…and we are nestled into our new Winter Ark. This is the view from our bedroom / office balcony on the lower floor, and there are several more photos at the end of this post.
The saga of our house-finding-quest is long and winding and carries with it hints of the coming oppression as well as testimonies of our King’s loving provision in the midst of it. Some of you reading this might already know bits and pieces of this tale, and unfortunately all I can capture here is more bits and pieces that will largely overlap but also hopefully be new to many and additional for some.
Shopping for rental living space with a large family produces a fascinating exposé on the state of our society and culture and its unfortunate trajectory if left unchecked, which by all present indicators it will be. Even in this relatively rural, community-oriented area of Pennsylvania steeped in a history and active presence of Amish and Mennonites, it was incredibly hard to find a place. It wasn’t for the lack of available homes – there were plenty of options. But when owners or agents discovered how many of us would be occupying their place, reactions ranged from polite disinterest based on our numbers to completely ignoring our requests for information. Our personal experience is one thing – we appreciate that potential landlords have no idea who we are and what our values are and we do not begrudge their reluctance to have a large family with many children in their place, especially when there’s a hard logistical limitation like size of the septic system, etc. And many of them were very nice and apologetic that they could’t accommodate us. However, it was all the incidental conversations and observations our quest generated that painted a more sinister picture. Stories of neighbors turning in neighbors for occupancy “violations” and families getting kicked out of their rental (like a family with 3 children displaced from a 2-bedroom apartment). Owners / agents with 3-bedroom homes unwilling to rent to us for fear of locality inspections. Naturally, we don’t have all the details surrounding all the stories we heard, but they are generally consistent with a large scale trend towards governmental and bureaucratically driven self-centeredness that assaults common sense.
Actually, it wouldn’t stand out so sharply if it wasn’t for the stark, dwindling contrast that still exists: others willing to rent us a furnished and nicely painted / decorated 2-bedroom unit, knowing that we’d figure out how to make the space work for us and that was our problem not theirs. I think at the core that’s what really bothers me: more and more so, the increasing prevalence of a mentality that says people don’t know what’s best for themselves and some “authority” needs to #1 decide for them and #2 enforce / execute that decision on their behalf. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that there are all too many examples of irresponsible behavior that only strengthens that twisted justification. And on the other side, far too many people willing to publicly agree with that justification as it applies to “others” while remaining in complete ignorance that they are simultaneously committing treason against their own freedoms.
So, in this general climate we quested for a winter home over the better part of a couple months (or longer) and began to wonder if maybe we were just supposed to tough it out within the tight blessed context of the survival elements that camper life can dish out over the winter months in non-southern latitudes. And actually, the ups and downs of the search are also very much a part of this story.
It began with Renee’s foresight of our near future needs generating a lot of motivation on her part to find something, whereas my specific busy-ness and natural affinity towards hardship for the sake of answering “can we handle it?” produced a fairly weak motivation on my part to find anything. As you can imagine, this produced some tension. The early conditions of a “suitable” place were also extremely unrealistic. Business was steady, but we were still playing catch-up and getting a couple companies off the ground. Our budget was therefore small, and of course we needed something furnished, big enough, and affordable. Basically we set out looking for the impossible, and I was trusting that if we were supposed to move out of the trailer and into a home it would be a miracle home.
Over following few weeks, the miracle started to unfold, but it happened gradually and not all at once as I narrow-mindedly thought would be necessary to indicate and usher in such a significant transition in our situation. My heart started to change, and I began to think more reasonably in terms of what to expect of my family and space for winter, logistics with a new baby arrival in Jan, etc. Business kept picking up and our budget increased. Doors kept closing and taught us what was really important to us, what we really needed, and how to recognize amazing deals / situations when they arose. A storm blew through and wrecked our awning, which couldn’t be repaired locally and resulted in some unexpected insurance money that ended up being the exact amount of our first month’s rent nearly to the dollar. Renee was watching Craigslist daily and had done a majority of the calling and rejection-handling. Then, one night we were looking at the latest options together and one caught our eye. It was more than we were talking about or seriously considering and Renee might have completely passed over it, but I said we should call and check it out at least for fun.
The owner’s returned our message and we set up a time to come look at it. The day before we had looked at a much smaller place that was fully furnished and all utilities included, and we were excited about the place itself, but it was 40 minutes away from our friends and all the local resources we’ve grown to appreciate in this area. When we looked at this new place – the one that was more than we were thinking we wanted to spend – we were smitten. Everything but the price (which was incredibly reasonable considering the property) was perfect: 4 bedroom, 3 bathrooms, 9 acres in the country for the kids to roam around on, (more than) fully furnished down to linens and kitchen utensils, view of the river from the window room, very close to our friends and still in the area, kind and wonderful owners, wood fireplace for fun, room to park the trailer by the house, and the list goes on and on.
As if that wasn’t enough, and for extra confirmation, the owners were willing to come down on their price a little which matched the amount of the insurance payout that had just hit our account. And since we’ve been here we found an unexpected blessing / confirmation: a trampoline in one of the sheds – an all time favorite. I’ve asked the owner if we can set it up.
We are still settling in. There was a lot of re-organizing and additional packing to do. Like I said, the house was (more than) furnished, and we’ve been packing things away that we aren’t going to use. Thankfully there is plenty of room for the bins in the attic 🙂 It is quite cozy and we’re excited to be on the final last-month-home-stretch leading up to the birth of #7 around mid Jan. We haven’t decided if we’re going to have the baby here in the house, or go into the birthing center where our midwife has a really nice place setup there. But everything is looking really good for that: baby is head down and snug and Renee’s levels are all where they need to be for a home birth. We’re feeling very blessed and thankful.
We haven’t even been in the house for a week yet, and today we had our first real winter storm. It has been really cold and snowy all day (that picture above is from this morning). Here are some other views of the new Winter Ark from a few days ago… once we get everything a little more organized maybe I’ll get around to doing a photo tour of the rest of inside as well.
