“You Will Be Burned Up”: an eviction story

We have finally found a place to live!  God provided a place that meets everything we were looking for; great location, washer and dryer, dishwasher, completely normal landlords and two bedrooms, all in our price range.  We are beyond excited to move in on April 1^st. 

 

But first I need to tell you about Jake’s unintentional encounter with property management back when we were dealing with our previous rental that fell through.

 

We were a little over two weeks into the process of trying to get our soon-to-be landlords to let us sign a lease.  We finally were able to make the sister of the owner agree to a day to meet us at the house to sign.  This was three days before the owner, who lived in California, had agreed to let us move into the house.  So after church on Sunday we headed out to Beverly, which is about a 30-minute drive from Boston.  We planned on getting there an hour before our scheduled meeting with the sister in order to shovel the driveway that had not been shoveled all winter.  This was a requirement by the owner in California, in order to allow us to move in. 

Exactly an hour into shoveling we had a little over half of the snow shoveled.  I had blisters on my hands and had shed my coat and hat when the sister pulled in front of the house.  She made her way up the driveway and the second she was within shouting distance she asked if we had seen the tenant who lived in the house behind the one we were planning on renting.  The owner of our soon to be rental also had the back house rented out to a woman that the sister said, “they were doing a favor for.” I told her that I had seen the woman walking her dog outside and that she had gone back into her house. Immediately the sister went into a tizzy.  She breathlessly explained that the woman we had seen was supposed to be out by the 1^st of March and she hadn’t paid rent in months.  She was so worried about facing this woman who wasn’t answering her phone calls and who had thrown huge pieces of furniture all over the lawn.  

The reaction I had, in my head only, was, “This is not my problem.” I had been waiting for over two weeks to get this sister to meet me to sign a lease.  We had driven out here and shoveled the driveway just as we were asked and after months of not receiving rent, now was the time the sister decided she would be handling this issue: right at the time she was supposed to be signing a lease with us.

“Will you come with me,” she yelled up at Jake who was working on clearing the deck of ice. “I want a man with me so she wont try and hurt me.”

So Jake stopped the work he was doing and followed her back to the other house.  I was not about to play along with this ridiculousness.  I was told to shovel snow in order to get into this stupid house and I was not about to stop just because some lady in back wasn’t paying her rent.  So as Jake and the sister approached the door of the other house I continued to shovel about 5 yards away.

The sister knocked on the door. No one answered.  So she opened the door and called for the woman.  Still no answer.  The sister motioned for Jake to follow her inside.  As they walked in the front door, the tenant and her dog came around the back of the house. 

 

I kept shoveling snow.

 

The sister called out a few more times and then the tenant finally responded as she stood on the front steps.  Jake and the sister came back out of the house and a heated conversation ensued.  Jake stood awkwardly a few feet back as the sister and the tenant yelled at each other.

 

I kept shoveling snow.

 

The following will give you an interactive experience of what this situation was like.  Please feel free to insert the feelings Jake was going through as he just stood there staring. 

 

“Get out of my house!”

“This isn’t your house! You said you would be out by March 1^st!”

 

scrape, scrape, thud(this is me shoveling)

 

“Hit me! Go ahead! Hit me!”

(to Jake) “Did you see her hit me!”

 

scrape, scrape, thud, scrape, scrape

 

“I didn’t touch you.”

“Just try going over that door step! You will be burned up! BURNED UP!”

 

thud, scrape, scrape

 

“You have to get this couch out of the yard!  This is a mess! You haven’t even paid rent”

“Lets be real. Lets be real.  I can’t be out of here by March 1^st! Just be real!

 

SLAM!!(This is the tenant shutting the door in the sister’s face)

 

Scrape, scrape, thud

Scrape, scrape, thud

Scrape, scrape, thud

 

After this ended the sister clutched at her jacket and desperately proclaimed that she couldn’t handle this.  She ended up calling the police, per my suggestion, and then had Jake help her drag countless sacks of garbage down to the end of the driveway.  I did not offer my assistance in this.  I kept shoveling and then told the sister I didn’t have all afternoon to wait around for the police to get here and I needed to sign the lease today.  She acted as if I was being extremely unreasonable after what she had just been through and sent Jake and me to the nearest Starbucks to sign the lease…by ourselves.  The tenant in the back ended up getting taken away in an ambulance due to mental instability and the lease we signed was not even the correct one, we were later informed, by the owner in California.

