yesterday we heard ghost sounds coming from the kids room down the hall…”oooooooooh, oooooooh”. It turns out that Tallie didn’t want Karina in the room and knew she wasn’t allowed to kick her out right then, so she resorted to attempting to scare her out with Ghost sounds and turning the lights out (it was still daytime though). It didn’t work but we had a little talk about manipulation. the attitude can’t be allowed but the circumstances can sure be funny sometimes.
It seems to be a time of God’s favor for us in this season of transition. In the midst of a lot of pressure between work and managing all the loose ends for this immigration interview, God keeps showing up in the details…
What a whirlwind. started house showings Monday, October 26
ended showings Nov 2 (Monday)
1 week and 15 showings
Joyce came for her birthday the same week (Wednesday) and was here for the offer we received.
460 was their offer. we countered from 479.8 down to 473. they countered 465 and it appeared they weren’t wanting to go any higher but were coaxed into going another thousand. final offer 466. It all felt so impersonal and cold trying to guess why they weren’t really prepared to negotiate much on price. I asked Rob two things: to indicate what they were prepared to offer to bridge the gap to our preferred lowest price of 470 and also if i could get the buyers number to call them and hear their story…make things a bit more personal and see if that changed things for us. Rob offered to pitch in 2,000 and got me their phone number and said they were completely willing to talk to us. I thought Rob’s offer was weak and later told him that was the one element that disappointed me. I didn’t want him to feel backed into a corner and wanted him to feel he had a choice so i told him we would go ahead with the deal regardless but i felt he had an opportunity here to be generous and still come out ahead in the deal. He explained that the number he had suggested came from the fact that his partner didn’t think they should contribute any of the commission but he understood my point and decided right there to double their contribution and bridge the gap. I’m happy for his sake that he chose well there and didn’t give that ground over to greed. it really was an awkward and vulnerable process to have him representing both the buyer and seller (dual agent) when what we were paying him for was to advise us through this process.
i got to talk to Misty. she told me how she had trained at Hillsongs in Australia where she had met her husband. He was quite a bit younger than her, they were starting out, 2 years married, their first home. They had seen a lot of homes, some were a little more updated than ours even and logically seemed to check out but they both agreed it didn’t feel right and they didn’t have a peace about the places. she said when they walked into ours it just felt peaceful to them and they agreed it felt like they could feel at home there. How awesome is that? I told her we worship God in our home with our kids and have been praying that God would bring the people he wanted to be here. She was excited to learn we love God too.
Today was the house inspection, went over 3 hours and we came home while they were still here. we ended up hanging around a little and chatting and would like to get together with them again. They haven’t yet told us if they have any concerns that affect their offer but we’ll find out soon.
Also, when we came home i went to the mailbox first before going inside and found two letters from Montreal for my immigration process. We now have an appointment date of December 21. it’s crazy how this is all coming together so fast…our heads are spinning. It’s all slow for so long and looks like the trail is going nowhere and then boom, you’re on the accelerated circus ride. I half expected this would happen, but it sure has my adrenaline firing.
After 1 week of being on the market and 15 showings we have an offer and have all signed the papers (yesterday). Misty and Sean Baylis are the young couple that are buying…another story of God’s goodness and provision in process.
Tucking her in at night the other day Tallie asks if I ever take off my ring. I tell her that i always keep it on except if i’m showing it to someone because it’s very precious to me and i don’t want to lose it…it reminds me of when i got married to Kendra. She thinks about it a minute and then says, “I know why, because if you didn’t have it on then everyone would want to marry you.” Now of course I understood that she was commenting on the fact that it shows people that i’m taken, but the way she put it felt like a nice little ego boost and made my laugh feel a little richer and more spontaneous as it erupted.
at the dinner table we were referencing something about La Rocha where we visited with the kids a few weeks ago, something about the beans we were sorting and how they were dried. Tallie says, again offhanded,”oh, you mean that place where we were helping the world?”
It sounded rather grand put in those terms and i thought to myself, “why not put it in those terms?” that sounds a whole lot more purposeful and connects you to a bigger purpose than just sorting a few beans. We really didn’t know who the beans were going to anyway and didn’t accomplish a lot of actual work, but God sees the heart of his children engaging to serve others and He sees the ripple effects that can indeed affect the world. The next time i do something that seems rather simple and unglamorous i’ll try to remember that i am “serving the world.”
“But, let us not settle for merely surviving, just pulling in enough to satisfy the bill collectors. Expect more. Look beyond “breaking even” to that “abundance for every good deed”. With increased expectations comes increased capacity. We have been made with more capacity than we realize, but low expectations keep us from discovering it. Remember, we are partnering with the Maker of the universe. Let’s not allow bills and employers to define our destiny!”
A friend of mine (Mark Turner) wrote this in a newsletter that i thought appropriate for our current situation of looking towards a future. For me it’s the tenuous position of reaching for hopes and allowing myself to dream without letting those dreams become too defined by circumstances lining up a certain way. Unmet expectations can be too painful and yet resisting hope and suppressing dreams leads to depression.
So the key seems to be to hope large and believe for great things while “trusting” God to affect the outcome any way He sees fit. Our hope must be grounded in a good and faithful father which allows us to retain our big hopes even when the circumstances take a reversal. It is a stubborn hope that still believes that “even though the last 5 years have been the opposite of what I thought I was signing up for, God is going to do something incredible here and i’ll get to be a part of it.”
