Our Million-Dollar Impulse Buy

“What did we just get ourselves into?”

This was our first thought when we woke up the morning after we arrived home in Warman from our last trip to Edmonton. The last few months have been a bit of a blur. With spring fast approaching, and trying to prepare for the upcoming move, this meant preparing, listing, selling, and buying new houses.

We had first met with our realtor back in January to let him know about our plans for church planting and the upcoming move. He suggested we list our houses in March to account for the spring influx of buyers.

We prayed that our houses would sell quickly, not only as a confirmation that God was in this, but also to not have to disrupt our lives too much with endless viewings and the constant need to keep everything showhome ready.

To our surprise, by the middle of March, both houses ended up selling… within a day of each other! Both families received great offers, but the only difficulty was that we also received possession/closing dates much earlier than expected. For the Klassens, this means that they need to be out of their house before the end of May, and for the Bitners, before the middle of June.

We were in shock. Things just got real. This is what we had been praying for, for months! Yet even as Jesus graciously answered our prayers, faster than we’d expected, the reality of the situation started to sink in.

With closing dates soon approaching, we knew that we’d have to find something quickly in Edmonton because, in a buyers market, if you don’t act now, you miss out. So we booked some hotel rooms and decided we were going to take a house-hunting expedition the first week of April.

A couple of days before the trip, we contacted our realtor in Edmonton with a list of 20 houses we wanted to look at. He prepared the viewings for us and we set out on a trip with 10 kids in tow to figure out the specific neighbourhood and houses Jesus was calling us to.

By the time we arrived in Edmonton, the list had been cut nearly in half. Houses were selling like hotcakes, and the houses at the top of our lists were gone. Initially, with what was available, we had narrowed our search down to four main areas: Secord, Rosenthal, Hamptons, and a brand new up-and-coming area called The Uplands.

We left the kids to fend for themselves back at the hotel while we looked at 5 or 6 houses that first evening when we arrived. (Don’t worry, there are quite a few responsible babysitters in our cohort of chaos.) And, while not loving them (remember, the houses we were most excited to see had just been taken off the market) we found a pocket of 3 newly constructed houses, all by the same builder, next to each other in the Uplands that all seemed to be workable for our families. There were plusses and minuses to each house, but the two we liked the most were actually mirror images of each other, with the same floor plan. 

Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Klassens and Bitners currently live in houses just down the street from each other with mirrored floor plans (sorry for switching to third person - it’s weird for multiple people to write on behalf of two families). So yes, we essentially live in the same houses. We thought it would be pretty awesome to keep the tradition alive, so they quickly rose to the top of our now much tinier list of potential homes. And even better, these were two of the lowest priced houses that would fit our families. 

We came back to the hotel to discuss what we had seen, to remind ourselves that this is a missionary journey, not a way for us to upgrade our standards of living, and to pray about what God would have for us. 

We currently live in houses of approximately 2,400 sq ft of living space with everything setup to work well for each of our families. The houses we were now looking at averaged just under 1,800 sq ft. With the options available to us, we’d be downsizing from 5 bedrooms down to 3, and shrinking the hosting and storage space we’re used to while we’re at it.

By morning the next day, our realtor informed us that almost all the houses we had planned to look at that day, along with half the houses we had seen the day before (including one of those twin-houses) now had offers pending. The dream of continuing the 9 year streak of living in the same, but flipped, house was coming to an end. Okay, it’s not like it was something we were actively looking for, but it would have been cool.

What started out as a list of 20 houses was diminishing by the minute. The areas of Hamptons and Rosenthal had been taken out of the competition, and now there were only houses left in Secord and The Uplands.

With the quick sales of our houses, it almost felt like things were too easy. But now it started to feel like church-planting. Stakes were getting high. Tension was building. We needed to rely on God.

When our families first discussed the plan to move, we knew we wanted to be within walking distance of each other and so we’ve been consistently praying to that end (yes, you could say that everything is technically within walking distance… but we hoped for less than a 10 min walk from house to house). The last few houses we were going to look at were just barely within that distance, and the prices were higher than what we had seen the day before, so after viewing one house in Secord, we decided we needed to cancel the rest of the viewings, grab the kids from the hotel, and go back to those houses in the Uplands before they were gone, and pray about making some offers. God was narrowing our options - fast.

When we got back to the houses in the Uplands, we were informed that because of the sales of the houses all around them, the prices of the remaining houses had gone up from the previous day. Not a great spot to be in for negotiation. There was no movement on price from the seller’s side, and now, by the time we got there, there were essentially two houses left. Our families thought both houses were workable. We both saw the ups and downs of each house. But one house was $25,000 more than the other, and with our limited budgets to work with, it would be a major stretch and difficulty to make the upper price work for either family.

So after praying about it, and sensing the Spirit’s leading, we decided to make a combined offer of over a million dollars. Maybe some of you reading this are used to those kinds of numbers, but we sure aren’t. Especially, not without spending a few days to think about it. Talk about an expensive impulse buy. But we had to act fast, so we told them that we’d offer to buy both houses, and have them just split the cost evenly between both houses. Obviously, this was an unusual offer… I mean, what kind of people give up $12,500 of their family’s money to let their friends buy a house next door? Jesus’ people, that’s who.

When we went into the home builders office later that day to sign the papers, we were greeted by a lady who looked awfully familiar to us. We had recognized her from the trip we took last year when we were first thinking and praying about moving to Edmonton. We were talking to different home builders, looking at show homes, and investigating the new areas of Edmonton - even just to gauge the interest when we mentioned we were thinking of moving to start a new church.

So when she saw us come in to sign the papers, she said, “I knew it had to be you! There was something strange about this offer. I mean, who does that? I thought, ‘this must be those families coming to start that church!.’” Somehow, Jesus left an impression on her with our first meeting, and was now doing something to confirm the reality of who He is, and how He changes people.

Not only did Jesus direct our steps to the neighbourhood he wanted us to be, not only did he give us two houses next door to each other, on top of all that, even in removing the ability to purchase the twin houses (which would have been basically the same price as each other), he gave us the opportunity to show what it looks like for Christians to love each other to this lady who worked for the home builder. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:35. She recognized that we must be Christians. While not being a Christian herself, she said that she’s excited to, at least, come to our opening-day service once we start gathering. 

While we work out the exact details of moving dates and how we figure out what and how to downsize to fit into our new houses, we can see that Jesus is providing for us, he is preparing those he wants us to meet, and he has a perfect plan in this church plant. 

So what are we getting ourselves into? A grand adventure of ups and downs, twists and turns, and a continual reminder to trust in the goodness and sovereignty of our God - all for the glorious purpose of seeing lives transformed by the Gospel to the praise of His grace.

If you would like to contribute at all to any of our upcoming expenses for moving or the ongoing cost of serving in these roles of missionary-church-planters, you can do so at https://graceyeg.com and click the “Connect” link on the top left.

If you'd like to read previous editions of the newsletter, you can do so here: https://graceyeg.beehiiv.com/

On behalf of our families,

Clay Bitner and Jared Klassen