During our initial visit to Santa Clara in May, we’d briefly met a girl named Jenny. She had been in the office when we were just leaving to head back up north to Shasta, and I’d forgotten about her altogether until I saw her again at church. She caught my attention at first because she was so strikingly beautiful. Long black hair and almond skin, with dramatic dark eyes and a wide smile of brilliantly white teeth. I eyed her, unable at first to place her but vaguely recognizing her. She caught me staring and her face lit up, a minute later she’d crossed the aisle and was heading straight toward me.
“Kari, right?!” Her face was full of light, looking as if she couldn’t imagine anyone else she’d rather see.
“Yes. . . I know I know you. . . but I can’t place it.”
“I’m Jenny! I’m married to Lacey’s brother. Remember we met in the church office when you guys were visiting before.” It clicked. I apologized for my poor memory but she took my wrist in her hand to stop me. “Don’t even. I bet you’ve met a thousand people. So did you move here?”
“Yeah, well a couple months ago, we got here August 1st.”
“Is your husband—I’m sorry I can’t remember his name—is he the college pastor then?”
I smiled. “Jeff—well no actually, when we got here there was a change and so we’re just here working and living here in the church apartment and helping out when we can.” She looked at me, reading through my well-chosen words.
“Hmm. You’ll have to tell me more. David and I just got married three weeks ago, and now he’s working and going to San Jose State, and Pastor Steve gave me a job working in the church office.”
“That’s great. Where are you from again?”
“Santa Barbara – it’s not too far. I miss my mom so much already, though. I bet you miss home so much. Are you doing ok with everything here?”
I thought for a moment and decided to be honest. “Not really.”
She nodded like she really understood. “Let’s hook up this week.”
I smiled, “Tuesday’s my day off — You know where I live.”
—
The following Tuesday, Jenny knocked on my door. We sat down at my dining room table and I was delighted to discover that she, like me, loved green tea and was very health conscious. So, we nibbled apple slices and sipped our tea, thanking God for small pleasures. We shared our stories briefly—where we were from, how we’d met Christ, and how we’d met and married our husbands. It took no effort—we laughed and confided as if we’d always been friends. I was amazed. I’d never actually connected with anyone from Santa Clara. When I commented on this to her she responded, “I’m not from here, that’s why,” and winked.
I was careful how I explained what had happened to us thus far, especially since she was married to Lacey’s brother. So I tiptoed around the subject, being honest about what happened but trying to remain positive about everyone involved. Her eyes narrowed as she listened.
“Kari, we’ve got to pray!” I looked at her. I mean, I knew we should always pray, but wasn’t sure exactly what she was referring to. “I mean, God needs to do some major things around here and we need to partner with Him and intercede.”
And so we did. We spent that half hour bowed in prayer, interceding for God to work in the church, in the city, in our hearts. Before we knew it it was 1pm and her lunch break was over, so she rushed out the door and back to the office, agreeing that we’d make this a weekly date. After she left, I closed the door and stood there for a moment, deep in thought. I was inspired by her faith and a little rebuked. Rebuked because an enthusiastic call to intercession hadn’t been my response. I mean, I knew some major things needed to happen in that church, but I hadn’t been fervent in praying for those things to take place. I had begun to see things around the church, and especially in the leadership structure and dynamics among people, that were very alarming. In some ways it felt like being on a playground in grade school—where everyone is trying to one-up each other with their scars. If one person shared their story of how hard things were, the other person, instead of offering support or sympathy, would respond, “Well, let me tell you what happened to me!” This happened all the time. When we’d shared with anyone in the church about what had gone on, they’d respond, oh you should hear what happened to so-and-so, they had it really bad when they came here. It especially seemed that any newcomers had some sort of spiritual boot camp imposed on them, as if the church leadership saw it as their personal duty to prove, test, and try every person who ever wanted to serve God.
And it extended to the congregation. Instead of offering love and support, people seemed to be all about proving how tough they could be, how much they could bear, how hard they could work. It was almost like a sick, sadistic competition, to see who could take the most hardship. And it was hard to tell whether it was the culture of the work-addicted city influencing the church or whether it was a skewed view of God among the church leaders that filtered down to every single person in the congregation. I think it was both.
But wherever it came from, it was there. Purposely low salaries, overburdened ministry workers, and harsh, strange circumstances seemed common. We’d just recently met our neighbors—Nathan Leno, Art Leno’s son, who was the youth pastor, and his wife Summer, who lived in an apartment next to ours. While theirs wasn’t trashed like ours, it still was pretty depressing with no windows, and they’d just given birth to their first child. We had had no idea that when Pastor Steve had sat down with Jeff, essentially firing him after one week of work, he’d also sat down with Nathan and let him go as well. Apparently the middle school youth numbers just weren’t increasing at the rate they wanted, so Nathan was let go. At that point Summer had been 8 ½ months pregnant, just two weeks from the birth of their daughter, Millie. We were stunned when we found this out. We finally had them over for dinner one night and were able to minister to each other and encourage each other. I was so blessed by their authentic faith and trust in God through it all. Nathan had no education or experience other than being a youth pastor, and losing his job meant losing their health insurance as well, with a new baby no less. But they saw it as a blessing from God, closing one door so that He could open another. They were just in the waiting season to see what that new door would be. But while we admired their courage and their perspective, we were disturbed by how we’d seen them be treated.
We were also surprised to find out that there had been a history with the college group that we knew nothing about. Apparently, there had been a college group, but the previous college pastor had fallen into sexual sin with some of the girls in the college group. When the truth came out, the entire group was affected and eventually disintegrated when the college pastor was removed from ministry. Because of that event, which was literally just months before we were called, there was a sour taste in everyone’s mouth, a stigma, really, that surrounded the college ministry. None of this was communicated to us when we were told about the opportunities and possibilities available there.
What Jenny showed me, just through her actions, was that my response to these things was indignation rather than intercession. I was bothered, grieved, and concerned, which is good, but I didn’t fall to my knees and pray for God to work. I knew, from our first meeting, that Jenny was a friend.
And so we continued to meet, almost every week. At the end of October, I’d felt the freedom to leave Nordstrom Rack, which I did with joy. I sensed that I’d done what I was supposed to do there and my work was through. Jeff had been encouraging me to take some time and just be home, work on my writing, think, pray, relax. When I left the Rack, the manager, Lynn, wrote me an amazing card, reiterating what she’d teased me about every single day of work: being thankful. She called me “thankful Kari” and used to tease me because she said that I always said thank you for everything and she guessed that if she told me I had to work all night with no pay I’d respond, “Oh, thank you!” After reading the card I poked my head into her office and said, with a wink and smile, “Hey Lynn, thanks for the card.”
So after I’d finished up at the Rack, I’d go in and visit Jenny in the church office, bringing her a non-fat sugar free caramel latte or a Ziploc full of red grapes. She’d call me on my cell if she had errands to run during work, telling me to meet her in five minutes by her car so we could grab frozen yogurt while she was out and about and have a chat.
It was through Jenny that I first heard that the coffee shop, Solid Rock, needed a manager. Nathan Leno had been the manager, on well as being the youth pastor, so now that he had been let go, it had been limping along for a few months but needed some help to keep it alive. An announcement was made at church describing the perfect candidate—outgoing, capable of overseeing people, able to work independently, and willing to really give it Solid Rock a makeover. I was intrigued. Though I’d been discouraged with things at the church, I thought perhaps this would be an opportunity for us to be a part of the body there, to meet people, to give it another chance. Plus, Jenny thought I’d be perfect for it. So, I began to pray.
But while I prayed, something interesting happened. I didn’t necessarily have a strong desire for the job, but was more than willing to do it. But what happened was that every single time I prayed about the job, Luke 10:7 and 1 Timothy 5:18 kept coming to mind, and the phrase, “A worker is worthy of his wages.” I do not claim to be a prophet, but this was very clearly impressed on my heart every time I prayed. I didn’t know what they paid for the position, and it didn’t necessarily matter to me, especially since we had free housing and we didn’t need another income, but the thought kept recurring, over and over, that it was important for the church to demonstrate the fact that they valued people by paying them at least a somewhat competitive wage. And I knew this wasn’t something I’d thought up on my own. Jeff and I had served innumerable hours for free—that’s what it meant to serve in my opinion. But it seemed that here there was perhaps an abuse of a servant’s heart taking place. This impression made me distinctly uncomfortable because I had a sinking suspicion that God was going to ask me to voice this at some point. I didn’t even necessary want the job, but over and over and over, it kept haunting my thoughts, with the same verses and the same phrase: “The worker is worthy of his wages.”
So, I submitted an application. A few days later, Jenny called me to say that they wanted to interview me. I prayed and prayed about what God would have me to say, and the same things kept coming to mind. The next day I went in for my interview, and to my surprise, Jenny was the interviewer. We caught up briefly on how we were doing, and then went onto business. She explained what the job would entail, forty-hours a week plus evenings when Bible studies were in session, plus Sunday mornings before and after church. I shared my experience and why I was interested in the job. Finally, as we finished, I asked what the job paid.
“$8.00 an hour. But no overtime.” I nodded slowly. Minimum wage in California was $7.50, so this was certainly a legal wage. However, I knew from experience that as an entry-level clothes-sorter at the Rack started at $9.75, and this job required skill, long hours, and management qualifications. It may seem a petty thing, but the impression on my heart was there.
“Ok,” I took a deep breath. “I really feel like there’s something that I’m supposed to share, Jenny, and I’m sharing it at the risk of sounding like all I’m interested in is money. I promise that is not the reason. We do not need the money. We are fine and I don’t even need to be working, but I feel like I’m supposed to say that whoever gets this job is supposed to be paid fairly. I know this sounds strange, but I think it’s wrong to devalue people by underpaying them, just for the sake of proving that they’re servants. It really is not the most important thing to me whether or not you give me the job, but it is important to me that God’s people are treated with love and respect. I believe that God wants us to know that the worker is worthy of his wages, and I think this job is just a tiny example of what is happening on a larger level in the church. Just know that I appreciate you taking the time to interview me, and I appreciate you listening. I’ll pray that God chooses just the right person for the job.” And with that, I was done. Jenny had been listening, intently.
“Ok, let me get this right. You’ll only take the job if we pay you more.” I closed my eyes, knowing that she hadn’t “gotten” what I’d meant.
“No. That’s not it. It’s not about me. Whoever gets this job, I believe, should be paid a fair wage.”
“So—how much would we have to pay you to take the job?” I took a deep breath, feeling like everything I’d prayed about and said had been totally missed.
