This Time Last Year 2

This time last year we were actually staying in a house, relieved from small expensive apartment accommodation for two weeks.

We were house-sitting for a couple who were visiting Russia in order to help build a kitchen and follow God's lead to share their lives with the people over there.  In being a blessing to those people, they were also truly blessing us.  At a time when we were very stressed about the cost of accommodation in Canberra, before we had even left Adelaide, we were offered this house to sit for a couple of weeks.  We saw it as a gift in a financially challenging time. Yet this contact has proved to be pertinent throughout the year.  You see, at just the right time, the owner of this home would pop in to see us or he would make a phone call to see how things were going for us.  He would speak words God had laid on his heart and we knew they were meant for us.  In hindsight it is very easy to see how our journey was known by God before it commenced.  In hindsight it is very clear that we were held in the palm of God's hands right from the very start.

This time last year we had actually found a house we believed we could call our home.  We had travelled the various areas of Canberra searching houses with a budget in mind.  This house was seemingly the best house for the price.  Later it would become clear there was a reason for this.  It was a new house, almost complete.  We put an offer on it which was quickly accepted.

A year ago yesterday I made an inspection with my unenthusiastic girls and three-month old baby in tow and noticed that a fence was being erected, and not quite in accordance with the way the real estate agent had told us it would be built.  It was much shorter, not fencing off the outdoor living area, making a very tiny yard space.  In hindsight perhaps we should have tossed it all in at this point.  However we had no reason not to believe that we could extend the fence ourselves, placing a fence in the position we chose, to create more yard and some privacy for our outdoor living.

This fence would prove to be both our nemesis and our escape route in weeks and months to come.