A friend has died

Our friend Butch died on Wednesday. A wonderful guy that Ralph had known for over 40 years and he and his family had been part of our family for decades. We are taking it hard and are really gonna miss him.

Please keep his family in prayer.

Ervin William Wakeman Jr.
Ervin William Wakeman, Jr. "Butch" was born July 17, 1943 to Ervin Wakeman, Sr. and Winnifred Allen Wakeman in Tacoma, WA and passed away October 24, 2007 surrounded by his family from heart failure. "Butch" served as a Radarman and a Military Police officer in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. He enjoyed his many years of working for the school districts, most currently Fife School District at Hedden Elementary. He enjoyed trips to Vegas and stray animals always found a home with him, especially Boo-Boo his cat. "Butch" is survived by Susan his wife of 40 years, children Lance & Kimberly Wakeman, Melanie & Nick Hausner, Shawna & Michael Cronin, Angie & Aaron Thiessen, grandchildren Tyler & Nathan, Emily & Noah, Alicia & Mikala, and Aly, sisters Lillian & Wayne Fisher, Lorraine & Tim Kelly, James Allen & Sally Wakeman, Don & Gena Wakeman and several nieces, nephews, and an abundance of friends. In lieu of flowers any donations received by the family will go to benefit the kids at Hedden Elementary.

Johanna's engaged!

Wonderful family news to share. Ralph's cousin Johanna became engaged to Bryan on October 6th. We are so excited for them. They are looking at a December 2008 wedding, after they both graduate from college, he with a Masters in Business Administration and she with both Nursing and Music degrees! Woohoo!



Jo and Bryan

Okay, I'm feeling blessed

We haven't been to a play since I can't remember when, been a very long time. Just never seemed to make the time for it somehow. One of our little promises to ourselves when we got back to the states was to do more of those kinds of things: plays, concerts, etc.

But since we aren't yet working we haven't done any of those things. Now we've been blessed with a pair of complimentary tickets for one of my favorite plays and it's being performed right here in town!!! Macbeth! And even though Shakespeare is not high up on Ralph's hit parade as far as plays go, he's agreed to accompany me! So next week we are having a night at the theater! I'm thankful that we get a nice night out for free. God is good!!

Savannah's birthday

Hard to believe it, but Savannah is seven! She had a cowboy/fishing party at a local u-fish pond and it was really fun to see her and her friends "reel 'em in". Darane' prepared a big "chuck wagon" meal of BBQ beef sandwiches, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad and corn muffins. Yummy! All the kids had cowboy hats and bandannas and all the decorations were cowboy themed. It was really cute. And while it threatened rain off and on we never actually had a drop during the party. It was great!

First you have to fortify yourself with mom's great food:



Savannah's first cast:



and her catch:



Nick caught a pretty big one too:



You have to have strength to whack the pinata!



Nick hit it so hard the head came off, so he came away with a trophy!



Bryce actually broke it open and everyone scrambled for their share of the loot!!



Gotta blow out the candles:



and open the presents:



All in all a really great day!!

Flooded again!

Okay, since February of 2006 we've rented three houses, had three great sets of landlords and had three flooded houses. What is up with that? In our previous 33 years we've never had a flooded house!!

Yep, the garage of our rental flooded today. I had a load of laundry in the washer and Ralph opened the door to the garage and found the floor covered with water. When I came to check it out I also noticed that the washer was full of dirty water and the utility sink was also full of of the same. So we called our landlords and they came out within a couple of hours along with a Roto-rooter guy.

Turned out the sewer line between the house and the street was partially blocked in a few places with tree roots which caused the line to back up to the lowest spot in the system, the garage. So the Roto-rooter guy went to work with a big snake thing, a camera and a blade to cut the roots out. It took about three hours to do the job, including treating the line with a root killing substance of some kind. Which meant I had to wait another three hours after that to use any water in the house. Finally, I was able to re-wash the laundry, twice more actually. Once with hot water and double soap and then a regular wash and dry.

We are hoping this is our last bit of water in a house for a while. Have to say our landlords were great! They reacted right away, stayed through the whole process and even brought me a bouquet of roses from their garden. We certainly have been blessed by them!!

Time flies

A friend noted the other day that I haven't blogged in a long while and I thought yes I have, then I looked today and found it had indeed been a month. Doesn't seem that long...

We've been busy concentrating on finding jobs. It's interesting because the vast majority of the jobs offered now-a-days are offered online. No more schlepping around town banging on doors!! All city, county, state and federal jobs are advertised online as well tons of jobs from local companies. In fact, some don't even keep applications on hand in their businesses they just refer you to their web site. Even if they advertise in the local paper the ad often refers you to their web site to apply. That's a big change that we've never encountered before. Makes it kind of interesting. Still takes hours and hours, but at least we aren't out there wasting gasoline!

