Our Castle built on sand

The kids and I went to Birch Bay yesterday afternoon for some beach time. The tide was out, so there was a lot of sand and tide pools to explore. The kids had a fabulous time. The breeze coming off the water made it soooooo lovely. Of course I pulled out my camera, and the film was finished, so I had to run down to a store and buy more film. The kids worked on building a sand castle, complete with moat.

Irony

When Darin got home, we ended up having a very huge discussion about our future. Darin's need to provide for our family, and for us to have our own home has been weighing heavily on him lately. Reality is for us, the only way we are going to be able to afford a home of our own is for me to go back to work. So we are looking at it being a long ways off, yet. Years. But, there is a government sponsored program. It is for people just like us. It could put us in our own home in a year or two. On our own, without a program of this nature, it is going to be 2-3 years, minimum, before we can think about buying, and then to get a home big enough for our family, we are going to be mortgaged to the eyeballs. We won't be able to help our kids go to college. We will probably still be paying a mortgage when it comes time to retire. Which means, we won't be able to help our kids when their turn comes. But, there is a downside t this program. It might mean moving out of Lynden, to one of the sponsored neighborhoods. That would mean the kids changing schools, again. We started talking about the pros and cons of this particular option.

Pros:

1. Our own home
2. This program would afford us the opportunity for me to stay home with the kids as long as needed
3. Due to the nature of the program, we would be setting ourselves up for a much much brighter financial future than what we are looking at right now.
4. In a year or two, Josh will be driving so there is a chance he'd be able to finish out his high school years in this school district, if we end up in a neighboring district
5. There is a chance (a small one, but you never know) that they would start a sponsored neighborhood within this school district
6. Our own home means we all can count on home being here, and remove the worry of the landlords deciding to sell. Josh, Lexi and I have been through that twice and we all ready know that our current landlord is planning to sell in the summer of 2007. Renting is like building your house on the sand, you never know when a wave, or a storm will come and wash it all away.

Cons:

1. The possibility of having to leave this school district
2. Part of taking part in this program is that you have to put in 30 hours a week into the construction of the sponsored neighborhood. Its a big commitment... and on average it takes approx 9 months to complete.

So there it is. Pros seem to outnumber the cons, the con #1 is a big one! This is not something we can take lightly, especially when you consider how difficult changing schools has been in the past, especially for Josh.

Signs

You see, the funny thing is, that since we moved into the house we are in, people keep telling us stories about how they got their first home against the odds. We were told of another one on the weekend, and now our friends, who participated in this program to get their first house, have been encouraging us to check it out. I dont beleive in chance and coincidence, these things have been happening for a reason. We were first forced to leave the home we loved, and brought here. If that hadn't happened, we would never even consider this program. But now, we are open. So, we will be researching and praying.

Please pray for us.