Moving to Stockton, California first crossed my dad’s mind after his high school graduation from Pueblo High School in Tucson, Arizona, in 1968. He wanted to go to Bible school.

So, he got a job to get a car and stuff happened. Stuff like getting married and Vietnam.

But in 1975, he made the decision to start Bible school that September. In April of that same year after going to a wedding in Bakersfield, he went to Stockton and registered for classes.

My parents were both 24 when they loaded three kids into their Lincoln Continental on a September day and headed for Stockton, California.

Although they were sad to be leaving family behind, and leaving their church was especially hard, they were both excited about this Bible school thing becoming a reality.

I can imagine my parents turning to us kids in the back seat and telling us to wave goodbye. Jon is three, I was around two and Priscilla is ten months old.

My parents don’t remember how much money they left Tucson with, but they had no savings, no job and there wasn’t a house with a Welcome mat waiting for them to unlock its door.

All they had was this Bible school dream and the GI Bill that would be paying for it.

We make it to Stockton without incident and staying in a hotel should be okay for one or two nights, but my parents know they have to look for a place to live right away.

They find an apartment on 6th street that the manager says they can have if the family who was next in line for it didn’t want it.

The five of us wait in the car, my parents hoping that this next family in line will not want it. That family, never showed up.

But before management hits the desk with their gavel and yells out, SOLD to the couple waiting, praying in their car in the parking lot with their three kids, there is a stipulation. They have to clean it themselves.

My mom was very disappointed when she saw how dirty it was, but they had no other place to go.

So, they cleaned, they scrubbed, and my dad was given paint, so he painted. They were also given blinds.

The manager said she would buff the wooden floors and she did. She left them looking beautiful.

Estrella, who had been living there for many years, said the buffing of floors had never been done for anyone before. My parents took it as a blessing.

My dad started looking for a job and each day that he came home without one, made it even harder.

They ran out of money and when they started running out of food, my mom started getting really upset.

She told my dad that she was not used to this no food thing. She was used to getting a paycheck and getting to go out.

Now she was closing the blinds so she wouldn’t have to see the neighborhood kids out front with their food, with their primary-colored fruit dancing in their hands.

All we had at this point was a little pot of beans and there were times my parents didn’t eat because they wanted to make sure us kids got fed. My sister, Priscilla, ten months old, hadn’t had milk to drink for three days.

One night, as my mom was walking up the stairs to start putting us kids to bed, my dad was coming down them and told my mom that while he had been praying, God spoke to him that everything was going to be alright.

My mom didn’t know how to react to what my dad had said but she believed him because she said his face had a glow to it.

My parents can’t remember if it was this same night or another, but it was definitely after my dad had heard from God when they heard a loud knock on the front door one night.

It was late, they were in bed and the persistent knocking scared my mom.

My dad goes down to see who it is and although it’s his name the person on the other side of the door is yelling out, my dad doesn’t recognize the voice.

My dad opens the door and it’s Bro. Leo Gomez from church!

My dad knew him through the church’s bus ministry that he had signed up for from the get-go. My dad and Bro. Leo became a team, so he knew where we lived.

Bro. Leo was a cook at Hoosier Inn, a popular all-American restaurant. My dad says if you were UPC (from the United Pentecostal Church), you went to Hoosier Inn.

Bro. Leo tells my dad at the door that while he was at work, he was thinking of my dad being in Bible school and perhaps struggling, so he decided to drop off some of the unused food from the restaurant instead of throwing it away.

He also told my dad that on the way to my parents’ apartment, Bro. Leo’s friend told him to stop at the store for some milk, so they had that too.

My dad thanked him.

Then my parents woke us up and fed us. And that is when, Priscilla started drinking milk again.

~missy salcido wead