Introduction

Welcome to my new blog, it has been a long time since I wrote anything. I am continuing the theme from my previous two blogs with “Our Home.” This has been an interesting adventure, and it is neat to see God’s hand at work and his sense of humor. 

I would say for about the last four years Mark and I have been talking about moving out of our current home. We have been planning, saving, and trying to ensure we are financial secure to make the move. I think for me it was always trying to find the perfect financial sweet spot to make the move. Then there were the excuse of our favorite hobby, which is traveling. We knew if we made a big financial commitment, we would have to cut back on traveling. It was always a pipe dream for us and knew someday it would happen. Little did we know God was going to give us a big push in that direction. 

On April 17, 2013, our lives, community, and home changed forever. On this day the fertilizer plant in our small community exploded, leaving devastation in its tracks. My husband, our youngest, and I were only 1,500 feet away from the explosion when it happened.  At that moment, I knew a few of our heroes in our town did not survive and our hearts were breaking. We knew immediately we need to check on my brother in law and sister in law who lived in town.  We did not know if there were okay or not at this point. We arrived at their house, and they were all thankfully safe.  The streets quickly started filling up with chemical filled smoke and we knew we had to get our 18 month old daughter out of there. Our in laws quickly gather up what items they could and headed to our house. After that evening, all of our lives changes especially for my in laws because there home was a total loss.  Over the next few weeks we assisted my in laws with their home and volunteered in our community during the recovery. 

Little did we know at the time of the explosion that our house was actually affected. We live about 2 miles from the plant with nothing but farmland in between us. About a month after the explosion we noticed our roof was sagging and other separations within our house. We had contractors, FEMA, and other individuals come assess our house, and they verified our home was damaged by the explosion. We were in shock; however, I thought this might be God’s way of letting us know it was time to move. We did not realize we were going to have stumbling blocks along the way. 

We called our insurance and they send a disaster agent to our home, and she confirmed the damaged and estimated $25,000 were damage. This is about the same amount the contractors provide us as well. My husband thought we might have more damage, because the agent was not looking at the structure inside the roof or other areas. She said she could have a structural engineer come verify the damage for us, this was the biggest mistake we ever made. The structural engineer classified all damage as natural causes, and we were so disappointed. They told us we had to hire our own structural engineer to verify the damage, which we did and he said it was from the explosion. Then the insurance company made the two engineers work it out, and our engineer stood by his report. The next thing we know, we receive a letter from the insurance company said their engineer was able to have our engineer come to an agreement with them. Our engineer said that was not true and stood by his original report. We were told the only way to straighten this out was the hire another engineer, which would cost more money. At this point we felt like we were losing money and decided to give up. All this took place over a year and half. 

During this time frame I had individuals who would ask me if I was mad or upset with the situation. Or why I had such a good attitude through this process. My response has been, it is hard for me to worry about my own situation when others in our town have loss so much more. People have lose their homes, belongs, and lives. Yes, our house is damage and the roof could fall in at any time but at least I have my family, and somewhere to live. I just remember Romans 8:28, And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. I knew God would take care of us and guide us. Since summer of 2014 Mark and I have been talking about options, but we still did not have a good idea of what we wanted to do. We thought about building, but it is pretty expensive. We did not have a clue what our next step was going to be.

Around mid-fall, my mother in law received an email from a friend saying she was planning to sell her house and wanted to know if my husband and I were interested. My husband haphazardly gave me the email thinking I was going to shoot down the idea. When I started looking at the address and pulled it up on Google maps we were excited. It was in a perfect spot in a perfect neighborhood. Plus we would be closer to my parents who are the primary care takers of my daughter. 

My husband called the owner that evening to let them know we were interested; however, they said it would be a little while before it would be listed. We started getting a little excited; however, we held it back because every time we are excited it always seems to fall through.  We started working with our financial adviser, asking friends for referrals of real estate agents, and researching house buying tips. I am a learner and I do not move forward with anything without research. After many interviews and research, we decided to use Pam Tucker with Coldwell Banker Reality and John Snider at Oak Mortgage, there were the two best decisions we made through the whole process. At this point, we were well on our way to buying a house. We felt God was finally leading us in the direction we needed to move and we were going to take his guidance on our next steps.