Ok more work done on the house!!!!! We went by after school and the north wall is up! This wall is for Selah's room and the living room I took the first picture from the carport looking in towards the house. The door will be the door to the living room
Shad man on a pile of dirt in the back yard. That was his fav place
the view from the back porch!
Here you can see the slab of the house, the north wall then the carport and the storage room is already up
I'm standing in my room!!!! I love the view:)
Shad standing in his room
Looking from our room
the back porch! Love the view!!!
Remember if you want to help out contact me
theclanton5@aol.com and I'll put you in contact with the contractor/scheduler.
Also if you'd like to give to the construction cost of the house.....it would be a blessing!
As I was recently going through paperwork, I found a list of needs I had written down last year. I spelled out what we needed/wanted in a home. Some of the things I wrote down, like a front and back porch were just dreams that I could not believe would happen, in fact I thought I was being way too extravagant in listing them! No one saw that list, but I guess God did! Everything, even to the storage room is being built for our family. It is mind blowing!!!
Please don't get mad at what I wrote if you are struggling in some area with a need. Sometimes I've heard others share what God was doing for them at a particular time and wondered where my blessing was! I can remember back in bible college, I was working at times THREE jobs and friends would share how they went to their mailbox and pulled out a check to pay off their college bill. OH that would make me MAD & envious, to be quite honest!!! But I was not walking their journey. Some would goon to go through some deep waters and hard times later in life, maybe God was using those checks & blessings as something that person could look back on and remember how God had come through for them in the past.
Now being the recipient of some much is humbling. I'd rather be giving to someone else than to be in need, above what we can personally do for our family. But I am grateful , very grateful and I look at it all as coming from God's hands through others. It makes me want to do more for others.
Now if you are wondering, we will have a mortgage, quite a large one due to the size of the house. But it will be lower than anything we could have ever tried to do as so much is work done by volunteers-that are not paid. Some materials are donated so that is a big help also. Those are things we do not have to pay back. The wonderful thing about the mortgage is it is interest free which will save us thousands of dollars over the next 30 years. We personally could not afford to have a handicapped accessible house built. We had looked at some homes and everything we could afford was no bigger than the home we have now and not handicapped accessible either. So we look at this Habitat Home as a blessing in many different ways.
If you are struggling with your finances, all I can tell you is to live open handedly. What I mean by that is, let things go, be generous to others and don't focus on your finances or what you do not have. There have been times when we didn't have enough money to even pay a full bill, but we still tithed- we gave money to the work of the Lord. And somehow GOD would bless us.
Y'all know I'm not some prosperity preacher but I believe in giving to good works, to things that honor God and I believe the by product will be you are blessed. I don't give to get....I LOVE to give. Recently I just set up some automatic deductions for Orphans' care and for another ministry from our checking account and it just made me HAPPY to do it! I'm excited about giving to ministries and humanitarian efforts that help others even while others are helping us. I think that is how we should be. I might not be able to give as much as some can, but I can give something.
I've learned a lot about giving over the years. The most important thing I've learned is to be open handed and not to grasp onto things or money too tightly. We can't take anything with us when we leave this world so let's do good while we can!
Materialism is dangerous to our souls. Even with this new home, I want to remember that OUR home is wherever we are all together...whether it is a big new comfy house OR a small Ronald McDonald House room. Daily I cultivate a thankful heart, reminding myself of the blessings I have. That keeps my heart content and not seeking for more & more..... KNOWING that I have more than many in this world. I have a roof over my head, a clean bed, running water, electricity even air conditioning & heat! I am blessed and probably so are you!!!! There are millions in this old world who do not have that, and I am quite aware of that sobering fact.
You may not believe it but there is a part of me that is very sad about moving out of our little parsonage. We've been there for nine years, have had many many special happy days there. We redesigned it and it was remodeled before we moved in so I got to chose the colors, the floors, cabinets. It's small but welcoming and it holds almost a decade of family memories. I've worked the yards, grown a garden, planted trees, grapevines, pineapple plants, orange, lemon and tangerine trees..... A honeysuckle bush that is tremendous and a huge jasmine vine. Yes, I'll be able to plant things when we move, but it takes awhile to grow everything.
You see, I learned to be content where God had me. Even when I worried about the future and how we could continue to take care of Selah, I was content in the moment and I knew somehow God would provide. And He has.....
