break and was a huge success! More than 300 people attended and multiple countries and cultures were represented, including Norway, Mexico, Australia, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Brazil, and many more. Every classroom performed a song based on the culture their class studied and there was even a performance by Farmington View's own Baile Folklórico group. Several families set up tables to display things that are important and special to them and representative of their cultural heritage. Many thanks to everyone who participated!Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

Our high school drama clubs have been hard at work preparing for fabulous spring plays! Please mark your calendars and support their tremendous efforts:Glencoe Theater + Film presents Suite Surrender on February 20, 21, 26, 27, and 28. They also invite you to Murder Mystery 14 on April 24 and 25, Spotlight 2026 on May 7 and 8, Film Festival on May 27, and Theater Showcase on May 28. All showtimes are 7:30 p.m.Hilhi Theatre performs Urinetown The Musical on March 6, 7, 13, and 14 at 7 p.m., with matinee performances March 7 and 14 at 2 p.m. Liberty Theatre brings you The Music Man on March 13, 14, 20, and 21 at 7 p.m., and March 21 at 2 p.m.Century High School thespians are putting together a program that will include a series of one-act plays, each one directed, cast, and set-designed by students. Date and showtime to be announced soon - stay tuned!Visit our website for plot synopses, ticket prices, and more!Our featured event is our fabulous Black History Month celebration that was held at South Meadows Middle School on Thursday, February 5. This year marked the 100th that Black History has been officially commemorated – 50 years as Black History Week and 50 years as Black History Month – and HSD focused on the importance of music throughout the years. There was a DJ playing a variety of Black-inspired, created, and produced music; a video montage on the influence of Black artists on the blues, jazz, country, and rock music; a performance by Mooberry students led by their music teacher, Regan Geiger; and a demonstration of the famous Lindy Hop dance style that originated in Harlem in the late 1920s and 1930s. Students, staff, families, and community members alike gathered to browse and shop the wares of student and adult vendors, complete kids' crafts, select a free children's book, enjoy food, and more. We are very grateful to our Black Village Family Advisory Committee, Black Student Unions, staff, and others who collaborated to make this event a success. You make us Proud to be HSD!Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

If you woke up today thinking, “Wow, I hope my neighbors don't solve disputes with a hammer,” congratulations — you're already ahead of Hillsboro.On today's episode of The Rizzuto Show, your favorite comedy podcast dives headfirst into a buffet of local chaos, celebrity controversy, and just enough heartfelt nostalgia to make you question your emotional stability.We kick things off in the Central West End where a 58-year-old man allegedly went on a full naked rampage in a high-end apartment building. Elevators were involved. Statues worth $500K were harmed. Security guards saw things they cannot unsee. This comedy podcast breaks down the entire “Friday the 13th but make it STL” moment and asks the important question: how does one man cause a million dollars in damage without pants?Then we pivot to Wash Ave, where a repeat offender made some very poor life choices less than two weeks after getting out of jail. We discuss personal recognizance bonds, public safety, and why “can't stop, won't stop” should not apply in this context.From there? Neighborhood drama escalates into full-on hammer justice in Hillsboro. A dad confronts another dad about bullying… and ends up facing first-degree assault charges. Conflict resolution tip from this comedy podcast: maybe try literally anything else first.We also honor the passing of Blueberry Hill co-founder Linda Edwards and reflect on what she meant to The Delmar Loop and St. Louis culture. It's heartfelt. It's nostalgic. It's the one moment in today's comedy podcast where we don't roast someone.Then it's Crap On Celebrities time — and we get into the uncomfortable but fascinating world of celebrities who somehow survived cancellation. From Snoop Dogg's glow-up to Mark Wahlberg's past, Vince Neil's history, Mike Tyson's comeback, and the wildly inconsistent court of public opinion — we break down who gets forgiven and why.Plus:Shia LaBeouf spotted at Mardi GrasJustin Timberlake allegedly on a “no boys night” leashAI lawsuits coming for HollywoodSantana & The Doobie Brothers blessing STLAnd Moon trying to explain tech business strategy while we slowly age in real timeIt's another beautifully unhinged installment of your favorite comedy podcast — daily chaos, sarcastic humor, pop culture commentary, and St. Louis stories that make you grateful for your relatively normal apartment building.Follow The Rizzuto Show → https://linktr.ee/rizzshow for more from your favorite daily comedy show.Connect with The Rizzuto Show Comedy Podcast online → https://1057thepoint.com/RizzShow.Hear The Rizz Show daily on the radio at 105.7 The Point | Hubbard Radio in St. Louis, MO.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's episode of The Rizzuto Show is what happens when a daily comedy show collides with real life and nobody wears pants (literally).We kick things off with a full-blown airline etiquette debate after a flight armrest standoff turns into a larger discussion about personal responsibility, panic disorders, and whether Southwest dropped the ball harder than your carry-on in turbulence. It's a surprisingly thoughtful debate… for about six minutes. Then we spiral. Because that's what a daily comedy show is supposed to do.From there? Buckle up.We've got a 58-year-old man going full naked rampage in a high-end West Pine apartment building, smashing million-dollar statues and trying to recruit unwilling participants. STL weird news strikes again. Then there's a repeat offender who just will not stop exposing himself — even when police literally try to pull his pants up for him. You can't make this stuff up, and we wouldn't if we tried.Neighborhood drama? Oh, we got that too. A Hillsboro dad decides the appropriate way to handle a bullying dispute is with a hammer. Yes. A hammer. Not a conversation. Not a strongly worded email. A hammer. Conflict resolution level: medieval.But it's not all chaos. We also pause to honor Linda Edwards of Blueberry Hill — a true Saint Louis creative force who helped shape the Delmar Loop's iconic vibe. It's heartfelt, nostalgic, and then somehow transitions into allergy shot support groups and BJC waiting room perspective checks.Because this is The Rizzuto Show. A daily comedy show that can go from heartfelt tribute to “are butterflies and bees friends?” in under 90 seconds.And then… portals open.It's the Year of the Fire Horse. Lunar New Year. Solar eclipse. Age of Aquarius. Three portals. 72 hours. Big reset energy. Whether you believe in cosmic destiny or just believe in dumb hypotheticals about whether it's better to look smart or be smart — we unpack it all.This episode has:STL crime chaosWeird neighbor fightsAirline lawsuitsMental health debatesAllergy shot war storiesA philosophical crisis about being a dumbassAnd at least one reference to Mississippi self-defense lawIt's messy. It's thoughtful. It's hilarious. It's peak Rizz and the gang.Welcome to your new favorite daily comedy show.Follow The Rizzuto Show → https://linktr.ee/rizzshow for more from your favorite daily comedy show.Connect with The Rizzuto Show Comedy Podcast online → https://1057thepoint.com/RizzShow.Hear The Rizz Show daily on the radio at 105.7 The Point | Hubbard Radio in St. Louis, MO.How to Watch the 'Ring of Fire' Annular Solar Eclipse This Week2026 Year of the Fire Horse: Lunar New Year horoscopes for every zodiac signNaked man torments guard, tenant at Central West End apartmentsMan arrested for lewd act downtown months after school incidentMan jailed after striking neighbor in the face with hammerBlueberry Hill co-founder Linda Kennedy Edwards diesWheelchair User with Severe Anxiety Disorder Sues Southwest for Allegedly Abandoning Her in Airport BathroomSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sam Liu | 02.15.26 | ethoschurch.org

We're less than a week away from the basketball playoffs. What are the special ingredients you need to make a deep postseason run, and which Centex teams have them?Is there a softball program out there that you think is flying under the radar and could be on a rise? Teams are just getting underway this season.Hillsboro has a new head football coach in Leeland Hamilton, who boasts both D-I and NFL experience. Do you think he'll be able to turn the Eagles into a consistent winner?It's the week after the Super Bowl: If you came up with an a team of all former Texas high school football players, how many Super Bowls would that team win? And who's your dream halftime performer?------Music: https://www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Febrero es el Mes Nacional de la Educación Técnica Profesional (CTE, por sus siglas en inglés), una campaña anual de concientización pública patrocinada por la Asociación para la Educación Técnica Profesional que nos invita a celebrar el valor de la educación técnica y los logros de los programas y educadores de CTE en todo el país. Aquí en Hillsboro, tenemos mucho que celebrar mientras continuamos ampliando y mejorando las oportunidades para los estudiantes a través de nuestros sólidos programas de CTE y de Caminos a la Profesión y a la Universidad.En HSD, nuestros 36 ofrecimientos de CTE forman parte del programa Caminos a la Profesión y a la Universidad, el cual cuenta con 65 opciones en todo el distrito a nivel de escuela preparatoria. Estas oportunidades académicas brindan a los estudiantes experiencias de aprendizaje práctico que los conectan con profesiones de alta demanda en más de 13 sectores de la industria. Además, este programa apoya a los estudiantes de los grados K-12 mediante iniciativas específicas de exploración profesional y planificación postsecundaria, asegurándonos de que cada estudiante cuente con los conocimientos y las destrezas necesarias para tomar decisiones informadas sobre su futuro.Este mes, reconocemos con orgullo las contribuciones de nuestros 48 dedicados educadores de CTE, cuyo papel fundamental en la formación de nuestros estudiantes es invaluable. A través de un aprendizaje dinámico y orientado a la profesión, nuestros educadores ayudan a reducir la brecha de destrezas, fomentar la innovación y empoderar a los estudiantes para que exploren sus intereses, a la vez que construyen una base sólida para su éxito postsecundario.¡Acompáñenos para celebrar el increíble trabajo de nuestros educadores de CTE y las oportunidades que brindan a los estudiantes de todo el Distrito Escolar de Hillsboro!Para obtener más información sobre CTE y el Programa Caminos a la Profesión y a la Universidad disponibles en HSD, por favor visite hsd.k12.or.us/ccp.Nuestros estudiantes destacados son los equipos de bolos femeniles de las escuelas preparatorias que se han clasificado para el Campeonato estatal de escuelas preparatorias. En el torneo entre distritos realizado el fin de semana del 24 de enero, las deportistas de Hilhi además de interpretar el Himno Nacional, obtuvieron el cuarto puesto en la clasificación general, clasificándose para el campeonato estatal por tercer año consecutivo. El equipo combinado de Forest Grove y la Escuela Preparatoria Liberty obtuvo el primer puesto y el equipo de Glencoe, el segundo. Las deportistas de Century, que compiten en un equipo combinado con Aloha, quedaron en quinto lugar y perdieron por muy poco la oportunidad de clasificar a la postemporada. La entrenadora de Hilhi, Sandi Ferretti, expresó su gran orgullo por todos los equipos de nuestro distrito escolar. «Nuestros clubes de bolos comienzan en otoño y practican de octubre a febrero. ¡Nos encantaría ver a más deportistas participar! Todas participan animándose mutuamente y han creado conexiones increíbles, incluso cuando están compitiendo entre ellas». El torneo estatal se llevará a cabo en Park Lanes en Hillsboro, los días 28 de febrero y 1 de marzo. ¡Les deseamos la mejor de las suertes a nuestras jugadoras de bolos de HSD!No habrá clases para todos los estudiantes el lunes, 16 de febrero, en conmemoración del Día de los Presidentes. Las clases se reanudarán el martes, 17 de febrero.La asignación de los fondos se aprobó durante una ⁠⁠⁠⁠sesión especial de trabajo⁠⁠⁠⁠ del ayuntamiento realizada el lunes, 24 de noviembre de 2025.Noticias de Última Hora se publica y se envía por correo electrónico a las familias y al personal del HSD cada semana de clases. Por favor, añada la dirección a su lista de remitentes seguros para asegurarse de recibir siempre la edición más reciente. También guarde en sus favoritos el sitio web de nuestro distrito: www.hsd.k12.or.us

