Whittier California 1984

We had just come back from a wonderful vacation to Washington state.

It was a chance to reconnect with my father and meet his new wife. Our long time friends also pastor a church there, so we spent some quality time with them seeing the sight. This is Eastern Washington after all. We also had some time with a first cousin, his family, aunt and uncle.

It turned out that we had a lot of ties to the area.

A few months later, in a Sunday evening service, our pastor asked people to pray about what God would have them to do in our city this next year. As Dan prayed, imagine his surprise to see a view of the Tri-cities. This was the first of 3 words from the Lord that year.
At this time we were thrilled with the way God was leading the church in our home town. We we were seeing amazing things happening in our ministry with the youth. We also went on ministry team trips. Dan would be leading the next one to Canada.
My work was going well and Dan had a job perfectly suited for him. His boss was retiring that next year and he was slated to take his place.
This was very hard for us. Leaving friends, family and church. To start a Vineyard Church in the Tri-Cities? At that time people were being sent out to plant churches. So in a way it was not unusual.
So we put out a fleece and decided one of the first things that would have to happen was for Dan to apply for a job there. The area was in a very bleak economic down turn. The only job he could get was in the county jail at a substantially lower salary than we were used to.
I was able to take my job with me as I sold used computer equipment over the phone to businesses. I had perfect peace about the move and wasn't really bothered by the fact God hadn't told me anything about it directly.
Being encouraged by Dan's new job, we put the house on the market. We had 2 offers within the first week. Maybe we under priced it. House prices had just started to go up at that time. We made a huge profit from the sale. We planned to buy a new house and furnish it with the proceeds.
I stayed home as Dan started his job as a corrections officer. In the mean time, there were things that needed to be done in with the house and finishing the school year for the kids.
We had looked at houses when we were up there and so Dan knew what we wanted. He bought a house sight unseen by me.
Now I know we should have had a smaller less expensive house. But a house with 2900 square feet on 3/4 of an acre and an acre in a half of pasture....it had a duck, chickens and a great finished basement. It was too much of a temptation. It had everything on our wish list and more. I had pictures of it and drove everyone crazy showing them, I was so excited. Dan flew back to pack us up and we set out for Washington. Our house and the new one both closed the day we arrived.
Our Irish Wolfhound Murphy and our cat Samantha were with Theresa and I in our little Mazda GLT. Delia, our lab mix, rode with Dan and son Dan in the unconditioned truck cab. Driving through the Central Valley of California in June really took it out of us. Add to this the excitement of finally moving. We were badly in need of a place to stopover. It took us years to remember where that was..we were that tired.

How encouraging to finally arrive in Washington state. Coming up over the hills to the view that Dan had seen those many months before.