When we first moved to Oregon in 2005 I was coming back to my home town after a 16 year absence. I had really missed being home. When I had moved to Southern California after my mom died I had only planned on being gone a year and a year turned into many years. They were hard years in one respect because of it being so expensive to live there and so crowded. I missed the country roads and simple life of my home. I met a lot of friends and the Lord provided all my needs but I was lonely and finally after 12 years I met my wonderful and loving husband. We had a blessed courtship and wedding. Three hundred and fifty people came to celebrate with us and it was a wonderful day and a honeymoon on the seas off Mexico on a beautiful ship at Christmas time to top it off. My heart was so very happy, I had not felt this way in many years. But my heart still longed for country roads and growing gardens. So in 2 1/2 years the opportunity opened up for us to move back to my home and I was over joyed! The house that I had grown up in was sold and strangers lived there and the yards and garden that my parents had kept were almost all gone. In about 6 months we were able to rent a newer home not too terribly far from the house I had been raised in. We would go out and drive by the old home place once a year when we went to put flowers on my mom's grave. Each time I left with a little sadness in my heart. The place of my childhood was there physically but not the same, I had a longing to go back to somewhere that was only in my memory.
We loved the little house that we rented. It was warm and snug in the winter and cool in the summer. The soil was very fertile and we grew tomatoes and peppers in the open soil that wasn't covered with grass. The landlords had put grass all the way around the house and we hired a gardener to come cut it during the summer. We were blessed with our sweet daughter, Mary, in that house. We brought her all bundled up from the hospital on that cool October day into our sweet little home. So happy and excited to have a baby and have a lovely nursery set up and a guest bedroom too. The rent was reasonable. It was the biggest and nicest separate dwelling that either my husband or I had ever lived in. We had both been single for many years and had rented rooms from people and rented small granny flats and mobile homes and apartments but never a whole house with a fenced yard and attached two car garage. The house was only 7 years old and we loved the floor plan.
In a couple of years the landlord came over one afternoon to reattach a fence on one side of the yard so we could have a completely enclosed yard for Mary to play in, the summer before she turned two. We got to talking with him and found out they were Christians and that they had built our house. He told us that when they bought the property that the spot where they cleared to build our house was a nesting area for the Mourning Doves. He said when they prayed over the land before they built the house they felt the birds were a symbol of the Holy Spirit. I was so comforted by his story as my folks had built our house that I grew up in and they had prayed many times during it's construction for help and direction.
Later that year in the Fall, they had the house appraised. I thought they might be selling it. So I talked with Rich about it. He was making a good amount of money at his job and we were out of debt and we could afford to buy something. We were not in any hurry and were happy renting. We really didn't want to move as the house was the perfect set up and the thought of trying to pack up stuff at our age with a busy 2 year old was over whelming at the time. So, I called the landlords and asked them if they were having the house appraised to sell it. They said no that it was for another business purpose. I did tell them at the time, if they did sell it that we might be interested in it. They said that we would be the first people to know and get a chance at it if they ever sold it.
So 8 years passed, faithfully paying rent each month and Rich fixing things that needed fixing around the place and keeping the yards and a small garden. They never raised our rent and kept it at the low "come on" price they had advertised it at to get some one in the place. Our financial situation changed. Rich's job got too hard physically for him to do anymore. So, we tried doing a home ceramic lamp business that didn't work out. We went through all our savings and got into debt. Right when we were at the end of our rope financially, he got a job working for a local hospital. It was a great job with lots of potential and possible benefits but the pay started out low and he had to work on call and sometimes part time for a year and a half. Needless to say things were very tight financially. Finally he got a full time position with benefits and pay raises. It allowed us to start chipping away at our debt and build up a savings account again. So by last summer we were doing great! Finally at a place where we could buy something.
December 7th I received a message on my phone from our landlord. They were looking at retirement and was thinking about selling some of their rental properties. He said he was thinking and praying about it and all of a sudden he remembered what we had said 8 years ago that we might be interested in buying the house. So, he wanted to know if we were. We said we would see what we qualified for after Christmas. Rich said that he thought we probably wouldn't qualify for more than a mobile home because of our income level being low. He didn't want me to get my hopes up. So he checked in with the work credit union to see what they would lend us. It was kind of in the ball park, so he called the Landlord and told him we wanted to proceed. So, they came by a few days later with a price and it was 25,000 more than what we qualified for. My face fell and I told him that. He said, don't worry, I will work with you guys and I want you to have the house, so please don't worry. Well even the highest price the bank would loan us was out of our reach because we could not afford the monthly payments. Then Rich remembered his 3 year service in the Army when he was young. He had never used his VA loan benefit. He had never bought property and neither had I. So we checked into a VA loan and it was a great deal and a payment we could afford. So almost 11 years to the day we signed the rental agreement to move into this house, we submitted to the bank to buy it.
We got loan approval, had all the credit checks and the house was appraised. So we were just waiting for a closing date. One morning as we were sitting at the breakfast table talking about the house and all that we wanted to do with it after it was ours. Rich looked at me and said, "Elena, you are kind of like Naomi in the book of Ruth. The Lord is restoring to you, the things that you had lost, a home place. Now we can fill it with memories for Mary. We can do a big garden, plant rose bushes and rhododendron bushes. Have some chickens. Mary can have a cat and a pet rabbit." I shook my head yes and couldn't talk at the moment because tears were streaming down my face. So many things have happened to us much later in life than most people, but still all so very good. We will now have a home place and most likely live here all our days and when we die, it will be Mary's. I was finally home.
I know my real home will be with the Lord when I die and He takes us all to Israel to rule and reign with Him for a 1000 years before he makes a new heaven and a new earth, but as for this life I am living now, I am home. We will sign the papers for the house in 2 days. I am so excited and also feeling awe and a sober feeling of responsibility that I have never felt before as I have never owned land before. I am so looking forward to this next step in our wonderful journey together as a family.
This is in 2007, our first summer in our house after we had Mary.
