Providence

So yesterday I was sitting at the new house on Knob Hill Lake Lane with my mother as the inspector was checking everything out. My phone rings and I answer. It's Kris. I say, "How are you?" He says, "I've been better." That's not really what I like to hear so I asked him what was going on. He proceeded to inform me that a guy from our mortgage company called and told him that we did not qualify for the home buying program that we were using to purchase the house. And since we are a week away from closing, the news came as somewhat of a shock.

The program we were going to use was an FHA Teacher Bond which offers a below-market interest rate and 5% of the cost of your home given back to you as a grant. We were told that we qualified for the program (i.e. we made less than the maximum income, which was $71,000.) So we begin the process, get them every piece of information they request, and were confident that this was a done deal.

But about 2 weeks ago, they send us an affidavit to sign stating, among other things, that I make X amount and Kris makes $0. Granted, we are not rollin' in the dough, but Kris does bring in a salary above $0. Since we had disclosed our tax returns, social security numbers, and bank statements, we assumed they were fully aware of what we made. And we didn't give it a second thought because we knew it was below the max. income. So when they wanted us to sign the affidavit stating Kris made nothing, Kris called our realtor to question that. She told us that if we sign it, we would be committing fraud. Nice.

So we call the company and tell them we cannot sign this until they fix that item. They say that they will take care of it and a few days later. we receive another affidavit. But it still says Kris makes $0. At this point, we're a little aggrivated. We call and they tell us to sign it anyway. What do they care? They won't be the ones in prison after the audit. We say we will not sign until the error is corrected. So then they ask for Kris' check stubs (for the first time, I might add.)

After they receive the stubs, the mortgage company calls and says that we make too much money and no longer qualify because, although the max income for a 3 person family is $71,000, the max for a 2 person family is $61,000(apparently in-utero children do not qualify.) That would have been incredibly helpful information to have 2 months ago! But they wait until the week prior to closing to share that.

All that to say, we end yesterday not sure of what would happen. We did know, however, that God is soveriegn and that nothing occurs apart from His will. So we knew this was part of His will.

The drama ended by the mortgage company assuming responsility--whether they think they are responsible is another matter, but regardless, they did. They bought us a lower interest rate, only about 2/10 of a point higher than what we would have got with the teacher bond so our payment is only about $10 dollars higher than what we thought it would be. The real reason I believed God arranged it this way is because now, we are not obilgated to live in that home 7 years, as we would have been under the other program. We didn't know that was one of the conditions and we are very grateful that we now have the freesom to move when ever we feel it is time, not when they feel it's time.

So Lord willing, we will be in our new temporary dwelling after our closing this Friday. I say "temporary," because home is heaven...not Knob Hill Lake Lane (that's right--4 words.)