Trip to Temuco: Friday

Read Trip to Temuco: Thursday first

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Friday was the BIG day. So much was planned for Friday, but as you will find out, it started out very discouraging. Backing up a little bit...we had contacted a realtor several weeks back online to ask for more information on several houses we found on a website. Come to find out she was a Christian. She was very helpful and encouraging in her correspondence with us. We had made plans for her to show me several houses on Friday.

Co-workers, Dan & Liz Thompson, drove up to Temuco (2 hours) to help me for the day in dealing with the realtor and drive me around the city. We called the realtor in the morning, to find out where she wanted us to meet her and how many houses she had arranged to show us. She had no leads. All of the houses that she had fell through. She felt bad and we felt discouraged since we had planned this day to be full of appointments to look at houses.

So what do we do? We were back at square one. We bought a newspaper and started looking through the rental section to find leads to call and inquire about the houses.

Long story short...we made a few appointments to look at houses. Above was one house that was promising, and would have meet our needs (3 bedrooms), but there was one last house we had to view at 8 pm.

Dan & Liz drove me around the city to get to know the layout. We stopped at the mall to see what main department stores were there, since we will be buying all of our major and minor appliances in Temuco as soon as we arrive. We ate lunch at the mall and talked for a long time about ministry and life in general.

The last house we looked at turned out to be the one God had been saving for our family and ministry. Its location, size, and price were all incredible blessings from the Lord. We met the renter at 8 pm and looked through the house, took pictures, and asked questions. Come to find out, the renter was at rope's end in finding a suitable renter and was about to go to a realtor for help. He mentioned that many were interested in the house, but everyone was deep in debt. After explaining who we were (being missionaries) he was very happy to know that we were honest, debt free, and would be faithful in paying the monthly rent.

The renter is writing the contract right now as I write this post. We wait to hear back from him. We are hopeful that we can move into the house by the end of March! Oh, and one more thing...we have invited the Christian realtor over for a meal once we have settled into our new house. Even though she did not show us any homes, we wanted to personally meet her and thank her for all her work on our behalf during this process. Come to find out, she lives very close to our new rental home!

Thank you to all who have specifically prayed for our housing search and needs. God has answered prayer. He has provided a house that will not only meet our needs, but there were several wonderful surprises in the house that were on our list of "wants" as well. For example, a workable kitchen for Kristi, an office for David, a laundry room, and a safe street for our children to ride their bikes.

Continue to check back on the blog for updates on the process of completing the contract and the upcoming move to Temuco. In the next post, I will share about the regional national pastor's meeting I was able to attend on Saturday.