A part of my own story
Like Abraham and Sarah I also thought it was too late to receive something I desperately hoped for. It wasn’t a baby, we’d had four of them, it was a house; a nice comfortable labor saving, pretty home. Why did I want pretty things, I am a pastor and vanity is not suitable to the life of a pastor. But I couldn’t help it, I longed for comfort, convenience and prettiness.
Our house in England, the one that was our dream house, was let out through an agency, after 12 years the agency wrote and suggested we sell it. We did and what we did with the proceeds was pay off our debts. Two of us going through college and seminary had used up all the proceeds of that little dream house – I cannot describe how disappointed I was. Through another 12 years I watched the price of houses increase, until they were far beyond the possibility of our ever being able to buy again.
I really disliked living in church-owned houses, ‘manses’ they were called and considered to be rent-free but because we lived in them without paying rent, that amount of money was deducted from the salary paid to us. That meant that when we retired we would not have a paid-up or partly paid-up mortgage but would have to go on paying rent out of our pensions. ‘Do you know, said one of my members, people are actually paying a hundred thousand dollars to buy a house! who could afford to pay that much?”
As we drove past the new houses I sadly reminded myself that we were too old now to save that much and would never own our own home again. Still I couldn’t help looking and one day I took David to see the nicest little condominium I had ever seen, it was priced at one hundred thousand dollars. David and I had most of our life served small congregations on small salaries, but in recent years David had been serving a seven hundred member church. That congregation enjoyed doing good things for their three pastors; they had paid part of David’s salary into a tax exempt savings account ready for when he retired; and he had reached the age when he could draw it out without paying tax. The amount they had deposited came to exactly the amount needed for the down payment; ten thousand dollars. My two aunts had died leaving me one thousand dollars between them – just enough to pay closing costs and pay for the built in appliances.
The monthly mortgage payments were almost too high for us; we had to spend very carefully. I never imagined that we could ever have them all paid off, but they were. Our eldest son who was single at the time, volunteered to send us extra money which we paid into the mortgage, rapidly reducing the interest. I remember our amazement when we passed the line where most of the monthly payment goes towards the premium instead of into interest. Over the years we put extra money into the mortgage and just before David died the amount owing on the mortgage became quite small. Who would have imagined that we could pay off a hundred thousand dollars in such a short time? Now that I have finally retired I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to own a house mortgage free. Especially when every time we passed a housing development I had said to myself, “It’s too late; we’ll never own our own home again.”
Our house in England, the one that was our dream house, was let out through an agency, after 12 years the agency wrote and suggested we sell it. We did and what we did with the proceeds was pay off our debts. Two of us going through college and seminary had used up all the proceeds of that little dream house – I cannot describe how disappointed I was. Through another 12 years I watched the price of houses increase, until they were far beyond the possibility of our ever being able to buy again.
I really disliked living in church-owned houses, ‘manses’ they were called and considered to be rent-free but because we lived in them without paying rent, that amount of money was deducted from the salary paid to us. That meant that when we retired we would not have a paid-up or partly paid-up mortgage but would have to go on paying rent out of our pensions. ‘Do you know, said one of my members, people are actually paying a hundred thousand dollars to buy a house! who could afford to pay that much?”
As we drove past the new houses I sadly reminded myself that we were too old now to save that much and would never own our own home again. Still I couldn’t help looking and one day I took David to see the nicest little condominium I had ever seen, it was priced at one hundred thousand dollars. David and I had most of our life served small congregations on small salaries, but in recent years David had been serving a seven hundred member church. That congregation enjoyed doing good things for their three pastors; they had paid part of David’s salary into a tax exempt savings account ready for when he retired; and he had reached the age when he could draw it out without paying tax. The amount they had deposited came to exactly the amount needed for the down payment; ten thousand dollars. My two aunts had died leaving me one thousand dollars between them – just enough to pay closing costs and pay for the built in appliances.
The monthly mortgage payments were almost too high for us; we had to spend very carefully. I never imagined that we could ever have them all paid off, but they were. Our eldest son who was single at the time, volunteered to send us extra money which we paid into the mortgage, rapidly reducing the interest. I remember our amazement when we passed the line where most of the monthly payment goes towards the premium instead of into interest. Over the years we put extra money into the mortgage and just before David died the amount owing on the mortgage became quite small. Who would have imagined that we could pay off a hundred thousand dollars in such a short time? Now that I have finally retired I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to own a house mortgage free. Especially when every time we passed a housing development I had said to myself, “It’s too late; we’ll never own our own home again.”
posted by Jessie Coates at 4:51 PM
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