Our miracle home!

(mostly written on January 18th, 2019)

My heart is swelling with overwhelming joy and wonder.

Tears are softly forming in my eyes

at the thought of such a God that we love and serve

as I am entering a very special day in the Betts-household:

Today, we are moving into a home that God has provided for us! 

A home that we can call ours
(even though it’s not just ours – more on that later).

A home that fulfils a promise we received from our Father many years ago.
(more on that further down the post)

A home that will finally allow us to settle after close to 30 moves (quite a few of them international), not having the continual threat hanging over us to be told any time (usually the worst time) that we need to move on because the owners want the house back for themselves, or sell it. 

And – oh – the investment of time and the exhaustion that is entailed in each move.

NO MORE!

A home where we can paint walls

Put up decorations as we want

Make improvements

Plant a garden, flowers, trees, knowing the investment will still be there years from now.

I am overwhelmed – just overwhelmed.

Jesus sure meant what He said when he promised that if we give up fathers and mothers….. homes…. for His sake, that he will provide a hundredfold in the present age – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life… (Mark 10,29-30)

We have experienced this reality in many ways already. 

All the relational blessings, tick.

persecutions, tick.

And now the time has come for the house.

TICK!

It’s a long story – brace yourself – sit down with a cuppa and visit a bit with us.

It’s a story of marvel, of miracles, of waiting, longing, praying, claiming, disappointments, more waiting, standing in faith, claiming some more and did I mention waaaaaitiiiing???

Allow me to back up into a cute little Scottish Church in Lausanne, Switzerland, one chilly Saturday afternoon in the winter of 1988, (snow falling – yes!) where Rich and I got married, with a full commitment to give our lives to Jesus and His great commission. 

“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel…..”

Interesting little titbit from our wedding: When we got prayed for during the ceremony, one of our YWAM leaders saw a vision in his spirit of us being surrounded by lots and lots of children of different skin-colors, way too many to be our own.

Oops, just writing that down is opening the floodgates of my eyes with tears now streaming down my face.

Back on track - - - Thanks to a YWAM connection, we had the privilege to spend our honeymoon in South-Africa at a beach house (for free). While the scenery was beautiful and we loved the country (drove around a bit, too, including Kruger National Park), we were really troubled by all the signs of segregation we saw on the beaches and public places. Those were the days of the Apartheid. 

It pained us and made us feel very uncomfortable 

(signs to keep non-white people off the beaches etc).

Little did we know that 30 years later, God was going to weave a then little 4-year old Indian girl and a 14-year old Indian boy who were living in that same country at that very same time into the tapestry of our family story. 

In fact, unbelievable as it may sound, God had already then planned to use these two to provide a home for us! 

He had already then chosen to redeem them unto Himself and bring them together in marriage 20 years later after meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, where they had both immigrated to.

Those two young ones – the ones not allowed on ‘our’ beach - - - OUCH! 

The ways of God just blow me away.

Humble me deeply.

I hate injustice and have been doing my bit to lift up the disadvantaged and give them opportunity for a brighter future through education.

This little girl grew up (just for the record: I have ALWAYS felt that Indian children were incredibly gorgeous and we almost adopted an Indian boy 11+ years ago!) and when she was a teenager, her family immigrated to New Zealand. She later became a chartered accountant, very skillful and professional, as well as very sweet, kind and generous. 

Fast forward to 2018: She listens to an interview on Radio Rhema about Maisha Africa – or at least she thinks she listened to this interview. This interview has actually never happened! (And no, she confirms, it wasn’t one of Praise’s interviews on Radio Rhema.) 

A couple months later she can’t get it out of her heart and wants to find the ministry. 

So off to the internet she goes where she finds the Maisha Africa website. 

Looking through it, she loves what she sees and contacts me.

While I am sick in bed on an August winter day, I am surprised by a text from her, wanting to find out more about how she can get involved in the ministry. Now, believe me - you don’t just get random requests from people wanting to find out more about your ministry, let alone wanting to help, like she informed me she wanted to do!

Praise, Moses and I had been praying and looking for a very specific chartered accountant to help with the financial management of Maisha Africa. It needed to be somebody trustworthy that would volunteer their time, have the needed skills and experience as well as cross-cultural experience (preferably with Africa). 

