Looking For A Home

Since we arrived in St. Louis on April 29th, Julie and I have been looking for a home to permanently purchase and move our family into. Our life has not stopped, nor even settled with all of the events and occurrences that have taken place. Yet, we know that our current home is just temporary while we look for a place to land for years to come.

We want a home big enough for our growing family, a kitchen where Julie can work her "magic", and also a home where we can invite friends and family to come and stay with us for days at a time. Julie wants to buy a house that will fit comfortably in our budget and not overextend us, I also want to protect our budget, which we work very hard to maintain, but am willing to risk more for value and a good investment as well. We tend to come at this process from two slightly differing points of view.

We are now in our 6th week of looking for a home and haven't felt a peace about one yet. Some Julie has liked, and some I have liked, but we are not going to proceed with a home until we both agree and have peace that "the home" is what we desire and can honor God with. Most importantly, as we look at all of these homes and make these major life decisions, we try to remember that what makes a home is the lovingkindness and joy within the walls and not its size, location, or the interest rate you are paying on the mortgage. Presently, mortgage rates are going up and the days of 5% are probably long gone. How should this affect our search for a home??? It shouldn't!

It is so easy to fall into the pressures of American life: having a real nice home, paying the best rate, not missing the opportunity, and so on. Honestly though, that is the "tyranny of the urgent" and will never bring the peace and joy into a home that makes the home the special place it is supposed to be. Honestly, I feel some of that pressure to act quickly and you know what? Shame on me if I give in. Our God does not deal or depend on good interest rates or resale value in order to provide for His people or accomplish His will. Rather, he looks for these times in our lives to see how we will seek after Him, depend on Him, and grow closer to Him as we walk through life's tough decisions.

For those of you who feel pressure from the "tyranny of the urgent", do not worry, but rather entrust yourself and your family into the loving hands of a sovereign God. It sounds overly simple, but He clothes the lilies of the field, and He feeds the birds of the air. He has not forgotten about you and will provide for you as you entrust yourself to Him.

Psalm 34: 12-15
12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,
13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.
14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry.

Our New Home...For Now

It is Saturday evening and we are getting ready for our second Sunday here in St. Louis. Tomorrow Julie and I will be interviewed by Matt Herndon (the Lead Pastor at Rooftop) during both services. In the meantime, we are getting settled into our new home and really enjoying life here in the city of St. Louis. Our house is small for a family of 7, but we are managing okay. We love our neighbors and the street we live on. The houses are beautiful and I have walked up to the local hardware store multiple times with the boys in the 10 days we have been here.

A fellow Rooftopper Hudson stopped over earlier this week and took some pictures of our family and our home.





Here is a shot of our back yard and the alley that runs behind it...

...it is small, but the kids manage well and unlike our home in Grand Rapids, we have a finished basement for them to play in.

Our new home...

Friday Morning, 5 a.m.

It is Friday morning at 5am and I am hitting the road right on time. 8 hours of driving while gaining an hour crossing the time zone should put me at the Rooftop Church Building right around noon...we'll see. I have an appointment to see one rental at 1:30pm this afternoon and Julie is going to try to come up with another one or two this morning while I am on the road. Some Rooftoppers have been helping us with some leads. Hard to find 3 month rentals. Everyone wants 6 and mostly 12 months for a rental...See you in St. Louie

Weekend in St. Louis - 12 Days...

It is Wednesday and I am getting ready to hit the road to St. Louis early on Friday morning. I am driving down to drop off our car, look for a home to rent for several months, and take care of some business at Rooftop. I also plan on attending a cool Trivia Night event that the church is hosting on Friday evening, and then fly back to Grand Rapids on Saturday evening. As I have noted previously, our transition to Rooftop has gone quite well with the home selling in 4 days, Selah being born nearly weeks earlier than her due date of 4/21, and a bunch of other stuff that has been very complimentary to a quick and smooth transition to St. Louis.

Well, in the past 24 hours our two best leads for a home to rent are looking less probable as one reported a serious interest in purchasing their home and the other telling us of a long term rental inquiry which would be much better for them as well. We understand and are happy for these former Rooftoppers and their recent good fortune. The Zilkies however are still looking for a place to stay...

We are leaving our home in Caledonia on Monday (4/27) 12 days from today. We will live out of suitcases while staying locally at a friends cottage for a couple of days and then driving together to St. Louis on Wednesday (4/29) or Thursday (4/30), meeting up with our stuff the end of that week.

