The house is complete and we have walked through the foundations, the bricks, and the roof, but there is one last aspect that I can’t ignore, and that is my God and how He covered us throughout this whole process. I am happily married now, living in the most amazing first home and I am genuinely in awe of how God took us through this last year including this home buying journey. He was there covering us from the moment we even set out on this journey and started saving, so this is a testimony of what else was happening behind the scenes the entire time.
Protection
Going back to this time last year, the end of 2019, God protected us from the most restricting factor of all – ourselves! True story, we actually went all in at the end of 2019 and made an offer on a small 70m2 duplex home (meaning it shared an internal wall). It had 2 bedrooms, no backyard, no garage, and definitely no walk in wardrobe! All of us get doubts and try to take things into our own hands, and this was a phase where Synthea and myself were struggling to see any other options of owning a new home in time for our wedding supposedly in May 2020. So we went all in and put in an offer at the asking price expecting that this was it! While going through the usual processes we got rejected by the bank because the market value of the home was too low. The valuations of this house were coming out significantly lower than the price they were selling it for, and this put us in an impossible situation. This meant the banks wouldn’t let us buy the house unless the price was low, and the seller wouldn’t sell the house unless the price was high, and here we were stuck in the middle with our hands tied! I should also mention that this house was set aside for first home buyers in our situation, meaning if you had more money then you wouldn’t be looking at this house in the first place. Which is crazy because it essentially meant that no first home buyer could purchase it even though it was set aside for first home buyers only?! Reflecting on it now, I can see that the only reason this could happen was because God was actually protecting us as He had much better plans in store!
So that caused us to end the year in confusion, but over the holidays our foundations kicked in again which gave us hope to keep pushing and exploring. We were super blessed to discuss all of this with my brother and sister in law who brought up the idea of purchasing land and then building on it. I did my research and it was undoubtedly more work, and it seemed impossible to pull it off in time for a wedding in 5 months. There were still other ways to continue pushing into the turnkey portion of the market, simply finding properties that are already built which felt like they offered 10 times more security on us not stuffing ourselves up and actually having a house in time for our wedding.
Guidance
One Saturday night Synthea and I were having our usual chat over the phone, and I got the picture in my mind of 2 water slides, one with many twists and turns that went all over the place, and another one that was super straight and quick from the top to the bottom. The crazy thing is that Synthea had got the same image, and it was quite obvious to us that the twisty slide represented the route of purchasing land and building whereas the straight slide was a quick easy solution of purchasing a finished house. The thought of something going wrong on the first option was super scary and especially the fact that it didn’t work with our timeline, we weren’t sure about tackling that alongside a wedding, so we didn’t quite decide on anything.
The next Sunday morning we had a huge argument. At the time we attended our separate family churches, but this morning things got so messy that I had to pop around to her church to sort it out. I arrived and for some reason we couldn’t resolve it before service so I stuck around and we waited through the service together. What happened next blew our minds. The pastor that was speaking for that day grabs his mic, walks up on to the platform, and begins his message by saying:
“Today I want to talk about 2 slides. One has many twists and turns and goes all over the place, and the other goes straight down and is much quicker”.
Synthea and I instantly looked at each other in shock, and we knew God had a message for us. Even though I thought the morning was a huge mess and I wasn’t meant to be in that room, it was undeniably God because what are the chances that a random idea pops in my mind the night before and the very next morning someone else explains it to the finest details!
So we listened through and the pastor explained both of these slides in detail. The main points were that for the twisty slide, on every single bend and corner it can feel scary as if you’re going to fall out, but just as those slides have extra walls that catch you, God has grace to cover and protect you in every scenario. Another key point was ‘there is a pool at the bottom’, meaning that although the journey is crazy you can be comforted knowing that there is a settling point just like that last pool that catches you.
Favor
From here both Synthea and I decided we would take the twisty slide, meaning we decided to pursue the route of buying land to build on it. From there, we started looking for land in Pukekohe. There weren’t many options at all, and if they were on the market then they were either out of our price range or on a huge slope that would’ve made building a nightmare. We eventually came across a simple 300m2 section in a newly developed area within Pukekohe. The grass was overgrown, it had a slope, and was covered in building scraps as it was the last open section amongst houses around it that were already 90% built which meant all the mess of the neighboring builders was dumped here. So from the get-go it didn’t seem very pretty, but it was the only section left in Pukekohe that could work.
