I bought a house

I used to joke that one day I would retire from my overseas work and come back to the U.S. to live under an underpass. But I really wanted a house instead. I'm picky like that. And since my salary has not increased in twenty years, while everyone else's in America has, I wondered if I would be able to even afford a house if the current housing cost trends continued upwards between now and my retirement So I prayed and asked God what I should do.

I know some people who live overseas buy a house in America and rent it out while they are overseas. But I was never home long enough to work on buying a house (I usually only stay in the U.S. for two months at a time). But since I have medical issues, I am home much longer this time around. 

I looked at houses in the neighborhoods I liked, and they cost too much. My tastes always seem to be higher than my pocketbook can handle. 

But THEN, a house in a good neighborhood came up for sale. I knew the people moving out. They had to make a quick exit for personal reasons, and the house needed a lot of fixing up since many maintenance issues had been neglected for many years. So they were selling it for cheap. I found out about it before it was made public, and the neighbors wanted to give me the first shot at getting the house. Without their generosity, I wouldn't have succeeded in buying the house. Others could have bid more and were waiting to do so.

So I bought it.

And it is next door to my parents' house. :-) 

Doing the needed repairs myself (with the help of family and friends) means I could make it work. I got it back during the spring. I did a few weeks of repairs while recuperating from chemo, then I had surgery and radiation which put house repairs on the back burner. But I moved into the one bedroom that was move-in ready, and Mimi and I live in the house already.

Some may wonder why a cancer patient would invest in a house since life is so uncertain. But life is uncertain for all of us, and we still buy and sell and carry on with our lives. No one knows if they will wake up the morning after they sign their housing paperwork. Romans 8:28 is at work in my life. The year in America has some good purposes for my life.