This weekend will be a great time as I love road trips, am thrilled to get to spend more time with our new church community, and the challenge of finding a short term rental house in a short time is also somewhat exciting. However, I would welcome your prayers for my travels, Julie and the kids as they are without me for a couple of days, and finding the right house in the right location which will help us connect all the more quickly with our new church family as well as keep me close to home during this challenging time of transition. Thank you in advance for your continued prayers and support!!!

How Not To Sell A House In 4 Days

In my previous post "4 Days" we talked about the quick sale of our house and how we sense God's leading therein. Well that was not the whole story...

Julie and I had been working for a couple weeks on the house to get it ready for sale. There were 8 years worth of little projects we had thought of doing, but never did that were compressed into two weeks time. On Thursday, March 12 our house officially went up for sale and appeared on MLS or whatever it is called. Now our work list was still not complete at this time and we continued working on it even as the sign went up in the front lawn. On Friday our Realtor, Eric Freeman of Pillar Realty contacted us about our first walk-through which was to take place on Saturday evening. Normally people will leave their home during a viewing, giving any prospective buyers a quiet and comfortable setting to view the home. Well, when you have 4 and 7/8 kids, getting out of the home is not so easy. So we planned to go for a walk Saturday evening while the viewing took place.

All day Saturday we spent time finishing up our list and getting the home ready for our first viewing. As 6:30 came close, Julie put some soothing instrumental music on the iPod in the living room and we began getting the crew out of the house and on our way. Well, for those of you who have multiple children, you know this is easier said than done. The two older boys are pretty self sufficient these days in getting their bikes, but Caroline (3) and Ezekiel (16 months) require a little more assistance getting into the double stroller. Add to that the beautiful, talented, and very pregnant Julie whose days of fluid movement have long since passed and you have a very sloooow progression out of the garage, down the driveway and onto the sidewalk...

About 1/3 of the way down the driveway the first car pulls in and I am thinking "oh crap, we didn't make it". Then all of a sudden this (even more pregnant than Julie) woman gets out of her car and we realize it is the other Realtor. She sees Julie and runs up all excited saying, "oh you are almost having a baby too!!!, my due date is actually today and I am showing a house...yada, yada, yada" Anyway, after a minute or two of pregnancy talk, we continue SLOWLY down the drive way and then the second car pulls in with a young couple and an older couple inside...I think "crap, we missed it again"...

As they are getting out of the car while we are walking by, the middle-aged woman says very emphatically, "Julie!!!" Julie then returns the enthusiasm and says, "Karen!!!" They hug each other and feeling very left out at this point and a little confused, I pipe in with "why don't I know you???" Julie then realizes the inequity of the current social interaction and mentions that she used to work with Karen way back 7 years ago when we first moved to our home in Caledonia. We come to find out that Karen's daughter and son-in-law are newly married and are looking for a starter home (like we were at that very same point in our marriage). This is where the real problem begins...

Up until that time I was pretty focused and aware of what needed and didn't need to happen during this first viewing. However, with all of the commotion and reunions going on, I got distracted. Moreover, I began getting too comfortable with all of the chit-chat and warmth that was taking place before our home even got looked at. It was here that the real Jeremy Zilkie began to come out....

Seeing the "coincidences" and obvious peculiarities about the whole viewing appointment I began thinking (very quickly as I often do) and thought I would inject a little humor and light-heartedness into all that was taking place (since I was the one person not presently included in the many varied conversations). Karen happened to say when she looked at a very pregnant Julie and our four children, "boy, you have been busy!" Well this was my opportunity...loving our kids, our family, and thinking that everyone loves some big family humor, I begin articulating the phrase "Be careful, if you buy this place you too could end up with 5 kids in 8 years" However, as I began saying the words some other thoughts crept into my mind...words of sensibility and wisdom...phrases like: What if they don't want a big family? What if they aren't really big on children? What if they can't have children? Is it really worth being witty and a little funny with these people if you possibly offend them and jeopardize their viewing of your home???

Unfortunately this sensibility did not set in until after a couple words did escape from my mouth, the words "Be careful...", and me being me, I didn't exactly whisper them. Well everyone stops and looks at me as I am now silent and realizing what I have just said. Having raised the general curiosity level of everyone present with my provocative statement, one of the members of the buying party says "Be careful about what?" Completely stupefied and without anything to say to try to recover I quickly stammer the words, "never mind..." and leave my "be careful" comment hanging out there all by itself...

