Chapter 1 – God is Real

How would you react if you were asked by the Divine Creator of the universe to pick up all you had, risk family and professional turmoil, and move to a location you had never considered as a possibility, ever. This is my story of how God did just that to me. My hope is that in telling the story, people will see and feel that God is real and is active in our daily lives. Everything that follows is not an exaggeration and really did happen over the course of a year that dramatically changed the lives of all those involved.

To start the story, I will begin by saying that we have a plaque on the wall that says “Home is where the Marine Corps sends us.” It is a way to show that – as a military family – we move around a lot. The particular move that is part of the overall story was when we moved from Monterey, CA to VA for a 3-year tour at the Marine base in Quantico, VA. We began by praying and asking God to help us find our place in the new location, and we reached out through the internet to contact a builder to build a new house that would support our family of 4 for the next 3 years. Immediately we found a great floor plan in the town of Fredericksburg, VA. We priced out all of the options and planned a trip to the builder to finalize all of the design choices and sign the papers. Three days before we fly to VA to sign the papers, we call to confirm with the builder that everything is still in order. The builder realtor informs us that she is no longer selling the floor plan of the house that we picked out. We were completely surprised and I said “We told you we wanted to buy only that floor plan, and we have airplane tickets to come sign papers in three days.” The realtor replied that was no longer possible. So, when we flew out to the area, we stopped by the realtor and said “we are here to sign papers on the floor plan we agreed to at the price we agreed to.” She replied, “that is still not possible.” I responded, “we are going to find another builder right now and sign papers this week, if you don’t change your mind.” She didn’t. So, we found a different builder who was in a small sub-burb of Fredericksburg called Falmouth, VA. And we signed papers that week to build our home.  Seven months later, we moved into our Falmouth house.

As usual, the first question a military couple asks once they show up at a duty station is “what will be the next duty station?” Within a year or two, my wife and I were very anxious about what the next duty station would bring us because we knew that it would be our last before I was eligible to retire from the service. It just so happened that I traveled a large amount of the time during this tour at Quantico and was away from home many times. I had never taken my wife with me on a business trip, because I was wanting to wrap up business and get home as fast as I could. But, there was a trip to Boston, MA that for some reason we decided to break that trend and take a 1-day vacation added onto that Boston trip. We drove up together to site see in the area, after my work conference was completed. During this time, my wife and I were consistently praying to God about “where are we going to go?” As luck would have it, we drove into Boston and found a random parking garage. Inside the garage I remember passing up the first spaces I saw in favor of higher up spaces that were closer to the elevator. After we parked the car, we went to the elevator and made an effort to “remember where we parked”. We looked for the floor number and in addition to being on the 4th floor of the garage, the floors were labeled with names like Martha’s Vineyard or Bar Harbor. Our floor was named Falmouth…we thought this was very coincidental and laughed about it all day, because we had never heard of Falmouth until we moved there. The odds of a random garage, with a random floor, on a random whim to bring my wife on a business trip just seemed so remote. But as we thought and prayed more, we both came away with the feeling that God wanted us to stay in Falmouth. So, without any hesitation, we began living as if we weren’t moving from the house in Falmouth. For example, we made investments into the house that wouldn’t have made practical sense if we were on a normal 3 yr rotation.

It turned out that the Marine Corps made a by-name request for my services to stay in Quantico, VA for my last tour in the service. This had never happened in this community and was only ever executed one other time for a by-name, back-to-back tour in this career field. So, our intuition was correct that we didn’t move for our last tour, and we stayed in Falmouth for over 10 years. 

Fast forward to the end of this decade period. Life circumstances were beginning to strain and change. A house that was sufficient for my middle and high school kids was a little cramped for the multi-generational family that we had, not to mention the difficulty my mother’s health presented when navigating a 3-story house. In addition, parking had become a problem given that there were now 5 drivers with 5 cars, and there was only one 2-car garage. So that generally meant playing lots of “go move your car” games to rotate someone being blocked in. Therefore, my wife and I again started praying about moving. Our theory was: we had received the answer to stay in Falmouth about 10 years prior, but should we ask: “do we still stay here?” Until the Falmouth house, our longest term in a single house at a single location was about five and half years. In the Fall of 2018, we found a realtor and began looking for bigger houses on “some land” to see if we were getting divine indication we needed to locally move. Our criteria were based upon minimally impacting my employment. I couldn’t be any further than what I already incurred, which created a ring of about 50 miles around the southern area of Washington D.C. It was during this time that we began to identify the “must haves” that would make us go through the pains of moving. Because I had stated at the beginning of this endeavor that I loved the Falmouth house and I hate moving. So, I’m fine if the answer to our prayer is “yes…stay here, because I’m not moving unless the Divine Creator of the universe tells me to move into the perfect house.” I will not move into a marginally better place. 

