Whiskey Town Lake Reunion

When I first mentioned that I was moving to Redding, CA  to my friend Sam he said, “Sweet, Whiskey town Lake.”  I had no idea what he was talking about, but just nodded and smiled.  Today, however, we were invited to go out with the Stevens Family to spend the evening there.  About fourteen miles from our house, West of Redding, up in the hills about a thousand feet higher in elevation, off a road that winds up to the top of a ridge there is an absolutely gorgeous lake below as you crest the point to turn into the park by the Ranger Station off the main highway.  Driving around the dam of the reservoir we could see amazing, tropical-colored-blue rocks deep in the clear waters dispersed casually along the shoreline.  We arrived to our destination which was a scenic beach front in a wonderful cove of the lake surrounded by tall ponderosa pine trees.

My good friend Aaron, who is truly responsible for my being down in Redding (okay, him and Jesus) along with his wife, Crystal, and their son, Judah, try to make going to the lake a weekly outing.  Aaron’s parents, his two brothers, wives, kids, girlfriends, etc. all came.  It was a great time.  

Aaron & I at the Lake 

A mutual friend of their family came along, that once introduced I said, “I know you from somewhere but I just can’t place it.”  His name was Tom.  I knew his face and his voice so strangely well but I could not place where from.  I introduced myself as “Joben” and later as we were all sitting around talking he said, “Wait, Joby Jarvis, why do I know your name?!” as we could both see the connection start to come into focus.  We narrowed it down to Springfield Faith Center, where we both been attending during the same time.  Tom is fourteen years older that I am and as we started to figure age and placement it clicked!  He was my leader in “Knights” when I was in the fifth grade!  Knights was a mid-week bible-memorizing-youth-program that was part of our church during the Wednesday evenings, kind of like Awanas I suppose.  “I spent the night in your backyard!” I announced as it all came flooding back, and detailed exactly where his old house was at of 73^rd Street out in the Thurston area where we had our end-of-the-Knight-season sleep over, or whatever it was. 

Tom moved soon after that and I had not seen him since I was ten-years-old until today, twenty-three years ago.  The Lord has done some really incredible “relational re-connecting” lately.  Crazy!