God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

  Introductory statement This story was written by a remarkable Spirit-filled woman named Kaitee Lusk, who interviewed former firefighter Rick Defer and added the account of his near-death-experience (NDE) to the collection of miracle stories in her book Eternal Makeovers , Pleasant Word, Winepress Publishing, Enumclaw WA, 2006. Rick told me about her when I met him at church one day in Citrus Heights, California in 2007. Several of us listened to his first hand account of the day he was electrocuted at work in 1980 and was clinically dead for a full half hour. He showed us the scars. There was a clear dent in his chest, and his hands still bore witness to the burns from that unfortunate day. He also told me Kaitee’s amazing story, so I contacted her by email and she sent me the narrative below, copied and pasted from her book manuscript. She added her own account of receiving a call from God to go to the Philippines. Her stunning story of leading Philippine dictator Ferdinand Ma...

  I first heard about John and Annie Bidwell in a book called Under God's Spell: Frontier Evangelists 1772-1915 by Cathy Luchetti, 1989. It’s written from the diaries of Catholic and Protestant missionaries, both men and women, in the 1800’s. Annie’s story is taken from her own writings. I managed to visit the Bidwell mansion many years ago and found the source, a casually published compendium called Rancho Chico Indians, by Annie E. K. Bidwell, edited by Dorothy J. Hill, 1980/1987, Bidwell Mansion Cooperating Association. Some of Annie's most compelling and spiritual narratives were in this publication, but were forgotten until my visit. Fun story about that below. She was born in 1841, related to some of the elite that helped found our nation. Her great grandfather was the surveyor who laid out Washington in 1790. As she grew, her contemporary social circle was full of influential leaders. She married John Bidwell, who went west without her to acquire a 22,000 acre ranch a...