[00:00:00] And I'm not going to lie, there are some Saturday mornings where I wake up and go,
[00:00:04] ugh.
[00:00:05] Really?
[00:00:06] Do I really have to get up?
[00:00:09] You know?
[00:00:10] And, but then like God does, whether it's a church service, a sermon, a women's Bible
[00:00:15] study, a Sunday morning Bible study, it's like say, and I'm Cheryl Tash. Do I do it again? Just do it again.
[00:01:40] Welcome to Christ in All Things.
[00:01:42] I'm Pastor Lance O'Donnell.
[00:01:43] I'm Pastor Jason Shockman.
[00:01:44] And I'm Cheryl Tash. to do that. Yeah, I mean, it's not rocket science, you know, for what we have to do. You have to pay attention. So you can't, you know, be distracted, which I have been occasionally. And all of a sudden it's like, oh, you know, got to push this button. But yeah, I mean, it's just paying attention and doing the right buttons and slides when
[00:03:03] you need to, but it's actually fun.
[00:03:05] I enjoy it.
[00:03:07] So yeah.
[00:03:08] And you're great at it. and she told her grandmother who lived in West Ben, Wisconsin, she said, you know, I started dating this boy named Aiden O'Donnell, and grandma said, is that pastor O'Donnell's son? Wow. So she had already been listening. For years. Oh my goodness. Yeah. What a small world. Yeah.
[00:04:20] Yeah.
[00:04:20] And I know Joel's aunt that lives right here now.
[00:04:24] And Joel is Cheryl's husband.
[00:04:25] Yes, my husband.
[00:04:26] His aunt who lives right here in O'Connell-Wock, went to you went to St. Paul's West Alice school, right? Yes, and church. And church. And then we're at Martin Luther High School. Right. And then your family moved out, moved west and you stayed there for your senior year, even though and we started to talk about how things changed for you spiritually. And you, you mentioned something very significant that happened.
[00:05:44] Yes.
[00:06:44] at the time. I worked at the front desk. I was the front office manager. Olympia, by the way, for a resort. Yes. It was a resort. Now it doesn't exist near what is now I nandy for.
[00:06:52] In a kind of walk. But so my role as front desk was obviously very visible. And when I was
[00:06:59] pregnant, I was told you may not work at the front that Katie was born, my dad was the first one at the hospital. And they have had a very, very special relationship from that day forward. So yeah. It was just he was hurt, you know? And because as any parent, you think you're raising
[00:08:23] your kids right, right?
[00:08:24] And you think that you can protect them
[00:08:28] from all the evils of the world coming from your perspective. Coming from my perspective, because in my, I guess naive perceptions, I'm like, how could this happen? This is a pastor, this is a man of God, right? How does this, how God can you let this happen? This is your plan. Yeah. And yeah, I was bad, I was very bad.
[00:09:43] And I had Jamie prepared to leave my family yet, right?
[00:11:00] And I just felt like I can't do that.
[00:11:03] The wedding's gonna be in Wisconsin anyway,
[00:11:06] so I'm just gonna be here for this year you know, if you remember back to the first part where I talked about developing as a leader, it wasn't long that Cheryl just kind of took over. So. Yeah. And the youth ministry stuff. The youth ministry stuff. And I spent 12 years as director of youth ministry here. And at the beginning in your late 20s. Yeah, actually my early 20s because Katie was very young at the time. Wow. Okay. So youth, if you're listening to this, we are fortunate. Yes. So by the way, Cheryl, you need to come upstairs. So again, we're recording, and it's the 30th of August, 2023, in upstairs in room 219, which is our really biggest classroom.
[00:13:42] That is now carpeted.
[00:13:44] It has brand new furniture.
[00:13:46] Wow.
[00:13:47] For the youth.
[00:13:48] Wow. That's where you did that. And so that part of my life was another aspect that really changed my spiritual connection. Don Miller, a former member of St. Paul's, he and I worked together very closely on youth ministry.
[00:15:00] He managed the junior high kids,
[00:15:02] I don't do junior high.
[00:15:07] We all have our gifts. And sure enough, without any warning, a storm came in. And it was so bad that it washed out the road that the buses brought us up there so the buses could not get back. And people had scattered and you lost your group. And when everybody, I mean, there are people that,
[00:16:22] you know, broken arms and legs from literally just chaos of the story pastor, Shaqman? Yes. A lot of people were being treated for hypothermia at hospitals and things like that. The really cool thing was as they were finally able to start getting buses up very slowly and very spread apart, the kids that were able to get on buses, they were now handing their sweatshirts off to the kids that were still up there, not knowing how long they were going to be up there yet.
[00:17:42] And it was cold.
[00:17:43] I mean, and the hail, that changed my life, that experience. So how so just seeing the the power of God in so many different ways
[00:20:03] you know, with the broken limb, but other than that, all we're accounted for.
[00:20:04] And yeah, it just, I really, from that time on,
[00:20:10] I just really, I got it.
[00:20:14] I don't know, does that make sense?
[00:20:15] It makes a lot of sense.
[00:20:17] Just got it.
[00:20:18] And so obviously, this is, you know,
[00:20:21] again, I was still young at the time.
[00:20:24] So in my mind, I was still young,
[00:20:26] but it was probably 30-something I would imagine, Worship, with other corporate worship and the experience of the cross, and suffering. Right, and you know, help you get it. Yeah, and the suffering that I went through with the breakup, the engagement breakup, I mean, at that point in time, I went to James.
[00:21:41] Why I went to James, I don't know.
[00:21:44] The book of James.
[00:21:44] But the book of James, and there was a lot of stuff in there
[00:21:47] that really helped me, you know. promises to God and you'll mean it. And then life happens. And then, then the onion starts to get peeled back over time. You'll experience some kind of suffering. And it doesn't mean that you didn't mean it when you said it when you were 13, 14. But to start a women's ministry and a women's Bible study group. And for various reasons, Sarah doesn't isn't a member here anymore. And we had gotten about a year, a year and a half under our belt together and Sarah left. And I just said, I'm not going to let this go.
[00:24:21] And like I said, my life is service and it's just what I love to do.
[00:24:25] And I'm not get fed today. Yeah. Consumaristically. Right. But, you know, over time, and it thing about attendance at church regular You know and you hear people talk about you know my kids are young. It's hard. It's difficult You know, they don't get anything out of it anyway and the answer is yes Yes, it is and I understand that you don't get anything out of it right now because you're busy paying attention to your kid Well, you're sitting in the pube but your kids getting something out of it because they're learning that you make this a habit
[00:27:04] right and it in, just like they do in life. You think that they don't hear what you're talking about? You think they don't see what you're doing? Oh, yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. Yeah. So. You did the single parent thing for quite some time. Long time. Long time she's living in the apartment right above my mom. So it works out great. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I just, uh, Katie should be a standup comedian for some of the things that she would share about living with grandma.
[00:29:42] And maybe that's for another day.
[00:29:43] And maybe that's for another day.
[00:29:44] And maybe that's another conversation we can have here at Christ and all things. spiritual growth. It's just if you have an opportunity to serve, and don't think you have to do big things, little things are so important and so helpful, so just do it. Reminds me of something that Jesus said, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for the many.
[00:31:04] Thanks for joining us here at Christ and All Things.
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