“Well, I’m not sure what is reasonable for a management job, but an entry level retail worker makes $9.75, so perhaps $10/hour would be a good wage. But that’s just a guess.”
“So if we pay you $10/hour you’ll take the job?” Once again I sighed, feeling like somehow all the ways I’d connected, heart to heart, with Jenny, had been lost. I shook my head slightly, giving up.
“Sure.” She smiled and said she’d get back to me.
—
Walking back home, I felt sad. I knew that I’d said what I was supposed to say, but once again I felt like it fell on deaf ears. I got home and just prayed that somehow, Jenny would be able to communicate my heart to the pastors and leaders. I knew my job wasn’t to change anyone’s heart, it was just to be obedient to God, but it still felt discouraging.
The next day, Jenny called and said she wanted to see me in the office. It’d been a particularly rough morning. I was missing my family so much it ached. I longed for someone to just understand how I felt, for the familiar smell of my mom’s embrace. I took a deep breath, unsure how this meeting would go. I entered the church office and walked over to Jenny’s desk. She gave me a quick and polite smile. My heart sank. Something was different. All of a sudden, she seemed like one of them.
“Well, Kari, I’ve spoken with the pastors and they’ve decided that if you’re that interested in the money part of it then you’re heart’s not really in it, so we’re going to keep looking for someone else.” I sat and stared at her. Her voice was prickly, her eyes emotionless. I felt like I could see her friendship slipping through my fingers like sand, like all that I’d cherished in her kindred spirit was slowly disappearing. I smiled sadly.
“Ok.” She looked back at her computer screen, but I thought I’d see if I could chat her back to the old Jenny. “So, what are you up to this weekend?” She looked back at me.
“Oh, David and I are heading out of here Friday at noon so we can beat traffic and we’re going to Santa Barbara for the whole weekend to be with my family. I’m so excited I can’t wait. I can’t wait to just hug my mom and eat her food and relax and just be home.” Her words kicked me in the stomach, and for a moment, I couldn’t breath. Tears stung my eyes but I battled to keep them back. I finally managed to take a breath and forced a smile—a broken, hurting, bleeding smile.
“That’s great, Jenny, that’ll be fun.” She smiled, but didn’t respond. “Well, I better get going. I’ll talk to you soon.” And with that, I stood up, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, literally, to keep from collapsing in a heap of tears. As soon as I closed the church office door, I started to sob. Loud sobs, tears running down my cheeks, my stomach in a knot. I walked quickly up to the apartment, and right before going inside, stopped and looked at the old wooden office door, the safety glass tiny square window in the top with a piece of paper taped over it for privacy. I looked at the piles of trash and discarded belongings, still in the hall. I went inside and stared at the walls, dented and peeling. Jenny’s words still echoed in my ears. I couldn’t tell which was worse—the thought of the pastor’s sitting around condemning me as a money-hound or the thought of Jenny getting to spend an entire weekend with her beloved family while I ached with missing mine. I had trusted her, loved her, and this felt like just another kick in the gut. I staggered to the couch and collapsed, curling up, holding my stomach with my arms, pulling my knees to my chest and burying my face in the couch cushion, crying and asking God why He was allowing me to hurt so much. As I lay there, I felt as if all my strength were utterly sapped—I was a heap of brokenness, with no energy to even get up and try again. When I’d cried myself dry, I reached up and turned off the light, letting the pitch black of the apartment reach around me, engulfing me in its darkness. I lay there for a long time, lost, and eventually drifted to sleep.
A week or so after our dinner at Jack and Kathy’s house, Jack approached us at church to let us know that BioTech was looking for a technical writer. He’d looked over my resume and thought that perhaps I’d be interested in the job. If I wanted him to, he’d give my resume to his boss, Doug. I said that was fine.
I was amazed that I was even remotely qualified for the job. Two days later, Jack’s boss, Doug, called me to see if I was interested in coming in for an interview. I said that I was. He explained the process, that the interview would be three hours long and would include interviews with three different people. He also asked me to bring samples of my technical writing (of which I had none). We set the interview for the following Monday, which gave me five days to prepare. The next day, Jeff got a call from Swinerton Builders, Inc., a Santa Clara based Engineering firm. Jeff had applied online for their Project Engineer position, and had even said that they would be his first choice as an employer, but hadn’t heard anything for almost three weeks. Now, he also had an interview scheduled for the following Monday at 3pm. We had to laugh at how perfect the interview schedule was. If it had been any other time, we didn’t know how we’d possibly swing it with only one car, but as it was I could get off work early, drive to BioTech for my interview at 2, Jeff could get off at 2:30 and take the car which would be parked in the parking lot there, and go to his interview at 3, then be back by 5 to pick me up. Amazing.
Though I wasn’t even sure if I wanted the job, I wanted to give the interview my best shot. I found a blazer and some black pumps at the Rack (my 30% discount coming in handy), re-read all the interviewing tips online, and even trudged through the BioTech website. When Monday afternoon came, I was terrified. I’d never had a three-hour interview in my life, especially for a position that I was grossly under qualified for.
I arrived at BioTech and parked the car where I’d told Jeff it would be, then headed through the enormous glass double doors into a waiting area. The front was locked, but I buzzed the red button.
“Kari Patterson, here for an interview.”
“Yes, come in.” I entered the lobby and shook hands with the receptionist named Angel. She said Doug would be right with me, and said to have a seat. I pulled my black handback strap up on my shoulder and sat, smoothing my black pants with my sweating palms, trying to get them dry before I had to shake hands with the head honcho. A moment later a man entered the lobby. He was short and round, with thinning hair on a round head and glasses pushed up very close to his eyes. His pants were pulled high and his short-sleeved dress shirt revealed plump, hairless arms.
“Kari? I’m Ben.” He reached out his hand and I shook it firmly. “Doug’s been detained in a meeting, so I’ll be starting out your interview today.” We walked down a long hallway and into a conference room with a long table lined with chairs. He pointed to a seat and took his own across the table from me. “So,” he began, looking over my resume, “tell me about yourself.”
And so the interview began. Ben went on to share about BioTech—their purpose and mission, and why they were in need of a technical writer. Apparently there were hundreds and hundreds of manuals that needed writing and/or revising. They’d been without a technical writer for five years now, and the workload had been piling up that entire time. I tried not to look horrified as I imagined the stacks and stacks of outdated and poorly written manuals, waiting for some poor soul to give them attention, one by boring one.
Ben then took me on a tour of the plant. I wondered if I’d see where Jeff worked. I had to smile to myself, thinking of how shocked they’d be if they knew that my husband actually worked there, as a temp, in the dungeon of the Barium Resin vial room. He took me to Jack Bush’s office, where Jack was sorting through some papers, frowning. He got up when I came in and greeted me, saying he hoped to have me on board as soon as possible. We then put on lab coats, paper booties, and paper face masks and entered the labs. Small men in labcoats were intently working, hunched over beakers and vials and microscopes, completely lost in their work, at first oblivious even to our presence. Then, slowly, they would notice us and stare. I’m not sure that any of them had ever seen a woman before. There were no women, besides Angel, the receptionist, and judging from their reaction, they didn’t know how to respond. So, they just stared until we left the room.
After the tour, we returned to the conference room where I was left to wait for Doug. After about fifteen minutes, the door opened and Doug entered. He was very obviously the boss. Tall, slim, probably in his mid-50s and good-looking, he smiled and shook my hand as I stood.
We went through the same interview motions. He asked me about my experience, background, and interests. He explained the job position and what would be expected. As I answered the questions, I couldn’t help but hope and pray they wouldn’t ask me about Jeff, but eventually, when all the business questions had been answered, he veered toward polite conversation.
“So, Kari, you mentioned your husband is here in Santa Clara with you. What does he do?” I hesitated for a moment, trying to think how to respond. I couldn’t tell him that he worked in the Barium vials.
“Uh, he’s actually a Civil Engineer.”
“Oh really? That’s great. Where does he work?” Another pause. How was I going to deal with this one?
“Well . . . actually. . . that’s funny you ask. He actually works here.”
“Pardon?”
“Here. He actually works here.”
“You mean here in Santa Clara?”
“No, I mean here. At BioTech.”
“He does! That’s great! I had no idea. What department?”
“Well, actually he works with the Barium Resin vials.” Doug looked confused, as if he’d heard me wrong.
“I’m not sure what you mean. Is he one of the Barium chemists or does he work with production engineering?”
“No, actually, he works at filling the vials with the Resin from the little pipettes. He’s a temp.” He still didn’t understand. “In the back.” Dough’s eyes widened.
“Your husband works back there?! He’s a Civil Engineer and he’s working back there?!” He laughed like it was a hilarious joke. I nodded and managed to chuckle, thankful at least that he thought it was funny.
“Yeah, kind of funny, huh? He’s just doing that until he can find a real job.”
“You know, I heard that there was a guy down there who was a Civil Engineer and I just couldn’t believe that he was actually down there filling those vials. I mean, talk about overqualified. I didn’t even believe it! And that’s your husband?! That’s too funny!” And so we laughed, and I was actually relieved because he seemed to think it a great job. After the laughed faded, Doug was all business again and returned to the issue at hand. And finally, at about 4:40pm, he asked the question. “So, Kari, are you willing to do what it takes to succeed at this job? Are you willing to take the classes we send you to, to work the hours, to stay late and come early, and do whatever it takes to succeed?”
I looked him straight in the eye and, with confidence, lied, “Yes, sir.”
“Terrific.”
He then excused himself and explained that Angel would come in for the final portion of the interview. And she did.
“Well, congratulations. We’d like to offer you the job.” She then went over details of the commitment, what would be expected, and finally, salary.
“We can start you at $50,000 and go up from their depending upon your performance.” I tried not to blink. Fifty-thousand dollars? I was making $9.75/hour currently and in Oregon I think both our incomes combined maybe peaked at $20,000. Fifty-thousand dollars? “Would you like time to think it over?” She thoughtfully asked.
“Yes, please. I’d like to talk to my husband and I’ll let you know tomorrow. Thank you so much for your time, Angel.” And with that, I was done. A little stunned by the entire ordeal, I walked mechanically out the door, squinting painfully at the brightness of the afternoon sunshine. I walked around the parking lot and didn’t see Jeff, but didn’t want to go back inside, so I found a shaded spot of grass, kicked off my painful heels, and lay down on my back in the grass. I felt a little disoriented and confused. A moment later, my cell phone rang. It was Jeff.
“Hey hon,” I answered.
“Sauce! I got the job!”
“Me too.”
“Really?! That’s crazy. They’re starting me at $50,000 a year.”
“Me too.”
“No way!”