We started off with some of the items we had identified as problems in the existing house. Since we had been taking care of my mother for 10 years, we needed a 3-car garage to allow her to have a covered parking area. In addition, we wanted a master bedroom on the first floor to accommodate her mobility challenges and a second master somewhere in the house for my wife and I. We also had a notion of wanting some land because we didn’t like the neighborhood backyard sizes which were extremely cramped together. We set a certain price range for a “not to exceed” given our current finances and the current 30yr VA mortgage rates. Our realtor showed us several nice homes on 10 acre lots and we began finding out more “must haves” that would be needed to make me want to move. 

1. Needed to have high speed internet. My job was primarily performed over the internet, and I couldn’t jeopardize my current employment.
2. Needed an office with doors. In the existing house, my office was an open floor plan with no walls nor doors separating it from the main living areas. Once I retired from the military and transitioned to civilian employment, all of my work centered around my home office, which meant the rest of the family couldn’t enjoy the main living spaces during working hours.
3. Rock exterior. My wife and I had admired housing frontage that had the look of stone or rock. We had discussed retirement plans in something that had the feel of a medieval castle.
4. Land. We knew that we didn’t want to be crammed next to the neighbors but didn’t know if we wanted 3 acres with woods that blocked the view of the neighbors or 10 acres to grow crops or raise livestock.
5. City water. Once we started looking at land, the houses were divided into those on city water and those that were on well water. I had a negative experience with the taste of well water, and I was keeping city water on the “must have” list.
6. Georgian columns. The 2-story white circular columns had always been a design feature that we had been looking for. And given that we were looking for land, we wanted the old plantation style look.
7. Parking. We regularly entertained small gatherings of 6-10 people in addition to our adults living at the house. We needed parking suitable for 5-6 additional cars without encroaching on the neighbors parking spots.
8. Has to be open for a contingency sale. Our existing mortgage was our VA certificate, and we couldn’t afford to purchase a new home at the price points we were looking at without getting the VA certificate back. In addition, we had a rental property in FL that we would need to sell and use the proceeds to help with closing costs.

We quickly realized that there was no house in the radius we were looking in that would meet all of our “must haves.” For example, we were assured we would never have high speed internet and acreage nor could we have rock exterior and columns. We enlisted the help of one of my Christian friends to be a neutral third party, and he ultimately helped us decide what to consider doing with the amount of land we were looking at. He went with us on several house visits, and on 1 particular visit he said, “what are you going to do with this?” (His hands were stretched out toward the unused property). Now since we had prayed to God for Him to help us through our friend, we took his words to heart, and added that question to all our future house looks. The best option we found was a builder that had some of the must-have list but not all. We had priced out building a new house on 3 acres down the street from our Christian friend that had 2 master bedrooms (one of which was on the main floor) and a custom drive way. We were about to sign papers to build this house, but the builder wouldn’t negotiate 3% off the price to meet our budget ceiling. In the end, we decided after 6 months of looking for houses, that a house that would make me move, didn’t exist, and we turned off the realtor…and settled into the “we aren’t going to move” attitude. At the same time, our rental property which had rented all but 3 months for over 12 years, went vacant. So, we put the house up on the market and sold it about a month later, since we knew that 2 contingencies was going to be too much for 1 seller to handle. This would potentially keep the dream alive that maybe we would relook in the Spring.

But…I continued to look via the internet for random houses for entertainment. In fact, my wife and I started wondering “where in the world would we retire for good” if we could. We took the realistic filters off the internet search and began looking at mansions and floor plans all over the country. There were places in Washington state that were close to her family. We looked in the Florida panhandle area, because we also had a rental property there and good instructor pilot jobs as a backup up career plan. We looked in Arkansas because my mother had her sisters there, and we had friends close by. We had really like Monterey, CA and thought about moving back to the west coast. Our friends in North Carolina were trying to persuade us to come down there. We thought about the middle of the Country where we didn’t know anyone, and we even thought about downsizing significantly for a place in the Caribbean on the water. From November 2018 – Mar 2019, we entertained ourselves looking at houses we couldn’t afford and none of them had the items we wanted, until we saw a picture of a house with rock and columns in the Arkansas area.

