Going West!

It's official. We've been moderately tight-lipped about our upcoming move, but now we can share with you our joy. We are excited about going to Aloha, Oregon, to pastor Aloha Church of God. Aloha is on the west end of the Portland metro area, between Beaverton and Hillsboro. The church was started in 1950, with my cousin (Gene Linnaman was my dad's cousin; would that make him my second cousin?) as its first pastor. In their 58-year history, they've had only five (now six) pastors, and the people are (and this sounds scary!) just like us.

Our calendar looks like this:

Saturday, September 27th - Moving Sale

Tuesday, September 30th - Mover Picks Up Our Stuff

Sunday, October 12th - First Sunday at Aloha

Wednesday, October 15th - Furniture Arrives at New House

Thursday, October 16th - Collapse

Please don't hold me too tightly to this schedule. Blessed are the flexible.

I was first contacted by the Aloha Pastoral Search Team last spring, maybe April, when they asked for sermons. They then contacted us about a phone interview with both Janelle and me. Before that interview actually took place, we were invited to candidate at a Pennsylvania church. We went ahead with the Aloha interview (and really seemed to connect with the team) but informed them by email within a day or two that we could not pursue our relationship with them any further until we walked through the open door that had presented itself with the Pennsylvania congregation.

Things didn't work out in Pennsylvania, so we contacted Aloha again, but wouldn't you know it, they were already considering a local candidate. I couldn't blame them for moving ahead with their search, and we were told they'd keep us informed. About a month later (after several emails back and forth) they invited our family to fly out. The earliest date that was good for all of us was the weekend of September 7th. We flew from Pittsburgh to Newark, and from Newark to Portland. The church was gracious enough to reserve two hotel rooms for our stay, which gave us some privacy and room to spread out.

On Saturday, while Janelle and I were in meetings, Garth and Kathy Hamilton (youth directors) took the youth, including our boys Ben and Will, on a hike up to Multnomah Falls. Will, who has never caught the hiking bug, said it was the best day of his life!

Sunday, we got to meet those we had missed on Saturday, and I had the opportunity to preach. Several of the youth sat with Ben and Will. We thought that was a wonderful show of support and friendship. It felt great, and the congregation was incredibly warm. We fell in love with everyone.

On Monday, we had the day to ourselves (and unlimited mileage on our rental car), so we headed for the Oregon Coast. We saw both Seaside and Cannon Beach, and had a great day. Ben and Will wanted to get back to Aloha because they had plans with some of the youth.

We had to return the car at 6:40 the next morning, but we were there by 5:30, and then our plane was delayed almost two hours because of bad weather in Newark. We sat at the airport until we boarded a little after 9. Four and a half hours later we landed at Newark, rushed to our gate for our connecting flight, and found out it was delayed, leaving us to sit and enjoy Newark International for about another hour and a half.

By the time we touched down in Pittsburgh, retrieved our luggage, and drove home, it was after midnight. Thus ended a physically tiring, but spiritually and emotionally refreshing, journey.

More to come...