This is a testimony to all of you, of the great and generous Father in Heaven we serve!
As many of you know, Rory and I and our family are currently under contract for a house right near Long view Lake. I wanted to tell you the story to testify to God's lavish love for us, how He hears our desires and sets in motion to answer when our motives are to glorify Him. Its a long testimony but worth it!
I had to fly back to KC because we were closing on one property and finishing another for our company Upper Room Properties. We also had another property that I had put a bid on so I wanted to go back and see the inside of that duplex. While home, like I always do, I drove by all of our rentals to do a check on them and make sure that everything was OK. I was finishing the last one on Sunday when I was leaving the Holy Spirit spoke to me to go for a drive down a specific road. So knowing that voice, I simply obeyed wondering where God was going to take me. The Holy Spirit said to me go down this road because I have a gift for you. I drove down the road and thinking and feeling I had gone to far I thought briefly I must be going nuts! Then the Holy Spirit said, turn around you missed it! (I am not kidding this is for real!) So I turned around on this road and went about 1/2 mile down the road. That is when I looked to my left and saw a for sale sign right off the road and up on the hill I could make out the outline of a house that I have never ever seen before even though I had literally driven down this road hundreds of times before.
That morning it had snowed in MO so I needed to park along the road with my flashers on. I got out of my truck, walked up the driveway and was overcome with a peace and joy that only God could give me. The Lord spoke to me and said, "Timothy, if you so desire this house from me then you would be able to purchase this house for $225,000 It is your choice and is an option." Kind of weird right? So I walked around the house and it was oozing with so much charm, character and love I could feel it so tangibly. I started to get really excited and really happy! I felt so deeply that this place was in the past a place of refuge, of love, of family, of nurturing children. Many memories were no doubt made in this home. I stayed there for about 20 minutes and then went back to my truck. I called my wife, Rory Aughinbaugh, and told her how this all went down! Like my wife usually does, she listened and said I trust you to lead this family. I quickly made arrangements to see the house the next morning before flying out to go meet up with my family again in Georgia. I saw the house the next day and fell deeply in love with it. It sits up on a hill (I have since learned its the second highest elevation of Jackson County), come with a little over 6 acres, back up to 600 acres of park land on the south and east corners and is surrounded by a horse facility on the west. The house has 4 beds, 4 baths and just enough space for our family.
I flew home encouraged that we were going to make an offer but we needed to discuss it as a family first. I made it home that night and we discussed the house. I talked at length with the family about it and what we could do in that home with the house and the land and how we can be a benefit to the community there using these two tools to help. They were completely in!
We submitted an offer that was higher than what we wanted to do and also higher than what God had told me. I resisted to trust the Lord and just felt I should "pay up" for the home. This was the disobedience part! I repented to God then my wife and said if you truly desire to bless us with this home than I will not take the Glory from you and when we do receive it then the children will know that you are God, that you care deeply for us and you hear our desires. We prayed for several days as a family about the home and Rory was in the middle of a 10 day fast as well. After a few days we learned they took our offer after rebuffing another cash offer.
We were so excited as a family we packed up our van (from GA) and left and drove through the night to get to Kansas City. We arrived the next day and had 6 inspectors at the house crawling all over so that I could get a good assessment of what I needed to do to renovate this home. We recieved a pretty dismal report, lots of things we know we would repair but some I was not counting on. Rory and I felt strongly that we should ask for a price correction so knowing that they were now 3 people interested in this home, 2 that were serious I really did not think this would end well. After much prayer, we put in a revised offer, much lower than our original offer. I also submitted with it a letter from our family saying how much we loved the home, how we would care for it, how we would use it for others benefit, how we wished to preserve and use it for the Kingdom of God. The mother who owned the house then against her sons wishes, decided to sell us the home and as she put it, "she wanted that nice family to bring the house back to life!"
Here is what we plan on doing in this home:
1. Rory and I are going to sign up for Safe Families with the Orphan Justice Center. We will be a safe place for children to come in and be loved on and this family will house all these kids we have yet to know! Eventually we will adopt some siblings and enlarge our family.
2. We will have a small farm with chickens, cows and maybe a few horses that will serve the community with food. Part of this will also be a 2 acre garden where we will give the community around us free veggies!
3. We are going to start a marriage ministry where we will guide, counsel and encourage young newly married couples into what God wants and has designed for them in marriage. We will fill a critical gap in the lives of newlyweds and offer the wisdom God has given us over the years to help them move closer to one another in their union of marriage.
4. We will use the home for small group meetings, to pray for people and to show them the love of the Father. Rory and I will most likely counsel doing this through Men's and Women's groups.
5. We will set up self sufficient practices such as water conservation and reuse, independence from the electrical grid, and living off the land.
Below is a link to the house. Obviously the house oozes with character and charm. We will be renovating it when our trip ends but we will be keeping much of the charm in the house. All the original doors, knobs, floors, and such will be kept intact.
Thank you for praying for us and with us through this process. We are very grateful to call you our friends and we look forward to the years of memories to come in this home.
http://www.kansascityhomes.com/Kansas-City/9109-Highgrove-Rd-Kansas-City-MO_64149/1860267.aspx
While we were here, we took the opportunity to visit Big Cyprus National Park in the Everglades. We saw this on the drive up from the Keys and it looked pretty cool so we took a short drive and visited yesterday. We had the opportunity to see alligators, herrings, cool mangrove trees, Cyprus trees and other wildlife. Below is some pictures of the kids at the welcome center. As always, we tried to teach them the best we could about the habitat and the animals living here. We also tried to teach them about the Indians that lived here and how they survived on the land. 
On the way home we stopped at the Big Bend state park and took a little walk into the everglades. They have a trail there that goes a few miles into the actual Everglades that you can walk through. They really were not into that but we had fun none the less, telling jokes and looking for lizards!
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