Joshua Solowey | 02.08.26 | ethoschurch.org

February is National Career and Technical Education - or CTE - Month, an annual public awareness campaign sponsored by the Association for Career and Technical Education, which encourages us to celebrate the value of CTE and the achievements of CTE programs and educators across the nation. Here in Hillsboro, we have much to celebrate as we continue to expand and enhance opportunities for students through our robust CTE and Career and College Pathway programs.In HSD, our 36 CTE programs are an integral part of our larger Career and College Pathway system, which offers 65 programs across the district at the high school level. These programs provide students with hands-on learning experiences that connect them to high-demand careers in more than 13 industry sectors. Additionally, our Career and College Pathway system supports students K-12 through targeted career exploration and postsecondary planning initiatives, ensuring every student is equipped with the knowledge and skills to make informed decisions about their future.This month, we proudly recognize the contributions of our 48 dedicated CTE educators, whose pivotal role in shaping our students' futures cannot be overstated. Through engaging, career-connected learning, our educators help bridge the skills gap, foster innovation, and empower students to explore their passions while building a strong foundation for their postsecondary success.Join us in celebrating the incredible work of our CTE educators and the opportunities they provide to students throughout Hillsboro School District!To learn more about CTE and Career & College Pathways in HSD, please visit hsd.k12.or.us/ccp.  Our featured students are on our high school girls Bowling teams that have qualified for the State High School Championships! At the district tournament held the weekend of January 24, the Hilhi girls performed the National Anthem and placed 4th overall - qualifying for State for the third year in a row. The combined Forest Grove/Liberty High School team took first, and Glencoe's team took 2nd. Century girls, who compete on a combined team with Aloha, took 5th and just missed a chance to qualify for post-season play. Hilhi coach Sandi Ferretti expressed great pride for all our HSD teams and said: “Our Bowling clubs rush in the fall and go from October to February. We'd love to see more girls participate! They are all down there encouraging each other and have made some amazing connections, even though they are competing with each other.” The State tournament takes place at Park Lanes in Hillsboro on February 28 and March 1. Best of luck to our HSD bowlers!There will be no school on Monday, February 16, in honor of Presidents Day. School resumes for all students on Tuesday, February 17. Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

As we enter another season of prayer and fasting with Awaken, Joshua Solowey sits down for a discussion on intercessory prayer with Dave Clayton and Cory and Jenn Barnett.

El Departamento de Educación de Oregón publicó las tasas de graduación de 2025 el jueves 29 de enero. Los estudiantes del Distrito Escolar de Hillsboro alcanzaron un hito notable en 2025, con un 90.43 % de los estudiantes del grado 12 graduándose dentro de los cuatro años posteriores a su ingreso inicial a la escuela preparatoria. Esta es la primera vez desde que el estado de Oregón comenzó a utilizar el método de cálculo de la tasa de graduación por grupo en el año escolar 2008-2009 que el promedio del distrito supera el 90 %. Tres de las cinco escuelas preparatorias del distrito registraron tasas individuales superiores al 90 %: Century, Glencoe y Liberty. La Academia en Línea de Hillsboro alcanzó la tasa más alta de su historia, y Hilhi logró su segunda más alta. La tasa de graduación del distrito es 7.41 puntos porcentuales superior al promedio estatal y 2.88 puntos porcentuales mayor que la tasa del año pasado, que fue del 87.55 %.Se observaron avances significativos en las tasas de graduación de estudiantes con discapacidades, estudiantes en situación de pobreza, estudiantes de razas/etnias desatendidas, estudiantes que en algún momento estuvieron en el programa EL y estudiantes que se identifican como hispanos/latinos y afroamericanos, lo cual se alinea con la prioridad estratégica del distrito de ayudar a que los estudiantes alcancen el éxito sin que este sea predecible ni predeterminado por su origen racial o étnico o cualquier otra identidad. Puede obtener información adicional en nuestro sitio web.Nuestro video destacado es del superintendente Reiman, un videomensaje para el segundo semestre donde agradece a los estudiantes, los miembros del personal, las familias y los miembros de la comunidad por una sólida y exitosa primera mitad del año escolar y comparte anuncios importantes sobre la breve sesión legislativa, las reducciones presupuestarias anticipadas en 2026-27, nuestro proceso de desarrollo del bono de 2026 y un recordatorio recalcando que las escuelas de HSD son espacios seguros e inclusivos para todos los estudiantes. Vea el video en nuestro sitio web.La asignación de los fondos se aprobó durante una ⁠⁠⁠sesión especial de trabajo⁠⁠⁠ del ayuntamiento realizada el lunes, 24 de noviembre de 2025.Noticias de Última Hora se publica y se envía por correo electrónico a las familias y al personal del HSD cada semana de clases. Por favor, añada la dirección a su lista de remitentes seguros para asegurarse de recibir siempre la edición más reciente. También guarde en sus favoritos el sitio web de nuestro distrito: www.hsd.k12.or.us

The Oregon Department of Education released 2025 graduation rates on Thursday, January 29, and Hillsboro School District students reached an impressive milestone with 90.43 percent of high school seniors graduating within four years of their first entry into high school. This marks the first time since Oregon began using the cohort graduation rate calculation method in 2008-09 that the district average has been above 90 percent. Three of the district's five high schools had individual rates above 90 percent: Century, Glencoe, and Liberty. Hillsboro Online Academy reached its highest rate ever, and Hilhi achieved its second-highest rate. The District's graduation rate is 7.41 percentage points higher than the state average, and 2.88 percentage points higher than last year's rate of 87.55%. Notable gains were seen in the graduation rates of Students with Disabilities, Students Experiencing Poverty, Students from Underserved Races/Ethnicities, Ever English Learners, and students identifying as Hispanic/Latino and Black, which aligns with the District's strategic priority to help students achieve success that is not predictable or predetermined by their race, ethnicity, or any other identities. Learn more on our website. Our featured video is from Superintendent Reiman as he delivers his second semester address. In it, the superintendent thanks students, staff, families, and community members for a strong and successful first half of the year and shares important messages about the short legislative session, anticipated budget reductions in 2026-27, our 2026 bond development process, and a reminder that HSD schools are safe and inclusive spaces for all students. View the three-and-a-half-minute video on our website. Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

Rusty Halvorson and Sarah Heinrich share some of the week's top stories in agriculture from around the region.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Looking for a winter car fix without a long road trip? We map out a string of Texas car museums that punch above their weight, from Austin's rock-and-roll-infused collection to the Hillsboro time capsule and Woody's Classic Cars and Baseball Museum. The highlight is the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum's Chaparral Gallery, where engineering legends meet live demonstrations that keep these racers in motion, not mothballed. We wrap the route with Bill's Backyard Classics in Amarillo—a grassroots trove of hot rods, muscle, and trucks that feels personal and welcoming.Then we slide behind the wheel of the 2026 Lincoln Aviator Black Label. Think clean, American luxury with modern lighting, rich leather, and a ride that floats without losing composure. The twin-turbo V6 serves smooth, V8-like thrust, but we press on two fronts: efficiency that begs for a hybrid and driver-assist features that demand constant attention. We talk usability, eye-on-road alerts, and why partial automation should reduce cognitive load, not raise it. Pricing and rivals like the MDX, GX, and XC90 help frame where the Aviator shines and where it needs polish.Ownership realities get real with a concise recall roundup across brands—airbags, cameras, battery cables, and more—followed by a tour of the market's mood via Hemmings sold prices. From a budget-friendly C4 Corvette to a premium 1959 Cadillac 62, a sleeper Studebaker pickup, and a surprisingly strong Firebird, we unpack what drives value: condition, taste, and story. Local cruise-ins and Monster Jam bring the community energy, while two trends shape the future: dealers reconditioning older, higher-mileage cars to address affordability, and modern salvage networks that make parts sourcing smarter and faster. We close with Honda's new minimalist logo for its electrified era—a small emblem with big signaling power.If you love car culture that stretches from museum halls to test-track impressions and neighborhood meets, you're in the right garage. Subscribe, share with a fellow enthusiast, and leave a review to tell us which segment you want more of next.Be sure to subscribe for more In Wheel Time Car Talk!The Lupe' Tortilla RestaurantsLupe Tortilla in Katy, Texas Gulf Coast Auto ShieldPaint protection, tint, and more!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.---- ----- Want more In Wheel Time car talk any time? In Wheel Time is now available on Audacy! Just go to Audacy.com/InWheelTime where ever you are.----- -----Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast provider for the next episode of In Wheel Time Podcast and check out our live multiplatform broadcast every Saturday, 10a - 12nCT simulcasting on Audacy, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and InWheelTime.com.In Wheel Time Podcast can be heard on you mobile device from providers such as:Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music Podcast, Spotify, SiriusXM Podcast, iHeartRadio podcast, TuneIn + Alexa, Podcast Addict, Castro, Castbox, YouTube Podcast and more on your mobile device.Follow InWheelTime.com for the latest updates!Twitter: https://twitter.com/InWheelTimeInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/inwheeltime/https://www.youtube.com/inwheeltimehttps://www.Facebook.com/InWheelTimeFor more information about In Wheel Time Podcast, email us at info@inwheeltime.com

