This was typed up along the drive thru New Mexico yesterday evening from hubby! :-)
While I drove for over 300 miles OWE! lol :-D (Pics and Captions added to them by Nichole!) :-)
Enjoy!
(A Manly pic!)
Home, Home on the Range
We now interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to bring you an update from a different perspective.
(Um
yah News Radio
Fav! :-)I even like this show! (Nichole) Provides comic
relief for long trips! Even just listening and not seeing it is funny...
LOL )
This is Steven, covering for his wife, who is currently driving.
(Um yah we see that!)
Well, I have no idea how to blog, since I don’t write them, and rarely read them. Except of course for Nichole’s, which I read when I steal the computer away after she leaves it running or when I want to get on Realtor.com to look at the bargain properties… none of which I ever buy… so I guess it’s probably a waste of time. But, I digress. Hopefully my musings will be at least moderately amusing or thought provoking. :D
So, something interesting about the trip, and different than what Nichole would notice or find interesting… well, here it comes. I work at a mobile home dealership. Mostly I do the bookkeeping, the wholesale purchasing, and manage the service dept. So, whenever I go on trips, I am constantly looking at all the different dealerships and checking out the new styles and the product from the different factories. Contrary to popular opinion, you CAN tell them apart :P To someone who is familiar with them, the newer ones are in some ways just as distinctive as Toyota's and Fords. Whenever we pass a dealership I am usually staring and following it with my eyes checking the different roof pitches or the colors and the gables and things, so the trip up 35 to Dallas is usually fun because there are dealerships about every 10 miles and I get to see what every factory in Texas is building.
Well, this trip has been no different, but the interesting thing has been, that since we got out past Boerne or so, there has been a complete change in the types of homes on the side of the road. Normally, in SA we see lots of subdivisions filled with homes that are all evenly spaced and built by the same developer at roughly the same time and all of them are being lived in by people of roughly the same financial position. Well, not out here! It has been completely different from home. Most of the time the landscape is dotted with Mobile Homes of all different shapes, sizes and ages, but mixed in with more expensive adobe or brick site built homes. Back in San Antonio we typically see massive $180,000 homes on tiny little 1/4 acre pieces of land. But for the last two days I’ve seen hundreds of RV’s, Singlewides & Doublewides scattered across the landscape, but even some of the oldest, smallest homes owned by the financially poorest people have sat in beautiful 10,000 acre valleys surrounded by mountains with the most spectacular views! It sure makes me wish we had some scenery like this around San Antonio! Instead of having a $200,000 house on a $30,000 lot, a lot of these people have $25,000-$80,000 mobile homes on 5 acre lots with 10 mile views, what a contrast!
I guess in thinking about all of this, it reminds me that everyone chooses what they think is important in a home when they are deciding where and how to live. For the people in the homes we have driven past, the deciding factor may have been the view, or the price of land. Nichole and I have had to make the decision twice now since getting engaged/married, and I’ve helped people decide where to live at work a lot. But at the end of the day, is there really any right or wrong answer to the question? Well, I don’t know about complete concrete answers, but the bible does have a thing or two to say which could certainly help in the hunting!
(Homes with a veiw!)
1.) Forsake not the assembly: The bible is pretty clear that Christians should be around and involved with other Christians! Aside from the direct command to assemble, the bible also has tons of commands about things that Christians should do for “one another” in fact, a short search of “one another” on
bibleontheweb.com will bring up a long list of things that are impossible to do if you have no real relationship or meaningful regular contact with other Christians. I would suspect that for many of the people in the homes we’
ve passed today it would be difficult at best to meet with a group of Christians on a regular basis due to the 80 mile drive from the nearest Christian neighbor!
2.) Affordability: This one sounds odd for a list of biblical home hunting rules, but follow me here. How many families have bought homes that cost too much, and are then forced to “cut corners” on their Christian walk in order to be able to afford to keep them? How many fathers work too much overtime and do not spend enough time teaching and training their children since they have to “keep up”? How many Christians work at a job that forces them to violate their conscience because they can’t afford to quit? How many Christians are so strapped for cash that they “can’t afford to” give? Which is better: living in a 1,400 square foot, 3 bedroom home and spending an extra 20 hours a week with your family, or living in Fair Oaks Ranch (Where I’d LOVE to live) in your dream home? This completely ties into the massive issue of Pride as well… but we’ll save that one.
3.) Contentment: The bible actually says we should be content with just food and clothing! Now, if you tried to simply live under a bridge in the US you would have your kids taken away, and I’m sure that would violate scripture somehow! But really, when it comes right down to it, what do you really NEED in a home? (or a car, but that’s a different subject) Could you downsize your home and live closer to work and church? Thus, becoming a better steward of your gas and interest money? So many times I see people at work coming to buy a home, and instead of buying something sensible that will meet their needs, they want the biggest, best thing they can possibly qualify for, and it’s way more than they can really afford! But since they are not content to simply buy the home that God has provided them the finances for, they go ahead and make a big mistake…
Anyway, I’ve rambled on. What other biblical guidelines could one apply to home hunting? Comment Away!
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