We put an offer in that matched the asking price on Trade Me just before we went on our annual family camp, so we went into the no-reception zone where we camped and enjoyed family time with the excitement of what could happen next. A couple days later we made a trip out of camp to the nearest town to top up on all the essentials, and the first thing I saw when I opened my emails was that our offer was denied…. The seller now wanted another $40,000…… Our limited budget almost seemed impossible even if we got the land at the original price, so another $40,000 would mean NO HOUSE. The doubt came flooding in. Do we try to counter the offer? But this is the last section in Pukekohe, and if we lose it then we don’t know what else to do? Do we need to consider looking further out beyond Pukekohe to get cheaper land? Why not just go cheaper in Pukekohe and get less than what you wanted? There are so many thoughts and yes it is scary, but we remembered God and the comfort He gave us, so rather than looking over the edge of the water slide fearing ‘what if we fall off’, we decided to have faith and continue pushing.
We asked for the original price as that’s what was the literal price if we looked it up on trade me at the time. They dropped a little so that it was only $30,000 over original asking price, and at that we made a counter offer of $10,000 more than the original asking price (with $10,000 that we didn’t even have!). The market was quite obviously moving up and any money making property developer knows they could get another $50,000 from it if they waited a month or 2, but miraculously the owner had a change of heart and decided to accept our offer! That’s one example of a time where I felt like we lost the house and would’ve lost hope if it weren’t for a solid foundation in God. This seemed to happen over and over again to the point where within 1 week I felt like we lost the house 3 times. Suddenly our finance didn’t line up and no-one was willing to lend to us and we’re unable to settle the contract in time due to unmet conditions, or the land suddenly has an additional cost of $13,600 for water drainage requirements and we have no way of proving we can fund it, and this isn’t even mentioning all the mess before Covid-19 came into the mix. But sure enough, on every single twist and turn of the journey we put our foot down and trusted in God and He delivered exactly as promised. He would show up by giving us support through other people, or giving us creative ideas on how to shift things, and ultimately the hope that enabled us to keep on pushing against all odds because we knew that there was a conclusion at the end.
Provision
I believe God even has a sense of humor about it all. After Covid-19 hit, we had to postpone our wedding which was a huge challenge in itself because we had already been engaged for almost a year at this point. When trying to figure out what date we should shift our wedding to, Synthea got the words “10th October” from God, and when we looked into it it turned out to be the perfect date. It was perfectly aligned with our 5th year dating anniversary, it was still a Saturday, and it gave us 5 months to supposedly wait out covid restrictions. So we had our eyes set on that date throughout all the lockdown with couples all around us having small intimate weddings to just get it over and done with. Things started to make a bit more sense as to how we could live in our new house as soon as we got married, but we never guessed how perfectly things would work out. An extra $5,000 cost popped up for a slab variation since the soil in our land wasn’t stable enough for the house, or another $3,000 for the updated electrical plan, all of which was only possible with the cash we would have spent on the wedding. One day Synthea and I were sitting in a meeting with the builders going through a build update. We asked one of the main questions on our mind, which was what date they’d expect to finish the house and to our surprise they blurted out, “Completion date is set for the 10th October 2020”. What?! I’ve done enough statistics in my life to know that these things can’t just happen by chance. The new wedding date that God put on our heart happened to be our 5th year anniversary date, perfectly landing on a Saturday, all our vendors were free, we hadn’t told anyone, and now our builders pin the completion date of the new house on the exact date we’re getting married. It didn’t stop there, on the week of our wedding there was a final covid-19 announcement that dropped the 100 people gathering, allowing us to have all the guests we desired. Lastly, the move in date was the day we got back from our honeymoon, so it all worked out and God really did deliver our hearts desire which was to have a brand new house to move into once we started our lives together. I mentioned humor because it all was all not one day early or one day late, but perfectly on time!
This isn’t to say that everything was smooth and easy, there was still a lot of work and God blessed us tremendously through other people’s support. I am super grateful for my brother and sister in law who helped us from the very start to tackle the whole project. I’m grateful for everything like our parents helping shift topsoil or my little brother helping me sow grass seeds on the week of our wedding. None of this would be possible if it weren’t for our families support, so thank you all!
In conclusion, I just want to give the glory back to God for this one because he really did deliver our hearts desire. We had no money, graduate salaries, supposedly impossible market conditions, and we desired to start our life together in a brand new home in Pukekohe after we got married, and that’s the exact place I am writing this from. We tried to buy a 2 bedroom house with nothing we wanted, and ended up with a 3 bedroom house with a garage, lawn, and even a walk-in wardrobe! No matter what barrier we faced, He protected us, guided us through, provided what we needed. I pray that I never forget this story, and I hope it also blesses you in some way too!
