Offer Accepted

We accepted an offer today.  

It was a bit lower than we wanted but after looking at numbers and ultimately praying about, we decided to trust God that he would make up the difference somehow.

It has been an emotional week to say the least.  You would think 2 years would have prepared us for this but it somehow hasn't.  We had many tears again this week and some panicking and questioning God ("Is this really what you want us to do God?  Because you know, we will be homeless after this...").

I am the first one to say that hope is a good thing.  I hate it when people say,"I don't want to get my hopes up."  I often think and sometimes say, "Why?!  Hope is a good thing!  It's what you do if the situation doesn't turn out how you want it that is the issue.  But hope is never a bad thing."

So what I'm about to say isn't meant to be pessimistic.

The buyers have an FHA loan.

I think my mouth dropped open and the blood drained out of my face when we found this out.  I asked if the lender knew our house was built in 1900 and the buyer said yes.

Older houses often have a hard time passing an FHA inspection.  Things were just different back then with regulations.  It's not that our house is deadly or there are shards of glass sticking out anywhere or holes in the floor that you will fall through.  It's just things like handrails weren't such a big deal back then and a chimney was considered a 'firewall', ya know?

The main thing with an FHA inspection is that the buyer no longer has the choice whether they want that issue fixed or not.  If the FHA inspector says it needs taken care of then it has to be taken care of or the deal is off.

Now, the buyer could potential be the ones to pay for repairs if the sellers won't.  Or the buyers could try to get a conventional loan.  Or the buyers could agree to pay more for the house( if the appraisal supports it) so the seller can have the funds to do repairs.  So there are options if things come up.

I feel like it will take an act of God to get the house past an FHA inspection.  But good news! We see 'acts of God' all the time in our lives as Christ followers!  Those things that seem impossible and insurmountable but then they work themselves out without a hitch.

So there is hope!

If it's in God's will then it will happen, if not, then it won't. Plain and simple.  Takes the pressure off of us.

If everything goes well then we would like to be on the road in August. So pray for the following:

• A good FHA inspector and that anything that comes up requires minimal finances.  
• That the appraisal comes in for enough.  The same  FHA guy that inspects the house will simultaneously do an appraisal. 
• Pray that the underwriters work quickly.  

We are hoping that we will get the inspection/appraisal next week.  I'll keep you posted!!

Many Blessings,

The Mama

"Prepare The Boat"

It has been 2 years( July 1st) since God ambushed us laid this RV thing on our hearts.
 

TWO YEARS

I have been reminded over and over again of Noah and how it took 100 years from when God 1st told him to build a boat for a flood till when the flood actually happened. That is a looong time of preparing and waiting.  I wonder if Noah ever thought,"Is this really going to happen?"

So last month when I was praying earnestly for God to give me wisdom and clarity about where and what we should be spending our money on right now, I was impressed upon with this statement:

PREPARE THE BOAT

Over the next few days when I would wonder if we should do this or that project to the house it would pop in my head again:

PREPARE THE BOAT

Our 'boat' is our RV.  So I made a list of everything we would need to get the RV livable/functional for full-timing it.  And I stopped spending on the house.

We got some bigger ticket items like a Telescoping Ladder, a Weight Distribution Hitch( we settled on an Equalizer), X chocks along with little, but vital things like shoe racks and wire shelving for example.

I bought paint to start on the cabinets too.

I have no idea when our house will sell but I will be obedient and prepare our RV.  It does take faith to do this because it takes up money- money that could be used for other things.  Especially since Hubby has 2 weeks of shut down coming up at his job.  I would like to keep that money as a safety net to be honest.  It makes me feel secure.

But welcome to the world of FAITH!  It is operating WITH OUT a safety net, hence the faith part. And God wants to rely more on him than our bank accounts anyhow.

And guess what?

We had a family look at our house on Sunday who really wants it. They had already been to the bank to apply for a loan for our home.

Sunday night we were texting back and forth offers and answering questions like,"How soon could we take possession of the house?".

In the end we told them what we needed to get out of the house and they were going to talk with the bank to see if that amount was doable.

Tonight they said it was looking good.  They were getting other info to the bank that was requested.

So we'll see how it all shakes out.  Maybe this is the one and this is why God told me to 'prepare the boat.' Maybe it's not but it doesn't change that I will listen, follow and trust him.  

I will keep everyone up to date and will also be taking before and after pictures as we get the RV ready to live in it full time.

