While in Auckland, we relaxed, hung out with our friends who hosted us, had a lot of fun, went on lots of adventures, and did as much as we possibly could to sort out our finances for the house while we had the downtime. I made the call to John and gave him the full story. I told him the only idea that came to mind to be able to afford this house was to ask Matt’s parents for a portion of his inheritance. What he said next stuck with me. He said, “When God gives you an idea, you need to pursue that idea to see where it leads”. To be honest, I thought it was my own idea. Logically, it was the only option that made sense and was practical. For some reason, I had this notion in my mind that God would provide the money in some unforeseen way. That he was going to do something crazy, like drop money from the sky or have a stranger from the internet donate a lump sum to us. We did enter a massive $100,000 giveaway, figuring we were helping God out by making ways for him to provide for us. But actually, I learned from this experience that God definitely does not need our help or suggestions in order to fulfil His promises; He does things in His own way and time, and it’s usually much different than how we see things playing out. I’m learning He does profound things in very practical ways. So when John suggested that the inheritance idea was God’s, that was my first time realising that I wasn’t just in my own head.
God quickly confirmed that He planted the idea in my head shortly after I hung up the phone. Matt came to me and said that God had given him the parable of the prodigal son during his morning devotion. I asked him if God revealed what the story meant pertaining to our situation, and he said He didn’t. I told him that’s fine, I am sure God will reveal the meaning to us in one way or another. So I went to get ready for the day (this was first thing in the morning, pretty early on in our holiday) and as I was brushing my teeth, God revealed to me what He wanted us to glean from the parable. At first, I took the story as a bad sign – that somehow Matt and I would squander his inheritance and go running home as soon as we were broke. But God showed me that wasn’t the point of the story – the point of the story is the father’s heart. He didn’t care about the money; he cared about his son. The money meant nothing compared to the well-being of his son. He wanted nothing more than for his son to be HOME.
I ran to Matt and told him what God had revealed to me. It’s important to understand – Matt didn’t like the idea of approaching his dad for money. We got married young, and we approached Matt’s family for money a few times in our early days when we weren’t the smartest with our finances and were still figuring things out. I look back at our first few years and cringe at how bad we were with our money. I am so thankful we learned from our mistakes because those lessons helped get us to where we are today. We didn’t stop swiping credit cards and become debt-free because our lives were easy – no way. We got there because we hit rock bottom and knew we had to make a significant change. This is when we enroled in Dave Ramsey’s class and got serious about our finances. Anyway – back to the present time, I told Matt the meaning of the story and told him that there’s no shame in asking for part of his inheritance. His dad cared about him more than the money, so it will be okay. Matt understood and knew he had to get on the phone if we were going to get this house.
Matt called his parents the next morning; he needed time to really process everything, so he decided to sleep on it. When he did call them, they mentioned that this very topic (inheritance) came up recently. That even more so solidified it for me that this was God – His hand was already moving in all the details behind the scenes. It’s a very specific conversation to have, and the timing of it just lined up perfectly with everything that was already in motion. Matt let his parents know what had happened to date and gave them all sorts of figures – what we would pay in rent while we saved for a house, how many years it would take us to save for a down payment, etc. Let me just say – I am glad we didn’t look up these numbers ahead of time because they were just…defeating. At our rate, we would maybe be able to think about affording a house in 10 years. That’s a long time and a lot of money down the drain.
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The Cullums Immigrate 
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