We opened up the pictures and immediately fell in love with the pictures of the house. The house on paper seemed to be the perfect house. On paper, it began to not only meet but exceed our “must haves.” For example, the houses we had seen with 2 master bedrooms usually had one on the main level and one on the upper level. These houses met our original needs, but we wondered what we would do if my wife and I had mobility issues, while we were still taking care of my mother. The new house was the only house we had discovered with 2 master bedrooms, and both of them were on the main living floor…meaning no stairs required to traverse from bed room to living room to kitchen to laundry to car. Another example was that we needed a 3-car garage. But that meant our adult children would be parking outside. This property had 6 car garages and 1 of the spaces was tall enough to fit a full-sized RV—which my wife’s parents had an RV that we could now put in covered parking. Even my son said after the second picture he saw, “when do we move?” The pictures of the house intrigued my wife and I enough that we decided to take some vacation and come see the house—just to verify whatever must be wrong with this house that has been on the market since November, which coincidentally was right when we stopped looking in the local VA area.

Up until this point, we had been asking God for guidance but hadn’t really heard any answers, which I took as “you don’t need to move…stay put.” Actually taking vacation to come see a house we found on the internet that was 1100 miles away, was a big step for me and I began praying “God, you need to speak to me as loud or louder than you did in Boston where you gave me a sign saying FALMOUTH.” On the day we are to see the house, we are driving with the friends we have in northwest Arkansas, and I am internally praying that prayer over and over. Because I had a huge fear that I would make a decision and ‘break’ something that wasn’t broken…namely my family, my job, or our future. We drove by the exterior because we are early, and the exterior looked as grand as the pictures. So, we decide to drive into the town of Mountainburg to kill time waiting for the appointment. – I knew nothing of the city of Mountainburg nor anything of the local area except that my mother and father had “grown up” in near-by Fort Smith, Arkansas. As we drove into this little town of 631 people and no stop light that God took time out of His day to smack me in the face. As background, my family has an obsession with dragons from fantasy stories. Our family have dragon related screennames and the current Virginia house had dragon signs, dragon sculptures, dragon sconces, and a full-wall mural in the “man-cave” of a sleeping dragon. I even have custom made dragon leather armor for cosplay events. If there is a single thing that my family would agree upon, it would be that dragons are what represent our family mascot. So, it was a complete shock to me what I saw as we drove into town. We see the high school, middle school, and elementary with a large sign that says “Welcome to Mountainburg. Home of the DRAGONS.” I began to smile without telling anyone else in the car that I think I just got smacked in the head by God, because what are the odds that the small town next to a potentially perfect house has a mascot that means our family. 

We continue driving but maybe a block or two – the smile hasn’t faded from my face yet – and we come across a burger shop that made me laugh. To understand this smack in the face by God, we have to flash back to when I met my wife. We met during country dance lessons in college in Memphis, TN. I was teaching, and she was learning. The name of the club was called “Neon Moon” … a chain or franchise, I’m sure. So, right after I see that Mountainburg is home to my family’s mascot, there was a burger shop with only outside seating on the right side of the road called nothing less than “Neon Moon.” (This wasn’t a franchise. I later met the owner and found out that Neil Moon was his name and he did a play on words for his burger shop.) I said, “Fine….I guess you are listening and speaking to me God.” Afterall, I now had the family mascot and the place that my wife and I started the family…all within a couple of miles from the potentially perfect house.

We arrive at the house for our scheduled showing. The house doesn’t even compare to the pictures…it exceeds the pictures! If you have ever seen a picture of the Grand Canyon and then been there in person to see how the picture doesn’t do it justice….it was like that. There were areas that weren’t pictured or described in the internet listing’s writeup that were perfect, such as the office with French doors into the master bedroom also had a bay window (one of my personal favorite house features) that looked out over the property.

