THE HOUSE chapter 154

When the door opened we were hit with a heat wave. It was stale dry air from a closed up house. “We have got to get some windows open and air this place out,” said our guide. Even before entering we noticed the burnt orange (rust) colored shag carpet. I saw Della roll her eyes. A turn to the left led to a formal dining room and we could see the kitchen and when we did, we nearly lost it. The cupboards were black and doors and drawers were red and turquoise. I thought Della might throw-up. It was a galley kitchen with the electric stove and fridge on the inside wall and the sink under a window facing the neighbors. We opened the kitchen cupboards and a slight shriek came from my wife’s lips and Ron laughed out loud. The inside was completely red. His laugher broke the tension. “Maybe you can paint them.”

“Well, they aren’t the prettiest cupboards, are they,” said our hostess. What an understatement. I doubt I had ever seen anything quite as ugly.

Just right of the living room were two bedrooms and a bathroom between them. Between the kitchen and the bedrooms was a master bedroom with its own bath and a door to the outside with a small patio.

It was a lot to take in. The back yard was completely enclosed. The entire neighborhood was connected at the back by a concrete block wall to enclose the back yards. It wasn’t long before we learned first hand that one could walk the neighborhood on top of those six-foot walls. There was a very small tree outside the kitchen window and Rhonda had climbed the weak flimsy tree and went exploring. The tree would not hold Rod and he just stood and watched. Della did not see her get on the wall but went to see what Rod was looking at. Rhonda was half way down the next-door neighbors backyard. Della knew she should not yell. It might scare her and then she could fall off. “Come back to momma sweetie.” Thankfully she did.

Before our guide left she went over a few things with us. She assumed we might need some extra income and recommended that we rent the mater bedroom suite to a couple of Biola girls. It sounded like a great idea. She could help us with some furniture. She also told us about a fellow married student who worked for Ralph’s Groceries. He gathered all the canned and packaged foods – cut boxes, cans missing their labels, torn bags – repackaged them into banana boxes which he sold to married students for three-dollars a box. She said the boxes have a value average of about $10-$12 each. We would get a call when boxes were available. “Would you like to be part of that program?” Would we! We jumped at the chance. Some savings and income was already coming our way.

Before we left Vancouver we met up with Dr. Victor Oliver who encouraged us to keep a blessing notebook during our time at school just so we could remember how God provided for us. We were to write down everything that came our way as a gift. Also, write down anything done for you and give it a monetary value. What would it cost if you had to pay for it. He told us we would be shocked at what God would do. We were, but I’ll talk about that later,

We had our hostess hook up the telephone before our arrival so we were able to make calls that day. We called Bill and Faith and Tom and Betty to tell both we had arrived. Meanwhile, Ron and I began to move everything in and get beds set up so we would all have a place to sleep that night. Della unpacked of food supplies and set up the kitchen.

We still had the crib and a single bed the kids were sleeping in. We wanted to replace the crib maybe with a bunk bed so there would be room in their shared bedroom. Della gave me a shopping list and Ron and I were about to go looking for a grocery store so we could eat that night and at least the next day. But before we left, our friends showed up and both came with groceries and one of them brought pizza for supper. We would survive a few days at least.

It was late before our night ended. We enjoyed our friends and Ron late into the night. Faith and Betty both had a bigger fit over the kitchen cupboards than we did. We saw it as temporary. “You can always paint.” I suppose.

The next morning I took Ron to the airport for his flight home. We had spent four days together. We were going to miss him and so were the kids. We were so thankful he came with us. His name was our first entry in the “Blessing Book.” For value we simply wrote “immeasurable.”