Curiosity Doesn't Always Kill the Cat

I just know that God sometimes laughs at the little things He does to us/for us. He has to get a kick out of the timing and the way we get worked up into tizzies. Just this week I'll bet He was rolling in the floor.

I told y'all that we're planning to move a few miles from here, into the town of Carapegua. The scheduled day of the big move is tomorrow, Sept 1. We found a building with an open room on bottom (plus a bathroom), and two bedrooms + a full bath upstairs. We liked the location, and even though it was a good bit smaller than we'd prefer, we figured out how to "make do" because it was the only available building in Carapegua at a price we could swing. There were a few things I particularly didn't care for, such as the fact that it had no kitchen and we'd be using the bathroom sink for kitchen purposes. (I know, that's gross, but it's the third world. We're just happy there is an indoor bathroom!) And the bedrooms opened right to the balcony walkway, rather than to a closed in hallway. Picture hotel rooms. My children would be walking out of their bedroom door into the open air, albeit behind a fence and on a second story. This is all do-able, but not ideal.

A few days ago, I was driving through town and took a side road home, after someone mentioned to me there was a "mansion" being built on that part of town. I was curious about this mansion. I never did find it, but I found a large building with a "For Rent" sign on it. We'd driven this road--and every other road in town--numerous times over the last few months and not seen this building up for rent. From the size and location of it, it seemed WAY out of our price range, but being the nosy person I am, I took the number down and had a Paraguayan friend call to ask about it. (It's sometimes better to avoid the American accent and find out the "local" price first.)

It turns out the place is owned by a storekeeper in town that I'd befriended months ago, and stop by to visit with at least weekly. I drove over to ask her about it that same afternoon. It turns out the place has been available for six months or so now, but they'd just put a new sign up. I asked her if we could go look, only for the sake of my curiousity, you know. We had a good old family prayer and headed over there right away.

This place was just perfect. A room in front like the one we were looking at in the first house--the right size for small gatherings like English classes and Bible studies and community movies and all that jazz. There were also 4 more rooms downstairs (including a kitchen), 3 full bathrooms, 4 bedrooms upstairs, a huge balcony off the bedrooms, a fenced play area, a couple large mango trees out back,and--get this--a 6-car garage/workshop that just thrills Ken to death. The garage has a concrete floor and is a good size for the future youth center, and all secured by a lovely steel bar fence with a gate.

As it turns out, this building's rent is LESS than the other we were looking at. We felt really good about it, but the truth is that we'd given our word to the owner of the first house. We'd not signed any contracts or anything, but she had been fixing things and preparing for our arrival, and we knew she'd spent money in the preparations. She knew our plans to use the building for living and for ministry, and was supportive of the vision. We didn't want to break an agreement with her and leave bad feelings for us or the ministry, so we called a few folks to pray as we drove over to her house.

She met us with a smile, and I explained about the other house. She kept her smile, told us not to worry one bit, and refused our offer to reimburse her for the expenses she'd put out for us. She said that she knew we had to think about what was going to be the best for our future plans, and she was glad we'd found something more suitable to our needs as a family as well. I just about fell over with relief, as she gave us her blessing and said there were no hard feelings at all. Phwew. God bless her.

We came home feeling good, but told the next owners we needed a night to pray about it, and we'd let them know the next morning. We didn't get any strikes of lightening, but we had peace about this next house and felt it really met all our needs. This morning, one of our best friends sent me an email, knowing nothing of the new house, about a dream she had last night. She described the new house in great detail, inside and out, including the yard and the store across the street. Needless to say, we went this morning to tell the owners that we'd be moving into their home tomorrow. They were thrilled, we were thrilled, and everyone got to work. They did some maintenance stuff, we cleaned until our arms were numb, and tomorrow we will be moving our things into a home God picked out just for us.

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