It Begins....

A goal is not a goal until written down. My goal is to get my family in a house of our own by Christmas.

Ten years ago I made a similar goal. John and I were living in a mobile home on 3 acres. The square footage was under 1000 square feet- like 960 and we had six kids. This might work for some folks but we felt maxed out. Originally when we purchased the mobile we had three little girls and I was pregnant. Loved the land but even from the beginning the mobile was just something we had to put up with. We were bursting at the seams and weren't sure what do to.

After a serious year of soul searching and pondering, we felt just getting a new mobile home wasn't the answer. I called a family meeting and set a quart jar out in front of my family. I attached a small sticker FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD James 2:26. I explained our goal of building a house and encouraged everyone to contribute what they could to make our dream come true. I got the idea from Sandra Felton of Messies Anonymous. Within a month we had $20.000 in our jar. About a year later we moved into our beautiful new home.

Two years later we sold our beautiful home and moved to Idaho. We moved into an empty farm house that's been in the family for generations while we looked for a place to build a new home. Years later here we sit. We started our faith jar for a new house quite a while ago. It's been slowly accumulating. A couple of weeks ago my oldest daughter noticed a house for sale here in town next to the park. We went and looked at it and I felt hopeful. This house would actually work for our family without extensive cleaning and remodeling. Then I noticed there are about 20 homes for sale right now in our little town. If we don't get the first one there's lots of others to choose from. We still want to build but for now we want to just buy a house and move it for Christmas. Please join us in our journey to exercise our faith and get a home of our own for Christmas.