Three Promises Part 2:Packing Up

 We closed on our house on Friday.  Packing, loading, cleaning, purging: you know how laborious and exhausting that can be.  Instead of renting a moving truck, I bought a 16 foot trailer to pull behind our Tahoe, and it is packed out. Now the plan is to pull the trailer to Idaho, unload it, and sell the trailer.  Trailers sell for about $1200 dollars more out in Idaho than they do in South Carolina, so I should be able to sell the trailer for more than I paid for it.  I think it’s a good plan.  But when I hooked the trailer up to my Tahoe, the hitch dropped dramatically, only about three inches from the ground.  That’s not going to work.  I sought wise counsel from a few people who actually know about these sorts of things, and I was told that I need a weight distribution hitch and some sort of airbag for the rear coils.  So I take my Tahoe in on Wednesday to have that done.

Leaving this house is bittersweet for us.  Obviously, we knew we would have to sell it before moving to Idaho, but as we packed, each member of my family felt the sorrow of loss that comes when you leave a part of you behind.  This house has been special to us.  My kids loved it.  I remember coming home from work one day to find that they had dug underground tunnels in the back yard.  Crystal and I have counseled several couples and individuals sitting at our kitchen table or in our living room.  We have entertained guests, celebrated birthdays, experienced God, fought, made up, had Bible studies…

The really cool thing: this house is a fulfillment of one of God’s promises to us.  We had been staying in a missions house at a local church (totally God’s provision), but I had been looking for houses to rent.  I knew a guy who would buy foreclosures, remodel them, and then sell them for a profit.  It is called “flipping a house.”  After talking with him, I decided to start looking for a foreclosure myself.  I found one that I thought would be good to flip.  No structural damage, it just needed a good facelift.  The only problem was that I was broke, and I couldn’t get a loan.  And so I did what any grown man, responsible husband, and father of four would do: I called my dad. “Hey man, I’ve got a business proposition for you.  I have found a foreclosure that needs some work.  I think we can fix it up, sell it, and make a good profit.  I will live in it and do the work, all you have to do is pay for it.  We split the profit 50/50.  What do you think?”

I really did not know what to expect.  I was asking him to take money from his retirement and to invest it in a rundown house during a time when the housing market was not exactly booming.  We walked through the house, and I honestly thought that he wasn’t going to do it.  But a couple weeks later he called and said, “Wel,l I guess if we are going to buy that house, we need to put in a bid.”  We did, and we got the house. 

We spent the next few weeks working tirelessly to repair that house.  We pulled up the urine stained carpets (I am assuming from dogs), and refinished the hardwood floors.  We busted out a wall to open up the floor plan.  We changed all the light fixtures, painted, remodeled both bathrooms and the laundry room, put on new siding, landscaped the yard, etc.  I loved taking something broken and in bad need of repair, and restoring it into something beautiful.  By the way, isn’t that what Christ desires for us?  I know that is what He did for me!!!

So we lived in this house for two years, sold it, and made a decent profit.  During this time, another friend (who also happens to be my boss) and I bought another foreclosure, fixed it up, and sold it.  That allowed me to pay off my debt and buy a Tahoe.  I will share the details about this in another post.

We moved to SC with virtually nothing, but through God’s grace and the kindness of my father and a good friend, we are debt free and have the provision we need to move to Idaho.  I had no idea how God would provide, I just know that He said He would, and He has provided and continues to provide to meet all of our needs.