So, I guess the big news would be…I found a house! After nearly four months of searching…we’re good to go! There have been a few “this might be it!” moments…but then plans would always fall apart for various reasons (“Sorry but the owner of the house is in Saudi Arabia and doesn’t know when he can get back.” Saudi Arabia?! Seriously?). The housing market in Santa Cruz is crazy right now too. Sometimes a house would be in the paper in the morning and would be gone by the afternoon. It’s been driving prices up as well. But I’ll get to that part… =)

The guys were all starting to get anxious as well. Their classes start in less than a month, and all I could ever say when they asked about the house was “We’re still looking…”. For most of these guys, nothing very good has ever happened in their lives, so doubts creep in quickly when they start thinking about the future and what God might have for them. I always tried to be positive and tell them that sometimes we have to wait on God, but if we believe this new home was His will for us, then of course He would provide what we needed. I told them that this was a great opportunity to learn to trust and have patience. They would all hesitantly nod and agree…

Hmm…

It was all true for sure. But wow, I felt like I was inching myself way out on a limb, so to speak. I had a couple of moments when, as I was telling one of the guys this, I could also hear a voice in the back of my head saying, “Okay God…I really don’t want to destroy this kid’s faith! You are gonna come through…right?!”

And of course He did… =)

So…you probably want to know more about the house. It’s pretty great. It’s not a “pretty house” like the other house I was talking about. But it’s new and nice, and the best part is…it’s BIG! The kitchen and especially the bedrooms are all huge. It’s got one bedroom on the main floor and three more plus a great patio on the second floor. The patio is open but has a roof. I’ve got some plans for that space…some chairs and lots of plants. Maybe a hammock… =) It’ll be a great place to hold meetings in the evening.

One initial concern was that the neighborhood is a bit poor. Well…a lot poor actually. It’s definitely a change from the last place we were looking at. But…I think that may actually part of what God has planned for us. The last house (the “pretty house”) was in a fairly affluent neighborhood…and there was a moment when I questioned wether that was right for us. The perception of the “rich gringo” opening a new home in a fancy part of town was something I wasn’t completely sure about. Don’t get me wrong…I probably would have taken that place in a heartbeat. But fortunately God sees these things more clearly than we do. We talked with some of the neighbors at the new house and everyone seemed friendly and told us that this street is safe and nothing much ever happens there. Probably the biggest news in awhile is that a gringo is moving in. There were a ton of kids running around on the street, so I’m hoping that maybe with time we can do something to get to know them all. Maybe we can be a good influence in the neighborhood. At any rate, I drove by today with the guys and they were pretty excited when they saw the place.

The only slightly stressful part of this is that…I technically don’t have all the money I need for the place. =) They were asking $22,000 (which was already a bit of a stretch for me) in the paper, but when we got there, two other people had already offered $25,000. If you remember, we’re doing what’s called an anticredico. You pay the price asked (a portion of the value of the property) and then in a year or two (depending on your contract) when you leave, you get all your money back. You have use of the property and the owner gets to use your money. It’s a very common practice here and a great deal for us. So I have two weeks (we want to sign the contract March 1^st) to come up with a bit more money. It seemed that this is the place God has for us…so I took a bit of a step of faith. That seems to be the norm for this little adventure…

Please pray that all of this comes together for us. God has provided time and again with this new project, so I have no doubt that He’ll continue to do so. But we do need to come up with the $5,000 as well as a bit more monthly support for the guys themselves. If you’d like to be a part of this adventure =) …please contact me at ken.switzer@iteams.org or speak directly to Janelle at International Teams (1-800-465-7601). She’ll be happy to help you. Once we get settled and things up and running, I’m going to connect those of you who are supporting the guys with one of the guys themselves. You can get to know each other and hopefully learn a bit more of who they are. I was explaining this to one of the guys, and he was pretty excited about the idea.

So…there you go. Keep watching the blog (www.kenswitzer.blog.com). I plan to put some pictures up of the house as soon as I can. That’ll give you a bit better idea of where we’re going to be. At any rate…it’s pretty exciting! =)

Thanks everyone. I appreciate all your support and prayers. There’s no way I could attempt any of this without your support and help. We’re all thankful down here…