January 28, 2016 WWJWMTD by Steve the son of John

Sarah Lee’s Testimony: A student at APU

Our home purchase was a true display of God’s goodness and providence. Three months before our wedding, my fiancé’ David and I started to look for a place we would soon call home. Being new to ‘home shopping’, we were lost to how to go about even taking our first step. Like a kid on his first trip to a Toy’s R Us, we were excited, as well as overwhelmed and confused. To our delight, my future mother-in-law had a friend who was an agent. We thought that with this person, we wouldn’t have to be so worried. However, it took us 2 weeks for us to finally get a day to go see the properties. But, on that first day we were supposed to go see a property, I became ill. Wanting to see the houses together, I felt that that wasn’t the day for us to go see the properties. When the agent was called of this unfortunate situation, I could hear the frustration in her voice. Not knowing if I made the right choice, I went home. However, it was the first sign of God’s hand guiding us to our future home.

Another week passed by until we were able to restart our journey to find our home. Juggling between the ever-near wedding and our search for a home proved to be more and more difficult as the days passed by. But, sudden twist of events proved to shed some light. Not only did we change agents, we were forced to change the mortgage company when Citibank denied us. However, the change was exactly what we needed, and God knew. The new mortgage company, although there were many difficulties, not only approved us over the phone, but they offered us a greater buying power. The new realtor was not only very supportive and professional, but he lived and worked in the area that we were looking to buy our home in.

We had only 2 weeks to see and choose our home if we wanted to have it ready to be moved into after our wedding, or else we would be without a place to live. Those 2 weeks were very hectic. We saw little more than 20 properties, some more than once, in 3 days during the 2 weeks. By the end of the 2 weeks we were able to narrow down our list to 3 possible homes. The current home, which we live now, was not one of the houses on our final list. Our future home was listed at a price above our purchasing power. But, we went in to look at the design and the layout of the house in order to compare it with other homes. We liked the home so we made an offer.

Even though the offer we made was a ‘far shot’ from the asking price, we decided that it wouldn’t hurt to make an offer. It was a ridiculous offer, being $34,000 less than the offering price and $64,000 less than what a similar unit sold for recently. After a week of silence on the seller’s part, we started looking at other properties. But, after a few days and after the seller learned that we were looking at other properties, she accepted the offer with a counter-offer. We were one step closer to attaining the dream home, but still a long way from that day as we soon found out.

Every week from the time that the seller responded, we were walking on a bed of nails. Every week presented us with another hurdle to jump over. There were so many calls to and from my realtor saying that it didn’t look like it will go through or that we have a big problem. There were many trips to the banks and calls to my mortgage company to alleviate one-problem after another. The first few problems kept us worried. But, soon we realized that God was miraculously opening doors for us. We also realized that these were gentle reminders from God that we needed to be constantly in prayer and for us to acknowledge that He is guiding the process.

I felt, the only thing that could help us was more prayer. That is when, I made phone calls to family and close friends, asking them for daily prayer. I am an introvert, so it was very hard to share personal prayer requests. However, in my Senior Seminar class, my professor, Dr. Steven Wentland, encouraged us to share our cares and concerns, that ‘God cares what you care about’. With prayers from family, friends, fellow students, and awesome professors, I believe God answered a prayer that looked so impossible in our unfaithful eyes. "What is impossible with men is possible with God." (Luke 18:27)

Even up to the last few days, we didn’t know if the house was really going to be ours. The seller was getting tired of waiting; the escrow closing date was extended 41 more days than the original 45 days. She also lost $7,300 more through the process. While our agent was concerned, our parents and extended family members were praying for us, church members and friends were praying for us, and we were at peace. God had given us a sense of tranquility that surpasses knowledge and descriptions.

When we look back at our long-winded struggles in purchasing this house, we are left with immense thankfulness and awe of the greatness of God. Every struggle was for our benefit. So it will be for our house, a house of blessing, for it truly was a blessing from Jehovah-Jireh!

WWJWMTD

Dr. Steven J. Wentland www.wwjwmtd.com

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