Sunday, 14 June 2009

• Homeschooling, Grass and Bye-bye Boat

  We returned from the state homeschooling convention last night. It was by far the most meaningful convention I've ever been to. The featured speaker was Voddie Baucham and he was unbelievably good! I not only respect his views and teaching on world-views and homeschooling, but he is an adoptive father of three and that always impresses me! I so recommend his books and teachings; he has a website and blog that you can search for by his name. I'm sure you'll hear more as I read his books!

  We have spent much of today outside with our first real grass mowing. I don't just mean of the year, it's been four years of living here and this is the first decent grass we've grown. (I'm afraid it has a little to do with the fact that we paid Mr. Walt to grow it this time!) Anyway, it's very exciting to all of us to have grass; it's not something that I'll ever take for granted again! Here's a few shots of the big event. The back -

  

  And the front -

  

  I've agonized over covering my next topic, or actually the next three topics, on my blog at all until now. Now I am excited and hopeful at the outcome of our dilemna. The first is dealing with our home. The reality is that we still have not closed on the house that we built and have lived in for a full year. The details are long and arduous, but the abridged version is that the state of the economy and the housing market in our area has affected us far beyond anything we could have imagined. When we took out our building loan over two years ago, the home's projected value was supposed to be considerably larger than the loan that we took out to build. We reduced it $87K further by having JD contract it over paying a builder. Since the housing market in our area has plummeted in the time since we took out the loan, the reality is that our home is worth considerably less than we have invested in it. That is not a huge issue for us since we plan to live here forever, but it is a problem since banks don't lend home loans for larger than the appraised value. So, the only way to close is to have a large sum of cash to bring to closing that will pay the difference in what we owe on our building loan and the appraised value of the house. The quick update on that is, we don't have it - we have nine children and four adoptions! Now, in the meantime, we are making a normal house payment and have a nice low interest rate, but it is at the mercy of the market and we are concerned that interest rates could skyrocket and then we wouldn't even be able to afford the home that we built. So, our latest hope lies in that the appraiser appraised our $105K Geothermal system at $7K, but since JD built the Geothermal HVAC system himself we only spent $45K in materials. The underwriters are able, if they so feel inclined, to boost our appraisal by part or all of our material costs. If they will do that, we are able to close with a reasonable amount of money. This has been brewing since long before Christmas and is a bit unsettling.

  Our second issue was the boat that we bought, and shouldn't have, several years ago. This isn't a little fishing boat, this is a big, big boat with beds and all. When we bought it, we had five children and fit in it; now we don't fit or have time for the beast. We have been trying to sell it for well over a year and it isn't the kind of thing that people are snatching up when it requires 100 gallons of gas (no exaggeration required) to even put in the water. We finally resorted to putting it on ebay and were willing to take a sizeable loss just to be rid of the monthly payment that we've been making on it. So, week after week, the boat hasn't sold and I hit relist on my add; paying and praying for a miracle.

  I now jump forward to Ethiopia. Over and over, I feel like we are supposed to do another adoption and Ethiopia keeps presenting itself. As much as I'd love to jump on that bandwagon, the reality of our home loan and current Liberian adoption loan is overwhelming. On top of the reality that we have two children ready to start college classes this year, the most unreasonable thing in the world that I could fathom was the idea to do another international adoption. The weight of feeling like I was supposed to research adoptions in Ethiopia, etc, was really present this last week while JD was away in San Diego. I stayed up late several nights reading. On Tuesday night I prayed before bed that I didn't want to continue looking into adoptions if we are not supposed to adopt again and it was all just me. I told the Lord that I needed a CLEAR sign from him if Ethiopia was in our future. I decided to lay out the fleece and prayed, "Lord, unless that boat sells from this ebay listing, I'm done looking into Ethiopia; I'm resuming my normal life." I believe at that point, there was only two or three days left on the listing. The very next day, JD called me from San Diego and told me that there was a guy who was interested in the boat and that they were emailing back and forth. I found that intriguing, but that's happened before. When JD and I drove up to the homeschool convention on Friday morning, he told me that they guy was pretty interested and might want to come up and see the boat on Sunday. I asked JD if he wanted to know my prayer at that point or wait; of course he wanted to hear, so I told him. I told him that my deal with the Lord was that it would sell from that listing, without relisting it. Well, the man came today. He and his wife and baby made a five hour drive from SC; they spent a bit of time here and negotiated a bit, but didn't leave today until he wrote us a check for the boat. The boat sold! The boat that we've advertised for 18 months sold the week that I asked the Lord for a clear sign!!!

  So, we both firmly believe that Ethiopia is in our future. I still don't see how, but I have faith that God will make a way where there seems to be no way! I also believe that our home loan is going to work out without devastating us financially. We see this house as far more than just a home, but that's another post for another day. So, we are just sitting here today, amazed that God cares enough about us, our current children and our future child/children that He sold a boat to show us!

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