“Yeah.” Just then he pulled into the parking lot, with his phone still to his ear. We both hung up and he pulled the car up next to where I lay in the grass. He got out of the car.
That night we sat up, Jeff once again rubbing my feet, discussing the new turn of events. In one day our entire financial scene had been transformed, and yet, it didn’t change the way we felt. We both knew, without a doubt, that Jeff’s job was from God. We had a total peace about it. Jeff had loved his interviewer and felt an immediate fit with the environment there. But my job was a different story. Doug’s question haunted me, and I knew that I had lied when I said that yes, I was willing to do whatever to make the job a success. I wasn’t. I wasn’t willing. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my marriage, my time with God, and my sanity, in order to climb the corporate ladder. Yes, $100,000 a year would be nice, but it wasn’t worth giving our lives for. That wasn’t why we were in Santa Clara. In fact, Jeff’s new job would give me the freedom to leave the Rack, which was what I really wanted. It was flattering to be offered the job, and of course it would be a big pride-booster to be able to tell the folks back home how we’d “made it” down here. But I didn’t want to. Jeff’s job was an answer to prayer, but I felt like mine was a test. That night, I wrote a letter and made three copies, one for Ben, one for Doug, and one for Angel. I thanked them for the interview and for the job offer, but explained that I wanted to make my marriage and family and God a priority and so wasn’t willing to take on a job that was such an enormous time commitment. Though a part of me felt like I was being stupid, peace flooded my heart after I’d written them. Jeff took the letters with him the very next day (since he worked there!) and left them on Angel’s desk. He also took his notice, that Friday would be his last day in the Barium Resin lab.
“You’re wife is crazy!” Jack came to Jeff’s workstation the next day, slamming down his hand on the desk, spilling the six 1.0000 ounces of Resin on the table. Jeff looked up at him through his goggles. “They offered her the job and she rejected it! I busted my butt to get her that interview! She’s crazy. She’ll never get a better paying offer than that!” Jeff took a deep breath to keep from punching him.
“Jack, my wife and I prayed about it and feel that it would be marital suicide for us to both have jobs that require 50-60 hours a week of work. We aren’t here to get rich and we aren’t here to climb the corporate ladder. We’re here to serve God and our jobs are just a way to facilitate that. We don’t serve our jobs.” He took another deep breath, waiting for a response.
“You know what? You guys better grow up. You’ve got to build up your resume if you’re ever going to make it here. She’s not going anywhere working at some department store for a song. I’m not getting you anymore interviews, that’s for sure.”
“That’s fine, Jack. Thank you for your help.” Jeff turned back to his pipettes, consciously trying to steady his shaking hand. Jack shook his head and walked off, slamming the door behind him.
That Friday, on Jeff’s last day of work at BioTech, Aneel told Jeff, “God sent you here to me.” Jeff smiled and thanked him for being his friend.
The next Monday, Jeff started work at Swinerton. Though there was a lot to learn and the hours were long, he found satisfaction in getting to do work that utilized his mind and experience. His comical co-worker, Avery, provided him with plenty of stories to recount to me each evening, and we even began to discuss the possibility of moving out of the windowless apartment. It seemed, for the first time, there was a glimmer of light ahead.
—
Since his new job required him to have transportation, we knew that we’d need another car. About six months earlier we had contributed $2,000 toward the building of a spec house that my dad built. Just before we moved, the house had sold and dad agreed to pay us back $3,000 based on his profit. My dad is also a Jeep guy, wheeling and dealing with Jeep Wranglers on Craigslist as a daily hobby. Every time we visit he has another used Jeep—and another crazy story of how he found it and talked down the price—to fix up and re-sell, always at a profit. Well, at this point he had a tan Sahara Jeep Wrangler that Jeff had been drooling over, and Dad agreed to sell it to him for the $3,000 and call it even. It was a great deal for us, and Jeff had always wanted a Jeep Wrangler. So, we found a $49 one-way ticket from San Jose to Portland, and Jeff got a home-cooked meal, a good night’s sleep, and then was up at 4am to make the long drive to Santa Clara in one day. Six-hundred miles in a bouncy Jeep Wrangler with no top sounds like a good way to go deaf, but Jeff loved it, blaring the radio and enjoying the warmth of the California sunshine as he neared Santa Clara.
The Jeep provided a little bit of fun and adventure. The first night he had it, he insisted we go for a little drive and get frozen yogurt. The night was warm and the air whipped around my hair. I loved the bouncy, rough ride, the worship music blaring as we zipped along side streets toward the yogurt shop. For the first in months, I felt carefree. I leaned back my head to look at the stars, relishing the pleasure of actually having fun. I looked over at Jeff and saw that he was watching the road, smiling. He had gone through so much, had persevered, and I was filled with admiration as I watched him. Each day he’d been stuck, working ten hours hunched over in his labcoat, without even a car to escape in during lunch. And he’d never complained. The Jeep was a tiny little kiss from God for him, and I couldn’t imagine a more deserving recipient.
While our circumstances in general had seemed to improve, things at the church remained weirder than ever. Jeff was increasingly impressed with his co-workers and supervisors as Swinerton. Though he certainly had a large workload, he respected his boss and felt like he was honest and forthright with Jeff. When he excelled, his supervisors showed appreciation and respect.
But our church life remained confusing. We didn’t want to bail on the college ministry just because we weren’t going to be the leaders, so we found out when they supposedly met and decided to attend. We’d been told that there wasn’t really any college ministry, but since arriving, we’d heard that there was sort of one, and that it was temporarily being led by Art Leno, a layperson who’d always been heavily involved with the church and had experience teaching. Art’s son was the middle school pastor and I was familiar with his daughter, who had just entered high school and always hung out with the Riggs boys downstairs.
We heard that the group met at 7, so we came down the stairs at five ‘til and walked across the parking lot to the small fellowship hall where they met. There was no one there except Art, who sat at the front with his ukulele. He was a large Samoan man, with an extremely quiet voice and serious demeanor. Jeff held open the door and we went inside, a little surprised at the empty room. Art looked at us suspiciously so we went up front to introduce ourselves.
“Jeff Patterson, and this is my wife, Kari. We’re here from Oregon.” He nodded.
“Art Leno.” We smiled.
“Are we early? We thought the college group started at 7.”
“No. We start whenever people get here.” He looked down at the ukulele and started playing.
“Ok, well we’ll just wait.” And wait we did. At 7:45, there were a dozen kids there, so he started playing some worship songs. Several kids stood and sang, but the rest sat there, staring at the front or whispering among themselves. His daughter was there, with four of her high school friends. Three people looked to be in their mid-30s. I venture a guess that a total of three people were actually in college. After a few songs, he opened his Bible and taught a passage of Romans 7. Several people had Bibles, which they pulled out and read. After the message, he prayed, and it was done. The kids filed out and his daughter and her friends circled up and started talking. We tried to catch up with some of the students, and managed to meet a few. Tyler was a software developer in his late 20s, and Sean was just about to graduate from San Jose State. Chris was the church groundskeeper and Leiah was a teacher at the church’s elementary school. We talked with them for a little while, then headed home.
“That was weird,” I admitted when we got inside our door.
“I know. Did you get the distinct feeling that Art didn’t want us there?”
“Exactly. I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either, but we still have to try to reach out to people, even if we feel unwanted.”
The next Sunday at church, a large woman in her mid 30s with pale skin and long, dark hair, approached me and introduced herself as Mazy, Eddie’s wife. Eddie was the facilities manager for the church, the same guy who’d had Jeff sell t-shirts at the men’s conference during our initial visit.
“Oh, it’s nice to meet you Mazy.”
“I was wondering if you’d like to come over for coffee this week.” I was a little taken aback by her invitation. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t really want to get to know anyone from church because every single encounter I’d had with any of them had been hurtful. The last thing I wanted to do was buddy up with one of the pastor’s wives, but I knew that that was the wrong attitude, so I forced a pleased and anticipatory look.
“That’d be great! What day?” We decided on Thursday, since that was my only day off that week, and she gave me her address. “See you then!” I smiled and she was off.
Thursday came and I enjoyed my day to sleep in. Now that we had two cars, I didn’t have to wake up until 5:30am each morning to be ready and pray with Jeff and be out the door by 6:30am. This seemed glorious after our weeks of getting up at 4:30—it’s amazing the difference an hour can make. But this morning, I drifted in and out of sleep until an indulgent hour of 7:00. It still felt like midnight, since the apartment was pitch black, but at least I had the pleasure of looking at the alarm and seeing how late it was. I stayed in my pajamas until 8, then took a leisurely shower. I still hadn’t totally gotten over my fear of plummeting through the floor whenever I took a shower, but I told myself that at least if it happened maybe it would convince the church staff that the apartments were a health hazard.
By 9am I was out of the house, squinting, as I always did, when I walked outside. It was a strange sensation to live in a house with no windows because I was never sure what to wear. There was no looking outside to see if the sun was out, or opening a window to feel the temperature. In order to see what the day was like it took going out of the apartment, down the dark interior hallway and out the second door, and with school in session each day and teachers and students bustling about at all hours, making that little jaunt in my pajamas was out of the question.
So I got outside and was pleased to find that I’d been pretty accurate in my choosing of clothes. Cool but sunny. I spread Mazy’s directions on my lap and maneuvered my way through the freeways, heading into the Southeast corner of San Jose, an area I hadn’t been to thus far. It was a little scary. All the houses had bars on the windows, and the streets were lined with seedy looking strip malls and yellow concrete buildings advertising Bail Bonds. I found her home and parked my car, checking twice that my doors were locked before I walked across the street to her front door. After a few knocks, she came to the door and greeted me, letting me inside and pouring me a cup of coffee before we settled down in her living room.
“So, I think it’s God because I’m Hispanic and I only usually like spending time with Hispanic girls, you know? But like, I saw you and just knew I should have you over, even though you’re blond and stuff.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. For one, I would never guess in a million years that she was Hispanic. She was paler than me, and very tall and big. Her kids were pale as well, even though Eddie had dark skin. Secondly, I had never heard of someone only liking to spend time with people of their own ethnicity, especially in ministry. I just smiled back at her. “So, I don’t know anything about you. Eddie just told me, ‘She’s young, and she’s having a hard time living in that apartment.’” I nodded slowly, considering Eddie’s description of me. So that was how people saw me. Hm. I took a long sip of my coffee even though I didn’t feel like drinking it, and Mazy went on. “So, I usually disciple the pastor’s wives. You know, get together and I can help you grow and stuff. And since your husband is the college pastor, maybe we can meet on a regular basis or something.” I looked up at her. Did she really not know?
