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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 23, 2017)
WEEKEND EDITION NIXYAAWII DOMINATES UMATILLA SPORTS/1B TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2017 THE SEASON OF GIVING MUSIC/3C LIFESTYLES/1C DECEMBER 23-24, 2017 142nd Year, No. 48 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD Tim Van Cleave Shaindel Beers Joe Engum Bill Young Jade McDowell Comment Home for Christmas? D ream all you want of a white Christmas, but a white Friday- before-Christmas is the worst. I’ve made it home for every single Christmas of my adulthood, but my nemesis has always been those last-minute storms that sneak up the moment fi nals are over or I wrap up that last assignment at work. Hence, my frequent checking of the latest weather as I write this on — what else — a Friday before Christmas when snow is expected. I’m supposed to head to my parents’ house in The Dalles after work. Two of my brothers will be there. The third threw in the towel before even seeing a weather report this year. Last year it took him and his family three days to make it from Salt Lake City, in a journey that featured an overnight stay with relatives in Boise, several hours at a McDonald’s in Baker City and a night in a cheap motel in La Grande. My own near-miss of Christmas happened in college, when snow and a broken de-icer closed the Portland airport. It took four days, two canceled fl ights and many hours standing in lines before I was fi nally able to get a standby seat on a fl ight to Pasco the afternoon before Christmas Eve. My dad and my brother drove straight from Portland to get me — they had been stranded there for days after they went to pick me up from my soon-to-be-canceled fl ight and the interstate closed behind them. My luggage was missing, the Christmas shopping wasn’t done, we didn’t have time to make gingerbread houses and the family Christmas tree was looking a little worse for the wear after falling over at one point — but none of that See CHRISTMAS/12A A look at how different faiths shape people’s views on hope By PHIL WRIGHT East Oregonian In our community and nation, reasons to hope abound. The East Oregonian contacted local people from different faiths and backgrounds for their take on how their beliefs shape their views on hope. We interviewed four of them. Tim Van Cleave is the pastor of the Bethel Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church in Pendleton. Poet and teacher Shaindel Beers is secular with a Jewish cultural background and Baptist religious upbringing. Joe Engum has been practicing Buddhism for 25 years. Bill Young is a Pendleton native and a second generation member of the Bahá’í Faith. ——— Van Cleave, a pastor for 28 years, said for him and other evangelical Christians, hope stems from the center of their faith: Jesus Christ. “That’s the biggest source of hope there is over any other thing,” he said. Faith, hope and love are three building blocks, he said. While the Bible teaches love is the most important, he doubted we can live without any of them. Van Cleave said as a shepherd to his congregational fl ock, he has the responsibility of keeping hope alive. His church, like others, runs a “school of restoration,” with the aim of healing past hurts and bringing new hope to people’s lives. “I’ve seen hope come into situations that seem hopeless,” he said. Getting there, he stressed, takes effort. The hope Christ offers is life altering, but followers must engage with their faith each day through study of the Bible, prayer and action. “It’s not one and done,” Van Cleave said. Van Cleave said connecting people to Christ is his mission, and God can bring hope to anyone, from the follower who opens the Bible and fi nds the “Just about the time you think a situation is really dismal and desperate, that somehow there is an abundance of kindness that arises. And it comes from every corner.” passage that speaks right to her heart, to inmates in prison overcoming terrible lives to experience spiritual awakening. He also said Biblical heroes such as King David remind followers to stay hopeful. He also sees hope in the actions the church can take to help others. Andi Davis and Alex Bannick recently lost their Pendleton home to a fi re. Davis sometimes attends Bethel Assembly, Van Cleave said, and the congregation took up an offering to help the couple and their children. Those actions can stir up hope, he said, and reaffi rm “together, we can do more.” ——— Beers said we should have hope, but hope is passive and should not keep us from taking — Bill Engum See HOPE/12A 12 new laws to keep in mind for the new year Minimum age for tobacco products goes up to 21 By JADE MCDOWELL East Oregonian You can pump your own gas 24 hours a day in Boardman starting in January — due to a law that will change with the new year. Thanks to one of more than 850 laws passed during the 2017 Oregon Legislature, fuel stations in counties east of Portland with fewer than 40,000 residents (including all of the counties surrounding Umatilla County but not Umatilla County itself) can allow self-service fueling 24 hours a day. A few other interesting laws to keep in mind as Jan. 1 rolls around: • Starting in 2018, drivers must change lanes or slow down when passing any vehicle with fl ashing hazard lights, fl ares or other signs of distress parked along the side of road not in a desig- nated parking space. The previous law only required drivers to move over for emergency vehicles and tow trucks. Now, if there are more than two lanes going in the same direction, the EO fi le Photo Oregon voters became the fi fth state in the nation to raise the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21 years old. driver must change lanes away from the stopped vehicle. If there is only one lane in each direction the driver must slow down to at least fi ve miles under the posted speed limit instead. • One of the most controversial bills of the 2017 session, which allows a judge to order someone to give up their fi rearms, kicks in on Jan. 1. If a family member or police offi cer presents the court with convincing evidence that a person “presents a risk in the near future, including an imminent risk, of suicide or of causing physical injury to another person” a judge can issue an order of protection banning the person from possessing deadly weapons for one year. • Once the new year begins, Oregonians under the age of 21 will no longer be able to purchase any tobacco products. The state became the fi fth in the nation to raise the smoking age to 21 this summer. • The voting age in the United States remains at 18, but in January teenagers in Oregon will be able to turn See LAWS/12A