.One of the Drafts.

Like I said earlier, I have not done this in next to forever. Being that I already had quite a few drafts in the 'vault' I figured I would just share one of those with you today to catch you up a little....

.A Blog So Faithful.

Unbelievable! I haven't posted in over a year! Though it feels like 20. So much has happened over the last year. How does this blog even exist? Where to start.

As I said in the last post Ethan and I moved in with a couple from Columbia Heights, MN on April 1st, 2009. We moved to Minnesota so that Ethan could pursue campus ministry full time at the University of Minnesota. An older couple from our church, the Jensen's, were more than kind enough to let us live in their spare bedroom as we searched for a place of our own. We had intended to be there for 2 maybe 3 months and thought that was more than enough time to find a house! (We were looking to buy because after doing some research, we had found that it would actually be cheaper for us to buy rather than rent! And we would then be able to have plenty of room to be comfortable and have people over once the ministry got going that fall).

However, after all of these plans that we had made, God did not have the same time frame as we did! We ended up living in that little 10 by 10 bedroom with half a closet and 4 dresser drawers as storage for 6 whole months! Looking back I don't know how we did it! (Actually I do, we left everything we owned in storage in NY and only brought our clothes, but that's beside the point). It was definitely a trying time for us. And the people that opened up their home to us as well. We both had entirely different lifestyles and to make them 'mesh' was rather complicated. Though in the end it all worked out and we did gain a set of wonderful loving grandparents out of the deal! After those 6 months were over we still did not have a place of our own, but we knew it was time to move on.

On October 1st, 2009 we moved in with the Olsen's! This time we were living on the St. Paul side of the twin cities, or as Sandy calls it "God's country". They have a beautiful home and 2 Golden Retrievers, Lexis and Gretta. At their home we had our own bedroom, a full sized dresser, closet and our own bathroom! We could not believe how spacious this felt. Don't get me wrong, we were and are more than appreciative for everything that we had with the Jensen's but it just felt like we upgraded to a mansion! (Not to mention the indoor pool!) We quickly became comfortable at our second home in Minnesota as the search continued to find one of our own. All this time we were meeting with our Realtor, looking at houses and even putting offers in on many of them. Time after time our offers were rejected. Our Realtor could not believe how many offers we had been turned down, outbid or just flat out ignored! We knew that the right house would come along in God's time. It was an extremely frustrating time for us. We so desperately wanted a place of our own. We wanted to be able to move all of our belongings from NY and be surrounded by things that were familiar to us. To truly make this feel like 'home'.

One house in particular caught our eye (mostly mine, but Ethan loves me!) :) So we put in an offer around mid October 2009. However, we were quickly informed that they had gone with a higher bid. So our search continued.

A couple months later we found that this particular house had gone back on the market! We quickly put in our same bid and waited some more. Again, we found out that they chose a higher bid.

This was really tearing at the heart strings at this point. We could more than see ourselves living in that neighborhood and in that house! We really could not see that God really had a plan for us to find a house at all.

That January we went home to spend "Christmas" with our families. It was a wonderful relaxing time and they all reassured us that the right place would come along. But I was feeling as though it had, and left. Twice. After our week at home we returned to Minnesota and for a THIRD time received a call from our Realtor. The house was back on that market!! I wanted to be excited, I really did. But there were two accepted offers that did not go through. Why was that? What was wrong with our dream house? This time before putting an offer on it, we had our Realtor do some checking into these different situations.

After we found out that both of the previous offers backed out due to insufficient funds we were quick to slap a third offer on this house that we loved! But at this point we pretty much put offers out there knowing that they weren't going to be accepted. After all, this was our 9th offer! So we waited, prayed and waited some more.

The day finally came. Our Realtor called us with the wonderful news that our offer had been accepted! The house was ours based on an inspection and our funds coming through. Ethan and I could not believe our ears! We wanted to know what the catch was. But that was really it. It was out house for the taking!

After 9 offers and looking at over 60 houses, we closed on our house in the beginning of April 2010 (a year and a week after we had moved to MN). It just goes to show that it is not in our time and not our plans, but God's!

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:11