Our Home, God's Provision

I am continually amazed by God's provision for our family. This time He blessed us with an amazing home and I want to share the story.

We found out in October 2006 that we would be moving to Alabama. I immediately started looking at militarybyowner.com for a home. It seemed that every house I looked at was already taken plus we didn't know about schools for Josh. I found a magnet school that offered a graphics program similar to what he was in and I asked Josh if he would like to apply for that program or go to a "regular" high school. He decided to apply for the program. The catch was we wouldn't know until April whether or not he had been accepted! So, we patiently waited all the while seeing house after house disappear!

We got word in April that Josh was accepted into the program so we definitely needed to live in the city the school was in. At least we were able to narrow down our search. I was on the website everyday and I knew immediately if a new house was listed or not but nothing seemed to be "it". We did find an acceptable house and even had the person send us the lease but then for some reason never felt like we should sign it! So, we continued to wait.

Brian finally got a print out from base of available houses and we went through it and came to a house that was 2800 square feet, below our housing allowance and was built in 2000. We tried to find something wrong because it seemed too good to be true! We talked with the landlord and heard his story - his tax bracket was higher this year due to taking an early out incentive from the Air Force and he needed to try to lower it so he was offering his home below his actual mortgage. We had our friend, Joe, go by the house to see it and we gave him the code so he could actually enter the house and take pictures. He had nothing but good things to say about it. So, we had the person send us the lease and we signed it! It's in a beautiful neighborhood and it is a lovely house but there is more to the story!

While we were moving in, Ian went to the neighbor's houses and asked if they had kids. Most of them have older kids but one lady mentioned that there was a house a few houses up that had a younger boy. Ian was so excited so he and Brian went up to the house to check it out. Sure enough, they had a 7 year old boy and had been praying that a boy would move into the neighborhood for him! To make a long story short on that point, their son Reed and Ian hit it off and love having each other to play with. They are a lot alike so it's a lot like a love/hate relationship but we are so thankful to have Reed for Ian and we, too, had been praying for a playmate for Ian! Reed's family are Christians and have become good friends that we are thankful to have.

Now, another part of this story only developed in the last two days. Brian and I saw that a house around the corner was having an open house on Sunday (brand new, no one lives there) so we decided for fun to take a look. It's a BEAUTIFUL house that is 3700 square feet and $460,000!! There was another open house right around the corner so we went to that one, too. Another beautiful home slightly smaller for $420,000! That got us to thinking about our house - we always knew we got a great deal but we weren't how sure how great a deal. Well, there's a chance that we may try to stay here an extra year for Josh to graduate so Brian called our landlord yesterday to ask him about the possibility of staying here for an extra year. Well, he would prefer to sell but if we did rent again, we would have to rent at his mortgage price and that would be $400 more than what we are paying right now which, to be honest, would be more than we could afford! So, GOD truly gave us this house as a gift and we are interested to see what will happen in the next few months.

Thank you, Lord, for your wonderful gift to us!