About three weeks ago, we began to realize that we were really and truly making progress on the house. Sonja's persistent work on scraping the popcorn ceilings and stripping the 80's wallpaper was finally paying off- the walls and the ceilings were almost completely stripped. It was then that we realized that we had worked so hard on getting that done that we didn't know what we should do next. The next thing that needed to happen was to get our contractor in to take out a few walls (so we could put in floors and begin to make decisions about how the house would look at completion). However, our contractor had told us that he probably wouldn't be free until the end of October. Doh! So, on a Monday night, in the midst of our stressful realization that we were almost out of things we could do, we prayed, asking God to free him up to come and work on our house, so that we
could move forward with other things.
Wednesday evening (two days later), after not talking to him for weeks, out of the blue, our contractor called and told us that he had the next two days off to work on our house! Once again, God reminded us that he is our father who answers prayer. However, lacking faith, we totally weren't at all prepared for the possibility that God would answer our prayers, so we had to quickly decide which walls to knock out. Why is it we are so inclined to ask for big things, and then expect that God won't answer our prayers? It was such a good reminder that he is our Father, not because we deserve it, but because he is merciful.
So, the next day, (which my bosses at church were gracious in giving me off work), Sonja, me, and the contractor made hasty, but faith-filled decisions about which walls we should take out. We totally destroyed the wall between the small living room/office, & the den, as well as widening the doorway (from 30 inches to 75) between the kitchen and the dining room. It was pretty amazing and quite satisfying to rip and shred drywall with a hammer, as well as to take out the studs with a sledgehammer. We'll post some of those pictures soon. Our contractor also widened up a nasty closet in our den into a space for some built-in bookshelves, and he installed a new set of french doors between the den and the screened-in porch. Pretty Sweet! The best part was that we discovered that none of the walls we chose to take out were "load-bearing" which meant that they were both easy and cheap to remove. God was so good in providing in that way, as we expected it to cost a lot more and be a lot more difficult to do.
So, since those two days of hard work, we have made multiple trips to the dump to get rid of destroyed materials, and spent a lot of time looking at hard wood floors.
A second big way God provided was in leading us to our hardwood providers. One afternoon after work, when Sonja and I were trying to find a local hardwood floor company, my GPS unit took us to the wrong location for the hardwood floor company we were trying to find. Instead, we stumbled upon "Builder's Bargain", a local wholesale builder's store which provides overstocked materials (like windows, sinks, and hard-wood floors) to both private builders and the general public and pretty good prices. So instead of having to pay between 6-7 a square foot to purchase, install, sand, and finish some hardwood floors, we will be paying about $3 a square foot for some beautiful pine floors (actually its "Siberian Larch" which looks like Pine) which will fit perfectly to the look of our house. We love the look it will give our house.
What's even more amazing is that the location of the store we went to is actually closing down this week, and moving about 45 minutes away, and if we hadn't found it when we did, we never would have gotten the floors we really like at a great deal. Once again, God provided.
Another amazing thing that God did was to give us good neighbors. Our neighbors are awesome. They have all introduced themselves and befriended us. Though we have owned the house for a month now, we have yet to mow our own lawn. In fact, the same neighbor who has been mowing our lawn recently asked me if he could seed it with some of his spare grass seed, and then he proceeded to cover over the new seed with hay. Unbelievable!
God also has provided a local guy who is going to go through our whole house, sand all the walls and ceilings, fix all the dry wall problems, and spray everything down with a sealing primer for an incredibly cheap amount of money!
Sonja and I have had constant help from youth groupers, church members, friends, and others in just showing up to help out. Lately, as I have torn out the particle board in the first level of sub-flooring, I've been blessed with an army of help! Nothing beats building friendships with hammers and crowbars in the dust and sweat of working together. It is so encouraging to be served by people who are serving us because they love us.
There are many more encouraging things I could talk about (we are reaping some of the benefits of other people's work in the church and youth group, we've also been blessed financially) but for now, though things are still hard in some areas (the quarks and frustrations of a new church family, missing old friends, being sued by the jerks at Keystone builders, Sonja's frustrating struggle to find a job), we can both say that despite our struggles, God has been abundantly faithful.
Please do pray that God would take away this lawsuit. Though we know he's still good and faithful, even if we end up going to court, no matter the outcome, it would be a huge burden off our backs if the whole things supernaturally disappeared. So, please praise God for his provision for us, and continue to ask him to give us hearts to be faith and to trust him in any and all circumstances. We'll put up some cool pictures of the recent work on the house soon.