 

And so there you have the story of the time Jake assisted in the eviction of a tenant that wasn’t even his.

It’s a Long Story

Our housing situation is absolutely exhausting to talk about.  I am so fed up with rehashing the story, the struggle, and the discouragement that I often get short with people when they ask about it.  I have to remind myself that people ask because they care.

So for anyone who has a few minutes and would like to hear about where we are at and what has happened recently, here we go:

 

One of the only reasons we could move to Boston when we did was because of a fantastic family from our new church.  Ken and Shirley took us in and I told Jake that we could not live with them for longer than a month.  So January came and went and then February began to creep by.  Craigslist was always up on our computer.  I had mastered the art of the polite inquiry email on apartments.  Hotpads, Zillow, and any other apartment website we could think of was being used.  We had at least ten people looking for us as well and even used two realtors in this time period in hopes that someone else might have an idea of where we could live. Everything seemed to be working against us. 

That’s when some new friends of Jake and I offered the phone number of a lady who they had dealt with when they first starting looking at places.  They said that this woman was struggling to rent her town house and was willing to negotiate on the rent.  Jake and I felt like we might finally have found our saving grace.  We contacted the woman, who I will not name, and asked if her home was still for rent.  We were so relieved to learn that it was still available and that she felt like we were an answer to her prayers because it had been for rent for about six months and “we were exactly the kind of people she had been hoping would rent it.”

So with our hopes high we went to look at this place.  It was very average, but what choice did we have.  We needed a place to settle into. I could just see our pod coming out of storage. I wanted my coffee mugs and clothes, and record player, and bed, and pictures so badly I could taste them.

Now I struggle to go about explaining how things went about after this….Please keep in mind that I understand how insane it will sound that we were even considering renting from these people, but you need to try and imagine how badly Jake and I needed to move forward in our transition to Boston. 

With that said let me take you on a journey into the craziness we almost signed ourselves up for.  I only know how to do this in list form without writing a novel here.

 

Soooooo.

1. The lady who showed us the place was the sister of the owner of the property.  The brother lived in California and worked on his music(I will not put music in quotes, I will not put music in quotes, I will not put music in quotes)
2. The brother had one name that the sister called him, I will not put his name either, and then he had a stage name that he had Jake call him.
3. The brother was extremely allergic to dogs and did not want us to have a dog in the house even though he lived in California and was not planning on living in the house and was even going to sell the house in the near future.
4. He decided to make an exception for us and allow us to have “Dare” in the house.  He could never understand that Jake was saying Bear, not Dare, and he proceeded to send Jake texts that said

                                   “I’m going to take a dare on Dare 😉

     5.  He overused the winky face in texts.

     6.  He told us that Dare/Bear was not allowed to leave the first level of the house and that he wanted to make sure that if he ever          came on the property that he would not have to even see Bear because he was “highly allergic”.  Not sure what making eye contact with the dog would have done to him, but whatever, we would go along with it.

      7.  This brother landlord had us write up our own lease.

      8.  He then had a realtor write a lease cause ours wasn’t what he wanted.

      9.  He had Jake relay all of his wishes to his sister who then would get confused and have to call the brother anyway. 

     10. He didn’t want us to move in while there was snow on the ground……..Let that sink in a minute………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..  He didn’t want us to move in while there was snow on the ground……do I need to explain the amount of snowfall we have experienced in MASSACHUSSETTS IN FEBRUARY!!!!!  

      11. He then decided we could move in as long as we shoveled all the snow that had not been shoveled all winter.

      12. We signed the new lease and handed over our checks and then were told that they could not accept personal checks.(yes we got our checks back and ripped them up.)

      13. The brother also decided that we couldn’t move in on the day we had planned because he couldn’t have that stress on him while he was in the studio recording.

      14. AND the straw that broke our back was the night before we thought we could move in he told us that we had to start all over with the application process and lease because he just wasn’t comfortable with what we had done so far.

 

I can’t put into a list how difficult these people were and how they put us through the wringer.  We did everything they wanted and yet nothing we did was good enough.  Every day was a new demand and a new reason to prolong the leasing process.

