People rather than stuff.

I spent pretty much my whole Christmas break cleaning and purging the contents of our house. Why? Well- here is the story (the short version):

John and I have been looking for a house for about a year now, that we thought would be a good investment property, to fix up and let someone live in for cheap, where they otherwise might not be able to have a home.

In November we found a house that fit the bill. It was 37,000 dollars and it was a foreclosure in downtown Newport News. We started praying about the house and if we should pursue it. We went three days later to look at the house in the daylight (since the utilities were off) and looked at the home.

The home was in remarkable shape for being 37,000 dollars. It was brick and had 3 bedrooms and 1 bath (1350 square feet in all.) Plenty big enough for the two of us, and an opportunity to move into downtown Newport News. We put on the house and won the bid by 5 dollars. It seemed as if God was really wanting us to make this move, so we asked some friends of ours if they wanted to rent our home from us. They agreed and also asked another family (another set of our friends) if they wanted to move in as well. They also agreed.

Then we found out that HUD had forgotten to attach the correction notes on the home that needed to be fixed before moving in. This changed the financing. We then needed to spend another 6500 on the house and get a 203 k loan. It seemed like no big deal, but it was. They wouldn't let us finance the house with that kind of a loan (or any loan for that matter)as a primary residence, even though we were going to live in it. We needed to finance as an investment property because they saw us as shady and trying to get around the larger down payment (25% vs. 3.5%). We didn't have that much, so with the Lord's guidance we walked away.

Yet we had 2 families planning on moving into our home in 6 weeks....

So John and I again prayed, and then told the families the situation and asked them both to still move in. They both agreed.

This meant that we needed to purge 3 rooms worth of stuff in our home. Hence my break being spent cleaning and purging.

Most people call us crazy.

I say that we are blessed and able to give Glory to God for this decision.

A couple of things we have in our favor:
We all have gone to church together.
We all like each other and have hung out with each other over the past couple of years by choice.
We all have lived in the same building before, in community : LivingStone Monastery
We know how to set boundaries.
We all believe in the One and only God and he directs our paths.

Please pray for us through out our transition process. There will be some kinks and quirks to figure out in the beginning, but God's grace is sufficient.

Far better for our home to be filled with people rather than stuff.