For those of you who have been praying for us in our decision, thank you! We were planning on buying our house last week, went up to do it, but the sellers did not have all the documents that were needed. That evening, I read through an old buy/sell contract and saw that it specifically asks for the sell price to be written down. Problem is that the sellers (and most people here) put down the appraised value which is usually only a small percent of the actual sale price. The seller must pay 18% tax on the sale price to the government, thus a significantly lower amount is usually put down. Since our own signature is put down as stating it is the real price, we were not able to lie and thus not able to go forward with the purchase of the price. We thought we lost our potential house over this.

We prayed as a family for God’s will to be done. I had talked with other believers, an attorney, and a notary to double check on what should legally be put down, and it was as we had thought. When I called the seller to explain this, they could not understand what the problem was and initially said that if we wanted the house, we would have to pay the 18% tax for them. We continued to pray and leave open hands. I spoke with them yesterday and they offered to put the real sell price on the document as long as we would pay half of the tax. So, we are moving forward with it, and Lord willing, we will have a house (unfinished) by next week.

This whole situation has been a blessing for our children to see that obeying God and thinking you are forfeiting what you were wanting does not always end up in loss. Sometimes it is a test and God still gives the blessing in the end… with the clear conscience. Please pray for the family selling the property to somehow see and receive some blessing from doing the right thing. I have already started witnessing to the son-in-law in the past, but his in-laws who actually own the property, I have not been able to witness to yet. They live in Russia and came for a month’s visit to see their new grandson and to sign the papers for the house to be sold. Please pray for them, too. I’m hoping that we still end on a positive note through all this.