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October 26, 2006

God is Good!

Yay! We keep moving forward towards our closing. Today we had the septic system inspected (it's over 50 years old!) and everything checked out, so we're good to go there. Our lawyer was going to finish the title work either today or early tomorrow and send it to our mortgage company, so we should be able to close next week!

God continues to show Himself all-sufficient and all-powerful through this whole process. Several people have asked us if we need help moving - we thank them, but tell them we don't really need help, because all the furniture we own is a table and four chairs. Then today, Luke's boss offered us a whole living room set - a couch, love seat, and recliner that he and his wife are getting rid of! Amazing! Some other folks from church offered us another recliner, so we'll have lots of places to sit in our new house. :) We are so blessed by the generosity of those around us.

October 22, 2006

House and Horse News

Well, despite a few hiccups, we're still moving steadily towards our closing, which is scheduled for a week from Tuesday (yep, Halloween!). We've secured our homeowners' insurance, and have sent a flurry of faxes back and forth with our mortgage company, getting all the necessary paperwork completed. The people we've been working with are absolutely amazing - fast, helpful, continually going above and beyond to help us get in this house and understand the process. They work nationally, so anyone who's thinking of looking for a home, let me know and I will give you the names of the guys we've been working with. I really can't recommend them enough.

We do have one prayer request. We've been trying to get the septic system inspected by a specialist, but have so far not been able to find one who will travel out to our area! Even the realtor has been unsuccessful in finding someone to come out. So, you can pray that we will be able to find someone who will travel to this area and is able to come this week, so we can proceed with our closing.

In other news, I took several training horses to a show today along with a couple other girls from the barn, and they were all wonderful! I rode a huge grey quarter horse/thoroughbred cross who is at the farm so we can train him to jump and win. He is very fancy but can also be explosive. Thankfully, he was wonderful and really settled in as the day went on. Galen showed a pony that I started just two months ago. He jumped his first jump last week, cantered a jump for the first time yesterday, and ended up competing in six jumping classes today! We discovered that he has incredible natural talent over fences, and he won ribbons in two of his classes (out of 30 entries!). He was amazing! We also took two other horses that have only been jumping for about a month, and they were both great - very brave to the fences, trying hard for their riders, and doing extremely well for their age and experience level. We'll be going to one of these shows every month during the winter, so hopefully everybody will just keep getting better.

October 09, 2006

We Got It!

Today we met with the realtor and owners for the house we are interested in, and they accepted our offer! We're buying a house!!! We are so, so excited. It needs new paint in pretty much all the rooms, and eventually we hope to pull up the linoleum and carpeting to get to the wood floor beneath, and expand the bathroom, but it's a great little house with a nice big kitchen, large living room, and two-car garage with a workshop in the back that is perfect for Luke's leather-working and farrier stuff. Both the living room and workshop have woodstoves, which we really like, it has a good-sized yard with excellent gardening soil, and there are blueberry and rasberry bushes in the backyard. Did I mention we're really excited? We're already fully approved for our mortgage, and are hoping to close within a month.

God has answered so many prayers and opened (and closed) so many doors in the past few months to lead us to this point, and we're so thankful. We are overwhelmed by His goodness right now, and also can't wait to be living in our new home! We'll try to take and post some pictures as soon as we can.

October 01, 2006

House Hunting and Good Friends

Would y'all pray for us? After several months spent fruitlessly waiting for a promised rental to be ready for us, Luke and I moved on about a month ago and have started looking for other places to live. We had waited so long because this place seemed perfect, but the people kept delaying getting work done on it so our move-in date kept getting moved back, then they wanted to charge us more money than they originally said, so after several frustrating months, we are looking for something else. We would prefer to buy, and actually looked at a house this weekend that seems like it would be great for us. But whether this house works out or we find another one, we just want to be in our own place soon. We are incredibly thankful for the hospitality of those we've stayed with, but are very ready to have our own home again!

Since we're house-hunting, we're also mortgage-hunting, and this is where we really need prayer. Most lenders are a little wary, as Luke is self-employed and has only been so since May (they want him to have been self employed for anywhere from 6 months - 2 years!) and I am also relatively new in my job. So we're talking to several different companies and local banks and asking friends in the area for recommendations on good lenders.

Speaking of friends, Luke and I are so thankful for the one thing in our lives that has been stable and wonderful for the past few months: our church. We found it shortly after moving here, and have greatly enjoyed getting to know the people and becoming part of the body at Coila Church. There are several younger couples that we have gotten together with and we all have a lot of fun together. There are also many delightful families and older people in the church, so it's a great mix. We are part of a great Sunday school class on marriage, and are enjoying the bi-weekly "home fellowship" meetings on Sunday nights: a small group of (mostly older) people get together in someone's home, spend an hour and a half in study and prayer (right now they're finishing up The Purpose Driven Life), and then share a potluck meal. It's been great to spend time with smaller groups of people in the church, and everyone has been incredibly welcoming and friendly. Praise God for the members of His body He places in our lives at just the right time! Here's a huge hug and "thank you" to everyone who has been placed in our lives at one time or another as a friend and encouragement to us. We hope to give the same to others. We love y'all!