I haven’t not put any updates recently about our housing situation as much has remained uncertain.  We are very much enjoying the temporary housing, where we will stay until the end of this month.  After that, we really don’t know what is next, but neither of us are too worried about it (at least not today!).  It has seemed in this recent journey that God hasn’t chosen to tell us much of His plan until we absolutely need to know it.  There is one small apartment that we can use if it becomes necessary.

After the last piece of land that we were looking at fell through, we began to more seriously consider another piece of land that is more in the center of the Watahanoha community (the area where we want to live and where our kids are attending school).  When we had first visited it, there was a carpenter’s old hut on the property that had been messed up by the tsunami and made it all pretty unattractive.  When we went back, the hut had been cleared away and it was all open.

One morning I went prayer-walking around the property, and found myself getting really excited about it.  The shape is very unique- almost arrow-like.  Our home would face a dead-end street, which we like for children playing.  It is half a block from Watanoha train station, and just about two blocks from the elementary school that is being fixed up.  This is where the kids catch the bus to the temporary school, and in two years will be the school for our kids.  Many of the children walk right by the property on their way.

We have gone to the property numerous times over the past month to pray with different friends, and have really felt the Lord’s blessing and favor.  Last week the other three Be One women and I went prayer walking around it, and as we were praying in the middle of the property, my friend Beth felt like we should build an altar out of stone in the middle of the lot.  It felt right and good.

And, as we were praying, I looked down at my feet, and I suddenly noticed a tiny green plant pushing its way through a group of stones.  Tenacious!  And i remembered a special word from the week before that I had been given.  We had a wonderful teacher, Eddie Leo  from Indonesia come to Ishinomaki to share about the house church and building God’s body.  At one point we broke up into groups of two or three, and Eddie’s wife Rose was in my group.  She had a prophetic image for me — I was standing in a field and I was surrounded by rocks.  I didn’t know what to do with all the rocks.  And then when I looked down there was a small plant growing from out of the rocks.  She didn’t know what the image meant — and I didn’t either — until a week later.  And then, during that prayer time, I felt even more the God’s leading of THIS location, of THIS land.

Twice we have met the next door neighbors- they are a wonderful older couple with a 30-something year old daughter who lives at home.  They are hoping we move there.  Today as Chad and Keishi and Eric went to pray, they met the family across the street — the boy is in Olivia’s exact same kindergarten class!  And then Eric realized that the grandfather is a carpenter who he and Chad have been working with at different locations where we have been cleaning houses.  Half a block away is a family who has been friends with Be One over the past year.

TOMORROW (Sunday at 1 pm our time) there will be a meeting on this property between our Asian Access rep, Phil, and the owner’s agent and us.  We would love your prayers!  The price has been in negotiation and a decision will be made tomorrow about the price and the purchase.  I have not been excited about building a pre-fab home until this past month (rather I had been hoping to be able to find a “tsunami” home that we could fix up and move into) –but  I have become  really excited about this location and anxious to see all that God wants to do here.   Thanks for praying for us through all of this!  We will let you know, but wanted to ask for your prayers if you read this in time.