Kendra and I are inside having another one of our heavyhearted discussions about feeling disconnected from our pasts and Kendra feeling losses of much that was important to her in her past and i here Tallie saying this, somewhat randomly, to Caleb outside on our deck. The timing of some of her phrases is uncanny and i don’t think she even knows what she’s saying sometimes.
My 10th anniversary with Kendra is truly an occasion to celebrate the kindness of God. His gift of Kendra in my life has been a sort of breakthrough kindness in the sense that it has surpassed all others in demonstrating the heart of God for me, the depths of His love beyond all doubt. I could never have contrived a better match and if I had it would have been far too predictable and quickly lose all sense of discovery and mystery. Through Kendra God has brought a deeper settledness about who I am which is rooted in the belief that God delights in me…even when i’m not living up to my potential or demonstrating His love very well. It continues to capture the seat of my affections and keep alive a passion to serve my King. This is something increasingly difficult to maintain it seems, even among believers. So many currents push the other way and seem to carry many that we love downstream. We hold on to the belief that God will be faithful in their lives even as we thank Him for his faithfulness in ours.
note from Joyce today:
It has been such a joy watching you grow in your love for each other – a love which will always give your children strength and security.
You no longer have time to sit and gaze at the changing beauty of God’s creation but I hope you find a few moments to gaze into each other’s eyes and admire the wonderful person God gave you to be your mate.
Love you,
Momma
This is an article copied from this link: http://www.opusframing.com/opinion/tough-times-arts-bc
I found it quite insightful about our society and balanced in it’s value statements…
The current arts funding crisis in BC has reignited embers of debate that have been recurring as long as our forest fires. I recently attended a closed-door rally for artists and arts administrators held at the Museum of Vancouver to strategize an industry response to the government’s recent draconian cuts to arts funding in BC.
I was in a room with a whole bunch of people facing a future without revenue they were certain was theirs, furious with a government also facing a future without revenue they were certain was theirs. Ironic, eh?
I see no value at all in anger. If we get angry and try to communicate, the people with whom we are trying to communicate will respond to how we are speaking, not to what we are saying. If we want to be heard and understood, we have to communicate calmly and with all the cleverness and relevant information we can muster.
So I am not angry with our government. The government is us; we put them there. The trouble is, we artists are part of a larger we – the people of BC. And we artists justifiably feel that the people of BC do not value the arts enough. We see our collective lack of respect for the arts in BC in the priorities of our educational and political agendas and budgets.
And now, as the shock waves of the global financial meltdown ripple through our society, we find ourselves in an urgent and critical situation. Hard decisions have to be made now by every economic ecosystem: individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, cities, provinces and our nation. No one is exempt.
When hard decisions have to be made, it takes time to make them fair, and when a crisis takes hold of the whole world, there is not time for wisdom, and a lot of decisions are made in panic. And in times of crisis, sadly, it is often the loudest or most aggressive (or corrupt) of us who win, not the most deserving.
When times were good, I learned a lot about the arts working at the Arts Club Theatre. At the time, under the inspired and visionary leadership of Bill Millerd, both the man and the institution seemed pathologically averse to debt. Most, if not all, of our peer organizations, however, seemed not to be. They routinely amassed debt and were bailed out by government.
I loathed this public policy of rewarding fiscal malfeasance while punishing responsible arts administration, but now that very policy is being applied to the banking and automobile industries worldwide. I abhor this policy, yet it is deemed wise by many experts; so suddenly, a lot of long-held social covenants seem to be being turned upside down.
We seem to be suddenly surrounded by paradoxes. What has long been deemed wrong is suddenly right. There are contradictions everywhere. Frankly, I find the current times frightening and not only because of the financial crisis.
Besides the financial meltdown, I am seeing a social meltdown. Manners are virtually gone. The concept of what is polite has disintegrated. I see elderly disabled people forced to stand on buses while young and able bodies people sit. And I hear hate and anger constantly spewing from the media.
Worse, I see an emerging population of people robbed of their futures. Instead of degrees, they get debt, a lost hope of owning property, impossible odds for the establishment of a life-long career and the probability of divorce. Where and how, exactly, do we foster a love and respect for the arts in the next generations?
And how do we expect government arts subsidy policy to change, exactly, in the face of the current financial and social problems? As I said, wise decisions take time. Our current government is in panic.
The arts community of BC has to think about what we want in the way of arts funding policies and express it, not just vent our anger. And we have to face that things are going to change. They have to. And government has to think about what is best for us – not about what’s best for their party and the retention of power. Stephen Harper learned the hard way from the people of Quebec that cutting arts funding was not acceptable. He heard from everyone, not just artists. Gordon Campbell must hear from the people of BC that we value the arts. But we must also communicate wise and practical direction.
We must fight to restore a higher level of funding for the arts in BC: the cuts have been far too severe, too sudden and too many. But we must also make practical and difficult decisions about changing past practices. Artists and arts organizations are going to have to adapt the same way that all families and enterprises are.
More than ever, the things we make and do will have to consider the market. Our audiences and customers are going to have to support us more, and we are going to have to figure out how to make that happen. The coming HST, the decimation of corporate largesse and these government funding cuts mean more than ever that it will be individuals who will have to support the arts.
Tough times are ahead. We are the solution the arts need – all of us; each one of us, every day. We must buy as much of our entertainment as possible locally, just as we move to do our food shopping locally. Turn off your TVs, get out of the movie theatres and get involved with our concert halls and galleries and get as many people as you can to do the same.
