The Story of Our House, Part Four - “The Builders”

Let’s continue the amazing story . . . and remember all God’s goodness . . . 

If you haven’t read the first three parts, I highly recommend you go back and catch up before reading on.

So, where did we leave off?  Ah, yes, we were just welcomed into the village “mir.”

Let me go back a bit . . . God gave us the land in December, we got all the deeds and paperwork in Feb.  Our ground was still deep in winter.  The foundation would have to wait until after the thaw, usually sometime in March.

We continued to visit The Land and take friends out to see.

Here Anton is showing our good friends, Max and Sveta.

Here are Anton and I with our snow-covered 1/2 acre behind.

Spring finally came!  

And, with it came lots of visits to our local land office for more paperwork.

Finally, our land was ready.  We began marching out our design.

And, running with abandoned joy over it all!

Anton’s parents gave us some money to get started.  

We were ready, our land was ready, but we needed help - we needed an architect and some builders.

The Building Team

Oh, this is such a big question!  

    “Who do we trust with our dream?”  

We had some good friends who were renovating a new apartment in Moscow. They had already been through 2 construction crews - both of whom had taken money and run, never to be seen or heard from again.

We had heard tale after tale of crews who didn’t show up or showed up drunk. Others told us horror stories of work done wrong or late or unsafe.

Once again, clueless ourselves, we asked the Lord to give us His people to build this house.

A good friend told us about a young woman believer, Natasha.  Natasha was in our church and was an architect.  We met with her, she listened to our ideas and began putting together our house plan.  She led us to Igor and his sons.  

The first time I met with Igor he showed me a photo of him and me, years ago, standing together in the church where he used to pastor.  He remembered me!  

This was the building team God gave us - all Brothers and Sisters.

Amazing!

Natasha finished the project and gave us exactly what we asked for.  

Igor and his sons came every day on time, no drinking, no stealing.  

In fact, every day they ate lunch in our house and prayed - every day our house was a place of prayer.  

Sophia and Igor’s youngest son, Illya, became great friends.  Soon, Illya started coming to our Mom’s Day Out group.

Igor and his sons finished the foundation, the frame, and the roof of our house.  How thankful we are to God for their hard, good work on our home.  The money God gave us to pay them for their work helped them to buy a bit of land, complete with an old house. They were renting but, now, they have a place of their own! 

 Here is the house Igor bought for his family.  They are working to renovate it.

How good God is!  He met our need and gave us a bonus!

God gave us His builders and He gave us the opportunity to see how He is blessing others through our house.  We thank Him for Natasha and Igor!  

Right now, as I type, Igor is hard at work again on our house.  He is covering it with the siding God gave us.  But, that is a standing stone for another day . . .