One day late in the spring of 1995, Jeff came home from his tumultuous job as Pastor at the United Methodist Church in San Leandro and announced that he was going on sabbatical. That meant that beginning in July, we would have no income. A phone call to a District Superintendent – Nadine, who later became a dear friend – assured me that she’d put me on the list to be appointed to a church, although there were only a few openings left that late in the spring.
We needed a place to live, having lived in church housing for the past 10 years. First, we needed a place to look! So we settled on Berkeley, or maybe Oakland. Day after day – all that rainy spring – we drove to apartments and houses in South Berkeley or Oakland. Although I didn’t know Oakland, I was beginning to know its neighborhoods.
As the days came closer to the end of June, I was more and more frantic.
I prayed. In my prayer, I was specific, although only for one thing: that the place we find be sunny. I guess the rain was getting to me. Some years are dry, dry, dry here, and some are over flowing with rain. So it was in 1995. Please God, find us a place, a sunny place.
We looked at an upper flat in North Oakland, an area I did not know well. The house was at the base of a hill that led up to the the Rose Garden, a lovely spot in Oakland, well-known, well-loved. We walked through the flat with lots of other people. We liked it! We both liked it! And the price was right, as far as we had budgeted.
I sat down on the couch, and wrote out our information to give to the rental agent. And we went home to the church house in San Leandro and waited.
We got it! We lived in that place on Sunnyslope Avenue for 10 years. Even now, I often drive past on Grand Avenue; I always glance up toward the place that became our home, as it was, for a long time. That lovely, sunny place that was our home.