The state of Washington has a new E-recruiting system, and personally, I can't stand to use the thing and I consider myself a pretty technical person. It's just hard to use!! I'm on at least my fourth password and I've used their tech line for help a few times, so I try to avoid using it at all. Apparently a lot of state agencies are avoiding it too. More and more are posting jobs on their individual agency sites rather than using the new all-encompassing system. So rather than having a "one stop" job site it's all fragmented again. Oh well. Keeps things interesting. We continue to apply for anything that seems relevant and we still need your prayers to find the jobs we need. Thanks!

Also keep our health in your prayers as our medical coverage expires on September 30! We've both had checkups and are fine, although our doc is doing a little follow-up with Ralph this week and then we both should be done for a year or two.

We've been so blessed to have this house, the peace and quiet when we are home is fabulous and we have had lots of visits from friends and family. We've also done a fair piece of visiting others too. My old office even invited us to their monthly potluck lunch...it was a Mexican theme and they figured I might have a good new recipe or two. Good thinking. I made pollo en mole de cacahuate...one of Ralph's and my favorites. That's chicken in peanut sauce. There was a ton of really great food there. This group has always had a great crop of great cooks and it was wonderful to visit and catch up with everyone.

We've had some sad things happen too. Our friends and former neighbors, the Krumlands, lost their youngest son in a car crash at the end of August, just before his 46th birthday. We are friends not only with them, but with one of their daughters, MerrieLynn and her family, too. Please keep these families in prayer as they are still struggling with this great loss. The Krumlands spend a month in Mazatlan each year and are known in that community as well.

Our fellow worker in Mazatlan, Mary Ann, also lost her mom. She'd been diagnosed with cancer earlier this spring and thankfully the Jackson's were on furlough so Mary Ann was able to be with her mom for her last months. Please keep the Jacksons and their family in prayer.

My cousin Donna, who visited us this past spring in Mazatlan, fell while volunteering at church and broke her hip! She's had surgery and is now in rehab, hoping to get back home in a couple of weeks. It's been a struggle for her because she's one busy woman and likes her independence. She misses her camera club, book club, exercise classes at the Y every day, etc. She can't wait to get home!! We were kind of hoping and praying that she'd be home for her 75th birthday on October 2, but it doesn't look like that will happen. So, we'll be celebrating with her there!! Can't let that milestone go by without some sort of shindig!

We were able to trade our truck for a nice newer Hyundai and we are so thankful! It is cheaper to drive (gas here has been hovering between $2.75 and $3.05) and cheaper to insure. Plus...I CAN DRIVE IT!!!! I've driven three times in the last two weeks!! Woohoo! It's nice to get behind the wheel again.

Our new telephone service allows us to make long distance calls to the US and Canada at no extra charge, so we have been taking advantage of that luxury! Even got to talk with my friend Brenda twice while she was on furlough in Canada. We can only e-mail usually when she's in Pakistan so it was nice to talk with her. We've talked with loads of other friends and family members too, so that's been nice.

Bottom line is we are happy to be home!! Thanks so much for your prayers for us and others! What a great blessing you are to us!

A God thing

Before we left Mazatlan Ralph had been looking for a rental house for us without much luck. Most were beyond our budget or the landlords were not interested in renting to two unemployed former missionaries! Then there were those who would be happy to rent to us unemployed folks, just needed first and last months rent in advance and triple the normal deposit. Whoa! So we figured we might be imposing on the kids for quite a while, at least until one or both of us got a job.

Just as we were getting ready to leave town though Ralph saw an ad for a house that fit our needs and was within our budget and asked our friends Carolyn and Robyn to check it out for us, as it was in their neighborhood. They tried for several days to connect with the landlord before they themselves had to leave town, but they had no luck reaching them. So they passed it off to our friends Bob and Sue and they finally did connect with them and did a preview for us. They sent us an e-mail while we were on the road and said it was a nice house, the only thing was it was a little dated (love the 70s) and had a really steep driveway. So as we were passing through Olympia on our way to the kids' house we stopped and took a look ourselves, liked what we saw and called the landlords. They came out and met us and the rest is history!! We signed the lease this past Monday and have officially moved in as of Friday night!!

We are so thankful to have this house and it is truly a God thing. Even without either of us having a job the landlords rented to us and we only had to pay the rent and a small deposit. It's really big, about 1900 square feet and is in the Ken Lake neighborhood in Olympia. We even have a peek-a-boo view of the lake from the living room. Here are some pictures.

The house itself:



The front entry:



This is the living room:



Looking from the living room to the dining room:



The nook off the kitchen:



Standing in the nook looking through the kitchen to the dining room:



The family room off the kitchen:



The master bedroom:





The master bedroom, dining room and family room all open out to a nice patio in the back:



The back yard is terraced because we are on a hill:



The office:



The guest room:



And Ken Lake, just across the road and a little down the hill:



We both had job interviews this week too. I had a phone interview a week or so ago, and then had a second interview with them this past Wednesday. Ralph also had an interview on Wednesday. We are both hopeful and hope to hear early this next week. Please continue to pray about jobs and a second vehicle for us.

Thank you so much for your prayers!! We love you guys!!!