Monday, June 10, 2013

Breaking News!

Many of you have kept up with my family’s journey over the last year as we sold our home and searched for another.  I have been waiting for almost a year to write this blog and today I am able to write it…I will warn you that it is long so pull up a chair, take a seat, relax and please take the time to read.

First, let me say a great big thank you to everyone who sponsored a Dominican mission team member over this last month!  We have had all 10 Dominicans fully sponsored as of Sunday!  I will report on how their mission trip goes later this year.  Praise God and thank you for being faithful to pray, give, and share the word with others about this need!

Second, I ask you to pray for me as I preach at Audubon Drive Bible Church in Laurel on June 23.  Pray that doors would open for me to preach and to lead family discipleship conferences, missions conferences, revivals, harvest days, and to just share about the work of Mission Surge.

Finally, I want to share with you about this journey that my family has been on for the last 3+ years!

Let me begin all the way at the beginning.  Several years ago (in 2010) Mandy and I began to feel compelled to be totally debt free.  We had everything paid off except for our home we purchased in 2007.  To make a long story short I will say that we put together a plan to sell several things, remodel everything, and add onto the HUD foreclosure we had purchased in 2007 in order to sell it for a profit.  We would then pool all of our resources together with that profit and purchase another home debt free…or at least close to debt free.

I made a list of all of the repairs and additions that we believed necessary to make a descent amount off of our home and committed each one of them to prayer.  It would take a host of pages to share with you how many times God miraculously provided materials for little or nothing.  I can’t name all of the free manpower He provided.  And there were even times He provided money to accomplish all that we set out to accomplish on that home.  We attempted to acknowledge Him in all that we set out to do trusting that He would direct our paths. 

Over the next two years I watched the prayer list dwindle as each prayer was answered one by one.  Finally, in May of 2012 every prayer request, concerning this vision, had been answered except for two. 

     1.  That God would provide a buyer for our home and
     2.  That god would provide us with the home he wanted us to have.

It only took God 2 months to answer one of those requests.  On Sunday, July 8, 2012 we had a solid offer on our home.  God had answered so many prayers so promptly, we felt sure that He would provide us with a new home (debt free) by the time we had to be out of our old house.  He didn’t…

and we found ourselves moving into an empty house in the area in order to house sit while we house hunted.  It was a little more difficult finding a home because I had come to believe that God wanted us to buy a home with 6-8 acres or more (I have 4 boys that I believe should grow up working hard and learning about raising food etc…just a personal preference).  When you consider how much money we had to make this purchase it seemed like it was going to require a miracle.  But we looked as we lived in this transition home rent free by God’s grace.  The house we were house-sitting in was scheduled to go on the market in the spring of 2013.  We had several months to search for a house and we were sure that God would provide us the home that He wanted for us before we had to move again.  He didn’t….

The house we were living in sold in January and we had to move out before Feb 1.  To make things more interesting we found out that we were expecting baby 5 during this time.  Many questions began to surface in our minds.  Should we rent?  Well, rent in our area is more than our mortgage was and we couldn’t afford it.  Should we just settle for a small house in an older subdivision that we could hopefully afford?  Even though I felt like all eyes were on us I couldn’t throw in the towel on the vision that I believed God had given me for a home, debt free, with 6 to 8 acres or more.  But where would we go in February?

We swallowed our pride (at least some of it), moved our furniture into storage and moved ourselves to my in-laws.  Now the pressure was really on.  As the arrival of the baby crept closer and closer we felt sure that God was going to provide us a home before he was born.  He didn’t….

Silas was born May 14th to homeless parents!  Well, we had a roof over our head by God’s grace, but we didn’t have a home yet.  We began to look at higher priced homes that would require us to borrow.  We begin to look at homes with no acreage.  We began to exhaust every means available to us and finally came to the place where we felt as though God was not going to answer that last prayer request related to this vision.  He had answered all of the other requests promptly and on time.  We had been waiting, asking, seeking, and knocking concerning this last prayer request for 2 months shy of a year!  It has been a journey to say the least and we were on the verge of throwing in the towel on the vision.

Then as suddenly as an afternoon shower arises, God put a house before us that we had made an offer on 3 months earlier.  It was a foreclosure with 8.3 acres and a 40 X 40 barn as well as a basement office area for me.  Did I mention it had a basement office area for me?  Our offer had been rejected 3 months earlier and the home went under contract with another family.  We moved on until out of the blue the contract fell through and the home came back on the market.  The bank was past ready to get rid of it.  We made our original offer again and within 3 hours we were under contract for the first time in almost a year of house hunting…and we were able to purchase it without borrowing a dime by God’s grace. 

This is the home we plan to close on Friday


God has finally answered that last prayer request!  We close this Friday and I now have another prayer list.  Since it was a foreclosure it is going to need a little TLC.  Once again I am praying for materials, manpower, and money to make those repairs without borrowing…I just hope it doesn’t take God a year to answer them! 


Please pray for us as we begin the next phase of this journey.  We are overwhelmed at how faithful God has been.  We have learned a little bit more about what it means to wait upon the Lord.  We have learned a lot more about ourselves and our weakness.  In so many areas of this journey we failed, our faith faltered, and our attitudes were less than acceptable.  We are grateful for God’s grace and forgiveness and mercy.  And we are grateful that He has been faithful to fulfill the vision that we firmly believed He gave to us more than 3 years ago.  Please pray for us as we begin the work on this home with a 1 month old, 2 year old, 5 year old, and two 8 year olds.  It is going to be a challenging, yet exciting time.  Please pray that God would provide what we need to get this home ready to move in ASAP.  Thank you for being faithful to pray!

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