Ponderings from our first house hunting trip in Charleston…
We got back late last night from a great trip to Charleston. The drive over took 10 hours. The drive back took 8-1/2. We figure by the 4th trip over, we MIGHT get it down to the 5-1/2 that it SHOULD take from the far side of Atlanta. Sheesh. When driving with an infant, toddler and preschooler, you might as well just hitch a covered wagon to a mule and shout “hee-yah!”
Our Little Dream House
Anyway, we DID find a house that we LOVE. We’d obviously have to pay a deposit right away to secure the spot. But we weren’t expecting to find something so quickly. So we’re just rolling on a load of faith that God will help us get our ducks in a row before someone else grabs it…if that’s the neighborhood God wants us in. And if it’s not, then we’ll just keep looking!
But the truth is we felt like this particular house would fit our family perfectly. There’s a great open area where the upstairs bedrooms converge that would be a phenomenal playroom for the kids, and there are enough bedrooms for us to have a guest room (a VERY important feature for us). There’s a garden tub for Annette, a deep “low-country” front porch, and a large, flat driveway for neighborhood cookouts (a core part of our strategy at River Church for reaching our community in West Ashley). The neighborhood has a playground, several little ponds, and a reputation for being one of the safest, friendliest neighborhoods in town (in spite of the “beware of alligators” sign near the entrance).
That's a Gator on the far bank of a lake in the neighborhood. Don't worry...there's an electric fence.
But most important to us is being placed in a community that will be strategic for building the team for River Church and for reaching the folks we’re there to reach. As the Arts and Innovation Pastor, I’ll be recruiting musicians, visual artists, IT professionals, etc., so as long as those kinds of folks are our neighbors wherever we roost, we’re good to go.
It IS interesting, though, that while we were visiting this particular house, the man living across the street pulled a cello out of his car. And the next morning at breakfast, another local pastor told me of a professional photographer who lives in the same neighborhood. Hmmmmm…
So please continue to pray for our home search. If this particular house doesn’t work out, we’ll take another trip sometime in May to do some more hunting.
For a good laugh about another house we looked at on this trip, check out Annette’s post.