February is Black History Month - an annual celebration of life stories, achievements, and triumphs by Black/African/African Americans, and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Black History Month celebrates the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that help shape our country's history, present, and future. It is an opportunity to reflect on how the contributions of Black/African/African American people impact our everyday lives. And while we do study and celebrate the diversity and contributions of Black/African/African Americans during this time, these conversations and lessons are not limited to the month of February - they take place throughout the entire year. When our students' diversity is appreciated and visible, they all thrive from learning about one another. It's never too early to begin celebrating and teaching your child about Black leaders. Even more importantly, to allow the stories of these leaders to inspire the leadership capacities within your child. Participate in the Black History events, celebrations, and learning opportunities that are scheduled in your community. Ask your child and the staff about the activities and commemorations taking place in their school. Watch videos, read books, and engage with people that represent Black/African/African American heritage and culture. Also, please plan to attend our district-wide Black History Celebration on Thursday, February 5, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at South Meadows Middle School. This year marks the 100th that Black History Month or Week has been celebrated, and the theme is music! Please join us for live entertainment, a complimentary meal, arts and crafts, student and local vendors, and more. Our featured student is Glencoe senior Nicole Ayala Congachi. She was recently awarded a full-ride QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship to Yale University! Nicole had this to say about finding out she had matched with Yale: “It was incredible but also intimidating. Yale was a dream school, not a goal school. I make the distinction because I genuinely didn't plan on applying to Yale at all. My goal was getting into the University of Oregon on a full scholarship. I didn't think the work I had done was ‘impressive enough' for a place like Yale, nor was I trying to make it impressive. I sincerely enjoy the volunteering I do and the councils and committees I'm a part of, so getting in felt like an unexpected gift. It also wouldn't have happened without the encouragement of people around me…friends, teachers, family, people I volunteered with, internships - everyone who gave me the chance to grow and learn played a role in this, and I really cannot express more gratitude.” Learn more about this impressive accomplishment, and read Nicole's words of advice and encouragement to other students, on our website. Way to go and congratulations, Nicole! You make us Proud to be HSD! First semester ends on Thursday, January 29. There will be no school for all students on Friday, January 30, for teacher grade prep; or on Monday, February 2, for licensed prep. School resumes and second semester begins on Tuesday, February 3. Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

Send us a textWelcome to The Helicopter Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS!In this episode of The Helicopter Podcast, host Halsey Schider sits down with Jamie and Jared from Hillsboro Heli Academy for a wide-ranging conversation about helicopter training, pilot culture, and what keeps people connected to the industry long after their first flight.The discussion explores how shared experiences in helicopters create lasting bonds, forming a brotherhood and sisterhood that spans backgrounds, countries, and career paths. Jamie and Jared talk about the realities of helicopter training, the importance of staying nimble in aviation careers, and how a strong network often shapes where pilots end up next.The episode also dives into Hillsboro's role in international training, including why so many European students choose to train in the U.S., and how dual certification with the Federal Aviation Administration and European Union Aviation Safety Agency has created a clearer path into the industry. Along the way, the group reflects on instruction as a uniquely rewarding experience, the long-standing role of Robinson helicopters in training, and the responsibility flight schools have in building a positive, supportive culture.From memorable early flights to the future of helicopter training, this episode highlights why the aviation community remains tightly connected — and why, once the helicopter bug bites, it's hard to ever fully walk away.Thank you to our sponsors, Robinson Helicopter, Vertical Aviation International and Hillsboro Heli Academy.

Gentry Wigginton | 01.18.26 | ethoschurch.org

Help shape the future of HSD! Please join us to learn more about HSD's 2026 Capital Construction Bond effort at one of three open house events in January and February:Thursday, January 22 in the South Meadows Middle School CommonsWednesday, January 28 via Zoom, and Thursday, February 5 in the Evergreen Middle School CommonsHSD is the fourth-largest school district in Oregon, serving nearly 18,000 students in 37 schools. Those schools, along with a handful of other district buildings, encompass more than 2.7 million square feet of interior space on over 550 acres. We manage 19 competition sports fields with over 3 acres of prepared surface, nearly 56 acres of grass, and 38,920 feet of fencing; 5 tracks, and 25 tennis courts. Each day, our buses travel in excess of 11,000 miles and our kitchens serve more than 15,800 meals! Maintaining our district's infrastructure to ensure it keeps students comfortable, safe, dry, and equipped with the necessary tools to further their education is a priority. Capital construction - also known as General Obligation - bonds are the only mechanism school districts have to raise money for capital projects - districts do not receive money from the state under normal school funding for capital expenses. These bonds require voter approval and, if passed, are repaid over time through property tax collections. Voters overwhelmingly approved HSD's last capital construction bond in 2017, and now, nine years later, it's time to consider the next proposal. During the open house events, you will hear a presentation about the bond development process, learn about capital construction needs across the district, view the bond package proposals, and have the opportunity to both ask questions and share your feedback with the Bond Development Committee. Spanish interpretation will be provided. If translation in another language is needed, please request it at least 48 hours in advance by calling our Language Liaisons at 503-844-1429. Our featured event is O-ACE students taking to the skies! Back in December, some of the students participating in our Oregon Aerospace Careers for Everyone program and NextGen Aviation Clubs went flying and put their learning into action. Many thanks to previous and current O-ACE teachers, Sheryl Brownlie and Jorge Bravo, for building these programs into what they are today, and helping students explore their passion for aviation. According to Chris Barber - program champion, Oregon Air Show Foundation Board Member, and pilot: “Seeing the students' excitement as they climbed out of the plane, you realized it was genuinely life-changing for them. Several said it confirmed their desire to fly, which is powerful validation that the vision we started years ago is working.” Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

'Diamond Bill' Barrett earned his nickname by sweet-talking a jewelry store into letting him borrow a $55,000 diamond, which he promptly hocked. Later, he deployed that legendary charm to sweet-talk two heiresses into marrying him, then disappeared with showgirl-turned-trophy-wife Sidi Wirt Spreckels' $100,000 string of pearls. But the mystery remains: Did he really steal Sidi's pearls ... or did he fence them for her? (Hillsboro, Washington County; 1910s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1905c.diamond-bill-barrett-heiress-whisperer-548.html)

Joshua Solowey | 01.11.26 | ethoschurch.org

A key component of our 2023-2027 Strategic Plan is the incorporation of constituent voice. We have worked hard to ensure opportunities to share thoughts and feedback are varied, meaningful, and involve intentional outreach to identified focal groups and historically underserved populations. This includes our annual student survey in the spring, meetings with parent advisory committees, one-on-one or small group conversations with families and/or students, superintendent focus group chats with high school students, and more. We also offer a survey to all families, community members, and staff that is just 7 questions long. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey and provide your honest feedback by Friday, February 6. Themes and common questions/concerns will be pulled from the responses and used to help shape our Year 4 Strategic Plan improvement actions. Our featured event is the Glencoe High School Band's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity over winter break to perform in London's New Year's Day Parade! This is the first time in the parade's 40-year history they have had a band from Oregon perform. KOIN 6 News ran a story about the historic appearance just before the group departed for the UK in late December, and you can watch the band's performance in the posted video of Sky News' broadcast. While in London, students also performed at Smith Square - an 18th century venue. Many thanks to Band Director Benjamin Adams and other staff and family members who chaperoned, fundraised, and otherwise supported students on this amazing journey. And way to go, Glencoe Marching Tide! You make us Proud to be HSD!There will be no school for all students on Monday, January 19, in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. School resumes on Tuesday, January 20. Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

January is School Board Appreciation Month! We'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our seven elected School Board members for their voluntary service to the District and to the greater Hillsboro community: Chair Ivette Pantoja, Vice Chair See Eun Kim, and Directors Yessica Hardin Mercado, Patrick Maguire, Katie Rhyne, Nancy Thomas, and Mark Watson. We would also like to recognize and thank our three student representatives to the Board: Nicole Ayala Congachi from Glencoe, Jocelyn Trejo-Reyes from Hilhi, and Hazel Cleveland from Oak Street Campus. Board members put in countless hours overseeing and providing community voice to District operations, as well as advocating for the resources and opportunities students need to be successful. For all you do, School Board members, we thank you!Our feature this week is holiday heroes! The holiday season brought us many heroes of the giving sort, here are just a few of them. Our local Hillsboro Elks Lodge was back and bigger than ever with their holiday program for families in need. Thanks to a tremendous response from the community with donations of food, toys, clothing, and money, as well as their own impressive cadre of volunteers - including Century High School's student council! - the Elks were able to support over 740 families representing more than 2100 children on Saturday, December 19. Across town, Glencoe High School's Annual Holiday Toy Shoppe was open for business, allowing families to select gifts for children, receive boxes of food, and even take home a Christmas tree if they needed one! More than 150 families were served by that effort. And just before the break, Home Depot delivered four full-size refrigerators to the food pantries at Rosedale, Tobias, Witch Hazel, and South Meadows! That donation was coordinated by the Hillsboro Schools Foundation. Our deepest thanks go out to you and other individuals and organizations whose generosity helped make the holidays a little brighter for others. You make us Proud to be HSD!HSD is very grateful to the Hillsboro City Council for providing $80,000 to support students experiencing housing instability and those accessing online education. The fund disbursement was approved during a special work session of the Council on Monday, November 24, 2025.Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

January is School Board Appreciation Month! We'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our seven elected School Board members for their voluntary service to the District and to the greater Hillsboro community: Chair Ivette Pantoja, Vice Chair See Eun Kim, and Directors Yessica Hardin Mercado, Patrick Maguire, Katie Rhyne, Nancy Thomas, and Mark Watson. We would also like to recognize and thank our three student representatives to the Board: Nicole Ayala Congachi from Glencoe, Jocelyn Trejo-Reyes from Hilhi, and Hazel Cleveland from Oak Street Campus. Board members put in countless hours overseeing and providing community voice to District operations, as well as advocating for the resources and opportunities students need to be successful. For all you do, School Board members, we thank you!Our feature this week is holiday heroes! The holiday season brought us many heroes of the giving sort, here are just a few of them. Our local Hillsboro Elks Lodge was back and bigger than ever with their holiday program for families in need. Thanks to a tremendous response from the community with donations of food, toys, clothing, and money, as well as their own impressive cadre of volunteers - including Century High School's student council! - the Elks were able to support over 740 families representing more than 2100 children on Saturday, December 19. Across town, Glencoe High School's Annual Holiday Toy Shoppe was open for business, allowing families to select gifts for children, receive boxes of food, and even take home a Christmas tree if they needed one! More than 150 families were served by that effort. And just before the break, Home Depot delivered four full-size refrigerators to the food pantries at Rosedale, Tobias, Witch Hazel, and South Meadows! That donation was coordinated by the Hillsboro Schools Foundation. Our deepest thanks go out to you and other individuals and organizations whose generosity helped make the holidays a little brighter for others. You make us Proud to be HSD!HSD is very grateful to the Hillsboro City Council for providing $80,000 to support students experiencing housing instability and those accessing online education. The fund disbursement was approved during a ⁠special work session⁠ of the Council on Monday, November 24, 2025.Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

