Our "New" Honda Odyssey!

2.25.2013

God gave us our MINIVAN!!! 

Thank you for all the prayers, cars lended, and money given. We are truly thankful! We are still so in awe of how quickly it happened this past Thursday after months as a one car family! And we praise God for it all! 

This past weekend, my spirits had been lower than ever. Then, on Sunday, God gave me hope through some dear friends. They had given me a bag of sewing supplies at church to have and in the bottom of the bag was a note about how God had laid it on their hearts to give some money to us. I just broke down crying in our kitchen! 

I have read about how God does this for other people all the time, but us? It has been such a hard time for our young family and it has been hard to be encouraged! But God was encouraging me that there would be hope! Hope for a car. Hope for Beloved. Hope in God! It's amazing how such a small thing can reassure us, but it does! 

A few weeks ago now, we found a 2009 Honda Odyssey at the Honda dealership in Lexington. It was pouring down rain and we went to look at it, but at the time it was over $17K. We knew this was too much, but maybe they would be willing to work with us. We couldn't test drive it, since it was raining so hard, but we absolutely loved it, inside and out. When we went to sit down, Cai peed on me, hilariously enough, so I had to get up right as we were starting to talk negotiations. When I came out of the bathroom, Hart was waiting for me and he told me it was time to go. I was so confused! They wouldn't budge AT ALL? Don't you negotiate when buying cars anymore? Apparently this dealership is trying to change that! It felt wrong to leave... I mean, that was MY minivan! But we left. 

Fast forward to this past week which had been plain busy. And on Thursday morning, I had actually emailed with another person we found via Craigslist about their van. Hart didn't feel good about that particular deal and he looked around online again. He saw the same van we'd looked at in the rain fo $1000 less. The dealership still had this van and was getting desperate to give it to us. We decided to call and see if it was still there. 

It was indeed still there and we went to test drive it after Hart got off work. You see, people... sometimes we can't see God working behind the scenes! But he does work. It's his timing NOT our own.

Hart and I realized we were going to have to finance some of the van, but our goal was to have at least half down, more if possible. We went into the dealership with our whole game plan. Hart was the "bad cop" I was the "good cop". We weren't taking NO for an answer! This was OUR van, people!!! I told the guy on the phone that I knew this was our van and that we were coming! 

It took some wheelin' and dealin' and if it weren't so late in the day, we do feel like we could have gone a little lower, but baby boy was tired and getting fussy, so we finally settled on a price. 

We got our van for $16,500. 
God has allowed us to save and have the money of $8K. 
We financed the last $8,500. But we got a wonderful interest rate of 2.1%, because apparently Hart and I have some pretty amazing credit! Thank God!

We do have a small car payment right now ($150/mo), but with my extra income working part-time, we are praying and hoping that we can knock this debt out as fast as possible.

I personally feel so relieved, because we have a reliable car again. Our other car is a 1994 Honda Accord, which has been an amazing little car, but now we know we can take longer trips and that his van should last us quite a long time. Plus, Hart can show clients in it, if needed! They will have plenty of space! Haha! 

It also is proving to be quite the little "missional minivan" or "servin' wagon" as my friends, Kitty and Carla like to call it! 

It's first Sunday to church I had 5 kids in this blessing van! Had we not had this minivan, I would have had to tell my sweet neighbor girls that I couldn't take them to church this week, because I was keeping the Leong boys. That's something I could just cry over with God's goodness!

Our joke is now let's "fill it ups with bab-ezz". 

We are expecting Beloved to come now anytime in the near future! And have no hesitations we have room for them to ride! :)


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