Just after mailing out our letter, we got a call from the Bible League on Dec. 21: Steve was losing his job at the end of the year. Merry Christmas!

But, no, it's OK— we always knew his position at the Bible League was precarious, considering he was the only telecommuter and that he worked for the North America department. It was that last that was the real issue. When Steve began working for the ministry seven years ago, North America was just coming on. It's a long story, but the point is that its position in the Bible League was as precarious and questionable as Steve's, and this past New Year's, the whole North America department officially became history as the Bible League decided to focus its limited post-9/11 resources exclusively on international church planting and Bible distribution.

The good news is, Steve's boss, Steve Elzinga, still wants to continue their ministry work together. The so-so news is it might take six months or more for Steve Elzinga to get a new ministry up and running. In the meantime, Steve's severance has run out, and he doesn't qualify for unemployment benefits, so...

We've become the odd-job specialists! Most significantly:

We've started a cat-sitting business: SeattleCat.com. (Luna is the star of all our ads.) We go over to people's houses when they're on vacation and care for their cats. We always hire a cat sitter for Luna when we're away, which is how we knew it would be a good fit for us. We feed the cats, give fresh water, play with them, give them laptime, and so forth, plus take care of home tasks like bringing in the mail, watering plants, and altering lights and blinds for security. We ordered state and city business licenses, bought liability insurance, joined Pet Sitters International, and took a Red Cross Pet First Aid course (CPR for cats—no, honest!—you blow in their nose holes), all before getting a single client. We walked miles tacking flyers to telephone poles, and we watched the click numbers go up on our Google ad in fingers-crossed suspense. Finally, clients! Then new panic set in—would we even enjoy cat sitting? So far, we do, very much so—it seems strange to be paid to play with cats. But we haven't made our fortune, so, on to...

Steve has started design work part-time for Quest Church. The new batch of bulletins was printed for today and looks smashing. He's working on c.group brochures, A-board signs for outside the building, business cards, and other such projects, 5 hours a week. But that alone also won't pay the bills, so...

We're busy selling things on eBay. Steve mostly takes on DVDs and music and has big plans to sell custom design products like greeting cards, and I've been buying closeout makeup at every drugstore in the vicinity. I'm always stunned when I buy 16 shades of a foundation and the person ringing it up only says something like, "Yeah, it's good to get it when it's on sale," instead of, "What's wrong with you? How many skin tones do you have?"

Steve might also start editing and design work freelance (he has a promising nibble from one source), and I am still working on finishing my novel (except that it's been on hold while we've been sorting out our lives) so I can try to get it published and bring in the big bucks. Ha ha! Steve also is at work on a children's novel that he hopes to spend more time on once our cat-sitting work is reliably part-time.

In between trying to make money, we're trying to cut way back on expenses. We've always considered ourselves frugal, but it's been interesting to go to all-out poor, in our mindset if not yet in all our expenditures. Something breaks, such as Steve's office chair, and we agonize over what to do. (For that, we finally found a used one on craigslist—phew.) We've cut out all our fun classes (although Steve has put up ../pictures from last year's ceramics class), and our entertainment is limited to free events, taking our free bus passes to get to them. Or, as the ../pictures will tell you, Steve cut his dreads, because we no longer have the time to wax them, and he can sell his unused jar of wax on eBay! (Looks good, huh? He started, and I finished off the cut. He styled it by slicking pomade through and then rubbing his head on a towel. If only that worked for me! As you can see, I look pretty much the same as at Christmas.)

It's impossible to know what this year holds, whether we'll make more money than ever before or end up raiding the church benevolence fund. At the moment, we're simply trying to make the best decisions based on our main priority of working together—we know we're spoiled in that but enjoy it so much. See, most normal people upon losing a job would look for a new one, but we both want to follow our dreams of writing and continuing to work together, at least until or if we really can't afford it and have to reassess. I don't know how that will shake out in the future.

But we've been blessed incredibly even since that phone call right before Christmas telling us our lives were about to change. We've been surrounded by the love and support of family and friends, and we know we won't ever fall into destitution with such a network around us. That's something we shouldn't take for granted, and we've appreciated that knowledge as we plan for and wonder about the future. God has been continually bringing home his care and provision for us, and we trust that he will keep us in a tight grip. So, anyway, while these past few months have seemed a little like freefall, it's been exciting and frightening and invigorating all at once, and we're enjoying the ride.