¡Enero es el Mes de Agradecimiento a la Mesa Directiva! Nos gustaría aprovechar esta oportunidad para agradecer sinceramente a nuestros siete miembros electos de la Mesa Directiva por su servicio voluntario al distrito y a la gran comunidad de Hillsboro: la presidenta Ivette Pantoja, la vicepresidenta See Eun Kim y los directores Yessica Hardin Mercado, Patrick Maguire, Katie Rhyne, Nancy Thomas y Mark Watson. También nos gustaría extender el reconocimiento y agradecer a nuestros tres representantes estudiantiles de la Mesa Directiva: Nicole Ayala Congachi de Glencoe, Jocelyn Trejo-Reyes de Hilhi y Hazel Cleveland del Plantel de Oak Street.Los miembros de la Mesa Directiva dedican innumerables horas para supervisar y brindar una voz comunitaria a las operaciones del distrito, así como para abogar por los recursos y las oportunidades que los estudiantes necesitan para tener éxito. ¡Les agradecemos por todo lo que hacen, miembros de la Mesa Directiva!La temporada festiva nos trajo muchos héroes generosos; aquí mencionamos solo a algunos de ellos. El programa para familias necesitadas de nuestra organización local, Hillsboro Elks Lodge, que se realiza durante las festividades, regresó con más fuerza que nunca. Gracias a la gran respuesta de la comunidad, que donó comida, juguetes, ropa y dinero, así como a su impresionante equipo de voluntarios, ¡incluido el Consejo Estudiantil de la Escuela Preparatoria Century!, el sábado 19 de diciembre los Elks pudieron apoyar a más de 740 familias, que representan a más de 2,100 niños. La Tienda Anual de Juguetes Festivos de la Escuela Preparatoria Glencoe estuvo abierta para toda la ciudad, lo que permitió a las familias elegir regalos para sus hijos, recibir cajas con comida e incluso ¡llevarse a su hogar un árbol de Navidad si lo necesitaban! Más de 150 familias se beneficiaron de esta iniciativa. Además, justo antes del receso de invierno, ¡Home Depot entregó cuatro refrigeradores de tamaño completo para los bancos de alimentos de Rosedale, Tobias, Witch Hazel y South Meadows!Esa donación fue coordinada por Hillsboro Schools Foundation. Nuestro más sincero agradecimiento a ustedes, así como a las demás personas y organizaciones cuya generosidad ayudó a brindarles alegría durante las festividades a otros. ¡Nos hacen sentir orgullosos de ser HSD!HSD agradece profundamente al Ayuntamiento de Hillsboro por la asignación de $80,000 para apoyar a estudiantes con problemas de vivienda y a quienes acceden a la educación en línea. La asignación de los fondos se aprobó durante una sesión especial de trabajo del ayuntamiento realizada el lunes, 24 de noviembre de 2025.Noticias de Última Hora se publica y se envía por correo electrónico a las familias y al personal del HSD cada semana de clases. Por favor, añada la dirección a su lista de remitentes seguros para asegurarse de recibir siempre la edición más reciente. También guarde en sus favoritos el sitio web de nuestro distrito: www.hsd.k12.or.us

Last Monday, hundreds of students in Beaverton, Forest Grove and Hillsboro walked out of classes to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in their communities in Washington County. The Beaverton School District has made available resources to assist immigrant and refugee students and their families, including reminders of its online school option and partnerships with nonprofits like the Latino Network that provide “Know Your Rights” workshops at the district’s schools. Shelly Reggiani, associate superintendent for teaching and learning at Beaverton School District, joins us to share more details about the district’s response to concerns from students, parents and staff about immigration enforcement.

Gentry Wigginton | 12.14.25 | ethoschurch.org

So many people in our community have stepped up and showed up for our students, staff, and families this fall! Individuals, local businesses, and community-based organizations have donated money, school supplies, food, backpacks, boxes, refrigerators, clothing, holiday gifts and more; provided services and resources; and invested time, information, and energy to assist those who need help the most. For that, we wanted to say a heartfelt “thank you!”

King Eric of Gossamer is missing! Daena goes on the search and what she finds changes her life. To download, right-click here and then click SaveJoin the Journey Into Patreon to get extra episodes and personal addresses, plus other extras and rewards.R.C. Anderson works a day job in the tech sector, but moonlights as an amateur writer. Originally from the Ozarks, he was fortunate enough to grow up during the 1980's in his mother's video store. This allowed him to spend countless unsupervised hours in both the natural beauty of the rural South, and with the VHS classics of the age. This unique blend of influences fired off his imagination, resulting in him crafting stories throughout his life, up to the present day. His works have been published multiple times on the “Journey Into…” podcast. He lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, with two cats.Theme music: Liberator by Man In SpaceTo comment on this or any episode:Send comments and/or recordings to journeyintopodcat@gmail.comPost a comment on Facebook here, or on X here

Joshua Solowey | 12.07.25 | ethoschurch.org

On Thursday, November 20, the Oregon Department of Education released At-A-Glance School and District Profiles for the 2024-25 school year. The Profiles are designed to provide a consistent set of school and district level information to local communities. They contain previously released assessment data for last school year, previously released graduation data for the class of 2024, and some new data for the 2024-25 school year. Because the state uses consistent sources of data and calculation methods for all schools and districts, its reports are useful for comparison purposes - both between schools and districts and within individual entities on a year-over-year basis. However, data on statewide standardized assessment results in English Language Arts and Mathematics tell a bit of a misleading story of our students' knowledge and skills. A number of students opt out of these tests, and because they are not used for placement, grade promotion, or for any other success measure in school, we have seen students and families place far less importance on them in recent years. For this reason, we have identified other measures for determining students' growth and learning on a rolling basis and are using that data to track progress toward our Strategic Plan goals. For example, we are using HSD-administered assessments called Running Records to measure proficiency in English and/or Spanish reading. You can find the District's and each school's At-A-Glance Profile in the Accountability section of our website. Additional information can be found in ODE's press release and on their At-A-Glance Profiles and Accountability Details webpage. Our featured event is the fall Career and College Pathways Steering Committee meeting that was held on Thursday, November 20, at Hilhi. This amazing group of industry partners, educators, and community leaders plays a key role in helping us create clear and exciting pathway opportunities for every HSD student. Superintendent Travis Reiman kicked off the morning by sharing the latest district data and indicators tied to student success and postsecondary readiness. Melissa Pendergrass, Coordinator of Career and College Pathways, framed the day by emphasizing the value of authentic partnerships and high-quality work-based learning. She spoke about how real world experiences not only benefit students but also create a powerful return on investment for local employers who are building their future workforce. Participants then jumped into a lineup of interactive workshops that explored everything from supervising youth at worksites to designing meaningful hands-on experiences, understanding the long term benefits of investing in youth career development, and more. Conversations were lively, solutions oriented, and full of ideas that will directly support students. HSD extends a huge thank you to everyone who joined us. Your partnership helps ensure that students discover their interests, build real skills, and feel excited about their futures. We look forward to continuing this work together throughout the year.Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

Gentry Wigginton | 11.30.25 | ethoschurch.org

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and steps they have taken to get to where they are today. Dairy Stream host Joanna Guza and guests Dan Scheps, owner of Scheps Dairy, and Paul Salm of BMO discuss early influences, improvements to better the farm, challenges, financial preparations and the future of the farm and dairy industry. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Dan Scheps is the owner of Scheps Dairy in Almena, Wisconsin where they milk 1,850 cows and farm 2,700 acres. Dan farms with his brother, Ken. Paul Salm manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural relationships, including dairy, row crop, grain merchandising and potato customers and has over 30 years of experience in the banking industry  2025 Season 2: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Melichar Broad Acres in Port Washington, Wisconsin 2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

On Wednesday, November 19, Oregon's Legislative Revenue Office released the state's December Economic and Revenue Forecast. The good news is that Net General Fund and Lottery resources are up $318.8 million from the September Forecast. The bad news is that they are still down $635.9 million since the Close of Session Forecast in June of this year. While the news is about as good as K-12 advocates could have hoped for, it is still important to be vigilant and make a clear and convincing case to center the growing needs of students and protect all K-12 programs from cuts or reductions in the 2025-27 budget. There will be many other programs facing cuts, particularly in the Human Services sector, due to the passage of federal legislation - most notably Medicaid and SNAP - that the state will have to consider when weighing how to balance budgets, if and when to tap into reserve funds, etc.  It is also worth noting that the Legislature is forecasting other potential costs that have not been budgeted for like wildfire mitigation costs, HR 1 state implementation costs, keeping an ending balance for the state general fund, etc. And while there is one more Forecast that will be released on February 4, 2026, to inform Legislators during their short session, K-12 schools need to be prepared for the possibility of mid-year and/or mid-biennium reductions. Our featured students are from Orenco Elementary School's Life Skills program. They were able to participate in Outdoor School this fall, thanks to the extra efforts of NW Regional Education Service District and Orenco staff. Each Outdoor School location typically has one all-terrain wheelchair, but more were necessary to allow all students who needed them to have access. So, ESD staff borrowed wheelchairs from other locations to make it possible. Many thanks to everyone who worked hard to make this beloved rite-of-passage tradition accessible to students experiencing disability!Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

An interview with the Bird Alliance of Oregon. Joe Liebezeit is the Statewide Conservation Director and Sarah Swanson is the Events Manager. We talk about the conservation work they do throughout Oregon and the Wild Arts Festival, a fundraiser on December 6 & 7 in Hillsboro.

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and the steps they have taken to get to where they are today. The Dairy Streamlet is a condensed version of a long Dairy Stream episode and covers the high-level points of the conversation. If this topic interest you, then listen to the full episode on Nov. 26. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Dan Scheps is the owner of Scheps Dairy in Almena, Wisconsin where they milk 1,850 cows and farm 2,700 acres. Dan farms with his brother, Ken. Paul Salm manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural relationships, including dairy, row crop, grain merchandising and potato customers and has over 30 years of experience in the banking industry  2025 Season 2: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Melichar Broad Acres in Port Washington, Wisconsin 2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

Joshua Solowey | 11.23.25 | ethoschurch.org

It's Thanksgiving week, which means it's time for our annual ‘weather issue' of Hot News! This is where we like to remind families about how we make inclement weather decisions and how those decisions are communicated. Our district is very large - spanning 204 miles - and within our boundaries are elevations ranging from 140 feet to more than 1500 feet! That means the weather conditions can vary greatly from one area to another. Our goal is always to ensure the safety of all of our students and staff - whether they are among our 10,000+ bus riders, student drivers, walkers, bike riders, or those transported by parents. And when we make an inclement weather decision it applies to all schools. Learn more about the decision-making process and how we will communicate with you on our website at hsd.k12.or.us/weather. Stay warm!Our feature this week is our Community Transition Services program. CTS is a post-high school program housed at the Peter Boscow building that supports students with disabilities who have been part of a life skills class and are 18 to 21 years old. Students are divided into four groups and work with staff to become as independent as possible. They learn about jobs and build skills for future employment opportunities. According to staff member Pam McCann, “It is always exciting to see some of our former students still working in positions they got while finishing up at the Transition program or once they graduated. They are maintaining permanent paid employment and contributing as members of the community using the skills they learned here.” Hot News is produced and emailed to HSD families and staff each week school is in session. Please add the address to your “safe sender” list to make sure you always receive the latest issue. Please also bookmark our district website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠hsd.k12.or.us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay informed about what's happening in our district and schools.

