The Big, Big Move

Prior to moving to Ketchikan, AK, we were traveling to different churches every Sunday A.M., Sunday P.M., Wednesday P.M., Conferences, etc. I was pregnant with my third child. It was a stressful pregnancy because for some reason her little heart would quit beating and then start up again. Many doctors told me to abort her because she would be born dead, with hole in her heart or mentally challenged. That wasn't an option for us. We sent out a letter so people could pray for her and for me. I had two doctor's appointments per week for about 10 weeks. I had an appointment with one of the doctors and her heart beat quit and started again. The next day at another doctor's appointment it was normal and stayed normal til' she was born!!! My labor and delivery was only 4 hours. She was born in the morning and greeted us all with a look of, "Good Morning world" ~ very alert and she is still a lot like that to this day.

So after our little daughter's birth, we packed up our earthly belongings, said many sad good byes and started our move.We have the saddest picture of Micah with his cousins A and J. When we look at even today it makes our hearts tug. Our dear, dear friends, J and R helped us move across the country. My dear mother-in-law paid for the kids and I to fly to California. So R flew with the three kids and I across country. We drove to Minneapolis and then flew to San Francisco. We stayed with my sister in the San Francisco area for about a week. Chuck and J drove across country and had quite the story to tell. They had car trouble crossing Nebraska that cost both time and money. The rear end went out of our Scout. They were in Sydney, NE at the time. It was late on Saturday night so the guys got a motel room and went to church the next day. On Monday they went to a car garage and found out that there wasn't a rear end to be found even as far away as Omaha, NE; Denver, CO; or Cheyenne, WY. The guys waited a couple of days and then a guy said he found one 3 miles away right there in Sydney. Does Jesus care - oh, yes He cares. It cost $700 which was hard on the travel budget. J said he would help out financially if needed. But . . . Chuck wanted to see how far God would take them. They crossed Dead Man's Pass in a blinding blizzard, had a toll bridge to cross going into San Francisco and arrived in Seattle with change in Chuck's pocket!!!! R, the kids and I rode up to Seattle with my sister and her family and had beautiful weather for crossing over mountains in November. Our family arrived at the ferry terminal with tickets in hand that had been purchased prior to our trips. We didn't have to cancel because of bad weather, car trouble or anything. We were thankful to God for His care. He provided just the perfect timing, with just enough energy and the perfect amount of money.

It was sad getting on the ferry and leaving our loved ones behind but we were excited about the uncharted adventure in our lives that lay ahead. The ferry was decked out for Christmas and it was wonderful and relaxing. Micah (7) and Jewels (2) had a ball getting their "sailor legs" through exploring and looking out the windows or walking on the deck. Micah and Jewels were thrilled there were no seat belts on the ferry. We saw Killer Whales, lots of Dolphins and lots of Seagulls. We had a berth to sleep in which was a wonderful relief to be able to put Jewels and A.J. down for naps. We had French Dip on the ferry for the first time and we all agreed that it was very good. Trying to eat and drink with the swaying of the ship was interesting! Our ferry trip lasted for 40 hours. We met lots of interesting people. One couple even supported our ministry for several years after only meeting us that one time. Learning to walk on solid ground was quite a hoot. We walked like wobbly sailors for a while. We went to church that night and the pastor had us come to the front. Little Jewels still had her sailing legs and struggled to walk to the front!! The church people had a wonderful food shower for us.

Living on the Pacific Ocean had many benefits. Salmon and Halibut became our staple food. We learned how to fix it and use it in many different ways and it became a favorite for us. Chuck had an office at the church so the kids and I would walk the five miles to see him quite frequently. Many times we walked in pouring rain. I would put A.J. in a backpack and Jewels in the stroller and Micah would walk along beside me. We walked along Tongass Narrows on a boardwalk. What an education for a seven year old boy. We saw jelly fish, multiple colors of starfish, sea horses and different kinds of fish. We didn't mind our long walks in the rain unless the wind was blowing too hard.

I grew up in Kansas a long ways from the ocean so moving to Ketchikan had lots of new things in store for me. The Welcome Wagon came to our home and gave us lots of goodies. One of the things they gave us was a Tide Book. I thought to myself, "Wow! That will be a lot of coupons for boxes of Tide detergent." I had never seen coupons with "moons" on them before! Am I ever happy that I didn't tell anyone in Ketchikan about that! I was so surprised to find out that the Tide Book was for telling the times for the high tide and low tide on a certain date. Did I ever feel dumb!!! I had never eaten crab before going to Alaska. One of the men in church gave us a whole cooler full of Dungeoness Crab. He told me to put a pot of water on to boil. Then he said to put the crabs in one at a time and put the lid on for a certain amount of time. Then I needed to take the crab out. What he didn't tell me is that it sounded like they screeched when I put them in the pot. They even tried to push the lid off. I felt sooo bad for them but it was free food. Chuck and I had to crack them open so the kids could eat them. It reminded us of what mother birds do for every feeding. We would drop crab in the kids' mouth and then they would immediately open their mouths again. So . . . it was a while before Chuck and I got a bite of our own.

Prices twenty plus years ago were very high, in Ketchikan, compared to any place we had ever lived before. A gallon of milk was $5.00, a pound of cheese was $5.00 and our rent was $700 for a 3 bedroom apartment. Our apartment was on stilts because of the "muskeg" soil. It was soil similar to a slow quicksand. I learned quickly that even if you could go faster from point "a" to point "b" by crossing "muskeg" it wasn't an option. So we walked on boardwalks to go from one apartment building to another. Skunk cabbage grew in the wild open areas. Blueberries, the size of my thumb, grew close to our apartment buildings. We could help ourselves to as many as we wanted. Yummy!!

Micah was in the first and second grade while we were there. He was going through a name crisis at the time. He couldn't find his name on pencils, shirts, hats, etc. To our surprise there were three little boys, in his class of 8 kids, named Micah. Two were Micah John and all three of them had last names that started with a B. So . . . that ended the name crisis. None of them wanted the teacher to shorten their name to Mickey or Mike. So she spent the year calling them by both their first and last names.

Twenty plus years have gone since living in Ketchikan; but it will always have a tender place in my heart. The people were wonderful to this "cheechako" couple and their little family.