Well at this point, to no one's suprise, the conversations have come to an abrupt end and our family began the slooooow march up the street. Yet, my mind continued..."be careful? be careful?" "What did they think I meant? Why would the owner of the home (me) tell them (the prospective buyers) to be careful and then say 'never mind'?" "They must be thinking something is wrong with the house or I am trying to hide something or who knows what?" I begin to feel an ache in my gut as we continue sauntering along the sidewalk. Julie then inquires what I was talking about when I said what I said. Feeling horrible, not wanting to make her anxious and knowing I might as well have left one of Zeke's dirty diapers on the floor of the kitchen during their viewing, I tell her "nothing, don't worry about it", and we continue on. Well I did worry about it for the next 30 minutes, metaphorically kicking myself as we slowly walked around ONE block in our neighborhood as they looked at the house.

Interestingly enough, this whole time Julie is talking about how sure she is they will love the home, how neat it was to see Karen, how she thinks they will make us an offer and they will probably end up buying our home. I on the other hand, though I am smiling and nodding, know in my mind and heart the metaphorical grenade I threw into the evenings festivities. As we walked I just kept thinking to myself what many others have probably thought of me at one point or another, "Jeremy, you Moron! Why couldn't you just keep quiet?"

When we got back to the house they were gone and our evening went on as normal. When we got the call from Eric the next day with an offer, I was TRULY surprised. It had to be a miracle and an act of God for them to overlook my moronic statement and to love our home as they obviously do. So for those of you who saw God in our home selling in 4 days, consider my contributions on that Saturday evening and be even more amazed.

4 Days (Updated Fri, 3/27)

This past Thursday, March 19th, our home officially went up for sale. We had our first viewing on Saturday evening, and by Sunday we had received a respectful but low offer for our home. Monday we countered and the buyers accepted our counter-offer. 4 days, 1 showing, an offer agreement and a fair price for both us and the buyer...here in Michigan...

People often talk about "the favor of God". However, in our prosperity focused and suffering averse American Christian society, the idea of God's favor almost always has to do with comfort, ease, success, money, etc. This bothers me. It bothers me because did not Jesus have God's favor EVERY step of EVERY day of His life? Yet, was not Jesus misunderstood, ridiculed, blasphemed, persecuted, beaten, betrayed and ultimately tortured to death? Jesus, the only and most favored Son of the Most High God.

I am very careful to presume to know what the favor of God actually is and who is the recipient of it. Moreover, Julie and I want to walk the path of our Savior, which is a narrow and difficult path, and as trials and challenges come we want to be able to honestly and authentically glorify God and face the struggles with the winsomeness and grace God provides.

Then you have these past 4 days...and the wind of the Spirit has been completely at our backs. To sell your home at a good price, in this housing market, here in Michigan, with a counter offer, in just 4 days is...God's favor? I don't know...

What I do know is that Julie and I have graciously accepted the contrarian's way these past two years. I have worked in a warehouse much of that time, talked of a crazy move to Indiana that never happened, sacrificed a ton materially and financially toward our "long term savings goals", struggled trying to find my path back into "vocational ministry", ultimately led by God to give up my need and pursuit of said ministry job, and yet we have walked in some of the most spiritually fertile ground we have ever known. Moreover, our joy for life, for Jesus, for our family, has only grown stronger in that time.

Oh, one more thing...the baby coming in a month had been breech for some time. Well, at Julie's doctor appointment this (Monday) morning, the baby's head had turned south and all systems are go.

I sit here Monday evening in a fog of sorts, with St. Louis and Rooftop that much closer in just a couple of days. Today as these events were unfolding, four different people: an owner of our company, a coworker, the UPS guy Linc, and my friend in Detroit all made reference to God wanting us to go with His blessing and making the way clear for us. When four (and probably more) different people all testify to the power and activity of God in this world and (by His grace) in my life, I say thank you for allowing me to be a part of what You (God) are doing.

It will not continue like this. The Scriptures say that ALL who will truly follow after Jesus will suffer as He did and we continue to pray that we too could know "the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil3:10). In the meantime, we adjust our sails, accept the Spirit's wind, and go where He takes us...

(Update 3/27)
...I talked with Eric our Realtor yesterday and asked him if there had been any other inquiries on our home since it went on the market a week ago. We have not yet put the "sold" sign out...NOT ONE ADDITIONAL CALL. One call, one showing, one offer, one pending sale...one God.