“My husband isn’t the college pastor,” I said flatly and took another sip of my coffee.
“He’s not! I thought that’s why you moved here,” she seemed to genuinely be confused.
“It is. But when we got here, Pastor Steve changed his mind. So we’re just working. That’s all.” I said it matter-of-factly.
“Oh.” She seemed disappointed that I wasn’t the person she thought I was. “Well, we can still meet if you want.” I knew I couldn’t say no without being offensive, so I said perhaps but explained that I worked full-time and liked to spend my free time with Jeff. After that our conversation seemed stilted, so we limped along at it for awhile, until I could bear it no longer and looked at my watch, feigning surprise.
“Oh! It’s already 10:30. I should get going. Today is grocery shopping day.” I smiled and thanked her for the coffee, then fled to my car.
The drive home was depressing. I thought of her husband’s description of me. Was that how people saw me, as just a young girl who was a wimp and couldn’t handle the trial of living in that pit of an apartment? Did anyone even know how I’d fixed up the place and made it beautiful? I thought of how she hadn’t even known that we weren’t on staff at the church. Was anything communicated to anyone? And why did I feel like I was a project to her, someone to be fixed or something to do, rather than a person. My title, pastor’s wife, had caught her attention, but somehow now that I was just a person, and a Caucasian person at that, I seemed a little less interesting. All of this saddened me. I thought of the godly women who’d discipled me in Oregon, who had seen God at work in me, who had cared enough to love me and encourage me and instruct me and mentor me, through my shortcomings and imperfections. They’d shown me Christ in such a real way, and now, this little encounter over coffee, had just served as yet another reminder that this place was far from home.
Those feelings seemed to just spiral downward through the afternoon. Being alone didn’t help, and I spent the rest of the day battling traffic and grocery store lines, only to return to the place I hated. I once again tried to do laundry and once again found the washer full of mildewed clothes. Didn’t these people ever check on their wash?! Small things that would normally be trivial, now seemed monstrous and insurmountable. As I chopped the onion for dinner, I sliced open my finger. “Dang it!” I ran it under cold water. As I stood there, staring at the wall, I forgot about my finger, and tears streamed down my cheeks. God, why? I feel like we fell off the cliff of your will. Everything seems wrong. Every time I go to church I feel sick. Every time I spend time with people I feel sad. Every time I try to do something, to step out in faith and make the best of things, I feel kicked in the gut. Why?
The door opened, interrupting my thoughts. Jeff came over the sink and quietly put his arms around my waist, hearing my sniffles. He kissed the back of my head and rested his chin on my shoulder. I turned and buried my face in his chest, losing myself in the comfort of his warmth and familiar smell.
That night, we crawled into bed, and settled into our favorite sleeping position, on our sides facing away from each other, with our backs and feet touching. We’d been talking more about our discouragement and our confusion in God bringing us all the way down here just to give us run-of-the-mill jobs and strange relational encounters. As we fell silent, I closed my eyes, settling my face into the pillow.
In the silence, a voice very clearly spoke to me, “I’m keeping you from greater harm. Don’t complain.” My eyes popped open and I sat straight up. One look at Jeff’s peaceful self made me realize the voice had not been audible, and yet, I knew it as if it had been. The clarity, richness, depth of the voice gave me goose bumps, and I realized, I’d heard from God. In a moment I realized a profound truth—in keeping us from going on staff at the church, God was protecting us. He was keeping us from greater harm. By allowing these hardships and trials in our lives, God was keeping us from a greater harm. What that harm was I didn’t know, but I knew that God was speaking, and His directive had been clear: Don’t complain.
…
Read The Road to Santa Clara (Ch. 9): The Coffee Shop »
At what felt like the middle of the night, our alarms blared. I opened my eyes to the pitch black, confused as always, wondering where I was. Every morning brought the same sensation, that somehow I was dreaming this all up, that I would wake up and we’d be back in Oregon, surrounded by family and friends and familiar pleasures. But then, in an instant, I’d realize that no, I was really there, in our windowless apartment in Santa Clara. We managed to make the morning work, and we were actually out the door by 5:30. The morning was cold and we maneuvered through the church parking lot toward the main street. We pulled into the left turn lane and waited for the light while I tried to hold my bowl of cereal steady as I slurped the last few bites. When it turned green, Jeff pulled forward and made the sharp left. I tipped up my bowl to drink the last of the milk (yes, I do that) and looked up.
“Jeff!” I screamed. He had pulled to the left of the concrete median that ran down the center of the six-lane road.
“Oh my gosh!” Jeff slammed on his brakes, but a wall of headlights were headed straight toward us, a large Semi in the lead. He began honking his horn, and thankfully alerted the oncoming cars, who slowed down and steered clear of us. I hid my face in my hands as we came to a stop and Jeff threw the car in reverse and backed out of the lane and into the middle of the intersection, pulling back onto the correct side of the street.
At that moment, there was no humor in the situation. It felt like it was just one more thing. I hated the city. I hated the traffic. I hated never feeling truly safe. I hated taking my life into my hands every time I had to go to the grocery store. I hated the lack of fresh air and the fact that people were always in a hurry and no one ever smiled. I hated commuting on five freeways just to get to work. I hated this place. I hated it. This all ran through my mind, after what really was a minor traffic mishap, and I leaned my head against the cold window and started to cry.
“I hate this place.” Jeff just leaned over and put his hand on my thigh.
“I know, Sauce. I know.”
After work we rushed back to the church to meet Kathy by 5. At 5:05pm we pulled into the parking lot and rushed into the building, where Kathy was just locking up the church office, her keys jingling as she pulled the door closed. We hadn’t even had time to talk about Jeff’s first day, as he’d gotten three phone calls on the way home, and we were both exhausted.
She smiled, “Hey there! Good day?” We said it was fine and we were so thankful for the dinner invite and offer of assistance with our resumes. We then went back to our car and pulled around to where she was parked, pulling out behind her as she maneuvered her way onto the main street.
Knowing that Jack and Kathy were in their 40s and had both worked full-time jobs their whole adult lives, I was a little surprised when we followed Kathy’s car into Palm Villas, a mobile home community just outside San Jose. Neither of us wanted to say it out loud, but we eyed the scores of narrow, low-roofed homes tucked in one next to the other like long, narrow blocks. Kathy pulled their minivan into one of the slips and got out, motioning to us where we could park along the narrow road. Jack had just pulled up in his Camry and was heaving himself out of the car.
“Welcome to affordable San Jose housing,” he said sarcastically. We both smiled.
“It’s nice,” Jeff said, opening my car door. We followed them inside. Their two sons, aged 7 and 4, were watching TV. Kathy’s mom, who lived with them, was peeling carrots at the sink. We walked in and the boys didn’t flinch.
“Turn off that racket!” Jack yelled toward the boys. They still didn’t flinch. Kathy said hello to her mom and asked what was for dinner. Turkey casserole with mashed cauliflower from the South Beach Diet. Kathy explained that Jack was on the South Beach Diet.
“Ohhh. I’ve heard that’s good,” I said politely. Jack was approaching the boys.
“I told you to turn that off. TV time is over. Go wash up and get ready for dinner.” Jack shook his head, and rubbed his hand over his thinning hair.
Jeff pulled me under his arm and I perched on a barstool, offering to help prepare dinner. Kathy said it was under control and opened an accordion door to a deep pantry, stacked, floor to ceiling, with the most massive collection of food I’d ever seen in a home. My eyes widened.
“We get discount groceries from the military surplus store. Isn’t this great? Peaches, Chile, Tuna, you name it. Jack loves their chicken pot pie soup.” I nodded and smiled.
Jack had heard enough and changed the subject. “Let’s talk about your resumes.” He pulled them out of a folder and placed them on the counter in front of us. “Cute.” We looked up at him. “Your resumes are cute. Well, I’ll tell you what, kids. Cute don’t cut it in Santa Clara. There’re a bunch of sharks out there and if you aren’t tough, you’ll get eaten alive.” Jeff and I just stared down at our resumes, unsure how to respond. “If you want to climb the ladder here, you’ve got to get competitive. It’s a dog eat dog world out there, as they say. If you don’t scrap and battle, you’ll never make it.” But I don’t want to climb the ladder here, was my first thought. I’m working because I have to, not because I have lofty career ambitions. Jeff remained quiet, I could tell he was carefully choosing his words.
“Ok, Jack. Well, how to you propose we could improve our resumes?”
“Well, cut the crap at the top. Just type your name—it doesn’t need to be in italics or any of that fancy schmancy stuff. Kathy can help you with the rest.” And with that he put them back down on the table. “Is dinner almost ready?” Kathy’s mom still had her back to us, peeling carrots into the sink. Kathy was pulling something out of the oven. Jack hollered for the boys, prayed for the food, then told us to grab a plate and dish up some food. We obeyed, taking our plates into the back yard, which was a 10’x10’ concrete pad with fence around it. We sat and ate quietly, complimenting Kathy’s mom on her cooking. Jack sat and told us about himself, his years in the military and how his career path that’d gotten him where he was today. Kathy sat quietly, eating her dinner.
After we’d cleared the dishes and been told by Kathy’s mom that we weren’t allowed to do the dishes, we followed Kathy into their bedroom where a large office was set up on one side. She sat with Jeff first, working over his resume while I watched. When his was done, he left to sit with Jack while she looked over mine. We established an objective—to obtain a job where I could utilize my passion for writing. She began asking questions about my education, job experience, volunteer experience, etc. As she probed, I began remembering things I hadn’t even realized I’d done. My honors and awards at Oregon State, my experience as a technical writer and writing tutor for grad students, writing plays and Bible studies, and writing ministry-related letters and proposals.
“Kari, I don’t think you have any idea how much you have going for you here. I mean, this is really a phenomenal resume.” I looked down, but couldn’t help but beam, despite myself. Really? Did she mean this? She continued to click and drag, editing a word there and a word here, and I sat, stunned. I could hear Jeff and Jack talking, but for a moment, I felt like I was alone, and like God had shone a light down, from heaven, onto my face. I felt like, in the middle of what seemed like a pretty uneventful evening, God had taken a moment to remind me of what I’d suspected for so long. Kari, I have a call on your life to write. Don’t be afraid. I sat there, staring into space, half excited and half terrified.
“. . . Kari!” I didn’t even realize she’d been trying to get my attention. I looked up and saw she’d printed a copy. “How does this look?” I said it was great and thanked her so much for giving of her time for us. She smiled, looking genuinely pleased to have been able to help. “Hang in there, ok?” I nodded and said that I would.
