Since we did not have room in our prayer letter to share all that the Lord has done in recent weeks to provide a place for us to live in Price, we wanted to take the time here to share this blessing.
First of all, when we felt the Lord moving us north to this new area, we knew it would be a challenge. The economy the way it is, and the housing market in Ferron being very poor, things on a human scale did not look favorable. We decided to sell our house ourselves and not use an agent so we could save money. We put up a sign in our front yard and we just decided we would expect a year or more before we would have any success. After a month we had received several phone calls but nothing serious. Then about a month later, we had a young couple ask to see the house. When they came, they said they were interested and would start the process of getting a loan. The problem was, he had really bad credit and did not know how it would go. After 30 days, they had secured the loan and were ready to move in. A few days after they had gotten their loan, the banks stopped loaning money on manufactured homes here in Utah. Wow, talk about God’s timing! Well, that was such a great miracle, but we could not revel in it for long since we now had the problem of having to move out and not yet having gotten anything settled on our end. The same bank that gave them their loan, denied us ours. Now we were homeless. A Christian couple from the church in Price loaned us a fifth wheel to live in while we continued to try and settle things on our end. We parked it at the church and continued to try and secure a loan for the house God had shown us. The problem was that the Lord had given us only one option…it was a manufactured home outside of Price. Since the banks were no longer doing manufactured home loans, it looked like we were going to be homeless a long time. The owner is a business man in Price and had bought the land and put the house on it as an investment, but it had not sold for two years. When we looked at it, several people were ahead of us, but all failed to settle, including a woman who was going to pay cash, and had bought paint for the house, and then suddenly disappeared. The price the owner was asking was a good 60,000 dollars more than we could pay. We finally were able to make a ridiculous offer, and the owner accepted. Now we just needed the loan. Finally, the Bank of Utah’s executive from Salt Lake City came down and looked at our file, and five others. He plainly stated that he would loan “these people”, referring to “the Clapps file” the money, but nobody else. Wow, the Lord was at work again. We finally thought all was set, but another glitch came up. The title company made a change on the title and because it was an FHA loan, that meant we could not close for another 90 days. The problem was, we had already moved into the house on the owner’s suggestion. So the bank changed the loan from a normal one to a construction loan, but that meant that the owner would have to spend $1000.00 to purchase a 2-10 warranty that covers the home completely from top to bottom for 10 years. Wow, there goes the Lord again providing for the future at no cost to us. At first, we were very disappointed that the first bank did not get us our loan, but as we look back, we see God’s hand in it all the way, allowing us to get a 50,000 dollar discount on the home, a home warranty and many other things such as all of our closing costs paid by the seller. We cannot give the Lord enough praise for His timing, His leading, and His mercy. May God use us and this new home for His glory!