Answered Prayer

Brace yourself dear reader, because this is going to be a long blog.  I will try to be brief, but I feel as if my brain has so much for these fingers to type today.  If you want a good read about an awesome God who hears our prayers then this blog is for you.

As many of you know, we recently bought a bank owned home knowing that there had been previous water damage in the basement from a sump pump issue (which the bank had informed us had been fixed prior to our purchase).  The deal that we got on our house was so good that we went ahead and purchased the home “as is” knowing that we would need to take care of a minor mold issue that had recently started growing due to the problems from the sump pump…..at least that’s what the inspector told us.  Knowing that we didn’t want to deal with any amount of mold ourselves, we planned to spend our tax check on professional mold removal.  Mold is expensive to remove professionally, and we knew that.  An average estimate on mold removal for a basement of our size is about $10,000, but we also knew that we didn’t have that much to remove ~ or so we thought.  We were in the house for less than a month when we had a mold specialist who Matt knew come to our home and give us an estimate for the mold removal.  They did not have good news for us.  Apparently mold had been growing in the basement for awhile now, because it had been PAINTED OVER!!! The worse part is that it was going to cost us $8,000 to remove, and that was with a discount!!!!

So that was a Monday; on Tuesday of the same week Matt walked down to the basement only to find it covered in water…because that’s just what we needed after an $8,000 estimate of mold removal.  At that time, central Indiana was thawing out after two months of ice and snow accumulation, so the ground was saturated.  Our first instinct was the sump pump (which the bank told us they fixed), but we really weren’t sure.  We called the warranty company, but they said that if they sent someone out to fix the sump pump and the cause of the problem wasn’t the sump pump, we would have to pay for everything!  Uncertain, we called my dad.  He helped us clean up the basement only to find the water was steadily coming in from a section where the walls and the floor met.  It appeared we had a leak in our foundation which neither insurance nor warranty would cover.  At this point panic set in!  We already had an $8,000 estimate for mold one day prior, and the foundation issue looked like it was going to be at least $6,000 to fix.  

We definitely didn’t understand why this was happening.  We were certain the Lord wanted us to have this house, because He opened so many doors in order for us to get it…..but I have to tell you that my humanity seriously caused me to doubt God and our purchase when I realized how much this basement could potentially cost us.  We had just bought this house, and all of sudden we were looking at up to $15,000 in uninsured maintenance that needed to be done immediately.  We made all of the appropriate phone calls to have people come give us estimates, but no one could come out for at least a week.  All we could do was try to keep the water out of the basement, wait a week for the professionals to give us their opinions, and of course pray ~ pray that the Lord would somehow provide for us to get the issue taken care of correctly and that the issue wouldn’t put us into debt.  We have savings, but $15,000 is a lot of money to fork out on an unfortunate and unplanned event.    

One week after we first discovered the water, someone was able to come to our home and give us our first piece of fantastic news.  He was a foundation specialist for a company who builds homes like ours.  I don’t really understand what he was talking about, because he was explaining piping and how the house is built.  All I really heard was blah, blah, blah….until he said that he believed the problem was the sump pump!!!   He went on to explain why he believed that….again all I heard was blah, blah, blah……but who cares why as long it was the sump pump!!!  The sump pump is covered under our warranty!!!  Come to find out, the bank did replace the sump pump, but they replaced it with the cheapest thing they could possibly use.  Sure enough, warranty came out the next day and fixed the problem for a flat fee of $75.  What an answer to prayer!  Don’t stop reading, because it just gets better.  The next day we had a few people come out to give us more estimates about the mold situation.  Someone who my boss knows has a small business that removes mold, and they once told my boss that they would give anyone who worked for my boss’ company a discount.  We had them come out, and we were told that they would do the same thing to our basement that the other companies were going to do, but it would only cost us $1,600.  That is MUCH better than $8,000 and guess how much we got back on our tax check ~ $1,600.    

As I write this blog, I have people in my basement removing the mold for a fraction of the cost that we were expecting.  This situation may seem small compared to all of the horrific things that go on in our world on a daily basis, but I am so glad that my God cares about things big and small.  He cares for the sick, the poor, the widow, and the orphans; but His Word also says that He cares for the sparrow.  We went to Him with our needs, and He provided.  Dear reader, today I am so sweetly reminded that my God answers prayer!