Boy oh boy what a ride!

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would break the silence. It's been a roller-coaster ride the past two weeks, but now that it's over I feel like I can address everything that went down. The last day I posted I hinted at some of the issues associated with the loan that had come up. They were all annoying but not insurmountable. It usually involved me having to fax over some piece of information to verify this or that. But on Monday the 19th a bomb got dropped on us. The bank told us they could not give us a loan for the house. This happened 5 days before we were supposed to close, and on the actual loan commitment deadline. We were devastated. By the end of the day we had a single long-shot to go on, but were not going to be able to make the commitment deadline, meaning our earnest money ($2500) would have been lost if we could not buy the house. We were assured that by Tuesday we would have an answer yes or no. Needless to say having this all happen well after it should have (all the problems we were having were immigration related and should have been caught during the pre-approval stage) got Melissa all riled up and she started kicking butt and taking names. By the end of Tuesday the answer was no, but another option had become a possibility. Our original loan could not happen but the bank was willing to try to push through a different loan (which ordinarily would have required a 25% down payment for non-permanent residents) with our 5%. But we would have to wait until Wednesday. Finally Wednesday came and we got the new loan. Being completely jaded by the whole process, I was not willing to count on anything anything until the keys were in my hands. That happened yesterday. So now having lost our hopes and dreams, worked through anger and depression, lived with cautious optimism, and moved-out, closed and moved-in in a single day, we can proudly say that through it all we survived an are now homeowners.


Looking back at it now I can see the hand of God moving in all of it. God saved this house for us, it was on the market for months before we saw it at a higher asking price. God got the loan for us, if the immigration issue had been caught at the beginning of the process we could not have got a loan at all and would not have been able to even look at houses. Because the bank messed it up they were willing to go out on a limb to get us the loan we got. I have learned a lot about the way God works through the past few months. He gives us blessings and miracles everyday, but never hands them to us on a silver platter. Like a good Father He wants us to learn and grow from every experience. This means that He will always have his will done in the end, even if we have to do some of the legwork. Would we have got the loan without Melissa's complaints? Would I have got this job if I had applied for it right away? Would I have been able to take this job on our current visa if I didn't know what I've learned about immigration through our time here? Probably not. All of these issues we've had have been God's design. It's easy to forget about your faith when everything goes your way, it's only in the hard times that we really remember who is in charge. Needless to say I will be asking my saviour to bless our house tonight with a dram of Ardbeg; one of God's gifts for another.