Car Trouble, Yucky Houses, and Hurricanes...Oh My! PART 2

Car trouble overcome, we move on to yucky houses...

We were blessed to rent a house from another chaplain who has moved to Germany. When we got to Texas on Sunday, we drove by the house to check it out. Oh no! The chaplain told us the master bedroom was larger than ours was at the parsonage. This bedroom was definitely smaller! We couldn't have smaller! Our bedroom suite is way too big for smaller. And, the other three bedrooms were cracker jack boxes. The gate on the fence was hanging off its hinges. And, this was just from walking around the outside of the house. We were very nervous now and were beginning to regret signing the lease after only seeing pictures of the house. Michael and I decided we would be at the rental agency first thing in the morning. I started praying and didn't stop...

By the way, Victoria was so sick. She was coughing and sniffling and blowing her nose like crazy. I got her Nyquil...for the first time. She slept all night.

Monday morning, we left Victoria at the hotel and went to the rental agency and told them we were not pleased with the outside of the house and the discrepancy in the size of the master bedroom. We asked to see the inside. We met the locksmith with new keys at the house. Oh. My. Gosh! No way was this house going to work. The rooms had old, peeling wallpaper that looked dingy. We thought they were all painted walls. The refrigerator was moldy and mildewed on the inside. Ewwwwww! We knew it would not work for us. We went back to the rental agency and told them so. We asked if we could get out of the contract. They e-mailed the owner. We would have to wait. Until then, we looked at two more houses and found one we loved. LLLOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGGG story short.......after 54 hours of tortuous waiting, we were let out of the contract since the owner never responded to a single e-mail the rental agency sent to him. We were tickled! Now, the agency told us that they had told the owner that there were things he needed to do in order to rent the house, and he wouldn't do it. We figured that maybe God used us to show the owner what needs to be done so that the house is in condition enough to rent out. We are just grateful and give the praise to God for getting us out of the contract and into a lovely home that we can't wait to live in.

We learned a great lesson: Never sign anything sight unseen. Victoria saw the anguish it caused us and said that she would remember this lesson so she doesn't repeat it herself in her adulthood. Good girl!

And about Hurricane Ike, we got maybe 30 minutes of light rain, and that's it. It has been extremely windy, but that is all. So, we missed the hurricane.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers. We cherish those prayers. By the way, Victoria is STILL sick. But what a constitution! That child can take Nyquil and stay up ALL DAY LONG!!! I don't know how her little body can handle it. I take 1/2 a dose, and it knocks me out for two days. What's up with that? It's crazy!

Until next time, have a very blessed week!

Laura