Our Home--The Story, Part One

We've officially owned our new California home for about three weeks now and it's time to tell the long-awaited story of how it came to be ours.  It truly is quite a story with God's fingerprints all over it.

Back in October of 2010 when we made the God-appointed move all the way across the country, we knew renting a house was the right choice for us until we got ourselves settled into our new church and our new life here in Bakersfield.  We found a home which was perfect for us and although the rent was a good price for the area, living on one income, a ministry income at that, there would definitely not be any leftovers at the end of every month.  We loved living in that home on a cul-de-sac, but  it was time to find something else.  Since we knew that the housing prices were as low as they've been in a long time, and since we really needed to have a four bedroom house to make room for Mei, our international student, we started looking to buy.

Now, those of you who know me well know that I'm a very practical kind of girl while Aron is a dreamer.  It makes for a good balance for our marriage, but it proved a little tricky when starting the house hunt.  I wanted a house that would be just what we need and nothing more and I wanted the price to allow us to be able to save money every month.  Aron wanted a house that wouldn't need much work, had a pool, and he was ok with a monthly payment that was equal to what we'd been paying for rent.  I had a really hard time coming to terms with that and it was definitely causing some tension between Aron and I.  I talked with my very wise friend, Leslie, and she gave me some advice that was hard to do, but was exactly what God wanted from me.  She guided me to the understanding that Aron is the head of our household and that I needed to leave the house decision in his hands, all the while praying that God would be clear to Aron to direct him in making the right decision for our family.  She also advised me to not say anything more about the prices of homes in which he was interested. Well, I didn't exactly say nothing, but I said a whole lot less. ;)

We found a home that would need some work, but nothing too major; we both loved the neighborhood and the price was right in the middle of where I thought we should buy and where Aron thought we could afford.  It was a HUD home so we had to bid on it and then wait about 9 days before we'd know if we'd won it.  Well, we didn't.  We were outbid about $1800.  We were bummed but knew God had something else in mind.

We continued to look online, several times a day, to find what available homes there were.  We went and looked at several and most of them were quite horrible!  Either the neighborhood was terrible or the house itself was.  One day we had scheduled to go look at three houses and we both loved the last house.  It was so nicely done inside and it had a pool, which Aron loved, and it was in a neighborhood we were familiar with and was in a great location.  Despite my hesitancy with the price (it was the absolute top of what we could afford, putting us in no better of a situation than we'd already been), I agreed that we should go ahead and make an offer.  I figured that our pickings were getting really slim, as the houses we'd seen lately had been really bad.  The day after we made our offer, the realtor called to tell us that because the house was owned by Bank of America, they required a pre-approval letter through them.  Aron was out of town so I scrambled to get all the paperwork in to the realtor so we could beat any other offers that might be made.  Well, it was all for naught as we found out that Bank of America would not approve us.  Although we'd already been approved through our mortgage broker, B of A said they wouldn't approve us because of the house we still own in Florida.  We were really shocked, even the realtor, and bummed that once again, we were on the hunt.  But little did we know what a blessing that disapproval was!

.....to be continued.....