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Telling the Story

Sometime I find is hard to know what to share about my life and what God is doing in it. I feel I have a wonderful, but rather average life. I am a dairy farmer's wife and mom. My days consist of driving to places for my kids or husband, housework, cooking and laundry. I like to read, do puzzles and make cards in my spare time. I am involved in a few different things at my church. We are all healthy and we are not in great need of anything.

So sometimes I think that what I see God doing in my life isn't really worth telling other people about. There is little drama or excitement. But for the past two years I have been a part of a group in our church whose main objective is help us do just that - tell our story. And to tell it to help disciple others in their walk with God as well.

And something big in our lives happened this week that God has been prodding me to tell. So, here I go. That big thing is...

we sold a house.

Now this may not seem like a big thing in the grade scheme of things, but this is huge for us.

This is the home we bought as newlyweds in a little town in Minnesota where we were going to be teaching. Why did we buy and not rent? It is a small town and there was really very little to rent. And housing is cheap. Our mortgage payment was about the same as rent and we figured building credit as a young couple was a good idea.

Fast forward four years and we have decided to move to PEI to farm. We put our house up for sale, confident it will sell before we need to leave. We have a few showings, but no offers.

Fast forward 5 years later and we finally had the first offer ever on our home. So we take it, even though we are selling at a loss. And on Monday, the sale of the house closed and we finally are no longer home owners!

These last five years were tough. We never were in need or were in really desperate situations, but things were challenging. But through those five years and especially the last month, God has shown so clearly how he is our provider and he will take care of every need. A few examples.


  • We did rent out the house on and off through the last five years. One summer a local business man rented it to house some of his temporary workers. He told us the amount he was going to pay us for rent which was more than we normally asked, "just to make it worth your while." he said. That winter we learned the furnace needed to be replaced. The cost of replacing the furnace? Almost exactly the "extra" amount we had accumulated from the rent of the last six months.
  • With the closing of the house approaching, the closing agent sent us the forms we needed to sign. We need to get these forms back to him as soon as possible. One of the these forms needed to be notarized. As I bemoaned the fact that we now needed to find a notrary to Wilbert, he told me that one of our friends from church could do it. So we contacted him at work and went to his home that evening.
  • The next day I went to local UPS depot to sent the documents as quickly as possible. The clerk showed me the options I had and then confessed that all of them would leave the Island at the same time. So I could pick the more expensive option, but it would probably make very little difference in the time the package was delivered. I choose the less expensive option and our paper work made it to the closing agent in time.
  • Since we sold our house for a loss, we had to get a loan here to cover the balance we owed. Things went very easily at the bank and the loan officer even commented that it is rare that someone can come into her office and leave with a loan in the amount they were looking for.
  • And of course we had to transfer these funds to our US bank account, which meant they had to go through the exchange rate. Imagine our joy when we got the total of the final balance that we owed and found it almost exactly the amount that our loan had became in American dollars.


We are so thankful that God has so clearly provided for us. What a blessing it has been to look back and see all that he as done. God provides in all things, even the rather normal and mundane things like selling a house.
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