Joshua Solowey & Don Finto | 11.16.25 | ethoschurch.org

In this heartfelt and insight-rich conversation, Haylee Ergenekan, Director of Sales & Marketing at MorningStar Senior Living, shares how her background in luxury hospitality shaped a new, deeply human approach to senior living marketing.From calling prospects by name to hosting networking events like boutique dinner parties, Haylee focuses on creating spaces that feel like home — not just selling units. She discusses the power of emotional details, the importance of authentic outreach, and why “belonging” is the real product we should all be selling.Whether you're in senior living, hospitality, or marketing, this episode will leave you thinking differently about the work you do.Guest BioHaylee Ergenekan is the Director of Sales and Marketing at MorningStar Senior Living in Hillsboro, Oregon. With a background in luxury hospitality, she brings a unique, heart-first approach to senior living—where every detail is a chance to create belonging. From personalized tours to impactful events, Haylee leads with empathy, story, and an unshakable belief in the dignity of aging.Timestamps:01:03 – Meet Haylee Ergenekan, Director of Sales & Marketing at MorningStar Senior Living02:24 – The MorningStar story and its presence across 11 states03:15 – Haylee's journey from luxury hospitality to senior living05:07 – How five-star hospitality shapes her approach to marketing06:56 – The power of emotional details: names, memories, and connection09:39 – Balancing numbers with heart: marketing through moments12:13 – Moving stories: helping seniors say goodbye to home with dignity14:46 – Events that resonate: making outreach feel like a privilege17:00 – “Setting the Table for Success” and the art of intentional networking20:29 – Cultivating a hospitality culture beyond the sales team23:58 – Leading by example: modeling genuine care for residents and staff26:31 – The next chapter: authenticity and belonging as the future of senior living marketing

Joshua Solowey | 11.09.25 | ethoschurch.org

“Coffee brings people together” on the Daily Grind ☕️, your weekly goal-driven podcast. This episode features Kelly Johnson @kellyfastruns and special guest Keri Elliot, who is the founder and owner of Roasted by Mom. Locally roasted, crafted with care—visit Roasted by Mom in Hillsboro, Oregon or shop online for your next favorite brew.S8 Episode 14: 11/6/2025Featuring Kelly Johnson with Special Guest Keri ElliotFollow Our Podcast:Instagram: @dailygrindpod https://www.instagram.com/dailygrindpod/  X: @dailygrindpod https://x.com/dailygrindpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailygrindpodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailygrindpodPodcast Website: https://direct.me/dailygrindpod   Follow Our Special Guest:Website: https://www.roastedbymom.com/ Instagram: @roastedbymomcoffee

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and steps they have taken to get to where they are today. Dairy Stream host Joanna Guza and guests Adam and Kendall Melichar, owners of Melichar Broad Acres, and Jen Peal of BMO discuss early influences, improvements to better the farm, challenges, financial preparations and the future of the farm and dairy industry. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Adam and Kendall Melichar, owners of Melichar Broad Acres in Port Washington, Wisconsin where they milk 1,750 cows and farm 1,700 acres.   Jen Peal is an agricultural banking officer for BMO and manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural and agribusiness related customers with a focus on dairy farms. She has over 20 years of banking experience.   2025 Season 2: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin 2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and the steps they have taken to get to where they are today. The Dairy Streamlet is a condensed version of a long Dairy Stream episode and covers the high-level points of the conversation. If this topic interest you, then listen to the full episode on Nov. 5. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Adam and Kendall Melichar, owners of Melichar Broad Acres in Port Washington, Wisconsin where they milk 1,750 cows and farm 1,700 acres.   Jen Peal is an agricultural banking officer for BMO and manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural and agribusiness related customers with a focus on dairy farms. She has over 20 years of banking experience.   2025 Season 2: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin 2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

