Itsara

This is a story of haggling, trust, and “coincidence”. It’s an attempt to give credit where it’s due. Fair warning though: there’s math.

When Cindy’s parents came to visit, they spent a lot of time looking at land and prices. Because Cindy mentioned we wanted to live near World Club, they looked almost exclusively at that community. It’s close to the city, but far enough that the traffic and crowds don’t affect us. Many of our friends live there. It’s also the home of Grace International School – the largest and cheapest American-based international school in Chiang Mai – where as a homeschooling family, we can have access to their libraries, sports facilities, and ginormous swimming pool for only 4,000 Baht a year. This makes World Club an ideal location for us… as well as for the thousands of other missionaries living in Chiang Mai which makes it relatively expensive.

They found many lots for sale, but we didn’t start thinking about it seriously (i.e. praying) until they got it down to two. One was a 353 square wah (w^2) lot for 10,500 Baht/w^2. We looked at this one and it looked suitable for our needs, and it was the one Cindy’s mom thought was best (which matters more than you think). But her dad found another by coincidence (his word, though in my experience coincidence doesn’t exist). He had run into the owner randomly while walking around the community. The owner asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for land, and the conversation went on from there. His land was larger (420 w^2) and cheaper (9,500 Baht/w^2), but the overall price was higher, even if Cindy’s dad could get it down to 9,000 like he said he could. Cindy’s mom had other worries about it too.

So we prayed. The night before New Year’s Eve, I had the same dream twice (I know, me and my dreams, right?). In the dream, Cindy and I were not married, but we wanted to be. We were with another couple, good friends of ours and also not married but wanting to be. For some reason, we were each marrying the other person – the wrong person. That is, I was going to marry the woman my friend wanted, and my friend was going to marry Cindy. I didn’t know why we were doing this, but I knew that the reason made a lot of sense and was very practical, but both times in the dream I felt strongly against it. Marrying the wrong person might have made things easier somehow, but it wouldn’t have been right.

I still don’t know for sure if that dream had to do with this or not, but it’s in my notebook written just above some math I did. I was in church the morning of New Year’s Eve (right after having had these dreams) and I felt like we should go for it – we should get the big one. I felt like God wants to bless us big, not little. Some of this came from the sermon where I understood (for the first time) Luke 6:38 to mean that God will be as generous as we are – even more so. So I did some math. The 353 plot of land came out to 3,706,500 Baht total. I wondered how much per w^2 the 420 plot would have to be to be the same price. I’ll save you the trouble and tell you that it would need to be 8,825 Baht/w^2. In that moment, I felt like I should go home and tell Cindy’s dad that we would take the big one and he should ask for 8,800 Baht per square wah for it.

But I didn’t. For that day and the next, we talked about the land and decided that we shouldn’t be greedy. We should go with what Cindy’s mom said and not buy more than we need. So we decided on the smaller plot. We were coming back home to tell her parents to get it, but they had guests. Actually, the owner of the large plot was talking with them at our table. We weren’t involved in the conversation, but afterwards Cindy’s mom came to us and said, “You should definitely buy the big one.”

The owner had talked to them for hours, allayed all Mom’s fears about it and more. He revealed that the plot was actually larger than he originally thought (489 w^2, or nearly half an acre) and, through some vicious haggling (Cindy’s parents are experts), he had lowered the price… to 8,800 Baht/w^2.

The final price was, of course, more than the smaller plot, but for each of our individual reasons, we were sold. Cindy’s mom had no more worries and saw it as a good deal. Cindy saw that her mom was happy. I saw that God was talking to me all along. Now it’s not all in the bag yet. We’ve paid a deposit, but we still owe 4 million Baht due by April 15th (Cindy’s parents are paying all but 500,000 of that). Then of course there’s the houses, which Sean boldly asked God for 6 million Baht for. That’s the thing, we still have to pay this stuff, but somehow I know the money will be there when we need it.