Welcome to our home!

Richard and I have the honor of hosting a youth group from Dodge, Tx in our home this week.  We have been on many mission trips where we have stayed in host churches and host homes, but never have been a host home, so we have been so excited for this week. 

As we sat together last night visiting and praying for their upcoming weekly activities God flooded my heart with humility and grace. In both of our previous lives neither of us had big families so a big house wasn't a necessity and therefore the space to host a multitude of people just wasn't available. When we joined together and realized a 3 bedroom 2 bath house was no where near big enough we started praying BIG! I know I've given our house testimony before, but I love it so let me share it again!

For over a year we prayed. There are not too many places that could fit all of us so we asked for something big and spacious and somewhere youth would enjoy.  I remember a lady at church coming up to me and praying with me and telling us she kept hearing the words "more than enough".  We clung to that promise so many times when we began to doubt! We found our dream house and looked at it several times. I knew it was built just for us, so much so that I prayer walked it every time we went to look at it!  But the house we were in just would not sell. 14 months later our house got an offer and we were excited only to find out that our dream home was off the market.  We live in a small community so we started asking around about it and found out it had not sold but just taken off the market. So, in my mind, there was still hope!

Our daughter ended up running track with the owner's niece so Richard found  them at a track meet to see if they were still interested in selling and they were!!  And 3 months later it was ours! Only God!

Our first month in the house we had our Lifegroup over and they prayer walked our home and gave us such sweet words. We know that we were given this home to bring joy to others. As I sat there last night hosting the first of hopefully many youth groups I was reminded of that and how He is so good and so faithful!  

Isaiah 62:4 is one verse that was given to us that I think fits perfectly:

"It will no longer be said to you, "forsaken," nor to your land will it any longer be said "desolate"; But you will be called "My delight is in her," and your land "married"; For the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married."