It was a normal Wednesday morning, but pretty windy outside, so since we woke up early, we decided to go to the gym. After a short workout, we left the gym and smelled a little smoke outside. When we went home, we could sort of see some smoke in the distance. I get notifications on my Ring app, and others were talking about a fire out in Somis/Moorpark area. A few mins later, there was an update that the fire had jumped the 118 freeway and made its way to Camarillo. I downloaded a fire watch app called Watch Duty by then since I was starting to get worried.

Winds picked up, 20 miles, then 30, then 40. We were packing by 10-11am as some areas were told to evacuate. Anson packed our documents, and I packed various things like food, personal hygiene stuff, my scrapbook I made when we were dating, our sermon notes, etc. I didn’t exactly know what I was packing…what is most important when you think it will all be gone that day?

The fire made national news and a few people we knew from LA and the Bay Area reached out. The first was Anson’s dad. We evacuated to their house around noon. Our area was on a red flag alert and firefighters were going door to door telling people that they had to leave. Getting out of Camarillo was a little backed up but orderly. Thankfully, the power at our house was back on around 3pm and I was able to use the Ring camera to see that our neighborhood seemed like it was still standing. Even though we were told to evacuate, our neighbors in front were there that night. 

We stayed two nights at Anson’s parents’ place, but we didn’t want to overstay our welcome and also wanted to make sure our home wouldn’t be broken into, so we came back on Friday morning. There were some streets that had barriers to close it off, but we found other streets open in order to get back to our house. Found out later that our other neighbors to the back (former firefighter) and to the right never left. 

Almost 200 homes were destroyed in the fire. Most of them were in more remote areas, but Camarillo Heights was still the area hit hardest. Looking at the map, our house was about 2000 ft from the fire (less than 1/2 mile). I feel sorry for those who have lost their homes, yet thankful that our house did not burn down. We only moved here 4 months ago, so in a way, I didn’t feel like this house had many memories for us as I did about Foley, but it would still be a hurtful loss. Would we be okay if we did lose it? We are stewards of all that God has given to us. He can give, and He can take away. Thank you, God, for protecting our earthly home. Help us to not rely on our own strength as we have little control and know that nothing in this life will last. Pray that we will store up treasures in heaven and to know that on this earth, we are just passing thru. 

Uncle William, my dad’s younger brother, passed away at the beginning of October. I didn’t know him that well, so it was nice to hear about what he did in his life. He was a quiet man, but played the violin in a well known orchestra in Hong Kong, studied and was a social worker, became an engineer when he moved to the states, and loved and served the church faithfully for years as the Cantonese choir director. We attended his memorial on Saturday, November 2, 2024.

On Friday, Anson and I had lunch with his parents before we went over to my parents’ place to stay the night. This was so that we could drive them to the memorial and was a way for us to serve them (I shouldn’t get annoyed at this) since my dad can’t drive anymore and my mom is uncomfortable with driving long distances. We were already going to have a busy weekend since we were staying the night in Hollywood to attend David Foster’s 75th bday celebration at the Hollywood Bowl (too cold and bad sound quality), but I’m glad that we went.

The service was well run (wondering if Emily helped lol…loved the Porto’s after service). Tim K led in worship with Amazing Grace, the choir sang one song, there were 3 people who spoke about Uncle William (a choir friend, Irene (his sister), and Hanson (his oldest son), and Johnson gave a message. One of the things his father said was to his grandchildren to “be a Christian on the inside”. He seemed like a loving friend, husband, father, and grandfather. He already knew how he wanted his service to be held and wanted the gospel to be preached as his last act to have others hear about Christ. He was never outspoken during his time on earth, but he did not need to be in order to make Christ known in both his life and death. Farewell, Uncle William. I’ll see you later.

We checked out a few different churches while we were deciding on where to make our home church. We visited CCAC since that is where Anson’s parents go, but we knew early on that it didn’t make sense to drive an hour to church each week. We also went to New Life Church since it was my home church for a year before we got married and Aaron and his family go there. It is 30 mins away and is doable…but I think still a little far in order to maintain community. We visited Christ Our Redeemer PCA which is in Camarillo at the local high school. We had good conversations with Cal and Bora. Though not an absolute red flag the way they conduct service is not something we’re used to. We also visited Pleasant Valley Baptist Church which was really close to us (5 min drive?). I liked the worship and the preaching, and a couple was very nice to us and they also had small groups/Bible study after service. This was a semi-contender as it was a nice local community. It seemed pretty established and I wasn’t too sure how we would be able to serve.

