Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, we wish you a Merry Christmas. We thank you for your support and your prayers for us during this year. There's no need to go into details of the last few months as they are all available here for your perusal.

The year 2006 began for us in a state of flux and uncertainty. I was still in the middle of seeing if a computer support service business would grow or not. The first couple of months seemed to bring an answer. Rather than growing, despite increasing the advertising, business shrunk to virtually nothing. And of the business I got, I was unsuccessful in resolving the majority of them. It was an exercise in sheer frustration, futility, and humility.

It was during this time that I received an unexpected e-mail from Ken Crawford from the Alaska Conference office inquiring if we might be interested in moving to and working in Petersburg. Elise wasn't yet too sure that our future plans involved a move to such a distant location. But we all agreed that we should look into this new opportunity -- just in case.

Elise continued to home school our girls, take them to piano lessons, skating lessons, and participate in a few home school cooperative group classes.

We continued our work at the Tualatin church, but as the months continued to pass by, there was a growing sense that our work was to be done elsewhere. We went to our annual Big Lake winter retreat, together with a few Canby church families. It would be our last trip there for the foreseeable future.

So in June 2006 we took the initial plunge to test the waters by making a two week visit to Petersburg. The first week we were treated to what a Petersburg summer is like. In fact as we later found out, it was the only summer that we had. The second week returned to the typical Petersburg weather pattern -- plenty of rain. However it was then that we began to discover that Amy really likes the rain. As others around here have noticed, Amy is seen outside more when it rains than when it is dry.

We had a wonderful time during those two weeks, meeting and visiting with a number of the church members plus others from the community. Upon our departure, we were pretty much certain that this is where our future lay.

So we began to make plans for our move. We knew that it would have to occur after the first part of August as that was when we were already scheduled to attend my cousin's wedding and make a final round of visiting relatives. We couldn't seem to get anything much accomplished during the month of July. We tried to clean things up and get ready to put the house on the market, but somehow neither the motivation nor the effort was there.

And so August quickly rolled around and we were nowhere near ready to go. In the week prior to leaving for our vacation, we quickly interviewed real estate brokers. And then we went on our vacation. During the middle of the trip, one of the brokers had been working hard and both called and sent us an e-mail with updated market analysis and plans. It was for that reason, and because of the brokers we interviewed, she was the one who appeared to genuinely love the house, that we hired her has our broker. I'm sure the others were just as good, but the one we chose has proven to be very conscientious in handling affairs and our requests from a distance.

Our initial plan was to wait for the sale of our house before moving, but in hindsight, if we had followed that plan, we would still be in Tigard. Now some (many?) of you might say, "Well, that would have been better for us." But for us, making the move meant making a firm decision and provided at least some closure to the uncertainties that we were having to live with.

The couple of weeks after returing from our vacation were very busy ones. We had to clear out much of the living areas of clutter and excess stuff. We rented a 20 cubic yard disposal container from Pride Disposal and filled it about 2/3 full. It actually was one of the most enjoyable things I did during the move -- tossing stuff in there and seeing it get full. I recommend it to anyone with too much stuff in their garage, attic, basement, and house.

And then we had to clean the house -- this was not fun at all. We also hired painters to paint a number of the rooms to their original, neutral colors. We hired window cleaners to clean the windows -- some so high that we had never cleaned them ourselves. We got the carpet shampooed.

Unfortunately, about the time we put the house on the market was when the market, which had already been slowing, took a nosedive for the worse. And as the weeks went by, things just kept getting worse and the real estate news was just one bad news after another.

But we were already committed to moving. We had begun working with the movers, we had already reserved spaces on the ferry. We didn't yet have a place to move into in Petersburg, however. And that resulted in yet more frantic calling and searching. In the end, things worked out and we were able to find an apartment that was willing to make an exception for our two lovely, well-behaved (except for their orchid destroying tendencies -- one is still alive, the other I think is still fighting a losing battle) kitties. I think God helped us find this place, not just for its grand vistas, but for its included water and heat. This has so far been one of the coldest autumns, and we were spared the cost of heating that would accompany the cold.

The remainder of our story from then until now can be found in the archives of this blog. Just click on one of the month links in the left column.

Merry Christmas, from the Kubo family -

Mark, Elise, Shelley, and Amy