Gentry Wigginton | 10.26.25 | ethoschurch.org

Gentry Wigginton | 10.19.25 | ethoschurch.org

Elaine Heath is the abbess of Spring Forest, a new monastic community in Hillsborough, North Carolina. Spring Forest centers around communal prayer and meals, a vibrant farm, refugee support, and other ministries you can read about here. You can learn more about Elaine's work as an author and speaker on her website, or in articles like this one from the Center for Action and Contemplation.Many thanks to Elaine and her husband Randall for welcoming Ron and I and our audio producer, Colin, to the farm last June. Besides relishing the good company of our hosts, we enjoyed harvesting cabbage, feasting and praying with the Sunday evening group, walking through the woods, and petting some good-natured goats.Dr. Elaine HeathOn the farm.Someone had to help harvest the cabbage, so Ron and Colin and I pitched in.Elaine, husband Randall, and I in their lovely home.TRANSCRIPTElaine Heath If you are nurtured by traditional church—or let's say, conventional church—keep doing it, but also realize that for other people that's not nurturing. It feels dry and lifeless, and it's clear the Spirit is doing something new. So instead of insisting everybody stop doing the new thing, and everybody has to come and do the conventional thing, you can be conventional in your worship and bless and make space for others so that we have a plethora of experiments going on.Debra Rienstra Welcome to the Refugia Podcast. I'm your host, Professor Debra Rienstra. Refugia are habitats in nature where life endures in times of crisis. We're exploring the concept of refugia as a metaphor, discovering how people of faith can become people of refugia: nurturing life-giving spaces in the earth, in our human cultural systems, and in our spiritual communities, even in this time of severe disturbance. This season, we're paying special attention to churches and Christian communities who have figured out how to address the climate crisis together as an essential aspect of their discipleship.Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Elaine Heath. Elaine is founder and abbess of Spring Forest, a new monastic community centered on a 23-acre forest and farm property near Hillsboro, North Carolina. The farm supplies a CSA and supports food security for refugees and serves as the setting for outdoor programs for kids, cooking classes, potlucks, forest walks and more. But the Spring Forest community is a dispersed network of people who move in and out of the farm space in a variety of ways. They live on the farm for a time, they visit often to volunteer, or they simply join the community online for daily prayer. We got to visit the farm last spring, and I can tell you that Elaine's long experience with new monasticism, trauma-informed care, and contemplative practice make her an ideal curator of refugia space. The vibe on the farm is peaceful, orderly, and full of life. It's a place of holy experimentation in new ways to form Christian community and reconnect with the land. Let's get to it.Debra Rienstra Elaine, thank you for talking with me today. It's really great to be with you.Elaine Heath Yeah, I'm glad to be with you too.Debra Rienstra So you served in traditional parish ministry and in religious academia for many years, and then in 2018 you retired from that work to found Spring Forest. Why a farm and a new monastic community? What inspired and influenced this particular expression of faith?Elaine Heath I've always loved farms and forests. But actually, my dream to do this started about 25 years ago, and my husband and I bought a 23 acre property in North Central Ohio, right when I was right out of my PhD program and I got my first academic job at my alma mater, which is Ashland Theological Seminary. So I went there to direct the Doctor of Ministry program, and we bought this beautiful property. It had a little house that looked like the ranger station, and it had a stream and a big labyrinth cut in the field, and it had beautiful soil to grow, you know, for market gardening. And what we planned to do was gradually develop retreat ministries there. My husband was going to build some hermitages up in the woods, because I did a lot of spiritual direction with pastors who were burned out and traumatized, and we felt like that, you know, as I got older and phased out of academia, that would be something we could do together.So we were there for a couple years, and then I was recruited to go to Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. And we were very sad to leave our property behind, but we were clear that we were being called to Texas. So we bought a home in the city in a sort of mixed income, racially diverse neighborhood in Garland, and it was a big house with a nice yard, and soon after starting to teach evangelism—which, I kind of created my own path for how to teach evangelism, because I don't believe in selling Jesus or any of those kinds of colonizing things. So I was teaching about living a contemplative life and practicing social and environmental justice and being good news in the world, and being good neighbors to all our neighbors, and thinking of our neighbors as us and not them. And I had them reading Shane Claiborne and the people writing with the emerging church movement at the time, and pretty soon, I had students in my class coming to my office every week. It was a different student, but the same tears and the same kind of narrative: “Dr. Heath, I think I'm going to have to leave the church to answer my call. Tell me what I should do.” And it was because they were being called to do innovative, new monastic ministry, missional, new monastic kinds of things. But our denomination in particular didn't quite get it, even though early Methodism was very much like that.So I realized fairly quickly that this was God calling me through these students to focus my research and writing and my teaching in the area of emergence. Emergence theory, what's happening in the world. How do these currents of emergence intersect with what's happening politically and environmentally, and what's happening, you know, in the economy and with the church. So pretty soon, I don't know, it wasn't very long, I felt God was calling me to gather students and start some experiments outside, out in the city. And so I had a prayer partner, and we were praying for a house to come available, so that we could start a new monastic house. And she came to me one day and she said, “I saw the house coming. It'll be here soon.” And I said, “Okay.” I had no money for a house. You know, kind of a lowly professor, didn't make that much. And within two weeks, one of our neighbors came to me, who didn't really know me well at all, and said, “Hey, my mom has a rental property. It's been in our family for a long time, and we wondered if you might have some students that would like to live there. We won't even charge rent, just pay their utilities and not have drug parties or whatnot.” And I said, “No, that's unlikely,” you know. So I said, you know, I could throw the phone down and ran down to get in her car and go over to this house with her. And we were driving over, and she says, “You know, it's not the best neighborhood.” I said, “Perfect!” But we got there, and it was a really great little three bedroom house in a predominantly Latina neighborhood, and that was our first new monastic house. So I asked three of the students who'd been crying in my office, “Would you be willing to break your leases wherever you live and come and live here for a year?” And I can assign a spiritual director to work with you, and I can write a curriculum for an independent study on the theory and practice of new monasticism. And we can develop a Rule of Life based on our United Methodist membership vows. And they all immediately said yes, and so that's how we got started with our first house.Elaine Heath And then right around the same time, I started a missional house church that was quickly relocated into the neighborhood where most of the refugees are resettled in Dallas, because one of my students brought six Congolese men to our little house church worship, and that that was the beginning of realizing we were called to work with refugees.Debra Rienstra Oh, I see.Elaine Heath So that all got started around 2008. And by 2009, there was a student who came to Perkins who had been a commercial real estate banker on Wall Street. And he came to Perkins as a student. He was an older man. And we were going on my very first pilgrimage to Iona, Northumbria, and Lindisfarne, and Michael Hahn was with us too. He and I team-taught this class, so it was my first one. But it turned out that Larry Duggins, the student, had come to seminary because he really wanted to be equipped to help young adults who were feeling disillusioned with the church but wanted to be out in the world doing good work. And he started describing what he was called to, and I'm like, “Well, that's what I'm doing with these students.” So we joined forces and created a nonprofit called Missional Wisdom Foundation, and within three years, we had a network of eight new monastic communities across the metroplex. They were all anchored at local churches. Some of them were parsonages that weren't being used. And we wove into the expectations and sort of the lifestyle of those houses, urban agriculture.Debra Rienstra Oh, I was waiting for the farm to come back into it. Yeah, because I'm seeing these threads of experimentation and monasticism and place. We're sitting here today on your current farm land. So it's really interesting to hear all these threads being developed early on in an urban context.Elaine Heath Yes, it was quite something. These houses were all in different social contexts. There was one house, the Bonhoeffer house, that was in East Dallas, in a neighborhood that was not only mixed income and racially diverse, but also used to be where the mayor lived. And now there are people who are unhoused living there, and there are also people with nice houses living there. So it was a very interesting neighborhood. So that house, we learned quickly that you needed to take a year to get to know the neighborhood before you try to figure out how you're going to support whatever justice work needs to happen in the neighborhood. But that house got really close with the unhoused community and did a lot of good ministry with the guys and a few women. Then there was one for undocumented workers, the Romero House, and just different social contexts. But all of them had a backyard garden or, you know, some type of growing food kind of thing. And I used to take students to this farm that was an urban farm in DeSoto, which is just south of Dallas, where it was quite small, but these were former missionaries, the type that have crusades and show the Jesus film and everything in sort of poor countries. And then they had an awakening that happened, and they realized they were being called to help people in orphanages learn how to grow their own food in a sustainable way and raise the living standard for the whole village. So they had this little farm, and I would take students there every semester to experience the conversion of thought that this couple had over what mission is, and to experience the beauty and joy of tilapia that provide food for the lettuce, that provide for the bees, you know. So this closed system. So that also affected my imagination about what I really wanted to do in the future.And so gradually, the years—we were there for 11 years, and we lived in community the whole time that we were there. By the time we came here for me to work at Duke, we had a very clear picture of what we wanted to do here. And so we looked for the property back when we had to sell that first farm, when we were so sad about selling it, I had an experience in prayer where I sensed God was saying to me, “Don't give up on this dream. It's sacred, and it will happen in the future on a better piece of property, at a better time in your life for this.” And so when it was time to move here, I said to Randall, “This is the time. Let's look for that property.” So that's how we landed here.Friendly, very contented dairy goats, hanging out in the afternoon.Debra Rienstra Yeah. When talking about your students, you mentioned yesterday that you like to “ruin them for fake church.” So what do you mean by fake church, and how exactly do you ruin them for it?Elaine Heath Well, you know, church is really the people and not the building. You all know that. It's the people and we're called to be a very different kind of people who are a healing community, that neighbor well, that give ourselves away, that regard our neighbors—human and non human—as part of us, whether they think they're part of us or not. We have this sort of posture in life. And when I think of how Jesus formed the church, Jesus had this little ragtag group of friends, and they traveled around and did stuff and talked about it, and they got mad at each other and had power struggles and drama and, you know, and then Jesus would process the drama with them. And he would do these outrageous things, you know, breaking sort of cultural taboo to demonstrate: this is what love really looks like. And so we don't get to do much of any of that, sitting in a pew on Sunday morning, facing forward while the people up in the front do things. And so many churches—maybe you've never experienced this, but I certainly have. The pastor's sort of the proxy disciple while people kind of watch and make judgments and decide whether or not they want to keep listening to those sermons.Debra Rienstra Oh yes.Elaine Heath So when you experience Christian life in a community where it's both natural, it's just the way you live in the world, and it's also liturgically rich, and the life is a contemplative life, and it's also a life of deep missional engagement with the world— that other version of church, it's like oatmeal with no flavoring in it. It makes you, I mean, it's about the life together. It's how we live in this world. It's not about sitting somewhere for an hour once a week and staring forward.Debra Rienstra Right. Yeah, so I would, you know, of course, I would describe what you're describing as refugia, being the people of refugia. You know? Not that I'm—we'll come back to traditional worship and traditional forms of faith and religion. But it seems like what you're doing is living into something you say on your website that we are in the midst of a new reformation in the church, and I certainly sense that too. I think the evidence is all around us, and the research bears out that we've reached this inflection point, and it's a painful inflection point that a lot of people think of as decline, because living through it feels confusing and bewildering and dark and full of loss. So what is your sense of when we are, in this point in history, in particular, for those of us who've been part of church communities, where are we finding ourselves? Why is it so confusing?Elaine Heath I really believe we're in a dark night of the soul as the church in the West and perhaps places in the East too. I know we've exported a capitalist version of church all over the world, sadly. But I believe we're in a dark night of the soul, you know, classically understood, where it's spirit-breathed. It's not that the devil is doing something to us. It's spirit-breathed to detach us from our sort of corporate ego that thinks we get to show up and boss the world around and act like we own the joint.Debra Rienstra We call that church of empire.Elaine Heath Yeah. And so I think that's what's happening. And when, you know, if you study the literature, if you work in spiritual direction, and you're looking at what happens with the dark night of the soul. That's a real dark night, not a clinical depression or something like that, but an actual dark night. You have to go through it. You can't bypass it. You can't work your way out of it. You can't talk your way out of it. And what happens is you find yourself increasingly hungry for simplicity, for a simple but clear experience of God, because it's like God's disappeared. There's a deep loneliness, even a sort of cold hell, to being in a dark night of the soul. And so there's a restlessness, there's a longing for actual experience of God. There's a feeling of futility. Things that used to work don't work anymore. So you know the threefold path? The purgation, illumination and union is one way that we've learned to think about what happens. The purgation part is— we're there.Debra Rienstra We're being purgated.Elaine Heath We're being purgated, yeah. And at the same time that we're having these flashes of intuitive knowing, this sort of illumination is coming. “Oh, let's pay attention to the saints and mystics who lived through things like this. What gave them life? What helped them to keep showing up and being faithful?” And we're having moments of union too, when we feel like, “Oh, discipleship means I make sure that the trees are cared for and not just people. Oh, all living things are interconnected. Quantum physics is teaching us a spiritual truth we should have known already.” So the three parts of that contemplative path are happening simultaneously. But I think what feels most forward to a lot of people is the purgation piece where you're like, “Oh, things are just dropping away. Numbers are dropping. Things that used to work don't work. What's going to happen now?” Sort of a sense of chaos, confusion. Tohu va bohu, yeah.Debra Rienstra Yeah, do you want me to explain what that is?Elaine Heath Yeah, chaos and confusion. From the beginning of time.Debra Rienstra It's the realm out of which creation is formed. So the idea that the spirit is drawing us into this dark night is actually really reassuring. We are where we're supposed to be. And even though it feels confusing and painful, there are these moments of wisdom—that's so reassuring. In fact, one of the things you write: the new reformation is all about the emergence. So this emergence is happening of a generous, hospitable, equitable form of Christianity that heals the wounds of the world. What is your vision about what the church needs to release and hold and create right now?Elaine Heath We need to release everything that even slightly has a hint of empire, that we have thought of as what it means to be the church, because that completely reverts what church is supposed to be about. So giving up empire, we need to take up the great kenotic hymn of Philippians two and actually live it.Debra Rienstra The self emptying hymn.Elaine Heath The self emptying. And it's not—I know that that can be problematic when we're thinking of women or, you know, groups that have been forced to empty themselves in an exploited way. But that's not really what that's all about. It's about showing up to God, paying attention, seeing what God's invitation is, then cooperating with that and just releasing the outcome. That's what that's about, and really finding out, what am I in this world for? What are we in this world for? And being about that and not about something else.Debra Rienstra Yeah, it's hard to release the ways that we have done things. Well, you have a congregation, you have a pastor, you have a sanctuary, you have programs, you want the kids to come, you need tithes, all of those systems. And actually, what you're doing here at Spring Forest—let's talk about that. What you're doing here at Spring Forest doesn't have any of that. Sunday services. There's no church building. You have barn buildings, you have farm buildings. No Sunday school, no adult ed, no choirs, organs, praise bands, any of that stuff, right? Do you think of Spring Forest as a new model for church? Perhaps one among many?Elaine Heath It's one among many. We're definitely shaped by traditional monasticism. We're shaped by early Methodism. We're influenced by the Catholic Worker Movement, and definitely Bonhoeffer's work and a number of others: the Clarence Jordan and Koinonia farms. And so we're influenced by all of those. We do have music sometimes at Forest Feast, if we have someone that can lead it, and, you know, do a good job. But the backbone of our worship life is morning and evening prayer. And that is so wonderful. You were here last night for Forest Feast, and we use the same structure we use for morning and evening prayer, and we have a group of about six people who are writing the liturgies for us, who have been writing for a year and a half now.Debra Rienstra Who are those people?Elaine Heath Well, there's Steve Taylor is our lay leader, and his wife, Cheryl, and then there's Donna Patterson, who's—none of them were here last night. They all had to go somewhere. But some of them are lay people. Some of them are clergy.Debra Rienstra And they don't live here?Elaine Heath No, they live— well, some of the people that write live far away, and they're in our digital community. But, yeah, Steve and Cheryl live in Lumberton, which is, you know, almost two hours away. But they're beautiful. I mean, if you go online and look at some of the last month, look at the prayers and see the—they're just truly beautiful, and they reflect our spirituality of our community.Debra Rienstra Yeah. So the community, it seems to me, you have had people living on the farm itself, but your community, like the Iona community, is both located here on this land, but also dispersed. And so you have that interaction, that conversation between this residential life. So let's try to describe for listeners: there's the farm. You live here with your husband. You have interns from Duke. You have a farm. What do you call Larry?Elaine Heath He's our farm coach.Debra Rienstra Coach, yes, I love that. They have the farm coach who has the farming knowledge that you all sort of follow. You have chefs. They don't live here either, but they come in. So you have a lot of people coming in and out on this farm. And you do regenerative farming. You have programs for kids, you have refugee support, and you can talk about that, trauma informed rest for spiritual leaders. And then a number of other things. The farm produces vegetables and those go to a CSA, and also a lot of it is donated. Why this particular assembly of activities? How does it all fit together? And what are the theological principles beneath each of these endeavors?Elaine Heath The overarching principle is that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer and to every person, let's just be honest. And the job of the pastor, the pastor teacher, is to fan those gifts into flame, to help them have the support they need to use their gifts and that the ministries should be shaped by the gifts of the people, which means you can't use a cookie cutter. And we have numerically a small community, but incredibly high capacity of people. So we have these gifts that they have, and then the ministries are emerging out of those gifts. And it might seem like, why do you have refugee support? And you know, just name anything else we're doing. How does this fit together? The organizing principle—okay, so you have the foundation. These are gifts given by the Spirit. Our ministries are emerging from our gifts. And the organizing sort of