It had been a while and we hadn’t been able to find anybody. 

(The one who has been helping wasn’t able to give enough time, so too much was left on my shoulders.)

My heart leapt inside of me when she told me that she wanted to do more than give money and invest her time to help disadvantaged children – and – she was a chartered accountant! 

WOW!!!! 

I was overjoyed and saw this as a supernatural provision of God for our need!

FAN-TASTIC!!!

When I read through the requested references for her, I quickly realised that we had struck gold with this young lady! 

WOW WOW WOW!!! 

Character, integrity, professionalism, expertise – she was top-notch! And she had grown up in (South-)Africa!

My – my – my! SOOOO AMAZING!!!

But wait – there's more…. 

Remember, I started out telling the story of how God provided a home for us? 

Well

To make a long story short

When she came - with her husband - to meet me/us

so that we could get to know each other before working together

something someone stirred their hearts in such a way that when they walked out of our house

They said to each other

"We've got to help this couple/family get into a house".

Less than 3 months later, we had bought a house together (50/50)!

Can you believe it?!!

It was an insane roller-coaster journey as the impossibilities still seemed to dominate the circumstances around a house purchase. We spent hours upon hours talking with each other - long-distance - since they live 2 1/2 hours away from us in Auckland.

For the sake of actually finishing this blog post without it becoming a book

let me just say that God used this couple - plus others -

including complete strangers

to fight our case

to push and push

(reminded me of what I do for my Ugandan family)

until God removed every obstacle and

MADE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE!!!

Not only did we buy a house together, but we have become friends!
How precious is that?!

WHAT A GOD WE HAVE!!!

By the way, just to add a few of the many little 'details' of our story:

DETAIL #1:

As mentioned above, God had given us a promise for our own house years ago.

We always kept it tucked away in our hearts while looking at different options of buying a home.

Yet it always stayed out of reach for us.

Until I was inspired by the testimony of another woman, who received their family home as a result of very intentional, insisting, 'vigorous', faith-filled prayers and claiming the promise of God for them until God came through with the promised home in quite a spectacular way.

So early June of 2018, I decided to become just as 'vigorous' about our promise.

I printed it out in big letters and stuck in on our fridge.

During devotions with the kids we almost daily 'claimed' this promise:

Then, God brought Avasha and Percy into our lives, wanting to help us.

DETAIL #2:

Avasha just reminded me that on September 11th, the day before we started being in contact with each other on social media, this is what I had posted on Facebook
(After they met us, she did a bit of checking me out, as you do, on Facebook 😉):

DETAIL #3:

Right after I had heard from Avasha that they felt to help us get into a home, which of course was a HUMONGOUS SURPRISE for us, I had my weekly ministry-call with Moses in Uganda.

Before I could say anything, he told me:

"Mummy, I just want you to know that for months now I have been praying for you and asking God to SURPRISE YOU WITH HIS GOODNESS!"
(in bold letters as he emphasized these words a lot!)

DETAIL #4:

This time from Percy and Avasha's side:

This was Percy's daily Bible reading during the time they were setting out to help us (pretty much complete strangers). There's more to this but Percy says the details will go into the 'book' one day😁:

DETAIL #5:

Just at the time when it seemed like it was NOT going to happen after all, even with their help (seemed like a death as we had our hopes up and then it seemed impossible after all), God whispered to me to stop claiming. Instead, I was to just thank him for this peaceful dwelling place, secure home and undisturbed place of rest that He was going to give us.

So, I did.

And God moved EVERY obstacle out of the way.

He made a way where there seemed no way.

WOHOOOOO!!!!!

And one last little DETAIL #6:

We had to move out of our (then) rental by February at the latest, since the owners wanted it back for themselves - so the timing - getting the house in January - was just PERFECT!
AND - just a 2-minute drive away from our rental - SO IDEAL!

Are you in awe of God yet?

At the time of me finishing this blog post, we have been living in our new home for almost 5 months and hardly a day goes by where I don't thank God for this amazing provision - with us paying pretty much the same amount as we would for renting a home.

We love our home, feel wonderfully settled and are so so very grateful for it!

More than that

WE LOVE OUR FAITHFUL FATHER!!!!

Jehovah Jireh - our provider!

And Rich is busy planting a garden and different trees as I am writing this.

Oh how BLESSED we are!