When Balin and I made the commitment to purchasing a house in Bend, Balin was pretty trepidatious about such a large commitment as we had two other large financial commitments in Liberty Lake and in Costa Rica. As we pondered whether to pull the trigger in Bend or not, he said something interesting; “I think this is a test of my faith. In my own wisdom, this isn’t a comfortable situation. But I have this feeling that by saying yes to Bend, something will move with the other two houses.”
I’m not sure those of you reading this share the same belief in God as Balin and I do, but both Balin and I are in awe of what has happened since we’ve said yes to Bend. Hold on to your seats and I’ll tell you the story.
When I left you in the last post, we had contacted our real estate agent Kolby, started cleaning out the house and were sharing our idea with friends and neighbors. Nothing was happening, no interest and I was warming to the idea of just waiting to put it on the market in the late spring. And then we went to Costa Rica for two weeks. (And the kids went on their first solo ski trip to Canada with friends)
While in Costa Rica, we cleaned and repaired, though honestly the house was in really good shape. Our management team had been doing an excellent job taking care of the house. So Balin and I worked a little, played a little and had a lovely time of slowly saying goodbye to Costa Rica once again. A couple of the highlights from our time in CR was hanging out more with our neighbors, who are from Flagstaff. We went and listened to live music with them, showed them the gorge and even went to Liz’s for dinner and dancing where we learned the “cha cha cha”. Our other neighbors Mike and Elise were a source of playful engagements and good conversation. We also got a chance to hang out with our friends LouLou and Ryan from Steamboat, Co who just finished up building an absolutely gorgeous house near the beach. Hanging out with them reminded me of one of my favorite pastimes of meeting people on the beach, or in a bar, and end of doing some form of life with them. (We met playing in the surf a couple of years ago)
During our stay, I was reminded to text one of our long time friends who live on the south hill, to see if they wanted to any of our many flower pots. I gave her the garage code, the keys to our truck and said take what you want. They came over, took all the pots (bless them) and while there got a chance to walk around the house. In the past they had only been in the kitchen and living room and were surprised at how lovely the house was.
That night I got a text from Tim asking what we were asking for our house and what our monthly costs for the house were. I smiled, texted him back and side smiled to Balin saying, “we might have a fish on the line.”
Meanwhile in CR we had a couple who was very interested in the house but wanted to stay in the house for a couple of nights in order to see if they liked it. Apparently they had purchased a house recently in Uvita and lo and behold, it was not what they expected or wanted. We organized their stay and by mistake I surrendered the house 2 days early of our departure date. So we needed to find a place to stay before our trip back to the states. We decided to go the back way to San Jose and stay at this fantastic lodge where there is amazing birding. We loaded up the car and headed out, excited for the possibility of a house sale and night in an interesting location. As we climbed the mountains, we finally came to our turn at 10,000 ft (we obviously came from sea level) and had to make our way down to our hotel at 7000’ on a one way road with steep cliffs, Balin pulled over about 3/4 of the way down thinking that something wasn’t quite right. Turns out he was right. As he pulled over and stopped, his foot went all the way to the floorboard as he pressed the brake pedal. He pulled the emergency break, got out to look at the brakes and felt they were HOT. Yes, we lost our brakes. By the grace of God we were pulled over and stopped when it happened. We hung out for 30 minutes hoping they would cool and return, which they did, but Balin was sufficiently freaked out, especially after he ChatGPT’d what he should do about it. Not helpful when you’re in the middle of nowhere with a long ways to go to somewhere. But here I am writing about it so it all turned out ok.
All that to say Monday was the first text from Tim….and Saturday the text to Tim was…”Are we sure enough about the sale of the house that we should talk about furniture?” And a response from Steph, “I mean unless the Holy Spirit puts the breaks on I think we are pretty sure”. That was Jan 23rd. Today is the 31st and we have sold our house with a closing date of March 2, with our realtor Kolby charging us $1000 to coordinate the paperwork.
During that same week as all of that was happening, a going away party/birthday party was planned at Trailbreaker Cider in Liberty Lake, where our favorite people would come and say good bye. What a delightful party that was. Around a 100 people came to laugh, pray, hear about our upcoming adventures and enjoy good food and cider. It was really a beautiful way to see everyone and close the chapter in Liberty Lake. The best part of the night though, was when I got up to share that we had sold our house. (At this point a few people knew but nobody knew to whom.). Stephanie and Tim had been part of our small group for 5 years and had been coming to Liberty Lake from the South Hill (about a 30 min drive) every week to be with 4 other couples and we had all become very good friends over the years. As I stood up and told everyone that we had sold our house and would the new buyers please stand up - Rob stood and yelled “No Way!!” Bringing the intended spirit of celebration instead of loss. It was really beautiful.
So I spent the next hour introducing our neighbors to Tim and Steph, telling everyone the gift they would be to each other. What a gift to me.
Tuesday to Wednesday we hosted friends, met with friends and packed up the house and bought a new truck. (Our check engine light had come on and it was running kind of funny) It was a lot.
Thursday I headed with Piper to a friends house down the street, while Balin directed the movers. By noon he felt like he had packed the truck, did what he could do and came to pick me up. We said our “see ya laters” and I drove down the road.
As we got on I-90 Balin promptly fell asleep and I thought, “We did it”. We successfully have moved our lives forward in the direction we felt called to and we’re on the road. A almost overwhelming spirit of peace, calm and joy stirred in me. It’s a big deal, we have changed the direction of our days, and I’m pretty pumped about it.
Bend here we come!
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