Our First House - Daniel & Kaysie Vokurka - MTC2508

SPEAKER 1 It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well we'd like to challenge this idea with our story of our first house. Welcome to Miracles in the 21st Century. I'm Daniel Vokurka. SPEAKER 2 And I'm Kaysie Vokurka. SPEAKER 1 And our story starts with basically after we got married we decided that We need to buy a house. And we thought that we were considering whether we should rent or whether we should buy. And in the end we decided that buying seemed to make more sense. And so we started to look. SPEAKER 2 And we were looking for quite a while, probably close to a year. And we were not able to get something. We had decided more or less about an area that we thought we thought we should be. We were still praying about that. But we, yeah, looking in that area, we couldn't find anything close by and the market was very hot, if you will. Things that were a good bargain would go very quickly and the lower priced market was very active. And we had to look further away, even up to nearly an hour away from where our work was located or is located. We were looking to see if we could find a place. And we were praying about it and we even came so close to getting one. We had put offers on a place and we had to do a blind offer where multiple people were just giving their best offer and whoever got the top offer would get it and we came second. So close, we were out by just a few thousand dollars. It was so, so close to getting it and just all fell through. And so I was like, keep looking, keep looking. SPEAKER 1 And what sort of things were we looking for? What was our criteria? SPEAKER 2 Yes, true. So we were looking for a place that needed a little bit of work so that we could add value to the house. But because we are not builders or haven't got much experience in that kind of thing, we didn't want to bite off more than we could chew. So If it needed a little facelift, some fresh floor coverings, maybe some painting, maybe might be able to do a new kitchen or something, just a little bit of those things just to give it a fresh start, then that was what we thought we could handle. And we also wanted some things like we really wanted to have a fireplace, and maybe wanted to have a bathtub, and a block that was big enough that we could grow a nice patch of veggies, and yeah, all these things that we were looking for. SPEAKER 1 And a two-car garage because we have two cars. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, that would be a deal. Yeah, so we had all these criteria and we were praying about it and yeah, it seemed like it wasn't... We didn't know where an answer was going to come from. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, and we just looked and as soon as we thought that we'd found something, someone else, not long after we decided, okay, we should make an offer, and all of a sudden someone else picked it up and so it was gone. SPEAKER 2 Yeah. SPEAKER 1 But then one day there's a church member who knows Kaysie's dad and he Told Kaysie's dad that him and his wife need to move away and they need to sell their house. Does he know whether if there's anyone who's looking for a new house? And Kaysie's dad said yes, yes he does. And so he told that to us and we thought oh, Well, this sounds wonderful. SPEAKER 2 And then it was kind of like early stages and so this couple that said they're thinking of selling their house, they were still working some things out and so some time went by and we hadn't heard anything and so we kind of just moved on and kept looking because we didn't want to waste time, we had to find something and so we kept looking for a while and We just couldn't get anything. Like there was, we would go to a place and we would have stuff happen and it was not suitable or... SPEAKER 1 And then also we were both working and there was limited time in which we could actually go and visit some of these places. However, Kaysie's Parents, they were able to do that for us and amazing things happened. In one place, they came to this house and the real estate agent basically told them everything that's wrong with the place. You just don't do that. That's like real estate 101. Why would you tell a prospective buyer what's wrong with the thing? SPEAKER 2 It wasn't just what was wrong with the house, it was what was wrong with the neighborhood and there's traffic and there's a colony of bats nearby that cause all these problems and it was like, whoa, we just scare someone away from buying this place. And it just seemed very odd. SPEAKER 1 It was very odd. Now afterwards we'd actually found out that the People who were thinking of selling the house to us, they were actually praying that we wouldn't be able to find any other place because they wanted us to get their house. SPEAKER 2 This was the couple that... SPEAKER 1 This was the couple that indicated they needed... SPEAKER 2 They were wanting to sell but they were still working things out. SPEAKER 1 Yeah. And so... In the end, we... Yeah, they got. SPEAKER 2 In touch with my dad again and said, yeah, yeah, we want to sell it to you. And we worked out a price and everything. And it was a... Because it was a private sale, it was