On the way home, I cried. I felt ridiculous because at first I couldn’t even figure out why. Jeff was bewildered, asking if something had happened that hurt my feelings. I sat quietly for awhile, sorting through my thoughts, before I was able to sense some clarity.
“I think there are two things going on in my heart and they’re conflicting.” Jeff nodded, listening. “I think that on the one hand, tonight was one of the most miserable encounters I’ve ever had. I can’t help but feel like Jack is a jerk and he seems to personify Santa Clara to me—rough, mean, insensitive, and self-absorbed. A part of me wanted to just run out the door and get in the car and drive to Oregon tonight, to just flee this crazy place. I don’t want to swim with the sharks and climb the corporate ladder. I just want to serve Jesus!” I paused to collect my thoughts. “But, on the other hand, Kathy said some things to me that I feel like were from God. I feel like He’s reminding me that He has a call on my life, that has to do with writing, and that I need to not be afraid. But I am afraid! I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to step out and do scary things. And that makes me cry too.” I turned to Jeff, feeling emptied of words but filled with the peace that comes after sharing a burden. “Does that make sense?”
Jeff smiled with understanding and reached out, taking my hand in his and kissing the back. “Yes.” I knew he understood.
–
As the next two weeks went by, I began to learn more about Jeff’s experience in his temp job at BioTech. On his first day he was directed to a dimly lit back room, filled with tiny little work stations and men in labcoats and goggles. He was given a labcoat, several sizes too small, with the name Vladimir embroidered across the front. The sleeves reached about ¾ way down his arm, and he was instructed to keep his goggles on at all times. He sat down at his little workstation, next to a middle-Eastern man named Aneel, who wore a turban and had a long, gray beard. He looked about 75, but Jeff would later find out he was in his mid-60s. He was partially lame in both legs so he couldn’t drive, but he could shuffle along with a walker, and his wife drove him to and from work each day. Jeff introduced himself cheerfully and held out his hand. Aneel shook his, looked Jeff in the eye and said with grave seriousness, “Get out as soon as you can.”
Jeff’s job was to fill miniature vials with 1.0000 ounce Barium Resin, using a six-way pipette. This specially-engineered pipette had to be balanced and handled with extreme care to ensure the proper dispensing, which meant hand cramps were an every day occurrence. His quota? He was told that his daily goal should be 25,000 vials. Confident in his competency, he set to work with fervor, only to look up at 4:00pm and realize he’d only done 5,000. Aneel once again warned him, “Never, never do 25,000. If you do, they will make you do more. They are mean, mean men. Never do 25,000.” Jeff assured him he didn’t think that would ever be a problem.
Ten hours of sitting, hunched over with a cramped hand, doing the exact same tedious task thousands of times sounds horrifying to me. But Jeff insisted that it was fine. He was so thankful to be employed, so thankful to no longer be sitting alone in that stale apartment, rotting away while I was at work, that I think he would have been thrilled to do anything, even fill vials with Barium Resin. The thing he truly liked about the job was that they were allowed to listen to music on headphones, if they wishes. Aneel listened to a cassette walkman with something resembling Enya, but Jeff downloaded dozens and dozens of sermons onto his MP3 player, and listened to nine hours of sermons each day, breaking only to talk with Aneel or munch his sandwich during lunch.
The other thing that made the job worthwhile to Jeff was Aneel. Aneel was a Muslim. From the first day, when he gave Jeff his grave warning, he and Jeff took to each other instantly. Aneel would eye Jeff’s sandwiches with suspect, then bring him some middle-eastern morsel for Jeff to taste the next day, as if he felt sorry for Jeff having to eat such detestable delicacies such as turkey on whole wheat. Jeff would always ask Aneel questions, and Aneel would talk. He would tell Jeff about his children and his grandchildren, who came to stay with him and his wife every single weekend. Every weekend was spent as a family, and he loved to tell Jeff stories about the times they’d have and which grandchild was learning to do what new feat. Sometimes he would tell Jeff sad stories, of how he became lame, of how disease had ravaged his life, of how hard he’d worked his whole life so that his wife, Iva, never had to. Jeff would listen for hours. One day Aneel brought Jeff an entire grocery back, full of freshly cooked lamb curry, aromatic Basmati rice, and delicious savory pastries. He explained that his wife had cooked us an entire authentic middle-eastern dinner, so we would know what good food tasted like. When Jeff brought home the meal I was stunned. This woman, who had never met me and had no reason to even care about us, had slaved away, probably all day, cooking us an authentic meal. I marveled that that was more than anyone at church had ever done, but chided myself for the thought.
And in time, Jeff earned Aneel’s ear. As they sat together, Jeff would share with Aneel his own testimony, of how he’d come to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, how he’d come to have his eyes opened to the beauty and glory of God, how Jesus’ finished work on the cross had set Jeff free and had given him access to a personal relationship with God the Father. And Aneel would listen.
What made Jeff sad was that Jack, it was very apparent, disliked Aneel. From his first day of work, Jack would tease Aneel about being lame, would criticize him for being slow and not fulfilling his daily quota. Jack would come and chat with Jeff, showing him preference and asking how he was doing, then make snide remarks to Aneel and belittle him in front of the others. When Jeff mentioned that he enjoyed spending time with Aneel, Jack snorted and said that Aneel was the laziest worker he’d ever seen and was good for nothing. Jeff responded, “Aneel is my friend.” Jack smirked.
Although we both found good in our jobs, we began to wear thin and really doubt whether this was really worth it. I had begun to hate the Rack. I had no interest in clothing and it made me sick to see women, decked out from head to toe in designer clothes, come in and drop $500 on cashmere scarves. One woman had me break up her $600 purchase into two, one on her credit card and one in cash, so that her husband would only see half her purchase on the credit card bill. The day of our Fall New Arrivals event, women crowded around the front door from 8am on (we opened at 10), fogging up the windows with their breath, trying to see the new Marc Jacobs handbags. When the manager opened the door, she literally got elbowed in the gut and had her toe smashed to smithereens by women actually running toward the handbag display. I stood at a distance, on pad three, colorizing a display of plus-sized sweaters, and felt sick to my stomach.
I did enjoy Hasna. Hasna was my Aneel. She would talk to me whenever we had a chance, but the job was such that there wasn’t much time for chat. We were always spread out on our separate pads. But I loved her, and would try to encourage her and share with her whenever I could. I saw that God had me there for the season, but I was definitely hoping for a change.
After two weeks of our routine, up at 4:30am and home at 5:00, with no hope of any other job for Jeff, we sat down and discussed how we felt. This just wasn’t working. What were we doing? Why on earth were we living down there, working ridiculous dead-end jobs, living in a windowless pit, when we had no hope of getting to do the minisry work that we desired to do? What were we doing? We’d given it two weeks, just as we’d promised ourselves. But now what? It was ridiculous to ask Aaron and Candi to stay there—they’d come to help us with a college ministry, and now there was none. Why stay? It was a Friday night, and we were both exhausted. We knew that if we wanted, my dad would come down that weekend, we could pack up, and be home by Sunday.
We called Aaron and Candi and asked if we could come over, explaining that we needed to talk. When we arrived, we all sat down, Jeff and I on the futon, Aaron and Candi sharing the Lazyboy.
“We don’t know what to do,” we explained. “We’ve failed you. We asked you to come help us with college ministry, but now there is none. We have miserable jobs that we hate and no sign of anything changing. To be honest, we really want to move back to Oregon, but we hate to leave you. But we feel bad that you came all the way down here for nothing.” They sat in silence for a minute, then looked at each other. Candi nodded.
Aaron began, “If you guys decide to leave, we will support you. But you have to know one thing. We know that God told us to come here. To serve you. He told us to come here to serve you. We don’t care if you’re the college pastor or a janitor or a guy filling vials with Barium Resin, we’re just here to be your friends and to serve you. And as long we you’re here, that’s what we’re doing.”
My eyes had filled with tears. I couldn’t believe what they were saying. We’d felt like total failures, like the whole world was against us. And yet, these two beacons of light had set their faces like flint, had determined that no matter what, they were going to love and serve us, the were going to be our friends. Without even discussing it, Jeff and I both knew what we had to do.
“Ok. We’ll stay.”
–
That weekend, we wrestled with God. We felt a challenge to stay, but felt confused. Why on earth would God call us down there, just to rot in these awful jobs. We were influencing no one, we weren’t leading any Bible studies, we weren’t overseeing any ministries. We felt confused all the time. Church was weird, the people were weird, and everytime we interacted with a staff member, we had a sickening feeling in the pit of our stomach. Why, God? Why? Why would he take us out of the most incredible place, where we flourished and grew, where God’s word was taught with passion and resolve, where we were surrounded by incredible men and women of God who spurred us on, encouraged us, and challenged us. Why?
The next day, Aneel was sick and didn’t come in to work. Without his normal conversant, Jeff decided to listen to a series of messages by his favorite Pastor, Damian Kyle. The series was on the Life of David. About mid-afternoon, he started in on a message entitled, Seasons of Preparation, a message from 1 Samuel 18. In it, Pastor Damian examined why on earth God would have chosen to put David, the man after God’s own heart who would soon we anointed King of Israel, and put him in the presence of one of the worst Kings in history, Saul. Saul was a madman and David’s life was in danger innumerable times. It seems logical, that in order to train up David in the ways of a king, he should be in the presence of a strong, godly man, a role model who could show David the proper way to do things. That makes sense. The role model would give David something to emulate, and he would thus develop into a good king. But instead, God gives David a lunatic as an example, and gives David thirteen years of trials and wondering and confusion and grief, before he places him as king.
Pastor Damian went on to explain that God used Saul in David’s life, to show David what He didn’t want him to become. Saul, as horrible as he was, was a tool in God’s hands to mold and shape and build David’s character. He wanted to make sure that David would see, first hand, what to avoid someday when he was king. David saw exactly what he didn’t want to do, and had innumerable opportunities to grow and trust God through the trials that Saul inflicted on him.
As Jeff sat, hunched over his hundreds of vials, God’s voice enveloped his heart. This was it. This was the reason. Jeff knew, without a doubt, that this season was that of preparation. There were many things around us that made us grieved, sad, that frustrated us, but it was all part of God’s preparation for the work that He’d called us to do for His name. God had put us next to Saul. How would we respond?
When I picked Jeff up that day, he hadn’t even closed the door of the car before he started telling me every detail of the sermon. He was thrilled. Our circumstances hadn’t changed, but he knew he’d heard from God. Out of the silent confusion, God had spoken a message so clear, so encouraging, that Jeff knew we would make it. It hit me with the same clarity. I knew it was true.