Throughout our visits to different churches, we kept coming back to Chinese Christian Church of Thousand Oaks. We liked that it was a smaller sized congregation, the expository preaching style (Pastor Steve has incepted our thoughts), recognizable worship songs, and Elder Wayne was very friendly and gave us a tour on our first visit. Some things that I may need some time to get used to is all the women leading worship (not enough guys with ability or desire to lead?), not having to be a member in order to be part of small groups, etc. Pastor Tim is relatively new in his role as the English pastor, so I know that it takes time to grow into the role and have the church change when there have been things just done for years.

We visited a few of their small groups: New Heritage (mostly retired folks), New Legacy (those w/ middle school to college aged children), and Semi Pro & Hungry (single and married w/o kids). We plan to visit CAMTO in the next month and that group mainly consists of those with young kids). It looks like we’re more comfortable being in Semi Pro as we like the discussions and teaching and it being more Biblically oriented rather than topical and it is easier to have conversations as it is a smaller group and doesn’t have as many disruptions where there are many kids. Regardless of which SG we attend, it does look like we have decided to make CCCTO our home church and have completed their 1st membership class last month. We’ll be taking the 2nd one next week and applying afterwards. Hopefully we will be able to serve and help the church.

Anson had to leave his company after his 3 months of working remotely. We knew that this was going to come as it has been the trend for tech companies to not let workers be fully remote anymore. Not exactly sure what I should blog about regarding this…should I talk about us going up to the Bay Area in October for his last 2 days? He had a dinner with coworkers and also ate with them for lunch on both Thursday and Friday and worked out with Frank both days. I ate with Emily (Lisa and fam stopped by) at Orange Square, ate at BJ’s with BWC peoples and caught up with them and Janet after she was let go. We also ate with Tracy at Google, with Uncle Tim and Aunt Helena (Little Saigon), and with Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan (Mediterranean Grill House). We talked with people at church (Cindy, Jane, Ruth), and ate with Randy and Eva at Big Bites. But…seems like this paragraph is more about the week we went up rather than about Pure…instead, how about a list of things I would like to remember about his company of 11.5 years.

– Him randomly bringing leftovers home from the office (using waiter.com and Eat Club)
– When IPO’d, they gave him an IPad Air 2 (what I’m using to type this blog entry on) and an Apple Watch (which we gave to my mom).
– A generous amount of stock options as he was employee 115….they’ve grown to 4000
– Meeting him down at Le Boulanger for dinner before Janette’s small group on Castro
– Going on the weekends after church for snacks and studying
– Bringing church friends there to eat snacks
– The massage chair!!!
– Blueboard award that gave us a free sailing trip and annual passes to Great America
– For his 10 year anniversary, he received a Bose sound bar that retails for ~$400
– Various swag (shirts, jackets, cups, etc) he’s received thru out the years
– When moving to Santa Clara, we started carpooling to the office, and I would drop him off, go to GA for lunch, go to work, stop by GA for dinner, and bring to his workplace to eat there
– Very fancy Christmas party in San Jose one year, Anson going on a couple ski trips, cool picnic at Saratoga Springs, and two years at The Plex with good food, ice skating, and games.
– Even though they stopped lunch after moving, at least had a subsidy for the cafe. And yes, they downgraded some snacks due to inflation, but still had nuts, drinks, eggs, guacamole, cheese, yogurt, milk, teas, chips, etc. Thankful for fun times eating snacks!
– Walking around his company while he and Frank worked out/ran…he will miss his running buddy
– Anson working from home for a good amount of time cuz of pandemic…which made us realize what we should be working for
– Pure not letting him WFH anymore so that he can finally have a break 🙂
 
Anson’s had his ups and downs at work, but that is to be expected. Pure has given us much to be thankful for and I know he was glad to work with many people at the company. They compensated him well to the point where he has the freedom to do what he wants now. Thank you, Pure, for everything…