God Said YES!!!

We have a house! On Wednesday we met with the landlord and after some African-style negotiation, with a few concessions on both sides, we came to an agreement. The landlord will clean up the mess from the previous tenants, install an outdoor latrine, fix up the kitchen a bit, and complete the fence. He has assured us that all but the fence will be ready for us to move in by April 1, but knowing the lack of respect for timelines here in Africa, I have my doubts! But we are happy to have the house, and I think it will be a great home for the children. Some of the blessings of our new house:

• It cost about $100 less per month than our current home (but I did have to agree that we would paint the entire inside of the house when we leave – maybe a job for a mission team someday in the future when we are moving to our own property???). Getting a house for this price in today’s market is remarkable, and the amazing thing is that the house was offered for $500, but Gracious told the landlord when she first called him that we could only afford $400, and he agreed to that price without any further negotiation – practically unheard of here! As Gracious says, “It was God - that house for that amount!”

• It is close enough that the children can stay in their current school.

• It is right on a main road, which makes transport a bit easier (and cheaper). Some of the things we dream of doing to make a difference for God in our community will be more easily done in such a visible location.

• It has lots of room for a garden, plenty of room for kids to play, and a large paver-stone area which can hold a lot of people – one more thing that fits into our future plans.

• It has 4 bedrooms instead of 3 – a real plus when you have 17 people sharing a house!

God has answered our prayers for a place to move to just as we expected He would – showing that He continues to work on behalf of Redeemer House day by day. We still have some prayer requests regarding our move:

• We need to have $4800 by March 29 top pay 6 months in advance. We have part of this, but not all.

• We will need to find some way to move our “stuff” from one house to the other. (It’s probably about ¾ mile away.) Transport is always a problem, and very expensive. Pray that we might find someone who would be willing to help us for a reasonable price, maybe even just the price of gas.

• Pray that we will get some beds that were paid for several months before I came. The man who was building the beds first asked for more money, then had people tell us he had died, and now refuses to give us our money or our beds. The police are supposed to deal with it, but that’s usually not very productive, so we really need God’s intervention.

• Pray especially that we won’t be assessed for damages to our present house due to some dry rot that was present in the walls before we came, which has caused some of the lower walls to crumble. The property manager assured us it would be fixed right after we moved in, but now is telling the landlord there was no problem with the walls, and we simply damaged them. However, there is a paper signed by the property manager and me (which I insisted be placed in the file), in which the dry rot is listed, along with other small issues with the house when we rented it. I am finding, though, that this does not necessarily mean we will have justice. The cost to fix the walls could be substantial! I meet with the property manager on Monday. Please pray!

Although we still face challenges with moving, we are delighted with the new house God has given us, and expect the new landlord to be more reasonable. Thank you for your prayers. If you would like to donate toward helping with the rent for the next six months, please see the previous post. And thank God with us for what He has done!