Chapter 9

The Lord Providing

    Meanwhile Lorraine, LaVelle and I all expected Linda to be out with the realtor. You can imagine our shock when we called to the motel and Linda was still there. What was even more irritating was that the realtor had never even shown up to take her to look at additional houses. Now I know he might have been exasperated because we hadn’t chosen a house yet, but on the other side of the coin, we had paid three times to fly to Phoenix to look for houses. His rudeness in not getting with Linda was the final straw as far as we were concerned!

    Linda was excited about my new job but as a woman, she was interested in the house - the place she would be making a home. She had expected to be looking at homes that day and was pretty disappointed that the realtor hadn’t shown up. In addition, none of us realized that the motel where we were staying was too far away from anyplace to eat. Therefore, she had had nothing to eat all day. When we finally reached the realtor his only excuse was, "I don’t have anymore houses to show you."

    One of the couples in church had utilized a realtor named Betty Moore that they were extremely happy with. We got her number, called her, and told her what had been going on. She said she had lots of homes to show us and asked, "When would you like to look at them?"

    I said, "How about this evening?"

    She laughed, but when she realized that I was serious, we got together and started looking at houses. Almost immediately we started seeing houses that we liked.

    Now this is important. We had some pretty definite ideas on what we were looking for in a home. Because of the Phoenix temperature we knew we wanted to get a pool. Because of that we would prefer a house facing north so the pool area would always be in the sun. We also would prefer a corner lot because it would afford us more privacy. I wanted a stucco house for the ease of maintenance and preferred a tile roof also because of the temperature. Not too picky,   was I?

    That night when Linda and I went to bed, Linda was upset. She couldn’t understand why nothing seemed to be falling into place with regards to the house. We talked about it and finally prayed together. We both prayed that whatever house the Lord wanted us in was okay with us. We just asked that he make his perfect will known to us.

    The next morning we got up and met Lorraine and LaVelle for breakfast. Shortly thereafter we met Betty so we could see some additional homes. We stopped at numerous new housing projects and really liked what we saw, but nothing seemed to jump right out at us.

    Now I need to explain something here. We were on a pretty tight budget and I knew we couldn’t afford anything more than about $130,000 for a home. Most everything we had seen, that we liked, was $160,000 or higher. I also wanted to put some specialized control systems into the house we wanted. This would entail putting in special wire while the house was being built.  NONE of the home builders would allow that because, until the house was finished and escrow was closed, the house would belong to the home builder. But this was a desire we had and the Lord was fixing to meet our desire.

    As we were driving to another model home display we noticed a large circus-style tent. It was in the middle of a field next to two sets of model homes. Betty indicated that she didn’t know anything about this builder (Kaufmann & Broad) or this housing track, so I suggested that we stop in since we were in the area. Now there was a lot of people at the tent and homes and I estimated their number at about 3-4 hundred. When we went into the tent I could see that they were putting away the remains of a luncheon. I talked with some of the vendors in the tent and they indicated that this home builder had this free lunch on this, their Grand Opening day. (No wonder there were so many people there, a free lunch! Just figures that I missed it). I asked one of the sales people if they had any five bedroom homes. She said, "No", so I started walking out of the tent.

    Linda walked up beside me and I said, "Well, they don’t have any 5 bedrooms, lets go."

    She said, "Honey, another lady told me they had some 5 bedroom homes in the other section."

    I said, "Well, I don’t know, but since we're here let’s go see."

    As we walked by the first of the model homes in this new section we were very attracted to it. It was a stucco home, but it had some real character. As we walked to the end of the models to the sales office, we were interested. We had been through so many homes by that time, we didn’t even stop to talk to the saleslady. I picked up a brochure and price list and started walking back to the model that had attracted our attention. Lorraine Sheppard was walking next to me and LaVelle was behind us next to Linda.

    Linda asked, "How much are the five bedrooms?"

    I answered, "$119,000."

    She said, "Right!, now how much is it with a roof?"

    I said, "Lindy, it says $119,000."

    She said, "I wonder if it has running water?"

    We walked up the front steps,    entered the front door - and we both stopped abruptly. I looked at Linda and she looked at me.

    I said, "This is it!"

    She said, "I know, now let’s go look at the rest of the house."

    It happened just that fast. We had asked the Lord to show us when we had found the right house and he had. Something about the unique staircase and front room touched a cord in both of us and we knew immediately this was to be our home. It was pretty amazing to us and we rejoiced in the fact that the Lord showed us so clearly where we were supposed to be.

    We toured the house and really liked what we saw. It couldn’t compare with our home in Idaho, but we were excited all the same. Knowing that we would only see the house for a short time we had brought a camera to help jog our memories when we went back home. We stayed about another hour touring the house, with the realtor, asking about upgrades and such.  We then went to the sales office to talk financing, lot location, etc. We already knew we could afford the house, so the biggest item was picking out a lot.

    As I mentioned about a page back, we were pretty particular about what we were looking for in a lot because that determined how the home was to be placed. Because these prices were so good the homes had been selling very quickly. Now the house plan we had picked out was a two-story floor plan. They had already gotten the building permits for this subdivision, so there were only certain lots where they could build this two-story floor plan.

    We looked at the site plans to see which of the lots had already been taken and the one which looked just perfect to us appeared to have already been sold. As we studied the plan further we realized that the lot we liked appeared to be scheduled for a different style of home. Just then the Lord put it on my heart to just ask the realtor if she could check to see if the lot was, in fact, sold, and if the building permit had been taken out on the lot.

