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When I first saw the spring I was amazed. One thought I had was maybe this could be bottled. My brother-in-law had looked into bottling water from some springs he had. I thought I would take him up there and let him look at the spring. One thing I had learned from the realtor that the strip of land in front of the creek before you got to the spring was owned by a Mr. P. The realtor also had mentioned that a neighbor lady had told him that Mr. P was in foreclosure. That morning before I left to go to the property I prayed that the Lord would allow me to meet Mr. P. My brother-in-law and I were standing actually on Mr. P’s property looking across the creek at the spring. I heard somebody behind me say, “Hello.” I turned around and saw a 60+ year old man standing there. I said, “Are you Mr. P?” He said yes and we shook hands. I introduced myself and told him that we had just purchased the land that the spring was on. As we talked I asked him if we could have a right away across his property to the spring or would he be interested in selling that strip of land. He said as long as he had the property I could have a right of way. I asked him what he meant by “as long as he had the property”. He said he has given it back to the bank. Mr. P gave me permission to contact the bank about his property. I was looking into maybe buying from him 1 to 1 ½ acres of land. As some time went by Mr. P came to me and asked if I would be interested in buying all his land. I asked him how much he had and I was surprised about the amount. Because I had talked to the bank I knew how much he owed on it. He also had several other loans on some equipment and livestock. Peggy and I talked about it. I went up one day and walked Mr. P’s property with him. I found out that he was 64 years old. Let me tell you, Mr. P could out work 3 or 4 of us put together. He had lived a life of a farmer and worked hard. We walked his property for about 2 hours. It was gorgeous! There were some beautiful views of the TN mountains. From one area you could see into the valleys of VA. When I got home I shared everything with Peggy. We prayed about it and was wondering what the Lord was up to. We decided to talk with Mr. P about what he would want for it. Mr. P said he would take what he owed on the property plus paying off his other loans. In short we ended up getting his property for about half per acre that we paid for the 100 acres. Mr. P had always lived on the property from the time he was a child. I can still remember standing close to the creek on his property and the Lord whispering in my ear, “If this was your father, how would you want somebody to treat him?” I decided right then to ask him if he still wanted to live in his house. He said yes. I told him he could live there as long as he wanted and I would not charge him anything. All I ask was that he would look over the property and that he would help me if I needed help around the farm. Because we had recently bought the other property, we worked out a deal with Mr. P and his bank to buy his land on a lease/purchase agreement. We had a lawyer draw up the deal and we now had two farms. Peggy and I keep asking each other what the Lord had in store for us. We wanted to have land for the boys to leave them an inheritance, but we also knew we wanted to use the land to minister to other Christians. Next I will tell you how we first did that. |
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