III. The Journey of Sight rather than by Faith.
Chapter 2: Going and Getting More
After living in my father-in-law’s home for two years, the circumstances were right for us to come to the decision to move away. I realized that Asian churches wanted seminary graduates with a master’s degree. Just having a bachelor’s degree wasn’t enough to even be considered for a position of an assistant pastor, let alone a full-time pastor.
I was faced with a dilemma. I could settle down and become a lay worker in the church with my degree. I would faithfully teach a Sunday School class or lead a Bible study fellowship group. The other choice was returning to school for that master’s degree. At that point in my life, I didn’t want to spend three or four years in seminary.
Multnomah School of the Bible offered a program for their graduates to earn their master’s degree. It was called the Master of Sacred Ministry focusing on Pastoral Ministry. I thought this would give me the credentials that I needed. One year is better than three or four years in seminary!
I decided to enroll into that program. Ramona and I drove up to Portland, Oregon to explore renting a place for our family. Our dear friends from Bible school, Gilbert and Vivien invited us to stay in their basement until we found a place of our own. They had four children of their own.
We met Gilbert and Vivien while we were classmates at Multnomah Bible School. Gilbert was my roommate for one year. We had nicked named each other. I would call him “Big G”. Gilbert was big and fun to hang out with. If you needed to have a blast, you didn’t need to look any further than “Big G”. He would call me “Little K” since I was so skinny in comparison to him. I learned to relax and have fun from him in Bible school. Playing ping pong and bumper pool with him were some of my highlights at Multnomah.
While I was busy with classes, Gilbert went looking for homes that Ramona and I could rent. Our budget was extremely tight. We couldn’t afford the asking price of rental homes. Then one day, Gilbert came to us and he said that he found a landlord who would be willing to accept our low rent but there was a condition. The home was located on the Southeast side of Portland. It was a two-story home. The upstairs had two bedrooms and a bathroom. Downstairs had the living, dining, and small kitchen area. The elementary school and public library were within walking distance from the house. As a bonus, there were three mature fruit trees on the property. I thought that this home would be perfect for us.
We were able to reach an agreement with the landlord, Lenard. He would reduce the rent if he was able to stay in the den with a half bath in the back of the house when he came into Portland from Seaside. He was a considerable older bachelor. We accepted his offer. We had our first rented home of our own.
We both asked for a job transfer. My transfer came through first with the position of being a telephone operator in Operator Services. The office was in the downtown area crossing the Burnside or Morrison Bridge. I would either catch the bus or drive my car to find a free parking space.
The Church family helped load up the 10-foot U-Haul Truck for us. We packed up our few possessions and drove to Portland, Oregon. Before we left San Francisco, I remember buying some blond oak furniture that came from a warehouse sale. They had great deals as it was furniture that people paid for, but some reason didn’t claim. We got had two dressers, two lamp stands, a dining table with four chairs and a buffet table. We purchased a new mattress and box spring too. We had a few dishes, and some pots and pans. But we had lots of my books! Believe it or not, we still have some of those items after nearly 50 years and my kids still have some of that blond oak furniture in their bedrooms!
My brother Kenneth and I drove the truck to Portland and Gilbert helped moved us into our home. The neighbors were kind to us, and we had a wonderful relationship with them. Harry with his Alaskan Husky lived across the alley way from us. Tom was across the street from us. While Mr. and Mrs. Norby lived a house up from Tom. He and his wife drove to Arizona nearly every Winter. He did chin ups by his tree and out did me every time. He was an older and rugged man but a very kind person.
We grew our vegetable garden near the unpaved sidewalk. I am sure my children remembered the canning that we did with the pears from our fruit trees, the homemade made strawberry jams, picking corn in the field, and freezing them up. We would take short road trips to pick chestnuts or walnuts in the Fall. It was here that Ramona became a coupon and sale shopper. We also began buying things at garage sales around our home. She extended our limited budget so that we could have more.
This decision to move allowed us to break free from my overbearing Mom and Ramona’s critical Dad. Although we were physical separated from them, the unhealthy patterns learned over the years of living with them were deeply rooted in us. It would take a miracle of God to break through the hardened areas of my heart and mind.
In the Fall of 1977, I enrolled in that program and graduated with that degree in 1979. This one-year program took me two years since I was working full time. Sadly, this degree still didn’t help me enter the ministry as churches wanted a seminarian graduate. Ramona transferred came a little later as a Switch Board Operator. We were now both in Operator Services. We needed someone to take care of our daughter, Kristine, so we decided that Ramona would become a stay-at-home mom after working one year. Our son was born in September 1978. We had tried for over two years to have him. It was a four year wait for us to have all of our kids.
After graduation and with no real prospect of full-time ministry, we decided to ask Lenard, our landlord if we could purchase the house from him. The agreed upon price was $23,000. While it was great that we were now homeowners, the house needed a lot of repairs. Looking in the basement, I saw makeshift wiring as electrical cords were used for wiring. It was God’s grace that the house didn’t burn down while we were in it.
To get things fixed up, I read The Times Home Repair Series and started working on the house. The first project was clearing out the basement of things and re-wiring the basement properly. I was learning how to read and follow instructions. But even then, I didn’t fully understand what I was reading. More often than not, I was just following the pictures rather than the printed instructions. I got shocked a few times, but God spared my life. Life was good.