The Road to Santa Clara (Ch. 5): The Meeting

Ξ September 9th, 2007 | → | ∇ Stories |

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.”