Oh, and in another post I will tell you the story of how Jake got roped into assisting in the eviction of a woman who was living behind the house we were planning on renting.  Its perhaps the best part of this whole fiasco.  As Jake said at the time, “This would be funny if this was a sitcom and not our real life.”

 

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It’s been too long! We have so much to tell you guys about.

For those of you who have been following our saga via other social outlets, you will know Renewal (our church) launched into weekly services a few weeks ago. This Sunday will be our 3rd worship service, and the anticipation for what God is doing in our little rag-tag family is very high. Needless to say, not one week has been like the one before, either in planning, structure, or even meeting space, but we are still one body, with unity and and a singular purpose. An interesting aspect of church-planting here in Boston is that there is no real “norm” for worship service settings. Visitors, both churched and unchurched, stroll in with no uniform set of expectations. The Midwest is very much the opposite. Baptist churches have certain formulae, depending on the theological leanings, the age/income demographics, the neighborhood, the age of the church, etc. Depending on those factors (and more), you can pretty much expect to know what music style, preaching style, mission style, and general feel you are going to get from a church. While there is inevitably some of that in the church circles here as well, it is not nearly as rigid. It’s terrifying for a home-grown Baptist boy like me, but it’s a little liberating as well!

I began classes three weeks ago. I am taking 12 hours…….it’s rough. 12 hours in seminary feels like 15-17 hours in an undergrad. The reading load is really kicking my butt, but I am so appreciative of the lectures (and most of the reading material). I feel like I am already learning so much from these great men who have dedicated their lives to the church and her servants. For those of you who are interested, here’s my schedule (if you’re not interested, feel free to skip to the next paragraph):

• Monday – Great Confessions of the Faith, course detailing the formulation and purpose of the creeds and confessions of the church throughout the centuries. A lot about the Church Fathers right now.

Historiography, a class aimed at preparation for future academic research and method. Learning about the various schools of historical thought, how history “becomes” history, etc. We sit around a big wooden table, surrounded by old books in a private library. I feel very cool in this class.

• Tuesday – Church History from Reformation to Today, pretty self explanitory. Starting with the European reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Swiss Brethren, John Knox, etc. The reading for this class is really enjoyable. I tried to read Luther’s Table Talk, I only made it through about 70 pages.
• Thursday – Biblical Theology: New Testament Focus, this is my only strictly “theology” course right now. Different from systematic theology in a few different ways; rather than systematizing Scripture into theological categories, this method tries to decipher the specific theology(ies) of the books of the NT, as well as discovering overarching themes found in the NT. A lot of biblcal dictionary reading for this class, which is exactly as exciting as it sounds.

In other news, we are making some friends up here, which is exciting. A few weeks ago, we went and had dinner on the coast with a couple from our church at a place called Woodman’s. It was was some pretty awesome fried seafood. If you know anything about the Randolphs, you know that we are always on the hunt for good chow. So, in that vein, it’s been a little disappointing because I am a BBQ fanatic, and Katherine is all about her Mexican food. Those cuisines might as well be gold-encrusted Kobe beef and caviar up here. On the positive side, sushi is no rarity here, and pizzerias are like Subway up here. Every small town has 3, including gas stations. It’s weird.

We’re trying to put the finishing touches on grabbing a townhouse in Beverly, about 25 minutes from Boston. It’s not much to look at, but it is close to my school and the price is right! So if you are still praying for our housing situation, please pray about that with us.

Thank you all for continuing to encourage us with your support and love! If you get the itch to experience some serious snow, feel free to come visit us in the next few weeks. Also, just as a word of caution, if you’re thinking about making an IKEA run on President’s Day, just know that every other person in the world had the same thought as you, and you will be in line for an insane amount of time to purchase a shower curtain.

William Jamison Randolph

Jake and I are now Uncle and Aunt to perfect baby William Jamison Randolph!  My sister and brother in law, Misty and Jared, had William Monday, January 20^th.

The birth of Will is the first big thing we have missed out on because of our move.  It’s hard to explain how that feels.

