NEIGHBORS : Magic and Miracles : For members of Christian club, tricks can help illustrate events from the Bible.

In case you missed it, the local Fellowship of Christian Magicians’ monthly meeting was held last Sunday at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Oxnard. The theme? Liquids.

Oh, you weren’t aware there was a Christian magicians’ club? Member Ted Wakai explained the group’s premise. “A lot of miracles are referred to in the Bible,” he said. “A number of the (members) teach Sunday school. They want to give a gospel application to magic.”

Wakai (a.k.a. the Wizard of Ox-nard and The Magic Man) said it helps to make a point, when talking about the Bible, if a speaker can do tricks to illustrate the miracles. “Like turning water to wine,” he said. “Anybody can do that.”

Congratulations to Sally Sakura Johns, a fifth-grader at Oxnard’s Fred Williams School. She was one of 19 finalists out of about 2,000 entrants in a statewide smog check poster contest conducted by the California Department of Consumer Affairs’ Bureau of Automotive Repair. For her efforts, she received a smog check T-shirt and a $50 savings bond.

The California Peace Officers Assn. will hold its Torch Run fund-raiser for the Special Olympics today. The torch will travel through the county on its way to UCLA’s Drake Stadium, with a special ceremony on the steps of Ventura’s City Hall from 8 to 8:30 a.m.

More than 100 members of local police departments, the California Highway Patrol, the county Sheriff’s Department, the district attorney’s office and the Camarillo Development Center Facility will participate.

It’s obviously a great cause. But what about the event’s slogan: “Help Run a Cop Out of Town.” Is this really the best word-choice these days?

Samantha Gastineau, owner of The Cheese Store in Ventura, has been crying a lot since Memorial Day weekend. It may have something to do with a reunion she had with a daughter she put up for adoption nearly 25 years ago.

How did it all come about? Let’s take it from the top.

After meeting a woman who told of having found her own birth mother, Gastineau decided to search for her daughter, Lisa Dills. She was directed to the International Soundex Reunion Registry, based in Carson City, Nev. She gave the organization her daughter’s birth certificate and waited.

About 1 1/2 years later, the phone rang.

“It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon when the woman (from the registry) called,” said Gastineau. “She said it had been the easiest match she had ever done.”

That’s because 10 days earlier Dills had also contacted the registry, also with a copy of the birth certificate.

An hour later--when phone rates were cheaper--Gastineau called Dills at her home in North Carolina. “We talked for about two hours,” Gastineau said. “The first week we must have been on the phone 20 hours.” Neither could afford to make the trip to see the other, so they figured they’d have to do their catching up long-distance. That’s when Gastineau’s friends got to work.

Norma Zuber and Bobbi Micali who, like Gastineau, are members of the Ventura County Professional Women’s Network, contacted fellow members and local merchants and raised enough money for Dills, her husband and two children to fly out here. They arranged for the reunion to take place at the Oxnard Hilton, which had donated lodging.

“They called Lisa--they didn’t tell me,” Gastineau said.

With a little deceit, Gastineau’s friends got her to the Hilton. She was sitting out on the patio, when Micali came toward her with a family in tow. “She said, ‘Samantha, I’d like to introduce you to Lisa Dills,’ at which point,” said Gastineau, “the tears didn’t trickle down my face, they just jumped out of my eyes.” And have been doing so ever since.