a cohesive piece is our rule of life that ties everything together. And so our rule of life is prayer, work, table, neighbor and rest. And that rule of life came about after we lived here for a year, when we first started Spring Forest with—there was another pastor that co-founded it with me, Francis Kinyua, who's from Kenya, and he was my student in Dallas, and did all those other things with me. So we invited him to come. We had to work with three different bishops to kind of make it work. But it worked, you know. Anyway, we just waited for a year to see. We had lots of work to do with getting the farm ready to go and Francis and I went to Church World Service right away to say, “Hey, we have a lot of experience supporting refugees, and we would like to do that here as well.” So we got started with that, but we waited a year and then just articulated, what are the practices that we do that are keeping us grounded here and keeping us right side up. And it was those things, so we named it.Debra Rienstra Okay, you were just doing it, and then you named those things.Elaine Heath Instead of creating sort of an aspirational rule and tried to live into it, we named what was actually working, what was actually grounding us and felt life giving.Debra Rienstra Hi, it's me, Debra. If you are enjoying this podcast episode, go ahead and subscribe on your preferred podcast platform. If you have a minute, leave a review. Good reviews help more listeners discover this podcast. To keep up with all the Refugia news, I invite you to subscribe to the Refugia newsletter on Substack. This is my fortnightly newsletter for people of faith who care about the climate crisis and want to go deeper. Every two weeks, I feature climate news, deeper dives, refugia sightings and much more. Join our community at refugianewsletter.substack.com. For even more goodies, including transcripts and show notes for this podcast, check out my website at debrarienstra.com. D-E-B-R-A-R-I-E-N-S-T-R-A dot com. Thanks so much for listening. We're glad you're part of this community. And now back to the interview.Debra Rienstra You do partner a lot with, you know, “regular church folk.” It's that sort of in-and-out permeable membrane. How do you think about the relationship of what you're doing here, with Spring Forest, with the work of sort of standard congregations, is there like a mutuality? How do you think about that?Elaine Heath It's just like traditional monasticism. You've got a community that have this rule of life they follow. People who are not living in the community can become Oblates to the rule of life and have a special relationship. And usually those people go to church somewhere else. Part of our ethic here is we want to resist competition between churches, so we don't meet on Sundays to do things like programmatically. We usually just rest on Sundays and watch a movie and eat popcorn, you know.Debra Rienstra That's a spiritual practice.Elaine Heath But also, so there's that sort of historic piece, and people from churches come here for retreats. Lead teams come for retreats. People come—pastors, we have a lot of pastors who come here for a retreat. But also we are a mission community, so we're very active with supporting refugees. We're very active with the food programs that we have, and that gives people from a church—lots of churches don't have things like that going on. They don't have the resources for it, or they haven't figured it out. But that way, we can partner with churches and people can come here and they can actually get their hands in the soil, and they can teach somebody to read, and they can see little children learning where food comes from. They can help the chef with her kitchen things, you know. So it's a wonderful way to provide spiritual formation and missional formation to congregations that don't have those resources. And we can do these things together.Debra Rienstra Yeah. And that's that's premised on this being a place, an embodied place, a refugia space that people can come to. Yeah. I think that's a wonderful model. Do you yourself ever feel a sense of loss for “the old ways?” And I'm just thinking of this because at the beginning of your book, God Unbound, which is about Galatians, you write about how Paul challenges the Galatians to let go of their tight grip on the past, and you write about how you, reading that, felt yourself like a little bit of a traditionalist, you know, sort of defending, “But what about the past? What about the old ways?” Which you have loved too, right? So, how would you counsel people who have loved traditional church despite everything, and really do feel this sense of loss and wonder anxiously about what's next?Elaine Heath Yeah, I feel empathy. You know, something was going on in the Middle East at the time. I can't remember exactly the situation. There's always something going on, but it had to do with people's culture being wiped out and being told that what they believed didn't count and wasn't right and everything. And I was feeling such grief for them, and then all of a sudden, you know, I'm in Galatians, and think, “Well, that's how those people felt.” And even myself, there are things in my own daily practice that are—they're precious to me. My way of praying in the morning, the facing into the forest, you know, and things like that, that are rituals for me. And thinking, you know, if somebody told me “that doesn't matter,” how hard that would be. So I think in the spiritual journey, we come to the place, if we keep maturing, where we realize, in Merton's words, that so often we think it's the finger pointing to the moon, we think the finger is the moon. And it's that way about rituals and all sorts of things that we do, and we get to a place where we realize that intellectually and even spiritually, in an emotional way. But you can't force people to get to that point. This is something that happens as we grow and mature as life goes by. So what I have said to many people is, “If you are nurtured by traditional church, or, let's say, conventional church,”—because which traditional church are we talking about? One, right here, middle class, white, are we talking about Brazil? —”So if that nurtures you, keep doing it. But also realize that for other people, that's not nurturing. It feels dry and lifeless, and it's clear the Spirit is doing something new.” So instead of insisting everybody stop doing the new thing, and everybody has to come and do the conventional thing, you can be conventional in your worship and bless and make space for others so that we have a plethora of experiments going on. Because we're in a time of great emergence, as Phyllis Tickle wrote, and we need lots of experiments.Debra Rienstra Yeah. I appreciated what you wrote about trial and error. It's a time of trial and error, and it's okay to try things and have them not work. And that fits the refugia model too, really, really well. I mean, refugia don't always work. They just sometimes fail. Let's talk about a couple of key metaphors that I've noticed in your writings and in the website for Spring Forest too. One is that metaphor of the mycelial network, so the underground fungus that connects the creatures, the beings, the plants, the trees of the forest. I think is a wonderful metaphor too, for the way that faith and climate people, people who are worried about the climate crisis, and also people of faith—it's a great metaphor for how they're finding each other and connecting and building this sort of cultural and spiritual soil where the seeds of the future can grow. How is that metaphor meaningful for you here at Spring Forest?Elaine Heath Well, it means a lot in terms of the first of all, the diversity of expressions of ministry that are even here on the property, but also, especially in our dispersed community, through following the rule of life together, which—we are a practice-based community, rather than a dogma-based community. So as people are practicing those practices where they live and work and play, then they are forming community in a very specific, contextual way where they are. I think of Steve and Cheryl again, the friends I mentioned earlier. He's our lay leader. They live in a, I think a working class neighborhood in Lumberton, which is the land of the Lumbee here in North Carolina. And they have developed a wonderful, just neighborhood ministry there with—and they've been able, through potluck dinners and front yard barbecues and remembering people's birthdays and things like this, they've developed this friendship network in the neighborhood with people that are on complete opposite sides, politically, racially, and this is in the South, where you've got all sorts of issues. And they've taken the sort of ethic of Spring Forest here, but it's caused a mushroom to bloom there that looks really different from here. They don't have a farm, they don't have a forest, they've got this neighborhood. But the neighboring, the praying, the tabling, resting, all of those things are part of how they live there. And so it's fruiting there. And it's the same in other places in the world where we have people that live there.Debra Rienstra It's a good example, too, of how eating together is sacramental, both here and in these other networks that are connected to you. The Garden of Eden and the vision of the New Earth in Revelation are both important to you, that that whole long scriptural arc begin in a garden, end in a garden city, and then the Tree of Life is also your symbol, your logo. So how would you situate our work today as people of faith in that long arc of history, from the garden to the Garden City, and how does the Tree of Life fit into that for you?Elaine Heath There's a way in which the whole story is happening simultaneously. Does that make sense?Debra Rienstra Yeah.Elaine Heath It's all happening beyond time, sort of simultaneously. So sometimes we're living in the garden and we've been deceived, and now we have to figure out what to do, and sometimes we're rebuilding the wall, and sometimes we're on our way to Bethlehem, and sometimes we're in the garden of the new creation. And we can see it, and we're living that truth even while there's still the wall being built. There's a simultaneity to it all. But for me, I think especially of the theology of Julian of Norwich. That's why we have her icon here. There's this vision of love making all things new, that God, Christ, the risen Christ, says in Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I make all things new.” All things, not just a handful of people who get the right doctrine, not just—no, all things: horses and amoeba and all things are being made new in mysterious ways that we can't completely know.Debra Rienstra And that's Colossians one and Romans eight as well.Elaine Heath It's this thread that comes through scripture, and we get to participate in that, even while we don't see all the things completely made new, we get to be part of that. And to me, that's what it means to follow Christ. That's what it means to be a disciple. And to be the love of God enfleshed in this world is to keep participating in the making of all things new. This is why healing has such a central role in my theological vision and my practice, is it's making all things new.Debra Rienstra Healing land, healing people, healing communities.Elaine Heath Yeah, yeah. Healing theology. Theology has been so damaged by patriarchy and philosophy and all sorts of things, you know, and racism.Debra Rienstra Colonization. Yeah, so that embodiment is important even theologically, because we're not aiming for some abstract doctrinal perfection. We're not aiming to become disembodied creatures. We're aiming for this embodied redemption. And so working on the farm, healing, you know, getting muddy, walking through forests, harvesting veg, and you're able to invite people into that embodiment. Little kids doing yoga, I think that's wonderful. You know, just finding this kind of rest in their own little bodies. Eating—one of the most embodied and kinship-with-creation things we do, right? Taking it inside ourselves. And that, I think, is condensed in ritual. So I know that you have been playfully experimenting with rituals. I was able to be a part of the Forest Feast last night with my husband Ron and our friend Colin. And it was this beautifully curated event where we shared table together and then went through this prayer sequence that you described, and it was beautifully participative. I noticed you do a blessing of the animals too on the farm. So good thing these are blessed chickens and blessed dairy goats, blessed dogs and cats. What other sort of liturgical shenanigans have you tried to help people live into this embodied faith practice?Elaine Heath We do so many things. It's so much fun. It's never boring. It's never boring. We have a ritual in the fall, in late November, where we tuck the farm in and put it to bed for the winter, and we have the children come, we get some compost. You know, we've cleared out the beds, and they're gonna rest now. And so the children put some compost in. And we have a liturgy that we use. We light candles, and we thank Mother Earth for the food, we thank God for the opportunities. And so this is one of the things that we do ritualistically. We also have a spring ritual. It's very Hebrew-Bible like, right? With these seasons and the crops and the things with the liturgical seasons, we also have done a bunch of things. My favorite one so far was for epiphany, and this was two years ago. And so I had the interns from Duke Divinity School do the bulk of the planning. I just gave them a little bit of guidance about the four-fold order of worship and just some things like that. So we had a journey through the forest. It started here. We went on the forest trail. Of course, it was dark outside, and they had gone ahead and set up fairy lights at certain places where we're going to stop. And one of the interns' fiance was a musician, so he had his guitar, and he had one of those things where you can play the harmonica and play the guitar at the same time, but he was our troubadour, and all of us were the Magi. So there's this troop of Magi, and we would stop at each station along the way, and there were prompt questions that we would take five minutes, and people could respond to these questions. There would be a scripture reading, and we respond to the question, we go to the next station. And it was so amazing. People shared from their lives in a very deep way. It surprised me how quickly they went deep. Well, it was dark, and there were these twinkle lights, and there was the troubadour. Then we finally got up to the Christ child, and we went into the goat barn. And honestly, I get chills every time I even remember this. But the students had set up in the goat barn—and the goats were in the barn. Okay, they were behind a little chain link thing so they didn't step on the icons and everything. But they had set up an altar at the base of the feeding trough with a big icon of Mary with the Christ Child, candles, and some other things there. There were different icons and some fairy lights. And we went in there, and we all crowded in and began to sing. We sang “This Little Light of Mine,” we sang some Christmas carols, and finished the story. And then we came back to the house and had some snacks and talked about what kind of wisdom was given to us since we were Magi. We were going to be people seeking wisdom and seeking—it was the most beautiful thing. And we've done lots of things like that. We see the land here is a primary text to learn from and to listen to and to observe, not as a metaphor, but as, it's actually a conversation partner. So we do things like that.Debra Rienstra That playfulness is so exciting to me, this sense of using our tradition, using our scriptures, using the skills that we've honed as people of faith over generations, singing together, praying together, but experimenting with those things in new contexts and new ways, in new forms of embodiment that are just faithful and yet playful. And so, as you say, people go deep because they're sort of jarred out of their habitual ways, and that can be such a great formational moment and bonding moment too, and it's very memorable. We remember that in ways—you know, you had such joy on your face as you're describing that. What would you say as you look back over the last, well, let's see, it's been almost eight years? Seven, eight years here at this location. What would you say has given you the most anguish and what has given you the most joy?Elaine Heath Oh, anguish. Which story should I tell?Debra Rienstra Yeah, I don't want to make it sound like it's all been beautiful and romantic and perfect.Elaine Heath Whenever you have community, you have drama. Well, you know, at your typical church, you're gonna have drama sometimes. But what we've found a few times, and it's pretty predictable. This happens in traditional monasteries too, which is why they have novitiate periods that are sometimes quite lengthy and sort of staggered, like you put your toe in the water. People of very high capacity who are deeply grounded spiritually and have a real vision for the gospel, are attracted to community life like this. People who are really hurt, who've had a lot of brokenness, especially from religious institutions or abusive situations, trauma that that is unresolved, that has a lot of unhealed wounds, are also attracted to places like this, often with a sort of utopian hope, because of, you know, life's deficits.Debra Rienstra And they feel that this is a place of healing, and they're right about that.Elaine Heath They're right about it. And so what actually happens is sometimes with the person, the second category of person, will come and join in and just be so full of gladness, because, “Oh, these, these are real people, like they're really doing things in the world. This is what I've longed for.” But then, as relationships form, and we're doing life together, and we all bump up against each other at times, the unhealed wounds fester. And the way I see it is, God's bringing them to a place where, if they'll just do their inner work now, now that it's clear what's the next step—if they'll take the next step, whether it's get some therapy, stay on your meds, get some support for your addiction recovery, whatever the things are—if you'll take the next step, then this is a very supportive community that can help you. It's a village that can be around you and you will heal here in the context of this village. But sometimes people are not willing or not able, or it's not time in their own sense of what they can do, and so then they'll leave. Sometimes when people leave, this happens in traditional churches, for whatever reason, this is a common sort of psychological reaction, they'll create some sort of chaotic drama to be the excuse for leaving, rather than have to face the fact that it was time for me to take the next step, and I was too scared. Because that takes a lot of self awareness, you know, to come to realizations about things like that. So I know from talking to people, from, you know, friends that are in traditional monasteries and convents that this is a common thing that happens there. So it happens here sometimes, and it's never easy. It's always painful and always challenging, you know, but with God's help, we get through it. And so that's the anguish, when those kinds of things happen. We've had a time or two where, over the last 20 years, really, where a person would come in, usually a young adult who's very idealistic, and they're like, “This isn't a new monastic community. You're not forcing people to pray three times a day!” You know, whatever the thing is that they have in their head that is supposed to be, because we're pretty gracious, you know.Debra Rienstra You don't get up at three in the morning.Elaine Heath Yeah, that's not us. We can't do that because, especially if you've got families with children and, you know, you've got to get up and go to work in the morning. So sometimes there will be somebody that figures they know more than everybody else in the room, and they want to take over and run the joint. You know, that's not going to happen. So then that sometimes creates some anguish. What about the joy? The joy is—and there's so much to give me joy. I really, really love seeing people come alive, like I really love seeing people who have, especially people who have been harmed by religion, because of their identity or because of anything, and they find deep spiritual friendship. They find how to connect, in Buechner's words, their deep passion with the world's great need, and start a new thing. And it gives them so much joy. And it's actually helping people. It's helping the world. And just sort of fanning that flame, that gives me a lot of joy. I have so much joy being in touch with the land and the animals. I just really experience them directly mediating God to me. I feel the divine life in them, and I feel, I guess I get a lot of dopamine hits when I'm out there harvesting and when I'm, you know, brushing the goats and talking to the chickens and whatnot.Debra Rienstra They are blessed chickens!Elaine Heath They are blessed chickens.Debra Rienstra What advice would you give to church people who, even though they love their church and their community, recognize that something needs to change, but they don't know where to start? What advice would you give?Elaine Heath To start in their own home, if at all possible, start in their own neighborhood. Start having neighbors over for dinner. Do not tell them we're going to have a Bible study now, because that's—it's not to have a Bible study. It's to form friendships with our neighbors. Start neighboring well. Figure out who lives on my street. Who lives across the street? Invite them for dinner. Have neighborhood potlucks. We did this in Texas, right after we moved there, I think they're still going. We'd have 50 people in our house sometimes. But just invite the neighbors for dinner. Have a potluck. Get to know them. Remember their birthdays, go to their kids' graduation. When you find out their mother died, go to the funeral. It's so simple. It's just such basic neighboring. That's where to start. It's not a church program. It's not making you stop going to church somewhere, to go to church over here. What you're actually doing is living church in your own neighborhood. Start doing that.Debra Rienstra Elaine, it's been such a pleasure to be here on the farm with you and to talk with you, get to know you a little bit. Thank you for what you do, and thank you for spending some time with me today.Elaine Heath It's been a joy. Thank you for the interview.Debra Rienstra Thanks for joining us for show notes and full transcripts, please visit debrarienstra.com and click on the Refugia Podcast tab. This season of the Refugia Podcast is produced with generous funding from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Colin Hoogerwerf is our awesome audio producer. Thanks to Ron Rienstra for content consultation as well as technical and travel support. Till next time, be well. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit refugianewsletter.substack.com

