Personal note: Julie and I are moving up to Seattle – hopefully moved in by the middle of September. Long story short, we moved to Portland to go through graduate program at George Fox, but after moving across the country we found that Fox’s program wasn’t financially viable (in other words, their financial aid package was such that we’d be better ministers by not going through their program, rather than incurring the expense they were charging).
Portland is a great city, though. I sure wouldn’t mind moving back someday. The cost of living is low for a city of its size. People are friendly. Roads aren’t clogged with traffic. Stores are accessible. Though I didn’t have time to build the sort of friendships I had in Boston, Portland, in three months, was starting to feel more like “home” than Boston did over four years, in terms of feeling comfortable in an area. So we’ll have to come back to visit, drink Stumptown, and buy some good reads at Powell’s.
But now we drive north. (It’s less than 200 miles, so not a big move by any stretch.) Julie is going to be working in the University Ministries department at Seattle Pacific University, a school we’ve admired for quite awhile now. The hope is that both of us will have the chance to pastorally meet the needs of students at that school and the others around it.
We’ll see what develops.
So if you have any great connections on tasteful and affordable housing close to Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood (or along a bus line that travels there), you know who to call.
