OK, I apologize for leaving you hanging for over a month now. I did not realize the amount of time and energy I would expend in this last month getting our house finalized for closing and getting everything moved out. Anyway... on with the story...
We were scheduled to close on our home on August 7. 4 weeks from when we signed the contract. This meant that every day that went by after July 7 was a day that we would need alternative housing. Home closings in our area were taking 5-6 weeks and with ours only being 4 weeks away, we would not be able to purchase a new house and close by August 7th.
After about one week of intense searching, we thought we had found the house for us. It was a Bargain Bin house. It would have normally been WAY out of our price range but it was in foreclosure and in bad enough shape that we could afford it. We actually even tentatively accepted a counter-offer by the bank, but it was very clear to Amy and I that this was not what God had for us and ultimately said no. That whole process, start to finish took about a week to work through now leaving us two weeks away from selling our home and being homeless.
The positive element of our search was that Amy and I were learning to listen to God. At one point, I received very clear direction that we were looking in the wrong place and needed to look elsewhere. That was a Friday. The following Monday, we looked in the area that God was pointing us to. That was where things got interesting...
That Monday, during my lunch break, my wife, our realtor and myself looked at every house in our price range in the area God was pointing us to. We went in with open hearts and minds, but at the end of the time, we realized that none of the houses would work. They were either too small or had other issues.
I came back to the office that afternoon, disappointed, but actually encouraged. Because I had a confidence that we were doing what God wanted us to do. My only concern is what we would do in the interim. My youngest sister and brother-in-law had graciously volunteered for our family to live with them (what a blessing!) but I wanted to inconvenience them for as short a time as possible.
Late that same afternoon, a single email turned my world upside down. It was from my realtor and said that we could build a brand new home that would have everything we needed, in a subdivision that was in the area we felt God wanted us to be, about $10,000 less than our max price. We had looked at another house in the subdivision, loved it, but it was too small and at the top of our price range anyway. Due to the current housing market, we would actually be able to build a much bigger house that met our needs for about the same cost!
"What is there to even think about?" I said. "Let's do it!"
And we are. We are building a new home - something we would never have considered on our own; but something we're really excited about.
If you want to see pictures of Week One of the build, check out our new family website - tedderfamily.org
or click this link here - http://www.tedderfamily.org/Tedder_Family/Home_Build.html#0
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