Update

After the initial joy and excitement about finding our dream home, our momentum has slowed a bit due to a sludge of paperwork and details...all part of the process, I suppose . We've submitted all the necessary paperwork for our financing, but we're at a standstill until we can get our condo rented. The rental ad will run in the paper tomorrow (Saturday). The condo has been a great first home for our family, we are praying it could be so to another.

We are taking some big steps of faith financially and with our business. Here are some of the things we've been on our knees about:

• Finding renters for our condo.
• Securing work for SchuylerBuilt through the winter, despite the freeze in the housing market.
• Trusting God, our sole provider, even when the numbers don't add up, the facts don't look good, and the world around us is in a panic. He is not limited by any of these things. John 16:33 says, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
• Asking God to perform a miracle by bringing to us a customer to buy/build on the lot we own. Isaiah 41:18-20 says,
  
  
I will make rivers flow on barren heights,
and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water,
and the parched ground into springs.

I will put in the desert
the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive.
I will set pines in the wasteland,
the fir and the cypress together,

so that people may see and know,
may consider and understand,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
that the Holy One of Israel has created it.

He performed miracles, produced impossible (by human means) results, so that His people would see and know that it was by the hand of God these things occurred - not by fate, nor luck, nor hard work, not by anything the people did. In this market, in this economy, it would be a miracle to be building a pre-sold home on our lot...I love praying for a miracle.

I have been using the following prayer, from the Book of Common Prayer, during my quiet time:

O most loving Father, who wills us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our cares on thee, who cares for us; Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of love which is immortal, and which you have manifested unto us in your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Heavenly Father, you understand all your children; through your gift of faith we bring our perplexities to the light of your wisdom, and receive the blessed encouragement of your sympathy, and a clearer knowledge of your will. Glory be to you for all your gracious gifts. Amen.

I look forward, in hope, in faith, in humility, to seeing these prayers answered. There is no god like our God.

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The guest home Matt has been working on since February is now complete. The SchuylerBuilt website has been updated with pictures of the entire project. You'll want to check it out. We are submitting the project to our local builder's association as an entry for the 2009 Parade of Homes. I really am so proud of my man...he builds an amazing home and I hope to live in one someday.

My little Smigg-a-doo in all his preciousness.