May 19, 2008
Dear Praying friends and family,
I did say I would try to keep you updated on our home-hunting
process, so here is the latest news from the weekend.
On Friday afternoon we went to see a house that we had found online.
It was an awfully good price for being in town, and there was only
one bad picture of it on the website, so we were a bit “leery”.
Turns out it has been a rental house for quite some time and so the
wear-and-tear was starting to show a bit. Ok, to be blunt, it was
old and pretty ugly. But hey, it had 3 bedrooms and a large
unfinished basement for the car, washer/dryer, and storage. So we
thought, well, we could live here. It wouldn’t be very pretty, but
we could do it. We told the agent we would call her on Monday to let
her know our decision, but Monday is her day off, so we agreed to
call her on Tuesday.
The reason we were going to take the weekend to decide was because
we were supposed to have a couple appointments on Sat. morning with
another agency. That didn’t work out, but that was okay because
Friday night a new announcement appeared online for another house
(no photo at all this time). So Saturday morning we called and set
up an appointment for that afternoon.
Turns out this house was in a brand new neighborhood (houses built
in 2005!) and was located in a corner section, surrounded by woods.
It had 3 bedrooms, a nice kitchen (with cupboards and even an
oven!), and a garage. Needless to say, we fell in love with it! The
house was supposed to have been spoken for, but the family had just
backed out on Wednesday, leaving the agency and owner looking for
someone to rent to ASAP (hmmm, I think we could work something
out…). They had 3 visits to the house that day including ours (and
it had only become available Thursday – see what we mean by how fast
things go here?!). They were impressed that we had our file complete
and ready to go (hah! If they only knew what we had gone through to
complete said file!...).
After all that, we still had to wait through the weekend to get any
news. After waiting all day today, we we finally received a call
from the owners’ assistant, asking us some questions. 1. ‘When would
we be able to move in’? That was an easy answer, as we’ve been
living with friends for 3 weeks. 2. Interestingly enough, ‘Where is
the church that Lance is the pastor of’? Well, technically, we’re
not yet sure exactly where we will be meeting, but it will be in
this area. About 20 minutes or so later, she called back to let us
know we got the house! We go to sign the papers tomorrow night!!!
PRAISE
THE LORD AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PRAYING!! (BTW, if our file had
not been ready, there is no way we could have gotten this house!
Again, God knew.)
We appreciate your continued prayers as things continue to come
together for the new church plant! Pray for Lance as he (and some of
the other men involved in the new church) have a meeting this
Saturday with the mayor of one of the towns in this area. Also, pray
for all the contacts we have made as a result of this search for a
house. We are already planning on doing some follow-up. Pray for our
new neighbors as well. It is exciting to see how God is working!
I will
write some more interesting tid-bits later, but I need to sign off
for now! Again, thanks so much for all your prayers and
encouragement during this test of faith!
Thanking the Lord,
Lance, Amy, Kirianna, and Aliyah Auterson
