AND WE HAVE A HOUSE!

Well, I returned to Guatemala last Thursday and have hit the ground running.  While I was gone my friend Mari found a house about a block away from us which she thought would work for our group home .  She is friends with the lady who owns it, who unfortunately is going through an ugly divorce and needs to rent it to pay her own rent.  (Please pray for Sylvia and her 3 children;  her husband has gotten very violent and she is in constant fear for the safety of her youngest child (only one year old) who he has tried to kidnap twice.)

Kitchen with lots of cabinets

The dining room connects to the kitchen, with plenty of room for a big table and wheelchairs to get around.

I saw the house Saturday and it is more than perfect for what we need to get started.  The rent is significantly more than I am paying for my little house now, but it is under-priced by about $300 for anything comparable in Antigua, and many houses I've seen in the same price range have far less.  Sylvia knows this, and was asking more rent for it, but when she heard I was interested lowered the rent to only what she needed for her own family, because she wants to help out our ministry here.  This is an amazing blessing.  (Some of the houses I had looked at previously did not want us to use it for a group home, or did not want to rent to me because I was an evangelical missionary.)




Actually, saying the house is more than what we need is an understatement. When I thought about a house, I would sometimes think, "Oh, it would be great if the house we found had a ______________." Well, this house has everything I ever filled in the blank: a cistern, a hot water heater, adequate and accessible bathrooms, and four to five bedrooms all on one floor. It even has a bathtub (which wasn't on my list since I have only seen these in hotels in Guatemala!) and built in closets (which I have seldom seen here). This house being available to us is nothing short of a miracle, but I continue to ask your prayers as we move forward. We take possession of the house November 1.




A wall full of closets in each of the bedrooms, and a modern bathroom with a tub and hot water.  Incredible!






I had no intention when I returned from the States to move this rapidly, but had thought I would look for a house at a leisurely pace and wait for God to show me one which would serve.  Instead, within hours of arriving in Guatemala, He literally dropped a perfect house into my lap.  I don’t know why, but I still get surprised when God answers my prayers so perfectly.  Maybe I’m learning to pray “in His name and in His will.”

Please pray for us as we take the next steps to officially open Casa de Esperanza (Hope House). Pray for the residents God will bring to the house, and the staff He will provide.  This is moving so much faster than I had planned, and it's a little overwhelming to think about all the changes happening so fast.  I am a little short of breath from how fast He seems to have moved, but am excited to go along for the ride with Him.
We are one step further ahead on the journey,