Financial Freedom

Sometimes change comes quickly-- like birth or death. But sometimes change happens so gradually that you don't even notice it happens until one day you realize that you are not the same person you were a year ago.
This is what happened to us!!
In March 2013, we attended a marriage retreat at Fort Rock Family Camp.

It was such an amazing experience, we learned so much and my heart was forever knit with Arkansas!
But while we were inspired-- we were not CHANGED. The camp and the Holy Spirit did their job, but we weren't doing ours. We left what we had learned in Arkansas...
While we were there; however, we met an amazing couple-- Gil and Cynthia Fleshman ( you can read their testimony here) who spoke to us about living debt free and how that enabled them to truly live for God and their family. They also loaned us the DVD's of Jim Sammons Financial Freedom Seminar.

If that rings a bell, you may have heard the Duggar family give credit to this seminar for their financial freedom.

We left Arkansas excited about watching the seminar and making changes.... however, life happens. One day turns into a week, which turns into a month. And before we knew it, it was a new year and we still hadn't watched the seminar.
Frustrated with each other and our circumstances (and knowing that we would need to return the dvd's when we saw the Fleshman's at the upcoming marriage retreat in March) we began watching the 16 hour long seminar.
We were amazed at what we were hearing (and its all from Scripture!) that we had never heard before. Concepts such as:
--owe no man nothing but love
-- never cosign a loan
--listening to the cautions of your wife ;-)
--the hidden message of the lost pearl( loving children as God does)
We were humbled and determined but had no clue where to start. So we wrote out a list of all of our debts including mortgage, car loans and credit cards...gulp!
It totaled over $99,000!!! And would take us approximately 26 years to pay off at the rate we were going!
We went again to Fort Rock for their annual marriage retreat. If possible, this time was better than the last! God really opened our eyes and turned our hearts to our family. We confessed things to each other and rededicated our lives and marriage to Christ.
Leaving Arkansas this time was hard for both of us and we left more determined than ever to become debt free!
I forgot to mention that for about a year now, our boys (with no prompting from us) began praying for a farm!

They talk about the animals we will have, a barn and a big blue tractor.
They are so convinced that this is God's plan for our family that we have begun praying about a farm as well !!
So that is what we're up to!
Making plans, paying off debt and starting a family farm!
My next post will dig deeper into our actual plan.

Take care and be blessed!
Becky