Night shift ramblings

So here I am, on my red eye shifts again, with a little more than a bit of time on my hands, so i am free to write a little about my week. Let me tell you (if anyone is actually reading this), denial and avoidance have served me well over the past few days.
Our hopes of buying our own house were all but quashed in the same week that Grandpa passed away. Did i mention the funeral happened to land on what would have been my brothers 20th birthday, our first without him. oh and it was held at the same memorial park his was. Needless to say i couldn't go. Should i have... yes, did i want to say a final goodbye to Grandpa, yes. Would i have curled up in a fetal position before leaving the car to go inside and stayed there for hours, possibly weeks if i tried to go back - who knows how function at times like these, but i couldn't risk it.

My mum and Dad got tattoos to mark his birthday, i probably would have too accept our pastors aren't too keen on tattoos and i am all for respecting the authority God has placed over us.
My dad got Joe(he is really not a complicated man) and my mum along with a picture she designed with various elements that are representative to her, got the words. 'i love you son, see you tomorrow'. Before you suggest i send out the suicide watch, she said that at his funeral too, i think like me, it is easier to pretend he is just being a little more anti social than usual and we are bound to see him soon than face reality.

So in this week of low points there were a few highlights too, Duncan finally got his confirmation letter for the start of his police academy training in July.

Youth group and Church are off the Richter - we have without exageration doubled in one term (youth that is) and it is all people that have never been in church before, not just collecting extra floaters from other churches,commenly referred to by my old youth pastor as 'sheep stealing' :).

The GKGW course is doing wonders with the kids, we are currently teaching grace the interupt courtesy and respect for elders. Jaeda is all but a new child since adding more structure and boundaries to her day, oh and did i mention my only just 3 year old used the word Incredible in a sentence, in context this week. Last week it was 'enourmous'.

We have the morning tea tomorrow at the Barnardos Mother of the year Awards. I nominated Carly back in January and she has made top 3 in the state. We find out tomorow if we fly to Sydney for the nationals.

Check out this online mag if you havn't already. It has heaps of sweet christian content, blog directory and they support heaps of charities and ministries with free add space. It had over 1 million hits on its last issue, if you weren't one of 'em you must check it out. if you were i know will be keen to check out the new issue. Oh and one of my photo's of esperance is in there :)

Missed the boat again

Before i start, yes this is only about a buying a house, and i know us and our kids are healthy and currently we have a beautiful place to live, even if it is a rental, God is good and we both have work unlike alot of people right now, so i do have perspective and i also know God has saved us from buying at the wrong time before and he provides all we need, i know...i know, but i cant help being really frustrated... this is why

So we have been married just over 4 years and have moved house 5 times, mostly due to renting, landlord selling etc, and the last few weeks we have been looking into finally buying our own home(again).

This started actually just after we got married, we tried to get a home loan but as Duncan had only jut got his qualification they wanted at least 6 months to a year work history first...so the plans went on hold. so we moved fom our apartment to a house to accomodate our growing family.
By the time the work history was not an issue we tried again but house prices were rising and we were told our income would need to be much more. and we would need a deposit so we moved in with duncans parents to save.
So Duncan worked harder and made more 6 months passed and we applied again, but house prices were on the up again, as well as interest rates and we were told we needed 2 incomes- good luck i was like 9 months pregnant, and we could not fit as a 4 person family in their back room so we rented again and moved again.
Then the landlord decided to sell just as our lease was up so we looked into the shared equity scheme our friends had just signed up to. My brother passed away and it took a week or two for me to get around to calling, finally i did only to be told, im sorry, the govenment as exceeded the budget for that scheme and it is no longer available. so we moved again, to another rental.

and here we are about 6 months later. house prices are down, interest rates are way down, market is good and i have a job now too... great time to buy right, so i call the mortgage brokers. "Sorry there are new restrictions and banks are no longer doing 100% loans, one or two do 95% so at best you will have to have a minimum of about 20000 deposit , plus fees and mli to get any kind of loan" oh when did this happen because my brother in law got a loan like 3 days ago... "oh yeah its only from this week this has happened"

i am not going to write any more because if i do it will possibly contain a swear word.

He is my provider

My husband and I believe that God requires of us that al areas of our lives are submitted to Him to allow Him to work freely in them and we strongly believe (and have experienced) that when we submit our finances to Him, through tithing and being obedient in where He guides us to sow, he provides and blesses us.

Back in my new christian days our church had a one off 'first fruits' offering which was 1 weeks wages equivelent. i felt that although i only worked a few hours a week and altough i really needed more income at the time, God was calling me allow Him to be in control of my finances. So i putin my first fruits and the next night I had a shift at work. The rosters had changed and i had extra shifts tha meant every week i had what i had put in that offering extra, down to the cent. God had multiplied my offering 52fold, as i then made that amount extra every week.

t's no secret that times are tough, particulary for those in the building and construction trade. They dont loose their job and get a severence package, and virtually every one in the industy is effected in a slow down. The rates drop, the hours drop and the work dries up, so the wage that has been supporting our family has halved lately.

So i prayed and put out a facebook status and wihin a week i had a casual job, and now two weeks into it i have ben offered and have accepted a permanent postition.

It is evenings and nights and it works out to only a few hours away from the girls each week, nad those hours can be with thier Daddy, itis great work and because of the field comes with other financial govenment tax cuts and things. All in all it is too perfect to not be the divine prvision of a loving God!