I've got great parents, and grandparents - a great history. My mom and dad weren't perfect by any stretch of the word - but they loved God, and taught us to do the same.
My dad has been with Jesus almost 9 years now - boy that is hard to believe, and sweet Papa Don has been with us for almost 5 years. God has blessed us immeasurably.
There are many things I learned in the home that Mom and Dad built, like honesty, integrity, the value of a good name, the importance of church attendance and Christian people treated like family, thriftiness, and the importance of prayer.
My dad owned a small (one man show) dragline and dozer business, that my brother Kevin continues, and we only had money when we had work. Mom later took on jobs as well, but for a time there I remember quite vividly being taught to pray and trust God for the outcome.
Always in the back of my mind was this house.
The one I had been blessed to live in just shy of all my life. I think we moved in when I was 2, and I only left there for collage. This house, that was a living, breathing answer to prayer. The house that so many of our family and relatives pitched in to build. The house that, thanks to my dad's ingenuity and thriftiness, and both sets of my grandparents loaning money to build, was built without the use of a bank loan.
So many things were prayed for, but one that sticks out is the kitchen cabinets. The kitchen was 'built' but the amount of money needed to purchase cabinets was not there. Only after looking in a basement of a cabinet shop at a previous years 'display' kitchen was it clear that God had hand picked these for my mom and dad. Remarkably, they fit just right.
My mom needs to write down the 'full version' of this story (hint, hint ;)
This is where it all started. My parents bought an old, abandoned school house just up the road from their land.
Notice the 'Fairview' sign above the door....
The sign was placed on our living room wall.
Most of the bricks were 'resalvaged'. My older siblings were bribed asked to contribute, by scraping the old mortar off the bricks one by one, so they could be reused. They were reportedly paid one penny per brick cleaned :)
This lamp was converted from kerosene to adorn the stairwell.
some of the doors were reused....
and even some hardware.
My dad salvaged these beams from a bridge that was being demolished - they are on both levels of the house.
Thanks for listening, I just needed to say that I am grateful, to My God, the God of my parents and grandparents, for his blessings on our family. May I live my life in such a way, that my children and grandchildren can see answered prayer by a real,
living, loving, Heavenly Father.
Tangible evidences that withstand generations....
