If you have been following this blog for long, you know that we have been searching for a place to live in Indiana for quite a while. The hour-plus commute has been really tough on Jim.
In the last couple of posts, I have been saying “good-bye” to this wonderful old home that we have lived in for the last twenty-five years. It might have sounded like we have found a buyer, but no, we have not.
Granted, it’s not listed yet. And that’s probably my fault; I keep wanting to continue fix it up. I have wanted to do a whole list of things while we have been living here, and I really want to see them done!
But Jim has been a steadying hand, helping me to see things in perspective.
“When the time is right, it’ll go fast,” Jim said. “Just be ready to move, because when it starts, there won’t be much time.”
And he was right. Again. What happened a couple weeks ago was most unexpected.
We had stopped looking for houses (since it has become so late in the season), and so we began to focus on preparing our current home for listing. We knew that the Lord was leading us to do that, because of the way He continually supplied the resources and manpower to get things done.
But just a couple of weeks ago, we were sitting around the table taking a lunch break. On a whim, Tony resumed the online search for houses. (We had gotten to the point where all we had to do was look at the new ones. We had the rest almost memorized.)
“Look at this!” he said, and gave me the phone.
I saw the picture, and immediately texted Jim. He texted back that he was in the area, and would go over there and check it out.
When he arrived, a neighbor asked him if he worked for the listing realty. Puzzled, Jim said no. She explained that she wondered since it had only been a couple of hours since the real estate sign was placed out front.
When I texted our agent about going through a church, I didn’t get an answer right way.
“You probably think we are crazy, don’t you?” No answer.
I texted again. “You don’t have to answer that.”
Then came the answer: “LOL”
The next day, we drove down to Indiana so we could go through it as a family.
When we took the tour, we were all just enjoying ourselves, kind of trippin’ on the fact that we were in an old church that had been built in the 1860’s. It was a curious mix of very old, and medium old. It had obviously been completely remodeled in the 1960’s.
It had avocado green carpet in one room, and an orange-tan carpet in another. There was a choir robe draped over the piano, as if someone had just taken it off after special music. There were still hymnals in the pews.
Full disclosure, I have always had fantasies about remodeling an old church and living there. When we find an abandoned church, I often comment.
“Wouldn’t that make a great little house?”
(You might expect me to do something like that.)
But this one isn’t small. And it has also been empty for a long time. Any large, old building that has been neglected for over a decade takes a lot of work to bring it up. It was quite literally sealed to protect the stained glass windows. So no air movement!
We were going round and round, and getting into some of the deeper issues of converting a church into a residential space, when Tony found something that changed everything.
It was in the basement, on top of a pile of papers. His eyes were drawn to it as if it were a beacon.
I got chills and had to see for myself. We just looked at each other, in complete disbelief. Jim has recently become an employee of this mission, but this pamphlet is over a decade old.
In that moment, all of our indecision was gone. We knew we were looking at a neon sign from the Lord.
Jim was right: It happened fast. Final tally, it was 52 hours from Tony’s online discovery to having our offer accepted. And 10 days later, we had the keys in hand.
Tony has already started researching the history and was delighted to find some of the old records are still inside. The church was built during the Civil War, and housed the same congregation for over a hundred years. Eventually, where there were no young families, and the oldest members just died out.
In the 1960’s, one pastor complied the entire history of the church. He included lots of pictures, so we have been able to see the changes down through the years.
God had a plan all along, didn’t He?
Rejoice with us, my dear friends! We now have our heading; let the adventures begin!
The Fullers Four 