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and steps they have taken to get to where they are today. Dairy Stream host Joanna Guza and guests Jim Mlsna, owner of Ocooch Dairy, and Brad Guse of BMO discuss early influences, improvements to better the farm, challenges, financial preparations and the future of the farm and dairy industry. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Jim Mlsna is the owner of Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin where they milk 950 cows and farm 1,450 acres.   Brad Guse manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural relationships made up of primarily dairy farm accounts. Brad has over 30 years of experience in agricultural banking.  2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

Voice of Milk and BMO are proud to bring back the “How We Got Here” podcast series featuring dairy farmers sharing the history of their farm and the steps they have taken to get to where they are today. The Dairy Streamlet is a condensed version of a long Dairy Stream episode and covers the high-level points of the conversation. If this topic interest you, then listen to the full episode on Oct. 15. This three-part series is sponsored by BMO. About the guests: Jim Mlsna is the owner of Ocooch Dairy in Hillsboro, Wisconsin, where they milk 950 cows and farm 1,450 acres.   Brad Guse manages a portfolio of diverse production agricultural relationships made up of primarily dairy farm accounts. Brad has over 30 years of experience in agricultural banking.  2024 Season 1: How We Got Here Podcast series How We Got Here: Norm E Lane in Chili, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Solhawk Dairy in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin How We Got Here: Verhasselt Farms in Kaukauna, Wisconsin Compeer Financial is proud partner of Dairy Stream.  Learn more about Dairy Stream sponsorship. This podcast is produced by the Voice of Milk, a collaboration of individual dairy organizations working to improve the future of dairy farm families. Become a sponsor, share an idea or feedback by emailing podcast@dairyforward.com.  Join us at Dairy Strong on January 14-15 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Gain timely political updates, dive into the dynamics of producer-processor relationships and learn strategies to sustain a stronger future for dairy through innovation and collaboration. United together, we're leading with purpose—one person, one policy and one farm at a time. To learn more, visit dairystrong.org.

The start of the new school year brings the usual set of challenges for students as they navigate new schedules, lesson plans and social dynamics. Those changes can also take a toll on a student’s mental health. A survey conducted in 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, for example, that 40% of high school students nationwide reported depressive symptoms - an increase of more than 10% since 2013. Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in 2021 warning about worsening youth mental health, exacerbated by the pandemic and excessive use of social media.     The Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health at University of Oregon is working to help address this crisis of youth mental health. Launched in 2022, the institute is pioneering the first program of its kind in the nation to educate and train a new class of healthcare workers: child behavioral health specialists. The 4-year program provides an alternative to the additional years and cost a student would typically have to spend in graduate school to become, for example, a school psychologist or social worker. Instead, the undergraduates in the program obtain 700 hours of applied training that starts their junior year with internships at Portland area schools, clinics and community organizations. While they can’t provide diagnoses or conduct psychological evaluations, the interns can help prevent and mitigate behavioral health challenges by teaching, for example, problem-solving strategies or coping skills kids can use during stressful situations.     Joining us for more details are Cody Ghion, an assistant clinical professor at UO’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health; Sophia Morgan, a UO senior and child behavioral health intern who is currently working at a high school in Portland for students in recovery from substance use; and Anne Libby, who is also a UO senior and child behavioral health intern currently working at a pediatric clinic in Hillsboro.