How do I feel about all this?  Excited to potentially be done with showings but terrified and sad to leave our family and friends and head into the unknown.

It's been a reality check that's for sure.  

Many Blessings,

The Mama

Offer On The House -Clarified!

We had an offer on the house. But the family could only get a loan that left us quite a bit short of what we need to hit the road.

We were entertaining the option of maybe finding a campground to stay at during the winter in order to save up the rest of what we needed.  We scoured the internet and called around to see if any were even open year around in our (cold) area.  We found just one locally and it was right in the town the Hubby works at.  We researched what it would take to stay in a campground in the winter( since RV's really aren't set up for that).  It could be doable with some preparation.

It actually seems like it makes the most sense financially.  The Hubby has 3 weeks mandatory shut down over the holidays so we have to worry about that along with trying to pay off some debt and possibly storing our RV during the winter months if we are still around this area. We would also save on gas money for our vehicle since it would be closer to work and also to our church and grocery shopping.

Staying at the campground would allow us to put back around $1800 a month to help with the shut down, throw at some debt and we also wouldn't have to worry about added RV storage fees ontop of house payments. Plus we could be saving up for us to actually leave and have more of an official date to head out
( by March 2015).

But we just weren't sure.  So we do what we always do when we need guidance-PRAY.  We prayed that God would give us an unusual amount of wisdom to decipher what we should do about the house and make it crystal clear.  We said how we didn't want to make our own miracles and wanted to follow God's lead.

I went upstairs after our prayer to take a nap but decided to get in a chapter of "Draw the Circle-The 40 Day Prayer Challenge" by Mark Batterson( I highly recommend it!).  This is what I read:

"Don't let fear dictate your decisions. Letting your budget determine your vision is backward. Faith is letting your vision determine your budget.  And if your vision is God-given, it will most definitely be beyond your ability and beyond your resources. Why? Because then God will get all of the glory!  And I promise you this: the God who gives the vision is the same God who makes provision."

Nothing is a better example of that than our 23,000 adoption of which we had 0 in savings for yet somehow managed to not go in debt 1 cent when we brought Princess home!  God showed up in amazing ways during that process and he for sure gets all the glory.

The author, Mark, then talks about this crazy prayer he felt led by the Holy Spirit to pray for: 2 million dollars.  It would go to pay off a mortgage they had for the church.

"At one point, I got a little impatient and tried to manufacturer my own miracle with a start up business.  Unfortunately, what I thought was a $2 million idea turned into a $15,000 personal loss."  
( I updated this blog post because there was some confusion as to whether we were accepting the offer or not.  So I amended this post to clarify.  Sorry for any confusion!)

He goes on to say how him and some others still kept praying for this 2 million dollars.  And one day it happened in the form of an out of the blue phone call of someone saying they wanted to donate not 2 million, but 3 million dollars to the church.  Crazy, right?

I ran downstairs to tell the Hubby that we had gotten our answer. We are NOT accepting the offer.

One other thing that hit me when reading from the book was that staying in the campground made sense financially.  It was actually the safer road.  I have learned through my life that nothing that is God inspired and breathed ever makes sense.  It may 'feel' right ( Holy Spirit led) but it never makes sense in human terms( in our brains).

Sticking it out here and playing the old waiting game is way more risky and takes a lot more faith and trust.

So that's what we are going to do. Pray for an offer that is closer to our asking price.

We did have a promising showing from another family on Thursday.  They have to move to the area by October(e.g. serious buyers) and seemed to really like our home.  But I have no idea what other places they are looking at and what exactly their wish list is for a house.  So we are are just praying that the Holy Spirit moves them to choose our house and that they offer close to full asking price.  Did I mention the husband of this family is a pastor?  Who better to help fulfill this God given dream of ours than a man of God, right? lol It would also be ideal because they are in a parsonage now so they wouldn't need to sell their house.

We really don't want to be here all winter again( though we would come back for a little while to have the baby and for the holidays anyhow) but it's not really our decision to make.

I am reminded of a song:

"Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord."


We also had someone wanting to rent/lease our house from now till June of next summer and then buy it then.  That was also very tempting but we have no assurance that they will even be able to get a loan then and for the amount that is needed.  That would also take a lot of faith but after praying about it, it seems more foolish than trusting.  There is such a fine line and only the Holy Spirit can help determine the difference.

Many Blessings,

The Mama