POST by LIZ: Home Buying Queen

These last several months have been rather hectic!  I now take five minutes to stop, breath and celebrate the pains and agonies these months have brought us.  Now statistics show (please don't drill me for sources!) that moving, having a baby, death and buying a house can cause increased blood pressure and major headaches. 

We praise God we have not had to deal with the grief of losing a beloved human, we have, however, had to deal with the loss of our precious pets on top of coping with the other three factors...and before you get excited, NO! I am not pregnant, but we have welcomed three little boys into our home whom we love and cherish dearly. We also add to the Brien household two puppies, five horses, and a baby parrot - the parrot is seriously bringing me sleepless nights. I walk around the place with tired-I'm-a-new-mum looking eyes, and demand feeding is at its peak! (If only bottle was best!).

January 20th was a bitter-sweet day. Up to my eye-balls in grading assignments, I received a call from Jed saying he'd be there in five to pick me up! We were finally being called into the bank to sign contracts for the purchase of this God given property.  Stuffing into my famous red school bag essays which addressed the prompt "Do the ends justify the means? - discuss", I made my way to the parking lot.   

Honestly, I was rather skeptical about the whole event.  It wasn't the first time the bank had called us in; and like puppies wagging their tails, we had previously bounded into the bank to then be informed by the broker that we actually didn't need to come in as they needed more paperwork from the owners! Our valuable time and energy wasted yet again.  Am I bitter.. perhaps just a little!

Suddenly peace turned into Jed rounding the corner, beeping the horn and fifteen sets of smiling teeth, waving and yelling at me to “hurry up and get in”.  (It was Tae-Kwondo time and Jed had rounded up the neighbourhood kids plus our own and jammed them into our eight seater). 

We dropped off the 30 leg kicking champs at the institute of sport and started to make our way to the bank - 50 metres from the building we received a call from the solicitor asking us to bring all our forms of identification in, again. 

We then realised that the human resource assistant at the school where I work had our passports and cedulas, and the school administration were about to close up and go home for the weekend! Long story short, Jed stepped on the petroleum pedal and we were there in a jiffy, able to  obtain our bits and pieces, enjoyed four hours in the bank, and finally sign what appeared to be the contract for the purchase of our new house!

After receiving 10 messages from Francesca asking how much longer we would be, we floored it to the institute to find fifteen weary souls, tired, hungry and depressed as the coach had not showed up for the session!

While contracts had been signed in black ink here, there and everywhere, we still had the small issue of transferring the money over. Minor details! The contract said the house was ours (well the banks - but you know how all that works!) and while we still didn't have the deeds in our possession, pizza was calling us to celebrate in faith.

Jed released the doors of the car and I, along with many arms and legs spilled out of the car and onto the ground, and it was then a pleasure to be trampled by 15 sets of starving feet, who charged over me and into Valenti's-  La Mejor Pizza, Al Mejor Precio! While we placed the order to an overwhelmed cashier, Jed zoomed off to pick up Billy who was being watched by our faithful babysitter, Monica. 

 

He returned with Billy, we ate while we sighed out the relief knowing that this torrid journey of house-purchasing was almost over - we just had to transfer thousands of dollars across on the Monday.

Stuffed and satisfied, Jed reached into his wallet to pay the bill.  To his horror, the bank card was nowhere to be found.  We searched high and low, inside and out.  We retraced steps and started to choke on the idea that Jed had left his card in the ATM two hours ago, when he went to retrieve money to pay Monica.

Like a whirlwind, we left the parlor, cramming all the kids into the car and all mumbling. (Thankfully I had my Australian card to save us from shame).  Our vehicle took to two wheels, as we pulled into the bank parking lot.  We jumped out of the car, leaving the kids looking like sardines in a can, faces pressed up against the windows and all that lark, and ran into the ATM section quizzing the guard on duty.

Jed's limited Spanish was able to cancel the card, but we were unable to determine if the card was in the hands of another or had been swallowed up by the machine.  Jed reenacted the whole transaction for me - much to the delight of the guard; Jed had grabbed the cash and dashed. (BTW: This ATM was designed before the thought of theft so it gives the cash first, asks if you want another service, doesn't ask for a reconfirmation of the pin, and then finally gives the card once all is done). I quizzed Jed left, right and centre, and discovered that there was a dude waiting behind him in the que. 

We prayed, of course! But I tossed and turned all night, knowing in my heart that this guy had the card and had full access to our cool millions, as we had to take the spending limit off in order to have it transferred over.  If the money was gone it would severely jeopardise the entire purchase of the house!

Lo and behold the man had seized the opportunity and taken money from our account!  Thankfully, he only took a little over $300 - which is still a lot of money, but when considering he had access to the full amount in our account, we were thrilled that the finalising money for the house was still in-tact!

I felt God use this situation as an opportunity to teach me about his overwhelming love and treasure He has for us.  It's like we have full access to God, but like this man taking from our account, we only take a small portion of what we have access to.  (If I were a Math whizz, I'd tell you the ratio etc, but I'm not so just work with me and catch my point!)

God has an enormous amount of treasures to give us, and yet we only take $300 worth.  In a sense, we rob ourselves of what God has to offer us.  I felt God say to me, that unlike this theft, we have full rights to the account and God is willing to pour into us, so now it's totally up to us what portion we want to receive!  Self-reflecting, I know that I'm not tapping into as much as I could and I thank God for using this hair-graying experience to urge me to get deeper with him.