I really haven’t cried much since we left our comfortable life back in Kansas.  And I had really prepared myself for a lot of crying.  Crying is in my nature and I seem to do it a lot, but I have really held it together recently.  It’s funny that this is something I am proud of.  I can count the number of times I have cried since I have been here.

1. When I didn’t know what to do about an apartment that was up for grabs the day after we got here.
2. When I was almost late for work on my second day.

And

3. When William was born.

Everyone had been so sweet and kept me in the loop all day about what was going on with Misty.  I never had to wonder what was happening, because just when I would think, “I haven’t heard from anyone in a couple hours,” there would be a text from Sydnie, or Blake, or Jamie, or even from Misty’s phone(whoever this was I greatly appreciated it).

I had just gotten a text from Sydnie telling me that William had finally entered the world, when my mother in law, Jamie, called me.  She told me that William was just perfect!  That he had a head full of hair and was precious! I hung up with the excited grandma and could barely contain my joy as I started laughing and trying to tell Jake what William looked like.  Suddenly I was crying.  It was the strangest flip of emotion that has ever happened to me.  I was physically laughing and then really crying.

I wanted to be at that hospital so badly.  I wanted to have waited in the waiting room with Jamie and Kelly right before they were grandparents and gotten a crappy hamburger at the hospital with Sydnie and had Blake entertain us by singing random songs periodically(probably from Joseph, which I will also be missing).  I wanted to have Misty and Jared know that I was there and excited for them.  And I wanted to be able to see William.  That sweet baby that I had talked to Misty about so much and who we have been waiting for since the night, about 9 months ago, when Misty told us at the Warren movie theatre, that she was pregnant.

I hate that we weren’t there to be a part of such a huge event in our family, but I pulled myself together and Jake hugged me and we both agreed that we would see Will while he was still a baby.  That is what I am going to focus on.  Not the stuff I’m missing, but the things I will later get to be a part of.

Inner City Pressure

This song internalizes everything I feel about changing from Kansas to Massachusetts (except for the flute lessons).

Shotty Vs. Shorty

In the last couple days Jake and I have been pretty down about our living and financial situation.  We keep reminding ourselves that we have been here less then two full weeks, but sometimes its hard to remember that, when stability and comfort are on the line.  But it’s moments like the following that help me remember that the best stories come from the adjustments.

 

I was getting trained in the store I work at.  I was learning how to answer the phones, make appointments for groomings, use the cash register and so on.  The phone rang about 5 minutes into my training and my boss prompted me to give it a try and answer it.  So I grabbed the phone with confidence and took the appointment calendar in hand. 

 

I was ready.  I was able.  I had answered the phone a thousand times before at my previous job.

 

So I answered with a chipper greeting and got ready to prove myself.  The man on the other end of the line asked to make an appointment for his dog to get groomed the following week.  I told him that I could indeed schedule a time for his pet.

 

“What is your name?” I asked. 

“Bill,” he said.

I wrote it down. 

“What is your pet’s name?” I asked. 

“Shotty,” he told me. 

I asked again, “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Shotty,” he repeated.

I wrote that down as well.

“Okay,” I said, “I have Shotty down for an 11:00a.m. appointment next Friday.”

 

He thanked me and hung up. 

Just as I was ending my conversation with him my boss came up to the counter and asked who had made an appointment.  I handed her the calendar to show her the name.  She died laughing. 

“It’s not Shotty,” she laughed. “It’s Shorty! You were just a victim of the Boston accent!”

I also started cracking up at what I had done.  I guess I’ll be meeting good old Shotty/Shorty this week and also remembering this story when I need a good laugh at my Midwest self.

Craigslist and Sushi

I consider our first week in Boston a success; Minimal breakdowns, small victories, and plenty of tales to tell.

Our church decided to multiply community groups in the coming weeks in order to make room for growth and to spread out in the city a bit. Up until now, the group has consisted of 15-20 adults all meeting in Pastor Jared and Heather’s place in Back Bay. Katherine and I will be a part of the North community group along with two other couples, so I am pretty excited about that.

I found a luthier in Watertown that was able to repair my acoustic guitar for a whole lot less than the guy in Wichita was quoting me, so I’m ecstatic about having my Martin back.

