Hello all!
If you’ve been following along the past few days, you know that Isaac and I have prayerfully decided to move forward towards our dream of owning a wedding venue. If this is news to you, here is the link to the post where you can read all the details!
We also bought our first home!
And it’s a 5th wheel...
...This may make us rednecks...
...Or hippies...
...I’ll look into it.
Ok, so obviously we aren’t trying to start some novelty RV-themed wedding business. For some reason, I don’t think the “Mobile Home Wedding” industry is exactly booming. HOWEVER, and as a completely unrelated side note, this post did tickle my curiosity, so I googled “trailer weddings” and found this site, which actually had some cute and quaint ideas. I’ll wait while you look at the pics and experience unexpected delight. Can you tell I’ve had coffee?
Ok, focusing now. The fifth wheel. Our home! Here’s how that came about:
First off, If you’ve never bought a home or land before, I need to let you in on a little secret: they cost money. Here’s another secret: teachers don’t make very much money. Don’t get me wrong, Isaac and I love being teachers. We find our jobs rewarding and challenging and fulfilling, but when we tried to pay for land in the currency of “the joy of changing children’s lives and making a difference in the world”, it turned out that real estate agents don’t really barter.
So there you go. We could scrimp and save, but it would be many years before we even had a down payment for the amount of land we are looking for in the location we would like-- Magnolia, Texas, if you’re wondering. Possibility two was to borrow. Again, this would be tricky because we would not have a respectable down payment for a while, and we, as our own personal preference, do not want to finance anything that will take a significant portion of the rests of our lives to pay off. So that left us with only two more options: change our income or change our dream.
We prayed for a way to change our income. I’m going to be very brutally honest here-- with a music degree and English degree between the two of us, we were literally praying for a miracle. I have a feeling this comes as no surprise to anyone...
So we prayed for our miracle, and surely enough, God provided. You see, at this time, Isaac’s father had recently begun considering changing careers as well. He has a friend who is a retired pipeline welding inspector. I am not certain I knew before now that this job existed, but as explained in the name, it is a person who goes around the country and looks at the welds on pipelines to make sure they are strong and up to code. As it turns out, these fellas make a lot of money-- about three times more than Isaac and I make combined. Well, both Isaac and his father have a good deal of welding experience, so we prayed again, and began looking in to this possible job opportunity.
It looked bleak at first.
The certification prep. class for this job? Not cheap. The book? Not cheap. The certification test itself? You guessed it, also not cheap. I should also mention that Isaac and I could not afford a honeymoon when we first got married, so we had been saving up for a road trip to New York, and had just depleted our accounts with all of the hotel reservations, tickets, and other expenses involved in a trip. So there we were, wondering if this were God’s will for our lives. If we had found out about the job and the expenses required to get certified a few measly days earlier, we could have cancelled our trip and had the money to pay for all of it. But we didn’t and so we didn’t.
The money for everything was due in 7 weeks, and if we couldn’t come up with it, we would be locked into our teaching contracts by the time the next class came along and would have to wait until next year to give this whole thing a go. And this is where I need to let you know how happy I am to be married to a prayer warrior. Isaac did not get discouraged; he just kept praying. I was fortunate to get some extra hours after school running tutorials, doing private in-home tutoring, and making cakes. Isaac received several orders for custom made rods, which he is awesome at making, and we both tightened our budget until every extra penny popped right out.
As you can guess, we were able to come up with the money. Praise God!
With all of these doors opening for us, we talked, planned, and prayed and decided that it was time to take a step of faith. If Isaac passes his certification test and gets a job as an inspector, we will be hitting the road and traveling wherever his job needs him. So, we saved and worked some more, and bought ourselves a truck and a fifth wheel. We made it a point to purchase within our means as teachers, understanding that God is God, and He, in his goodness and sovereignty, may choose to close the door on this opportunity, in which case we would still need to be able to make our payments. Either way, we’re camper people now. :)
And so there it is. Our dream of owning a wedding venue is still far out on the horizon, but if Isaac gets this job, we will be able to move towards it much faster.
Friends, if you’ve made it this far into the post, I’d like to ask you a favor. Will you please pray for us, particularly Isaac and his dad? The certification test Isaac and his father will be taking on July 19th is incredibly difficult with an extremely low pass rate. (It is thankfully MUCH higher for people who take the class they are currently in.) They have been studying their hearts out since they received the materials a month ago, and are sitting in class every day for the next two weeks to prepare. The course gives them about 4 hours of homework a night, and weekend work. Isaac and his father are both mentally exhausted but pressing on because they see this as a chance to serve and provide for us, their family, well. They’re not looking for an easy buck; they’re working HARD. If you don’t know them personally, they are two of the most honorable and hard working men I know. :) I feel confident that we are moving in the right direction and that they will both pass with flying colors, but if you don’t mind, can we all just lift this up in prayer together? Any time you have a spare moment between now and July 19th, just send one up for us. Thank you in advance!
I will keep posting with updates as we find out any news! Thanks again, everyone!
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