“What am I doing here?” I said aloud to myself through a mouthful of mushroom pizza; panic was beginning to set in. Fear and apprehension had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness for the past week as I’d packed my belongings and boarded the plane in Chicago. From the moment I made the decision to throw myself into this move, I’d forced myself into a state of confidence that all the details would be sorted out with a minimum amount of trouble, and by the grace of God (and I mean that literally), they had. But now reality was setting in, and I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing.

Gary called me a week after I sent him my letter. He said he had an acquaintance who worked at a nearby church, and that he’d call him and ask if the church knew of anyone with a room to rent or who needed a roommate. Turns out there was a couple going on a four-year mission trip who wanted to rent out their condominium. They were scheduled to leave the week I had planned to arrive but were still without a subrenter. Their furniture had already been loaned out, and the rest of their stuff was already in storage. The church contact called them on my behalf, and within two days they had checked my references and sent me a lease.

A week later Gary called back because another friend of his had just lost his administrative assistant, and would I like to interview for the position when I got to California? I’d looked into the process for acquiring a teaching credential in California and knew it was going to take me a while to complete, so teaching for this year was out of the question. My second day in town, armed with my admittedly unimpressive resume, I went to the offices of Williams & Williams Consulting, which were conveniently located fifteen minutes down the freeway from my new home, and an hour later emerged with a job that would start after the weekend I moved in. It was one amazing God thing after another.

“God thing,” I break in. “Is that when—?”