"The Lake"
Lori and I decided to head back to Missouri to look for jobs and find a university we would like to attend. Katie was now almost four years old and her sister Kelly almost two. Lori was also pregnant with our third. We went to Columbia, Missouri for a few months but didn’t really feel at home there.
We went and looked at the University of Kansas (KU) in Lawrence, Kansas and decided we would rather live there. I took Lori and the kids to stay at her parents’ house and she had our new baby boy while there. After Danny was born, I took off for Lawrence to look for work and a place to live. I lived at the local lake park till I got a job working as the head baker in the Student Union at KU. A dream job for me.
I rented a room in a large boarding house, close to the University, for a couple of months and started house hunting. While looking over the classified ads in the local newspaper, an ad popped out to me that described a ten-acre piece of land with an eight-acre lake on it. The ad had a very bright “light on it”.
The owner wanted ten percent down and offered the balance on a twenty-year note for a total price of $15,000.
I went out to look at it and felt that I should purchase the property right away but decided to think it over for a few days. I just didn’t know if I wanted to go back into real estate investment so soon.
My first paycheck from baking would be enough to make the down payment but it would have delayed me being able to get Lori and the kids to Lawrence for another month. I decided to think about it over the weekend and call on Monday to make the purchase, even though I just knew I should go purchase it right away.
Instead of calling on Monday I decided to wait another day. I called the next morning, and the owner informed me that the property had sold the previous day. He was disappointed, stating that he really thought I was going to be the one to buy it.
A couple of months later I went by the property and saw where they had drained the lake, were getting ready to backfill it to offer lots for sale.
Years later, I went by the property and the owner had just sold the last lot for $45,000 and the last house of the subdivision was being built. I drove up to the house and talked to the construction worker who told me the story of the property and its developments.
Obviously, I had missed acting when inspired to do so and had missed God’s provision.