The house had rock exterior and the Georgian columns—something we were told in VA that would never be an option together. The house’s parking had several exterior concrete pads to support at least 9 cars; a 6-car garage, and a private road to the house that can accommodate 10s of cars. Everything about the house was perfect. It even had 3 living spaces on the 3 separate electrical utility grids—which at the time I thought I could use the extra 2 spaces for each adult child. The main house was 4 bedrooms. The guest house over one of the garages was 2 bedrooms that was handicap accessible including 2 wheelchair elevators and a walk-in tub (which could be for my mother with mobility issues). The house even had a pool with a custom handicap accessible chair lift for easy in and out of the pool, and my mother needs a pool to help improve her mobility strength. Then there was a trailer on the property that had 3 more bedrooms. The land was 30 acres and gorgeous with a large pond, 4 pecan trees, and 12 fruit trees. It also had a mix of pasture and forest land that was quite peaceful. Other ways we knew this house was the perfect house for us:

• My wife had wanted to remodel our bathroom and put a chandelier above the bathtub. But current building code would not allow that. This house had a pendant chandelier above the master bath and had every feature we would have put into our bathroom remodel.
• We had talked about for years, using wine corks we have collected to “wallpaper” walls in the kitchen. This house had started the exact crafting project in the kitchen but was only barely begun. Allowing us to finish the project with our corks.
• We had always wanted a fireplace in the master bedroom. This had a see-through fireplace between the master bedroom and the office, while still having a huge wood burning fireplace in the main living area.
• The existing paint colors across the entire house were exactly our existing colors. We didn’t paint a single room.
• The kitchen had items like a wine fridge and a separate ice maker that we have used everyday as a family.
• Lastly, the main house had a rock interior wall and the brick summer kitchen that remained from an original 1852 structure that was part of the stage coach stop over. I’m normally not a “culture person” but these two items connected with me.
  

The last point was the high-speed internet problem. No matter how perfect the house was, my job that would pay the bills needed the internet… My realtor said “I know a guy.” (one of the phrases of small-town Arkansas that gets things done.) So, he gave me a phone number that I called … and the other end said “Hello?” I just started in on my story and asked about the house and high-speed internet, not knowing if this was a real solution or just someone’s cell phone. The gentleman answer that yes indeed he knew something about that. You see, Arkansas started investing in a multi-year rural high-speed internet initiative, and he checked my address while we were on the call. And sure enough, he said that this house was on the plan for high speed internet by the following year.

I still wasn’t convinced. (sometimes I envision God just rolling his eyes at me.) My wife and I were discussing what to do, and she was ready to move and make the offer right then. But I hadn’t even cleared the possibility of moving with my employer. I needed more convincing. I called my mother to see what she thought of moving back to the area she grew up around and told her the story of how God had smacked me in the face twice. But that I still didn’t hear Him as loud as He spoke to me in Boston, because after all—I’m not moving unless I believe the Divine Creator of the universe is taking time out of his busy schedule to personally tell me to move. She immediately replied with God’s third smack in the face “Well you know what the mountains of Mountainburg are called?”…”No, what?” … “They are called the BOSTON mountains.” (Later we saw all of the highway signs advertising this fact, but none of us had paid attention to see and comprehend them.) It was at this point that I finally said “Wow! The Divine Creator of the universe really is speaking to me as loud as I asked him to…even louder…and He is saying to pick my family up and move to this house.”

I  still wasn’t convinced. (sometimes I envision God just rolling his eyes at me.) My wife and I were discussing what to do, and she was ready to move and make the offer right then. But I hadn’t even cleared the possibility of moving with my employer. I needed more convincing. I called my mother to see what she thought of moving back to the area she grew up around and told her the story of how God had smacked me in the face twice. But that I still didn’t hear Him as loud as He spoke to me in Boston, because after all—I’m not moving unless I believe the Divine Creator of the universe is taking time out of his busy schedule to personally tell me to move. She immediately replied with God’s third smack in the face “Well you know what the mountains of Mountainburg are called?”…”No, what?” … “They are called the BOSTON mountains.” (Later we saw all of the highway signs advertising this fact, but none of us had paid attention to see and comprehend them.) It was at this point that I finally said “Wow! The Divine Creator of the universe really is speaking to me as loud as I asked him to…even louder…and He is saying to pick my family up and move to this house.”

Now what happened after this decision will be the subject of another story, because once God sets something “good” in motion, the Devil tries to wreck it. And he tried damn hard to wreck our move; including the phone call we got the day after my revelation that said “the sellers have received an offer from someone else….”