The very next day, Jeff’s supervisor announced that employees would no longer be allowed to listen to any headphones or music of any kind. It seems there was one employee, Josh, who didn’t have headphones so he brought in his boom box and listened to MegaDeath all day long. So many other employees had complained that they finally just put an end to any sort of music of any kind. Jeff was crushed, but knew that God had allowed him to have his headphones long enough to hear from Him.
…
Read The Road to Santa Clara (Ch.8): The Interview »
The first thing we did was call my parents. They were shocked, of course, and urged us to come home. My dad said he could be on a plane that night and we could drive a U-Haul back up to Oregon the next day. Jeff called Pastor Mark, who was furious. He, like us, felt lied to. He echoed my parents’ sentiments and urged us, “Come home. You can have your job back—we want you here. We want you here.” But we both had the same thought hovering in our minds,
Aaron and Candi. They’d given up everything to come down here, without jobs or home, to support and love us. How could we leave them? There was only one answer. We couldn’t.
After going back to our apartment, we called them. They came over immediately. We shared with them what had happened, and how we felt. They didn’t say anything, but I could tell it shook them as well. All of our dreams for ministering to college students and starting a new work, gone. But, there was nothing to do, nothing to say to remedy the situation. We had no choice.
“Well, you want to come work at the Rack with me?” Candi smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders. “It’d be fun to work together!” I had to smile. Of course I could work. So, I agreed that I’d stop in on Sunday afternoon, while Candi was working, to apply.
Church on Sunday was a blur. We introduced ourselves to people, trying to branch out and make friends, awkwardly explaining that we just moved here and that we lived at the church, strangely enough, and had no jobs. People must have thought we were crazy. Sunday afternoon, Jeff drove me to the Nordstrom Rack, then went across the street to hang out with Aaron. I found Candi and she had me wait while she found the Women’s Department Manager. Soon a large, extremely tall and intimidating looking woman came out, dressed in astonishingly high heels. I caught myself marveling that her impressive girth could be supported by the skinny, pointy heels. She had short, spiky, two-tone hair, the top a golden bronze and the underneath portion a chestnut brown. Her eyes were heavily lined, and her cheeks and lips were full. She walked with a slight swagger, and she made Candi look strangely dwarfed as they walked out of the swinging double doors.
“Kari?”
“Yes,” I smiled and shook her outstretched hand.
“Lynn, Manager of the Women’s Department. Nice to meet you. I hear you’re interested in a job.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Follow me.” And so I did. She led me through the double doors into a back hallway lined with offices. She found an empty one, followed me inside, and walked behind the desk. After she sat, I sat, having spent hours the night before reading interview tips online. I was dressed as I should, professional and understated, and was silently rehearsing what I’d read, things like never to say “Honestly, . . .” because that communicated that you usually weren’t honest. So much to remember. Well, it really was ridiculous to have been prepared for this interview, because she looked over my resume—my honor’s degree, my Magna Cum Laude honors, my years of overseeing ministries—in about 15 seconds and said, “The pay is $9.75/hour. We have a 7am-3pm shift five days a week. Do you want the job?”
“Um. Sure.”
And so I had a job. A little thrown by this extremely anticlimactic end to the job search, I walked back across the street, announced that Monday would be my first day of work, and sat down with a magazine while I waited for Jeff and Aaron to finish their video game.
Monday morning began what would be the darkest season of Jeff’s soul up to that point. I was up at 5:15am, actually excited for a new adventure, feeling my way through pitch black apartment, and getting myself ready for my first day of work. I was a little limited in the clothing department, because working with college students meant being able to wear a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops every single day. Now I needed dress pants, heels with closed-toes, and a cute shirt. As Candi put it, working at Nordstrom meant that every day had to be a cute day – no hooded sweatshirt and jeans days. By 6:15am I’d showered, dressed, eaten breakfast and read my Bible, then Jeff joined me to pray together before I emerge at 6:30am from the stale apartment air into the cool of the morning. It instantly woke me up. I arrived at the Rack while it was still dark, and walked up to the front of the store, which is locked, of course, since they didn’t open until 10am. After waiting several minutes I noticed a second, obscure door, where several people, presumably employees, had arrived, punched a code into the pad on the wall, and entered. I went to that door and knock. No answer. I knocked again. No answer. Figuring another employee would arrive soon, I waited. And waited and waited and waited. It was now 7:10am and I was panicking because I was late for my first day of work but no one was there to let me in the door. Finally, through the narrow window I saw a woman walking down the hall toward me and I banged again on the door until she finally took notice and pushed it open.
“Can I help you?” She doesn’t sound as if she really wants to.
“I’m Kari Patterson. This is my first day of work.”
“Oh. Ok. Come on in.” She let me in and I entered the hallways where I had been the previous day for my interview.
“Is Lynn here?”
“I dunno. You can look in her office.” She pointed me toward an office door that is dark and, I found out as soon as I tried the door, locked. By this point the woman had left and I was alone. Literally alone, I could see no other people in any office and the entire hallway was silent. What should I do? I was supposed to be working but there was no one there to tell me what to do. I finally pushed through the double doors that led to the back of the store, lined with racks holding clothes. Several workers in dark blue t-shirts were sorting through clothes, but when I tried to explain what I needed they looked confused and shrugged their shoulders. Finally, at almost 7:30am, a woman came through the double doors from the main part of the store, pulling an empty clothes rack behind her, shuffling her feet and staring at the floor as she walked as if she were asleep.
“Hi, I’m looking for Lynn.” She looked at me as if she didn’t understand. “Lynn. I’m looking for Lynn. Today is my first day of work.”
“Ah. Ok. You come me.” Her English was very broken, but she held up a hand to show I’d said enough and summoned me to follow her. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and she pointed to another empty cart. I went and grabbed it and followed her to a giant rack that ran from one end of the warehouse-like room to the other. She grabbed an enormous armload of clothes, lifting them off the rack in such a way that none of the hangers fell down, and placed the entire chunk on her own rack, without dropping one. She pointed to another chunk of clothes and I tried to do the same, but ended up dropping half of them from the middle onto the floor. She helped me pick them up, hang them on my cart, and I followed her out into the main part of the store.
“So, what is your name?” I figured I’d get to know my trainer.
“Kobra.” Cobra? Your name is Cobra? Like the venomous snake?!
“Oh. Well it’s nice to meet you, Cobra. Thank you for training me.” She nodded in acknowledgment and we walked in silence to the middle of the store. She motioned with her hand to a large, general vicinity.
“You pad-tree.” I stared at her in incomprehension. I’m pad-tree. “All dis,” she motioned to the monstrous piles of crumpled clothes piled on top of each round clothing rack, “you clean.” She gesticulated wildly to show that it should all be gone. Then she went to a rack and fingered the hung clothes. “Sort.” I nodded. “Size.” I nodded again. She walked to a X-shaped rack that hung clothes so they were displayed. “Color.” She put a purple sweater next to another purple sweater and I nodded again. She nodded deeply and turned, shuffling away as she’d done before, pulling her cart behind her, staring at the floor. I took a deep breath and turned toward the enormous task ahead. The racks were a disaster and by now it was almost 8 and I had two hours before the store opened. I began, piece by crumpled piece, to pull each article of clothing off the top and re-hang them, one by one.
At 9:15 my feet hurt so bad I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through the day. I headed through the double doors to use the restroom, and came face to face with Lynn.
“Hi!” I greeted her, ready to be the enthusiastic employee.
“Hi. Did Kobra show you what to do? You’re going to be on pad three.” Pad three. That’s what Kobra had said.
Eventually I figured out what Pad Three meant, and even began calling the main part of the store the “floor” and the back part where the employees were that “back.” I didn’t know what to do when I heard, “Kari Patterson, 1782, please,” so I just kept working, until finally Lynn came out and found me and showed me how to dial the correct extension on the various phones stationed around the floor. At one point a woman asked me if we had any plus-sized Tommy Bahama, and I stared at her, completely clueless, then fled to find Kobra to ask her who Tommy Bahama was. I soon realized that at least manning pad three would keep me from being tempted to shop while I worked—my pad contained all the plus-sized and petite fashions. I am far from both. Being the queen of pad three also meant rubbing shoulders (well, their shoulders, my elbows) with tiny Asian women who talked so fast and were always shopping off my rack, as if I’d secretly put all the good clothes there, and meant that I had the daunting task of trying to make size 3x camisole tops with built in shelf-bras actually look appealing on a manikin.
By the end of the day I was exhausted, but reasonably happy. I’d met another girl, Hasna, who also did not speak much English and had dyed red hair and darkly outlined lips, who apparently decided that she liked me and stopped by my pad to chat and see how I was doing whenever she made a trip to the back. As I clocked out, my blisters were crippling and I focused on each painful step, anticipating the glorious moment when I could collapse onto the couch at home and put my feet in the air. I had no idea how I could do this again tomorrow. Back at the church, I carried my shoes and walked up the concrete stairs barefoot. The hallway was still piled with trash and boxes, and as I opened the door to our apartment, I mustered up the energy to sing, “Honey, I’m home!”
Hearing no response, I walked slowly down the hall, peering in each of the rooms. Jeff sat at the dining room table in front of his laptop, and his head resting, face down, in his folded arms. The laptop had gone to the screensaver. He lifted his head and looked at me. He’d been crying. His face was dark with stubble and his hair was still pushed up on one side, the way it was this morning when he woke up. He still wore his green Puma sweats and grey t-shirt that he’d had on when I left, and his cereal bowl, with a small puddle of milk in the bottom, still sat on the counter next to him.
“What’s wrong?” I walked to him and pulled his arms up and around me, sitting on his lap and pulling his head to rest on my chest. He was silent for several moments.
“How was your day?” He responded with effort.
“Fine. My feet are killing me. But, what’s wrong?”
He took a deep breath and looked up at me. “Am I a failure?” I drew back to look him in the eye.
“A failure?! Why on earth do you ask that?”
“I’ve been sitting here all day, in this pit of an apartment, looking for a job online, with no car to go out and try to track down something, while my wife is out providing for me. I’ve applied to forty different Civil Engineering firms. What do I do now? It was my stupid idea to come down here. I made you leave your family, your home, and everything you love, and it’s been a total disaster. I’ve failed you, Sauce. I’ve failed everyone. I’m worthless and I can’t even get a stupid job.”
I leaned forward, resting my forehead on his.
“I love you. You are my hero. You didn’t make me come here; I came here because I chose to. I would follow you to the ends of the earth because I love you. You’ll get a job. We just have to be patient. I love you, Jeff.”
“I love you, Sauce.” I got up and took both of his hands in mine, pulling him out of the chair. I led him into the living room, where I laid down on the sofa, resting my head on the pillow.