able to be something that we could afford. And it meant that, yeah, we were able to go forward in that direction. And it was just amazing that because of their prayers, it meant that even though we were still looking, we just couldn't get anywhere because this place was the better option. And the other thing was that this place is much closer to our work. It's only 10 minutes from our work places and it's also It had everything that we had actually been looking for. So it has a fireplace and a bathtub and it had a nice yard that we could grow things in and it's got garage space and storage space, things that we were looking for. It has all of that. And we just didn't know about it and would never have known about it from looking online or anything because it was a special private sale. But what was the thing that your dad Did. SPEAKER 1 Oh yes, so my dad said that, you know, we shouldn't worry, God will give us a house. And I thought, oh really? I mean, okay, God has answered these other prayers by the house. A house is a very, very big thing. Mind you, he also answered my prayer about a wife and a wife is bigger than a house. And so, I thought, okay, well, all right, I will venture on in faith. And so one day I was at work and I got a text from Kaysie that said, God has given us a house. And I thought, wow, that's amazing. And so, yeah, that's how it worked out. SPEAKER 2 And I guess the whole thing just took us by surprise because we never expected that and we know that it's not something that often happens. And so we were also praying at the time because we had other opportunities where we could have gone to a different location or gotten jobs in different places. And we were kind of, we were praying that where we found a place would kind of lead with where we were supposed to settle and, and work and do our ministry things and. having this whole thing come up really confirmed to us that, yeah, we need to stay in this place and keep working here and doing what we need to do here. And so that was quite an encouragement and a blessing and, I guess, strengthened our faith experience as well a bit more in that even with these big matters, God can lead and provide and in ways that you don't expect. SPEAKER 1 Indeed. And also it doesn't end there because there was a little bit of work that needed to be done and one of the things we were hoping to do was to actually get a new kitchen. And so we were looking around our Facebook marketplace of course, where else? And and other places as well. But anyway, we were looking and looking and looking, couldn't quite see something that matched what we wanted. SPEAKER 2 This was over a number of weeks. SPEAKER 1 This was, yeah. And then Kaysie's mum, she saw this ad, and I had actually seen it too, but I dismissed it. It was a demolition sale. And she said, well, they might have something that you're looking for. I said, oh, okay. And so off we went. So we went to this demolition sale, and it was a beautiful house. And the owners just needed a fresh look. And so they were, they advertised that pretty much you can take things and it was very, very nice prices, but you had to take it out yourself. And so we went there and we saw this beautiful kitchen and we took it about ourselves and that was the first time because I'd never taken a kitchen apart, didn't even know that it could be taken apart. I just thought that's that. And I think Kaysie was the same. Anyway, we learned how to take it apart. SPEAKER 2 And. SPEAKER 1 And although there were just a few little modifications that needed to be done so that it could fit in our place because it was a big, very big kitchen, but we got it for just a couple of hundred dollars. Two, three hundred dollars. SPEAKER 2 So what was significant about this is we had been looking and looking and looking and then we figured out that we were see we were trying to get a kitchen before we put flooring in the house and we had a deadline for the flooring and we worked out that there was a cutoff point, a last day point that if we hadn't found something by that point we'd have to wait and do it later. But On the last day, the day that we thought we would need the kitchen by to find a kitchen by, that's the day that we saw this ad to get this kitchen from the demolition sale. Plus we've got a whole lot of other things in there from the house that were a good value. They were like a fireplace, hearth, nice stone one, and some things for the bathroom and bedrooms and just a whole variety of different things that were suited well for our place. We were able to get there and It was just perfect timing. Daniel had just gotten on holidays. He was able to go and help take the stuff out of the place straight away before anyone else could get it. And yeah, it was just very well timed and very suitable for what we needed. So that was a big, big blessing and again, a providence that you couldn't plan for. That was what's really special. SPEAKER 1 And so that's our story of how God provided not only a house, but also our kitchen and a few other things. And so he is just amazing how he works. And look, if he can do that for us, he can certainly do that for you. And so he certainly also performs miracles in the 21st century.