So, about finding a place to live….we have been beating down Craig’s door every day checking his list for housing options, as well as looking on Zillow, Trulia, etc.,  and it astounds me how many “fake” listings there are from people trying to con you out of your money. They all use the same formula, too, which adds to the hilarity/insanity of it all. It goes like this:

“Charming, beautiful, amazing 1 BR apartment in (insert super-enviable neighborhood here), only (insert oddly low price)/MO All Pets OK, UTILITIES INCLUDED!!!!”

And, the thing is, when you’re desperate for housing, you click on it. You know it’s fake, but you click. Now, once you’re in there, you would have to be pretty dense to fall for this ploy, but it must work on some people because I see tons of these ads. Here’s a description I got from a fake homeowner this very week:

and it goes on and on like that. Pretty awesome. I had one person tell me one time that they were an oceanographer on contract and couldn’t get to land, but no biggie because we could do everything long distance…..

Last night, Katherine and I went into the city to have a sushi date at Haru. We got in with no issue, which was surprising to me, and we enjoyed some yellowtail scallion, a dynamite roll, and a salmon jalapeno roll that was the spiciest sushi I have ever had. As in, that roll with wasabi on it destroyed my nasal passages. We also experienced my favorite area of Boston, the North End, to get some cannoli from Mike’s Pastry. I don’t think Katherine is sold on the glory of cannoli, but the experience alone was well worth the walk.

We’re still praying for a place to live and for some financial clarity, so please pray with us. All in all though, it’s been a smooth transition thanks to a welcoming church and God’s provision in strange and powerful ways.

You Dirty Dog

So far Jake and I have learned a few things up here in New England.

1. There is a thing called heating oil and that is what all the houses here have to have delivered every few weeks in order to fuel their furnaces.  I have never even heard of heating oil before.
2. Don’t leave coke cans in your car and not expect them to burst all over your back seat when the weather gets down to 0 degrees.
3. Light switches for the room you walk into are most often located on the outside of the room.  Don’t get caught in dark bathrooms searching the walls with squinted eyes and desperate hands like we have multiple times.
4. If you shovel off a parking spot in the midst of a snowstorm that parking spot is yours until the storm ends.  You can place a chair or other object in the parking space and everyone knows not to mess with this spot.  I can’t wait to try this out. 

And most importantly in the development of our lives in Boston is;

     5. Keeping your dog bathed can lead to income.

Yesterday Jake and I knew it was time for our Bear dog to take a bath. Two days in the car and a move of his lifetime had caused a lot of oily skin and dander.  He smelled awful and our generous hosts, Ken and Shirley, did not need to be smelling that any longer.  So we loaded Bear up again and typed in “dog washes” to our google maps.  The closest was one called Durty Harry’s, so we chose it and got on our way.  We got lost on the way there, which I keep telling myself is just going to happen A LOT so its best to get over it quickly, but eventually we found it.  The staff was very friendly and the owner started chatting a bit with me as we paid for our dog wash. (For those of you who would like to know, Bear now smells like lavender) I mentioned in passing that I was in search of a job and she said, “We are hiring.  I was actually just creating an ad on craigslist asking for help.” I told her I would definitely like to fill out an application and she proceeded to tell me that the job could be mine if I said I wanted it.  A few minutes later I was hired and agreeing to be at work on Monday at 10:30.   I will be walking dogs full time and also working in the store.

 I have no idea if I will be able to figure out where I am going in order to walk these dogs.  I have no idea if I am excited or a little embarrassed that this is what I will be doing. And I have no idea if I will be making enough money for us to survive off of here in the “big city”. 

But what I do know is that I will get to be outside for my job.  I know I wont have to be there by 8:00am.  I know I get to work with people my own age.  I know I will get to put to practice hours of watching Caesar Millan.  And I know it’s no coincidence that out of all the dog wash options we chose this particular one that was looking to hire someone full time. 

Happy Goodyear!

Since we are entering the New Year and it seems as if everyone has some kind of deep inspirational resolution or word of advice for how we should all live our life, let me offer my own words of wisdom.  I will try to take all this knowledge and condense it to a simple statement.  It will be difficult, but I will do my best.

Here we go:

Don’t drive 27 hours across the country in two days.

