Renters nightmare...

I woke up this morning at 7am bright eyed and hopeful but as I began calling realtors to find a rental home my cheerfulness was over shadowed by a new gloomy reality. In Denver you must make 3 times the amount of your rent...be able to prove it with paycheck stubs and tax returns have great credit and pass an extensive rental history check...which all takes about 2-5 days!!!

At one point I just sat there staring at all the homes I had marked as favorites on the computer - they were all being rented out by realtor agencies...and all of them said I had to meet those requirements. They basically said..."Best of luck...did you get a Sunday paper because the only hope you have is with a rental by owner..."

Then a light when on and I remembered that John did pick up a Sunday paper! So...I started trying to weed through the non-user friendly paper...with no pictures...and vague descriptions. I prayed for a moment and then went to work. I ran into the same problem with many of them because they were by realtors also but I found 3 that were willing to show us their homes.

We loaded up the fussy kids and we met with Andy...who is from another country...not sure which one. He liked us right off and said we could move in today! No credit check...no rental history verification...no employment verification...nothing! Normally I would say this guy is taking a huge risk but I know we won't do him wrong.

It's not that we have bad rental history - it's that the realtors didn't like the fact that we were in Thailand for 4 years and they couldn't check before this last December...and they didn't like that we didn't have check stubs...nor that our past years tax returns show a missionaries salary...not even a fraction of what would be required to rent these homes...but Andy didn't care...Thank God for Andy!

We're going to be moving in tomorrow...I'll post some pics soon. On an awesome...different note...the bible school started today and it went wonderfully! I'm so excited to get to go tomorrow and meet the students face to face. Keep us all in your prayers please! It's supposed to snow Saturday!?!?!?!! Craziness!