And numbers have been coming in. We've been moving forward on this in an atypical way. We began moving toward really doing this last fall for a variety of reasons, believing that this was the direction God was telling us to walk. I have struggled a lot with not really *wanting* the addition - more to clean, losing the "cute little" house that I'd been so proud of being able to fit our growing family into, besides all the work that it will take to get it done! But realizing that this was the way we were to go, and on top of that, based on things God has been showing us and challenging us with over the last few years, this is an endeavor we would only take on if it would not require incurring any debt. Crazy, right? Who nearly doubles the size of their house without going into debt to do it? Especially a family with our income! So we basically told God that if this was what he wanted us to do that we would rely on him to make it happen because he sure couldn't count on us to pay for it!
If you remember the time line, these decisions about the house addition all happened BEFORE we knew that we qualified financially to adopt internationally. We had heard God's "GO" in April of 2012 for the adoption, but were still of the understanding that we would need a greatly increased yearly income before the US government would allow us to pursue international adoption. So there, too, we told God we would trust him to make that happen at the right time, and when it happened, we would be ready to keep going. But that hadn't happened yet - instead this was presented to us, so we began walking forward, at that point intending to break ground last fall, and even thinking in our simplistic, one-step-at-a-time way that the building project may very well be why God has postponed the adoption.
But the question of how to pay for it was still there. We didn't know how this was going to work. We talked together about potentially asking Matt's mom if she would lend us the money we needed and we would pay her back, but both of us felt that although this was different than going out and getting a mortgage from a bank, it was still contrary to what we thought we'd been hearing God directing us to financially over the last few years - namely to be in debt to no one, but to trust him to provide what we needed when we needed it, leaving us free to use the money he gives us in his service instead of in the service of a mortgage company. Still, we didn't know how else to do it, so Matt had planned to talk with his brother and mom before their big meeting with his parents' financial planners to settle things out after his dad's death so they could bring it up as a topic at the meeting.
But *somehow* he just didn't get a chance to talk about it before the meeting. And then at the meeting, found that one of the options the advisor proposed for tax reasons involved Matt's mom disclaiming one of his dad's IRAs and splitting it equally between her two sons.
Wow. Just like that, it looked like we could get a significant sum of money. Not enough to do all of the work, but enough to blow us away and more importantly, to show us that God can move big sums at his will and in his perfect timing. Enough to humble us, and say, "okay, God, we hear you. We're sorry. We're ready to trust you to do this in your way all the way."
(All of this transpired between July 8th and early October on this post.)
Not long after that we learned that assets apply toward income as far as hitting the minimum to qualify to adopt, so honoring our commitment from the last April, we began moving toward adopting K in November of 2012. We ended 2012 riding high on God's ability to provide great sums of money to do his work, but also very aware of how much we were still waiting on him.
With that as a background, we have not been nitpicking in our design of the house based on its cost. In fact, until last week we have really had no real idea how much this was going to cost! Rather we've been designing based on what we think we will need looking at the direction God seems to be moving our family. We've had a gut feeling for where it would come in, but it is only in the last two weeks that we have started getting real numbers on it. And it looks like it's going to work! And by "work" I mean that it looks like it's going to cost more than we "have" (and that's already taking into account the significant amount of money we hope to save by doing 80% of the labor ourselves) but not so much more that we feel that we've outscoped where we should be.
We are so grateful to all of you who have offered to put in time to help with various stages of the work. How exciting it will be to see what this summer (and fall, winter, and spring, most likely!) will bring.
And because pictures are fun, we had a last minute addition to the design as we looked at the large maple we cut down - the location of this tree is roughly where we have a post in the main level living around (more of a spatial post than a structural post), and Matt thought it would be really neat to put a slice off the tree into the stained concrete floor centered under the column! It's going to take a bit of futzing to get it to work, but we think we have a plan... Here is a photo of the slice that we're planning to get sanded up and finished all smooth. Owen helped drill a hole in the center of it (to be hidden under the column) which is supposed to minimize the chances of the slice cracking.
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