Still waiting, one project, Praise, final grilling

Mama and I are still waiting on the call from Brittany. I assume she and Mama are in contact daily, but I have not been included in those conversations – not do I need to be. The baby will come when she comes. God has an interesting way of doing that. I have often wondered how the body actually knows for certain that the child in the womb is fully developed and needs a breath of fresh air. It is a miracle that still fascinates me in its creative wonder, whether a human birth or an animal birth. Such recreation is miraculous. We take it for granted rather than seeing the blessing it is from God.

Mama and I are also still waiting on news of our two houses in Lawton. I sent an email to our realtor this morning asking for an update. Here is what I said.

“I deposited $3,702.41 into the 39500 Arvest account on Wednesday last week to pay the January invoices. That pretty well emptied my account. Because of the time it has taken to complete these projects (16 months on Dover), I am struggling financially.

So far, we are $120,000 into this venture and I am wondering how close we are to selling either of the two houses.

How much money do you anticipate needing to fully complete the remodels? Please err on the high side of the estimate so I can make sure I have more than enough money on hand to reimburse you. I will work on getting that cash together to see this through.

Thanks for all you are doing for us.”

Whether or not it is taken in the right spirit is in the Lord’s hands, but I appreciate your prayers that it will be well received. I also need wisdom concerning the money needed to finish the houses as well as meet some March expenses.

It will all work out. In fact, we are seeing God work right now. Just before we left, I received a collection notice from our mortgage lender that we were almost three thousand dollars in arrears on our escrow account. That hung over us the entire time we were in Honduras. Our mortgage payment was being raised by $400 per month to cover the past expense as well as cover it in the future. When we got back, I called the lender to get more information and found that the anticipated bill was from Wise County. A trip to the Tax Assessors office gave me the information I needed to straighten out the issue. When I walked into the office, an older employee offered to help me, and I did my best to explain what I had been told by the lender. By the grace of God, he knew immediately what the issue was and gave me a full explanation of the issue that I could share with the lender. As it turned out, we do not owe the amount in question. Our mortgage will go down by $100 per month and we will get a refund for $580 from the escrow account. Praise the Lord!

I did not get anything done that was on my list this weekend. I spent all my time getting a small shelter built in the lot I enclosed several weeks ago. That turned out better than I expected. I still have to skin it, but I may have enough metal siding laying around the farm to get that done. It will be multiple colors, but it will eventually be painted to match the shop. With that done, we will move Midas to that lot and move all the young goats to the paddock where we have the boys right now. All the nanny goats will get the chance to dry up. Plus, we need to put all of them on a diet. They are far too fat right now.

Zach came to get his pellet grill Saturday afternoon. They actually called Friday evening but Mama asked if they could wait until Saturday so I could cook all the meat I asked Mama to thaw for grilling. I spent an hour or so later Friday evening getting all that meat cooked. Victoria and Mama really enjoy how the pellet grill does meats. While we were grilling, Zach sent us a picture of a Craigslist add featuring a Green Mountain pellet grill at a very good price. Oddly enough I had seen that add earlier in the day but passed it up. When we did some research and decided to make the call, we were too late. It had already sold.  

We are definitely going to get a pellet grill. It is only a matter of time.