update!November 4th he ( our baptist brother) put up the first row of block. Yea!!! How exciting...It's rally begining to look like a house is being built. He told us on Sunday evening ( Nov 6th ) ( when Ben preached at their church) that he also poured the truck load of gravel needed for the slab. When Ben asked how much we owed he said we're even brother. What a great blessing! Words can not express... All this has been done at no cost to us...and... He told us that night in church that we need to get that rock spread out and he'll come back with some men and put down the 6 mil plastic and metel wire mesh and pour and finish the slab for us. Glory to God! Praise the Lord!!! God is abundantly good to His children. We are at awe to see the good hand of the Lord at work on our house.
note: Our ex- Amish brother ( he lives 2 hours away ) sent his two older teen sons to help us spread the gravel. They truely were a blessing! It was an all day job, ( Benjamin was out of town in Pa at youth bible school and couldn't be there to help ) It wasn't easy getting it level. It had to be exactly 4'' thick all the way across, the ground was not level. The boys were a blessing to our family. They worked so hard and would hardly take money for a cold drink to buy on the way home. May the Lord bless these dear boys. My adopted sons for the day.
Two years ago we had no money nothing..., but a large family ( of 10 ) and a rental house. In the begining of our christian life, we felt the call of God on our life to be in full time christian service to God, we were newely weds. Benjamin was 1 when Ben surrendered to preach. We sold everything, but what we could put in bags, plus Benjamins baby bed and his high chair. We even sold my wedding gifts, I kept the china from my mama, and the silverware from my grandmother. We we're offered a real neat deal from Bens brother ( who is a contractor, he builds beautiful homes in Fl, for rich people ), he was going to build us a nice home (3 bedroom), purchace the land (we already had a lot picked out in Fla.) and build the house and carry the loan, he said we could pay 325.00 a month until it was paid off, no intrest, no increase in payments. We had our blueprints drawn up and land picked out, when Ben came home and said he was called by God to preach the gospel ,and full time christian service. We gladly gave it all up to serve the Lord and went off to Bible collage. That was 17 1/2 years ago.
Boy how time flys! We have not turned back or looked back just gone forward by faith. Ben's health broke, our family grew bigger and our need to settle down and have our own home became evedent. We had no savings, no rich realitives, nothing ( humanly speacking) but God... I love that phrase. (
but God...) God is all we ever need.
Two years ago January, we felt compeled by God to start searching for a house and land, we were unable to find both. We found a nice piece of land.... We had no money, no help ...
but God... We had stayed debt free for 20 years of marrage and that was a plus.
My step grandmother became very ill and had to sell her home she gave us enough money to put down on a loan we needed money to get a loan.
We searched high and low for almost a year and finially found a piece of land. We were unable to find both land and house. The land was just what we were looking for 12 1/2 acres, fenced, private ( no close neighbors ) , developed ( city water, ele, and septic tank), with a huge 30x32 barn with a loft, fairly new (oak barn ) for only 55,000 we bid and got it for 45,000!
What a blessing we love our land. We we're able to get a small loan of 7,000 more. But that doesn't build a house, or even buy a trailer, we tried and God shut all the doors to getting a trailer put on our property. I am glad He did stop us. A house is much better. We were counseled by many godly brethren to not get in futher debt... That sounded good, but we needed a home....
Our funds are maxed out with all our monthly out go (the land, secondary loan, starage in town (grandmas furnature for our new future home), rent, utilitys, cost of living, etc... What to do!!! A brother with much faith told us to step out by faith and build a house for the money we had! Sounds crazy! I know but God gave us a peace to proceed by faith, ( my grandmother said she believed it was Gods will too.) The County Government charged ''over'' 1,000 in fee's and our money has dwindled down to just under 5,000 because it is over an hour away and gas is costly, plus other costs,we have to go to the land often to help, and take pictures of the building progress.
The Lord has been building our house and I'm sure He will continue to. The Lord has greatly used this baptist brother to help us so far, but he can't do it all ( he's already done so very much ) It will be exciting to watch and see how the Lord will provide. We did recieve 400.00 in the mail from a baptist brother ( from out of state to help with building cost.)
Please keep us in your faithful prayers. We need warmer weather so they can pour and finish the slab...and then we go up with the walls. Then the upper floor.
We failed our first ele pole inspection, Ben forgot the weather proofing on the ele plug box.
He's never done anything like this before. An electrician he's not. But he's doing a great job.
I'm proud of him. The ele has cost around 200.00 so far for permits and supplies. Pray we pass this inspection.
We just paid our first water bill on the property. Now we have two water bills and soon to be two ele bills...It's getting tight, we need to get moved before too long.
We're packing, and trusting God, we want be in before Thanksgiving which was our goal, but we are praying to be in very soon, at least be able to move our storage stuff in before the end of the year. Then we can work on the bathroom, ele, and kitchen, and move in hopefully by eairly spring!
Pray breathren pray!!! We need much prayer. How exciting!
Trusting God to meet our great need, ~ sister Darlene ~