    She checked with her boss and it just so happened; the lot we wanted had not been sold, it was mismarked and out of almost thirty lots, this particular lot was the only one which had not had the permit pulled on it so we could build whichever house plan we wanted. Talk about a miracle!. The way was now open for us to build the house we wanted, situated the way we wanted, on the lot we wanted - and the Lord was not yet finished!

    While we were waiting for the realtor to get the answers about the lot, Linda and I had been talking about the house. I asked her if she had taken any pictures of the outside and she said she hadn’t. After the realtor came back,  Linda stayed behind and wrote out the check for the earnest money deposit. I went back to the house to take some pictures of the outside and to estimate some measurements.

    At this point I need to explain the layout of these three model homes. They were all in a row with the one we wanted placed on the left-hand end. The sales office was located in the home on the right-hand end, in it’s garage. All around these homes was a low metal fence, about 4’ high so that you had to walk through the sales office before you could go in to look at the homes.

    It took me about 15-20 minutes to take the pictures I wanted and to start back to the sales office. As I came out of the house and started toward the sales office I was amazed to see a large number of people standing outside of the fence, at the far end, staring into the sales office. We’re talking, about a  hundred people standing outside looking into this office! As I walked closer I was further amazed to see Linda and a couple of the sales ladies lugging computers, copiers and such out of the sales office and sitting them on the ground!

    I hurried up to Linda and said, "What’s going on?"

    She said, "Honey, there seems to be something burning in the office and it’s starting to get pretty smoky in there."

    I ran into the office and there was indeed something smoldering in there. I looked around and it seemed to be coming from behind this big wall-mounted board. This display board had architectural views of the homes and their floor plans. There appeared to be marquee-lighting around this display and a fair amount of smoke was coming up from behind it.

    I turned to the sales lady and asked, "Where’s the electrical panel?"

    She just stared at me so I turned and ran outside, around the house, and found the electrical panel behind a tree. (Real smart place to put something so important) I opened the panel and found, to my surprise, that the main circuit breaker was already off! I turned and started back into the office and was struck by how bizarre this scene was. There is better than a hundred people standing outside of the fence watching what was happening and no one was doing anything to help Linda, I or these sales ladies.

    I went back into the office and asked if anyone had any water. Again, this blank, almost bovine, stare. I searched around and found one of these small ½ liter water bottles, grabbed it and ran over to the board. There was a small shelf in front of the board so I climbed up and raised my arm to pour the water behind this shelf . . . . . and the Lord spoke to my heart again - " check the electricity". I turned and asked the sales lady to turn on the lights. Again, no response. I got down off of the ledge and went over to the light switch. I turned it on and the light came on! How could this be? I had already checked the main electrical panel. I went back and again looked inside and the main circuit breaker was indeed off. I then turned off all of the subfeed breakers in the panel and went back into the sales office. Now the lights were off.

    The smoke was getting pretty bad and I was coughing quite a bit. About this time a man from the builders shows up, with a tiny fire extinguisher, and I said, "We need to get this [board] off of the wall so we can see what we’re dealing with."

    He agreed, we grabbed the bottom and pulled it away from the wall. He asked if I could hold the bottom of the board away from the wall and I said I could. He looked underneath and squirted the fire extinguisher at something behind the board. After he finished I said, "Let’s get this thing off of the wall and out of here."

    We both grabbed it again, yanked it down and, because it was so heavy, we duck-walked it out in front of the house. All this time there was better than a hundred people watching all of this action and no one offered to help.

    About this time the fire department arrived, as did a vice-president from Kaufmann & Broad, the builder. The fire department tried to shoo everyone out of the way so they could confirm that the fire was completely out. With all of the people around it looked like a Keystone Cops movie, but they finally succeeded. The vice-president came over to me and said, "I understand that I have you to thank for keeping this house from burning down."

    I said, "That's okay, but there is something important I need to talk to you about."

    He said, "Okay, give me a couple of minutes to get things straightened out around here and we’ll talk."

    Anyway, the vice-president came over and thanked me again for saving their model home. I told him he still had a serious problem with the house, the electrical panel. He didn’t understand so I took him over to the panel and, with the help of a convenient screwdriver, took the cover off to show him that the incoming power wasn’t going through the main circuit breaker like it should have been. Then it was he who started gushing his thanks.

    I again said, "You’re welcome" and added, "I needed to protect my investment."

    He got this puzzled look on his face and said, "What do you mean?"

    I explained that, "My wife and I just put a down payment on one of your homes and I don’t want anyone to think you build them to burn."

    He laughed and said, "Well, let me see if I can’t do something on the price."

    The thought struck me and I said, "Rather than that, why don’t you let me do some of the secondary wiring in the house while it’s being built?"

    He said, "We normally don’t let people do that kind of thing."

    And I said, "Normally your customers don’t have to keep your models from burning down."

    He grinned, shook hands with me and said, "Okay, you can do the wiring." and that’s how the Lord answered our prayers so that we could put into the house the things we wanted.

    Knowing Linda and I, it is pretty interesting to look back on the purchase of this house. If we hadn’t been shown so clearly that this is where the Lord wanted us to be, I’m not sure we would have bought the house. We thought we would be pretty cramped in it. The kitchen was pretty small, compared to what Linda was used to, and there wasn’t enough cupboard space. The laundry room was tiny and I didn’t know where I would put all of my tools in the garage, but it didn’t matter. We knew that we were in the will of the Lord and that made everything else inconsequential.