“Now,” I smiled up at him and winked, “rub my feet.” He cracked a smile, knelt beside the couch, and set to work.
The following Sunday, Jeff still had no calls on a job. We’d even spent my day off driving around to different firms, dropping off resumes in person. He’d been thrilled to find out that Granite Construction had an office there. Jeff had worked for Granite in Nevada for six months during his Civil Engineering internship during college. He knew he could get a great recommendation from his old boss, so we figured an in-person visit to their office would be a good move. After an hour of tracking down non-existant addresses, we discovered that the information we’d received online was faulty, and that the Granite project had been concluded and the offices moved to Southern Cal.
After an entire week alone, stranded in the apartment, feeling useless and worthless, Jeff’s patience was wearing thin. As we arrived at church that Sunday, we were approached by a large, pale man, with unusually light blue eyes that darted back and forth as if he were expecting to be mugged or arrested at any moment. He loomed over us, his size intimidating, his enormous hands dwarfing ours as we shook.
“Jeff and Kari Patterson?” We looked at each other, unsure of whether to admit our identity. We nodded slowly. “I’m Jack Brush. Kathy, the church administrator, is my wife. I think you’ve met her.”
“Oh, of course. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hey, Kathy mentioned that you guys were looking for jobs. I have a lot of great contacts and Kathy could help you guys work on your resumes, you know, look over them and help you polish them up. It’s a shark tank out there, you know.” We looked at each other, a little surprised by his offer, but grateful for any lead.
“Sure! That’d be great. Actually, we already have our resumes all done. We worked on them last week. Kari actually has a job at Nordstrom Rack, but she’d be up for doing something a little more up her alley, so it’d be great to have both of our resumes up to snuff. How about if I run up to our apartment real quick and grab them and you can take them home and have a look?” Jack said that’d be great, and Jeff headed out, against the current of people flooding in the front doors. I thanked Jack again and excused myself to go find Aaron and Candi. He apparently didn’t hear me, and seemed to have forgotten that I was standing there, so I acted like I saw someone I knew and headed off toward the sanctuary.
After church Jack once again found Jeff, saying he had an idea if Jeff was really desperate for work. He explained that he was of the managing supervisors at BioTech, a corporation which, according to Jack, “develops, manufactures, sells, and services chromatography and extraction systems used to separate, isolate, and identify the components of chemical mixtures.” This sounded like a real life horror to me, but he explained that they had temp jobs available, and if Jeff was interested, he’d be welcome to have one, at least to get us by before he found a job in his field. Jeff was thrilled because no matter what the work was, at least it would keep him from having to sit in the apartment all day.
“Great. Be there tomorrow morning at 6am. And say, why don’t you and Kari come over for dinner tomorrow night and we can talk about your resumes in person? Kathy gets off work at 5, so just meet her at her office here and follow her over to our place. Sound like a deal?”
“Sounds great!”
That night, Jeff and I sat down to a dinner of leftovers and tried to figure out how the following day would work. We only had one car, and BioTech was across town to the West, in San Jose, and Nordstrom Rack was across town to the South in Campbell. We finally decided on our schedule. We’d get up at 4:30am, get ready, eat breakfast and be out the door by 5:30am in order to make it across town to Jeff’s job by 6am, then I would drive to the Rack and have 20 minutes to sit and read in the car before starting work at 7am. Then, when I got off at 3, I’d get to BioTech by 4 considering traffic, and then we’d head home together and probably make it home by 5. It would work. We laid out our work clothes, set two alarms just to be safe, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
…
Read The Road to Santa Clara (Ch. 7): The Barium Vials »
The next morning, we took turns in the bathroom, gingerly setting foot into the shower, mentally pushing aside thoughts of plummeting through the rotten floor into the apartment below. Church was relatively uneventful. Once again setting myself up for disappointment, I let myself hope that perhaps Pastor Steve would announce our arrival to the congregation – somehow even an acknowledgement of our presence seemed like it would take away the sting from the previous day’s disappointments. I didn’t necessarily want attention for being the new college pastor and wife, but just wanted someone to know, someone to actually acknowledge in some way that we’d left everything to be there. But, of course, nothing came. We came and went without so much as a greeting. Except for Chase. Chase saw us as we found an empty pew and he came over, beaming.
“I knew you’d come!” He was obviously surprised to see us. Did none of the pastors know we were coming?
“Yeah, we’re here! I emailed you a few times to let you know,” Jeff explained as they shook hands and patted each other on the back in a half-hug.
“Oh dude, I’m so bad with checking my email. I’m no good at computers. But we’re so glad you’re here. Is your stuff already unloaded?”
“No, actually it’s all still in our U-Haul. We had a bit of . . . cleaning to do last night so we didn’t have a chance to unload.”
“Well, let me get my youth group kids together right after church and we’ll unload the van for you, a’right? We’ll get it empty in no time!” The worship band began to play. “Man, I gotta run! I’ll catch ya after service.” And he was off. Jeff tightened his arm around my shoulder and smiled down at me. I kissed on the cheek and smiled back. We had Chase. I knew already he would be a friend, although it still was a little disconcerting that it seemed none of the staff knew of our arrival, except for Steve who seemed to care very little about the entire situation.
After church we went back to the apartment and we all changed clothes, ready for work. I ran to the store and bought a flat of water bottles a 24-pack of soda to quench the thirst of our young laborers, and, true to Chase’s word, about 45 minutes after the service was over, his kids knocked on our door and asked if they could unload the van. Forty-five minutes later the entire van was unloaded, and I was thrilled. As quickly as they’d arrived, all the helpers left, stuffing their pockets with a soda for the road, and we were left, the six of us, exhausted but happy, sitting in our windowless apartment.
That night, Jeff called Steve on his cell to find out where he was expected to report, etc. Pastor Steve explained that they’d have a Board meeting Monday night, so Jeff would need to submit his salary request, in line-by-line budgeted format, to him on Monday, so they could settle on the dollar amount at the meeting. Tuesday was a staff meeting, but Pastor Steve insisted that Jeff just take the first week to get acquainted with the area, settle into the apartment, and spend time with me. “I just want you to have an easy transition into this,” he explained. I was thrilled. For one, I was relieved to hear someone finally discussing a salary, so I could figure out whether I should buy real butter or just margarine and if we’d be living on Easy Mac or if we’d actually be able to buy meat. Secondly, I was thrilled to see that Pastor Steve must place such a high value on family that he was letting Jeff have time to get us settled as a family. This was a good sign, so I decided the apartment thing would be fine, and perhaps we could even take a trip to Ikea, just 35 minutes away, and get some organizational things to make the place more livable.
Since we’d been on donation support for 3 years, we already had our budget. We added a little to food and gas, reflecting the higher prices in the bay area, but basically left it the same. We were used to living on very little, and though I really hoped we’d be able to begin saving for the future, I didn’t want to appear greedy, so we tried to keep it low. Monday morning Jeff dropped off the spreadsheet we’d created, along with a detailed explanation of each category. Steve showed him which office was his (it had a window!), so we took that day and had fun toting in his favorite books, his chair, and a shelf with our wedding picture and a framed verse, to make the place his own. His office also had internet, so we checked our email and sent out quick updates to family. Back in the apartment, mom and dad helped tidy things, put things away, and make it more like a home. They would fly back to Oregon on Tuesday, so they wanted to help as much as possible while they could. Monday night Dad took all six of us out to dinner, and in the company of them and our friends Aaron and Candi, it really seemed that everything would be ok.
Tuesday morning I woke up feeling sad. Waking up at all was a feat, because in a windowless apartment, there is no natural light. When the lights were off, even if it was the middle of the day, it was pitch black. So black you could wave your hand in front of your eyes and see nothing. So, when we would wake up, it was a dizzyingly confusion sensation because it could be 2am or it could be noon, either way it was pitch black. So, this made an alarm clock of utmost importance. It also made it extremely difficult to get out of bed in the morning, because our natural bodily instincts told us that it was the middle of the night, even if it was 9 in the morning. So, sleeping in was never very satisfying because we still had to check the clock, drag ourselves out of bed, then run around and turn on every light in the apartment to convince our bodies that it was really time to be awake. The other odd thing about a windowless apartment is that there was no fresh air. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but we instantly knew that it was. Every morning we’d wake up with dry, scratchy sore throats because the vents that circulated the air, blew air-conditioned air straight at our faces. Someone had constructed a sort of cardboard contraption that attempted to divert the air, but it still had a drying effect that was significant enough that by the end of the first week we purchased a humidifier, which ran constantly in our bedroom.
So Tuesday morning I awoke to the blackness. I immediately knew that it was Tuesday, the day my parents were leaving. I didn’t get up to turn on lights. Jeff was still sleeping, his rhythmic breathing the only sound I heard. I turned away from him, facing the wall, and buried my face in my pillow, overwhelmed with the feeling that I just did not want to do this day. Somehow, with them there, it was still temporary, still an adventure. It was just a weekend thing we’d done, driving down to this foreign place and doing house projects. But the reality of them leaving, of this actually being a permanent scenario, of this being our home – I couldn’t imagine it. For the past couple days, whenever I’d felt sad I could look at my mom and know she understood. When Jeff needed wisdom or advice on how to handle a situation or fix something, he’d had Dad to turn to. We’d prayed together at night, slurped bowls of cereal in the mornings, and had an unspoken understanding about so many things. They were more than just helpers—they were pillars of strength for us during those first days. But today, they would leave.
Since Jeff’s dad Dan and step-mom Betsy lived in Sacramento, we planned for them to fly out of Sacramento airport, so afternoon, we drove the 2 ½ hours to Sacramento for dinner with them. It was sunny and warm. Dad, Jeff and his dad all swam. Jeff did hundreds of flips off the diving board, while Mom and Betsy and I chopped vegetables and marinated chicken. Dinner was pleasant, but with each bite I felt the knot growing tighter in my stomach. After dinner we took a picture of the four of us, Mom and Dad and Jeff and me, all crammed together on the sofa, arms thrown around each other, to remember this moment. Their flight would leave at 8, so they had to leave the house by 7. At ten ‘til, I excused myself to the bathroom to deal with the lump that had formed in my throat. I looked in the mirror for a long time, just staring at myself. Can I do this, God? Can I do this without them? Can I stay? I feel like I’ve never grown up, never really grown up, until this point. How can I say goodbye? How can I go forward with this new life when I feel like everything inside me is dying? Silence. Eventually Jeff knocked quietly on the door and said softly, “Sauce, we need to go.” I opened the door and with one look I knew he understood. We stood in the hallway for a moment, his arms surrounding me, my head buried in his embrace. Finally, with a deep breath, we went to say goodbye.