It all starts out nicely enough.  You have a bag of snacks and a cooler full of cold drinks.  You have a road trip playlist coming through the car speakers and a tank full of gas. And to top it all off, there is a feeling of a great adventure just beyond the horizon.  Yeah,  well that lasts for the first 6 hours of this “adventure”.  Then you are just sitting in packed car with a dog breathing down your neck and a battle going over whether the car is too hot or too cold.  This “adventure” starts seeming absolutely crazy around 15 hours, and at 20 hours, you are certain you have lost a piece of your sanity.

Ohio was suprisingly pretty

snow

packed to the brim

Poor Bear

my handsome husband

Now that we are in Boston, I still can’t believe we spent so much time in that car, but I want to believe I became a stronger person somewhere around Ohio.  The consistent pain in my hip and back since stepping out of the car suggest otherwise.

The actual road trip may not have taught me much, but the overall move to Boston is already opening my eyes to how much God takes care of me.  I don’t reflect on this often enough.  Just in the past few months of my life countless things have fallen into place in order to make this life change happen.  Family and friends have generously given money at just the right time.  Plans have come together too perfectly for coincidence.  And the love from people around us has been overwhelming.  And I really mean that.  My eyes have been opened to how blessed our life in Wichita was and that made it much harder to have to say goodbye.

I guess if I were to give a New Years resolution right now it would be to be more thankful for what God has put in my life in the moment I am in, because who knows when you will be on to the next thing, like a 27 hour road trip across the country.

New Year, New City

Hi everybody! We made it to Boston late last night, just before a huge snowstorm hit. We’re currently sitting in probably 8 inches of snow, and it shows no sign of letting up. It’s insane to me that nothing has shut down because of the weather. Those of you who live in Oklahoma and Kansas know that two inches means two days at home, so we are definitely trying to adjust to that quickly. Thankfully, my mother-in-law Jayne hooked us up some some great snow boots for Christmas, and my mom got us some winter coats. Talk about perfect timing.

It was a crazy trip across the midwest and northeast, but I’ll let Katherine tell you more about that. Being on the road reminded me of a few things though.

1) Although it was pretty harrowing at points, it definitely reminded me how much I enjoy driving the highways of the USA when you have good music and company.

2) Coming up on the skyline of Boston last night reminded me how much I love this city. Granted, I have only spent a little time here (I made four trips in the last four months), but there’s just something about it. I think it’s going to be a great experience for us.

3) Top 40 radio is more like Top 7 radio. I must have heard “Holy Grail” by Jay-Z about 29 times by the time we got into Massachusetts.

4) Jack in the Box tacos.

For those of you who are wondering what our first month looks like in Massachusetts, here’s a brief shakedown:

We are living in Stoneham, MA right now, about 15 minutes outside the city. Ken and Shirley, a family in our church here, have graciously agreed to host us for a month or so in order for us to get on our feet. God has blessed us in a huge way by connecting us with them.

I start classes at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary at the end of the month. The seminary is located in Hamilton, about 25 minutes from Stoneham. I’ll be in their Master of Divinity program taking 12 hours to start. I’m a part of a scholarship program called “The Partnership Program”. It’s a full-tuition scholarship opportunity that’s dependent on financial partnerships with donors and churches. I am still looking for some people to contribute on my behalf, so if you are wondering how you can support me, this is a big need I have right now! If you want more information on how to help me, please get in touch with me personally, as well as checking out the details here. If you can’t support financially, please pray that God will open the doors for this scholarship to come through.

I’m also serving at Renewal Church, which is in the Back Bay (downtownish) area of Boston. I’ll be helping out with the music for worship services, as well as some other things. It’s a brand new church plant with a launch team of about 15-20 people, so we are really excited to see what God does with and through Renewal! If you want more information about the church, check it out here.

Katherine is looking for a job, and that’s the most pressing need we have right now. We know that God’s going to provide for us in that way, so we need some prayer in that arena specifically. I would also love to see her on the stage again, and I think the opportunity’s here, so pray for that too. She’s a performer, and the sooner this city figures that out, the better.

Keep praying for us. We are excited/nervous/terrified/overjoyed about what’s going on right now. Also, pray for and celebrate with my brother and sister-in-law, Jared and Misty. They are having a baby soon!

We love you all and thank Jesus for your presence in our lives.