Moving to Arizona, Part 1

I thought I would start with Mom's account of moving to Arizona from an early copy of her record in "As I Remember It":

Moving to Arizona was a pretty traumatic affair.  Late in the winter of '68/'69 it became apparent that Boeing would be letting quite a few people go during the coming year.  Always before when cutbacks had come they affected the labor end of things.  This time it was going to affect management.  Your Dad [Bill Livingston] was probably going to lose his job sometime in the next few months.

He began looking for another job.  I don't remember how many resumes he sent out, or how many places he went for interviews.  Always the interviews seemed so positive, and then he would hear nothing or they would write that nothing was open for the moment.  By summer we were getting somewhat discouraged, to say the least.  Dad flew out to Arizona for interviews with Motorola in Phoenix, and Hughes Aircraft in Tucson.

We arbitrarily chose a time to leave.  We felt like we had a word from the Lord to do that.  You must remember we were very young in the Lord at that time.  But we were willing to jump in with both feet in our new walk with Him.  I remember going to Ione's one day and pulling a promise out of the promise box in her kitchen.  It was from Isaiah 30:21: "Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, 'this is the way; walk in it.' "

I don't remember the date, but we called a moving company to pack us up, expecting that by the time it was all completed, we would know where to tell them to take everything.  In the meantime the possibility in Phoenix was ruled out.  Tucson was still open.  The date arrived, and we still hadn't heard from Tucson, so your Dad called them and told them that if they decided to offer him a job, they should send the offer to General Delivery in Tucson as we were packing up and heading that way.  One thing that stands out in my mind was the peacefulness surrounding all the packing and uncertainty. Moving had always been such a stressful experience.  We praised God for this evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

Little did we know just what an adventure it was going to turn out to be.  I doubt we (or at least I) could have faced it had we known.  After all these years I find that most of what I now consider wonderful adventures, I would have turned down had the option been given to me at the first.