Our migration from Mill Valley to San Lorenzo was both a delightful surprise and a sweet sorrow.

First the reason for this relocation: I received a phone call from Jane Thornell during the first week of August 2006. I don’t recall the exact date. She introduced herself as the head of the pastor selection committee from the First Southern Baptist Church of San Lorenzo. She asked if I was still seeking a position as pastor. I said I was. She asked if she could call back in a few days when I could take part in a conference call with the entire committee. The phone interview went well.

We agreed that I would guest preach in a few weeks. That Sunday was August 20, 2006. My sister Jeanne was in town for an African Mission Reunion. She drove from Mill Valley with us to San Lorenzo. We only made one wrong turn and found our way into the church parking lot. The sermon was “the lawyer’s question”. I stayed around after the morning service and met with the pastor’s committee. I then learned about my predecessor’s unhappy departure a year earlier. I also learned that located next to the church was a parsonage. Becoming pastor probably meant moving to San Lorenzo. In the evening, I preached again.

I was invited to visit on September 3 and preach in-view-of-a-call to be pastor. (On August 27, I preached at Golden Gate Reformed Church). I preached both services again and of course ate lunch with many people at Baker’s Square. This time I met with all the leaders – about 20 people. The pastor’s search committee was unanimous in recommending me to be pastor. They said that my name would be up for a vote on September 24th. – On September 4th, Kim and I went to a Labor Day picnic at the home of Jean Johnson.

In the meantime, Kim and I were praying and asking for God’s direction. I preached the next two Sundays elsewhere. I also wrote a “Covenant” outlining my responsibilities to the church and the churches responsibilities to me. Here it is.

After the morning service on September 24th, the entire church met and voted on me as pastor. While this was happening, Kim and I went to Lake Chabot and walked around. Jane called about 2 PM with the news that I was called to be pastor by a vote of 47 to 2. I felt joy and release – like a long journey had come to an end. We agreed that my first official day as pastor would be October first. This was odd because, we were in Portland on October first with Simon and Dilia.

Many days have passed since then (it is my 57th birthday). We held an installation service on November 5th. Jeanne was here in town as were Valerie with Josiah and Jael.

That is pretty much the process of changing from a barely-getting-by missionary to Africa into the pastor of an up-and-coming church.

On September 12th, I took some pictures of the house – inside and out. Kim advertised the house for rent on Craig’s List for $2900 per month. We got a lot of interest. A dozen people dropped by. One woman, from London, was really interested. We thought for sure they would rent – but she broke up with her almost-husband and that prospect fizzled. We thought that maybe we could rent out the house by October 1st, but that just didn’t happen.

After I was voted in as pastor on September 24th and before my official start day of October 1st, I moved the first car-load of belongings from Mill Valley into the parsonage. I had thought about moving a Bible into the house first, but without thought, I kicked the large exercise ball into the empty garage: our first possession into the parsonage.

When we returned from Portland on October 2nd, I began moving a carload at a time from Mill Valley to San Lorenzo. I rented a small u-haul truck and Willy Ngabo helped me move a load into the parsonage on October 10th : the Korean dresser and a few desks. On Monday, October 16, church people helped me move another u-haul load into the parsonage: the big couches and the glass table included. On November 3rd, we finally loaded up the bedroom furniture with the help of Al Thornel’s truck and Ken Day’s truck. Our first night together in the parsonage was that Friday night.

In the meantime, we just couldn’t seem to rent our Mill Valley house. Kim was running ads on Craig’s list every week. I even ran an ad in the Marin IJ. We thought we had 3 single guys who wanted to rent the place. This time for a reduced $2600. But that didn’t work. Finally, we decided that we had to empty the house, paint it, and put in a new kitchen tabletop. John and Stacy from church helped paint a few times. Then we hired a talented painter and after a few weeks the house looked great. A friend of ours recommended a worker from Chinatown to put in the countertop with fixtures. We did that.

This time when we ran the rental ad on Craig’s List we had more renters than we could handle. The house was empty, painted, with a new countertop and reduced to $2400 per month. We got the down payment on November 20 and the house was occupied on December 1st. I finally felt release from the burden of renting the Mill Valley house. The new renters did not want the huge white cabinets so we had to make one final hauling trip. We managed to get 3 monsters to fit into Ken Day’s little truck. Bryan Baik also helped with his van.

And so now you know the story of how we came to live in San Lorenzo. On this Christmas eve I can speak in harmony with the mother of Jesus, “For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name”. AMEN