Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2 – 4 (Emphasis Added)

Amy and I had a lesson in perseverance yesterday night. We had gone out to Spaghetti Warehouse to celebrate Patrick’s birthday and on the way back to their house Amy and I decided that we would stop by the home we our buying (oh yeah, I guess I should mention Amy and I are buying a home) and see if any of the repair work to some outside issue had started yet.

About a week ago, one of the fence panels fell down. This was not a surprise to me, I had walked the fence and found that the post it was attached to was the only one that needed to be replaced, and I have replaced quite a few fence posts so I was not overly concerned by it. What was concerning is the fact that the fallen panel was completely detached from both posts as if someone had been walking over it. We also noticed that some kind of sheet had been placed over the windows in the backyard.

Hoping that it was the construction guy who is going to replace all the air ducts, we decided to take a quick peek through a window. As we approached, however, we found that the storm window had been completely removed and glass was covering the backyard. Moreover, taking a peek in the window revealed garbage on the counters, several holes punched in a wall, and garbage in the fireplace.

Our future home had been vandalized.

We walked the perimeter and finding the front door unlocked, ventured inside. We found paint on the carpet, paint on the wood floors, someone had written, in paint, on one of the closet doors, and worse of all, the garage was just completely trashed. It looks as if they had taken turns throwing a paint can at a wall, painting obscenities and racial epithets all over the garage floor, walls, and door. Additionally, it appeared that they had been bathing and showing there.

Seeing the garage was devastating to Amy, and infuriating to me. I admit that I am guilty of sneaking into an unoccupied home when I was a child and chilling there. But the amount of senseless destruction… it boggles the mind. There is simply no rhyme or reason why someone would write some of the words they did in an empty garage or punch holes in the walls.

We made very certain that we changed nothing from how we found it and left. We called up our realtor and informed him of what had happened. He promised to call the seller’s realtor and find out whatever he could. About 10 minutes later we got a call back from him and found out that the police had actually caught 2 of the individuals involved in the vandalism. They know that there are two others and the 2 who were caught are informing the police who the remaining two are.

We also got some more good news today. The seller was already aware of the break in and has a contractor out there getting an estimate and starting repairs this week as soon as the police’s investigation is finished and work is allowed to resume on the house. Other points of God’s provision in this include:

• We have extensive photographic records of the condition of the house before the vandalism by ourselves, the seller’s agent, the inspectors (2 of them), and the appraiser was there just before this happened!
• The seller is already committed to fixing these issues (we are praying that the parents of the individuals who committed this crime are held responsible for the bill and not the seller. The seller has been real nice to us during this process and we really hope he isn’t burdened by this)
• The closing date should remain unchanged
• The seller is fixing the fallen fence panel for us now too (originally I was just going to do it)
• The police are going to be keeping an eye out on our house until we move in to make sure this does not happen again.

I’d like to take a moment and put some of our friends’ fears to rest who have responded to this story with extreme concern about the safety of the neighborhood. This is actually a very nice neighborhood. Every time I’ve gone by I’ve seen plenty of people out in their yards, there aren’t bars on the windows, and even the kids who walk past us on their way home from school have been friendly and well dressed (with one or two exceptions, but hey, if you saw some of my pictures from that age you’d be surprised too).

The simple truth of the matter is that this place has been empty for the past 4 months, the backyard was wide open for anyone to traipse into, and… it was spring break when it happened. I’d be hard pressed to find a neighborhood in which something didn’t happen to a home in similar circumstances.

And, just so you know, Amy and I are not worried about the safety of the neighborhood and we are still closing on the house on schedule. Letting a couple kids who got stupid rowdy keep us from closing on this amazing home would be beyond idiotic and painfully short-sighted!

Thanks for all your prayers!

Matthew and Amy

Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?