I was determined not to cry and I knew they were too. I tried to hug quickly, but as soon as I saw my dad’s eyes, I almost moaned in sadness. I shut my eyes hard to prevent tears. I kissed my mom, feeling the softness of her cheek on my lips, the familiar smell of her hair, her small, round shoulders beneath my arms. We walked out side, forcing one foot in front of the other, and Jeff opened my car door. By now I just stared straight ahead, numbed, the bright sunshine blinding. They stood and waved, and I waved, a slow, mechanical wave, watching out the back of the car until we turned onto Bay View drive and they were gone.
Now the tears came. I bent forward and buried my head in my knees, unable to control my sobs. Jeff said nothing, just softly ran his hand up and down my back as he drove. When I finally looked up, I realized he was weeping too hard to speak. We cried then sat in silence all the way home. Once home, we walked into our apartment, now lifeless and empty. Once in bed, we shut off the lights and lay, clutching onto each other as if we were drowning. We cried silently. Finally, Jeff said, “Sauce?”
“Yes?” I whispered.
“Do you think we can do it?”
I sat quietly for a long time before responding, “We have to.”
Wednesday was the day for church staff meetings, and even though Jeff wasn’t required to be at them that week, he was anxious to get acquainted with the staff, so he decided to spend the day in the office, meeting people and introducing himself. This was also Candi’s day off, so we decided that she’d come over and spend the day helping me with projects and keeping me generally occupied so I couldn’t mope around and miss my parents. Aaron worked over an hour away, in Berkeley, and they only had one car so they decided that he would drive her over to our apartment early that morning, go to work, and then come back that evening so we could all have dinner together at our apartment and go to the mid-week evening church service that night at 7. So, that morning at 7:30am, Candi arrived with her giant purse, (I’d later learn to call them handbags) which made her look even tinier. This was the first day that Candi and I would hang out, just the two of us, without our husbands. I was a little nervous. I hate trying to make small-talk, and the idea of spending an entire day, with no option of escape, with a new girl I didn’t know very well was a little unnerving, no matter how wonderful she was.
But right away I found her wonderfully disarming. Her purse was full of magazines, and she assured me that if I needed to do projects and didn’t have anything to do, she was perfectly content to busy herself reading. In other words, I didn’t have to entertain her, which was an immediate relief and revealed that this was a girl I’d enjoy spending the day with. After taking turns using the dim, scratchy mirror to make ourselves suitable for public (she’d just crawled out of bed, just like me—another point in her favor), we decided that we needed to find a dollar store and get some kitchen essentials, and I wanted to find a Joann’s Fabric so I could make some curtains to cover the yellow butcher paper on our bedroom “window.” This challenge provided the perfect backdrop for our day of adventure, which began with asking around for directions, followed by maneuvering freeways and one-way streets, getting somewhat lost and trying to make sense of convoluted directions from a gas attendant, and finally, achieving our goal and entering the dollar store, where we found things like ketchup, flour, saran wrap and popcorn. Candi shared her money-saving secret of seven dinners to make using Top Ramen, and we splurged and bought ourselves a King Size bag of M&Ms to share. There was no Joann’s, but we found a fabric store with a huge clearance wing, so I bought a scrap of caramel colored gauzy fabric to somewhat hide the yellow butcher paper. By the time we arrived back at the apartment, struggling up the stairs with our flimsy plastic dollar store bags cutting into our forearms, it truly was as if we’d always been friends. Of course there was still much to learn, but that day we had lived life together. We’d attacked a project, together, and learned and grown and braved the crazy city . . . together. After unloading our treasures, we brainstormed about dinner and together schemed up a Mexican feast to cook for our boys. We chopped, sautéed, tossed, and shredded, enjoying comfortable silences, content with each other’s company and the satisfaction of a task. Jeff and Aaron arrived that evening, and we sat down to the feast as friends. By now our conversation came easily, Aaron telling stories of his first days of work and Candi and I telling stories of our day’s adventure. Jeff seemed a little distant, but he said his day was fine, so I figured we could talk more about it later. Later, we all walked across the street to church, each couple snuggled together, comforted by the presence of friends.
After church we said goodnight to Aaron and Candi and Jeff and I went upstairs to bed. When we got inside our apartment, Jeff turned toward me.
“Pastor Steve told me that the board decided on my salary today.” I waited. I began to feel, like air slowly seeping out of a balloon, my joy from the day dissipating as I realized this was probably not good news. The peaceful calm was replaced with a sense of dread, just the way it had when we’d first arrived. He said the amount and dropped his head a little, as if he’d somehow disappointed me. It was ½ what we’d asked. I nodded slowly, licking my lips in thought. Granted, we didn’t have to pay rent, but it still meant earning significantly less than we had in Oregon and the cost of living in the bay area was at least one and a half times, maybe double, what it was up North. We hadn’t requested vacation savings or car savings, and we only had one small car so we hadn’t even needed that much for insurance and gas. “They said that if we’re really called to do this then money shouldn’t matter,” Jeff explained to me. He seemed to be objective, but to me it felt like a slap in the face. Once again I felt stupid. I felt like they’d made a judgment on my character; that they’d seen our budget that we’d prayed and agonized over, and concluded that we were greedy and selfish. I felt like, once again, I’d given up everything that I held dear, and with a feeble little hope of someone welcoming us with open arms, instead I’d gotten a kick in the gut. To Jeff, it was an obstacle and a trial, yes, but something that could be dealt with. To me, it was personal. It hurt. I closed my eyes as they filled with tears. Jeff just held me. I didn’t have the energy to be angry, so I just calmly, in the silence of my heart, asked God give me peace.
And He brought this to my mind. God had always provided for us. When I first went on staff with Real Life, and I was a single girl just graduated from college, I lived on no more than $500/month. One month early on, I’d sensed God putting it on my heart that I was supposed to support a certain missionary family with $25/month starting that next month. When I got my paycheck, it was less than my monthly rent. Not only did I not have money for rent, food, or gas, I certainly didn’t have enough to give to these missionaries. But I knew God was testing me. Would I trust Him? Would I believe what He’d spoken and asked me to do? That morning I’d cried and prayed that somehow God would provide if I was faithful to what He’d spoken. I wrote out the check to the missionaries, by faith, trusting if I sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all the things I needed would be added unto me. Later that day, feeling despondent and discouraged, I was called into the office of our church accountant. He explained that I’d been given an anonymous $800 that day. I stood and stared, unable to believe God’s provision – more than I’d ever even made in a whole month! The lesson that day, I would never forget.
And so I thought of that, as I dealt with the present news, and determined that even though it hurt, it was silly to let it be personal. God would be faithful. I looked up at Jeff. “Ok,” was all I said.
By Friday morning everything was in unpacked and in place, and a trip to Ikea on Thursday had even produced a butcher block for the kitchen so I had a work surface, and little wire baskets we attached to the walls to put spices. We nailed tiny nails all over an entire wall and hung all of our kitchen utensils, colander, measuring cups, etc. from those. It was really was a masterpiece, with every square inch of space utilized to the fullest capacity. I even took pictures to email to Mom because I knew she’d be proud. Around 9am Friday morning, Chase stopped by to tell Jeff and Pastor Steve wanted to meet with him at noon that day. So, at quarter ‘til, Jeff headed across the parking lot to Steve’s office.
I decided I’d make the most of the time by myself, so I went on an adventure to find the laundry room, which I’d been assured existed, but only had cold water. Eventually I found it, an old boy’s bathroom converted, of course, which still bore the scent of its previous function. The washer was full of wet clothes, so I figured laundry could wait and decided to check back later that afternoon. I instead decided to return to the apartment and work on our monthly newsletter that we sent out to all of our supporters. Since we would no longer be on financial support, we had taken two weeks in July and visited every single one of our 25+ supporters, to communicate to them our vision and explain the move we were making to Santa Clara. We explained to each of them that we would no longer need their financial support, so they could disburse those monthly gifts elsewhere, but that we still desperately needed their emotional support and prayers during this upcoming adventure. We felt strongly that we not just sever ties just because we were no longer donation-supported, so we committed to continuing our monthly newsletters to them.
Engrossed in writing, I hadn’t realized the hours had passed, and when I finally got up to get a snack, it was four o’clock. I looked at my cell phone to see if I’d somehow missed a call from Jeff, but I hadn’t. So, I closed our laptop and headed toward Jeff’s office, figuring I could check my email and hopefully find him there.
The church was cold from the air-conditioning. I pushed open the door that led to the youth offices, and saw that Jeff’s office door was closed, but the light was on inside. I knocked quietly and cracked open the door. Jeff sat at the computer, facing away from me. He didn’t turn immediately as I walked in.
“Hon?” I said cautiously. He turned slowly and gave me his slow smile with sad eyes. I could see he had been crying. “What’s wrong?” He licked his lips slowly and squinted his eyes a little, the way he does when he doesn’t want to share something. I took a deep breath. How could it get any worse?
“Pastor Steve said that last night he was thinking about things, and he just feels like instead of being the college pastor, I’m supposed to just go get a job. He said it’s nothing we’ve done, he just doesn’t want to give us too much responsibility too soon, so perhaps down the road I can be, but right now we need to just live here and attend church and work. I’ve been sitting here for four hours looking for jobs. I’ve applied to 14 Engineering firms so far. I wanted to have a plan by the time you came.” No. No. This could not be. This could not be happening. How could this happen? How could we come all the way down here and be thrown out on our backsides? Why was God abandoning us? Tears filled my eyes and I leaned forward, collapsing into Jeff’s lap. I couldn’t tell whether I was angry or hurt. Both, I think. Thoughts swam and spun through my mind. What did we do wrong? How could they do this to anyone? Why could there be no one that was on our side? What did we do wrong? What did we do wrong? No. No. By now I was crying uncontrollably. Jeff just held me for a long time. Then, slowly, I stopped, straightened myself and looked into Jeff’s face.
“Take me home.” Jeff looked me deep in the eyes and reach up, smoothing my hair with his hand.
“If you want to, I will take you home. But let’s pray. Let’s sleep on it. God may be at work in something bigger than we thought. We don’t want to miss it.” He stopped and waited to see my response. I was exhausted. “Let’s give it two weeks. If, after two weeks, we still feel like this whole thing is a disaster, we can go home. But let’s give it two weeks.”
I squinted my eyes at him, thinking, deciding. Once again I had a choice. Finally, “Ok. Two weeks.”
…
Read The Road to Santa Clara (Ch.6): The Rack »