Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A House Fulfilling its Destiny

When we began looking at houses to rent last August before our move to Portugal, Denny and I thought we had a clear idea of what we wanted and needed. Yet, as we visited one place after another, God spoke to us even more about the kind of house He wanted for us, the kind of space He wanted us to create, not only for our own family, but for all those who would come through our doors. The more we searched, the more impossible the task of finding that place seemed, until our last day here before heading back to Italy, when we saw this beautiful house, the one that is now our home.

After moving in on the first of October, we set to work, to transform it... t
o create the environment that we felt each room should have, to fulfill its purpose. The living room/dining room - big and spacious, yet so "homey". The cozy, practical kitchen with it's corner bench table - a perfect place for a chat over coffee or tea. The family room - great for movies and meetings. The bedrooms - each suiting the needs of its occupant, decorated with memories of life in Italy and hopes for the future.

All rooms that have been in constant use since we moved in... giving a sense of warmth and shape to our family life, hosting dinners, meetings, movie nights, chats with friends, young people needing a place to work or to rest or to just be... all that we felt these rooms would become.

What had remained "in limbo" was the room we
had set aside as a practice room for Triplet, the Portuguese band we're working with here (and our good friends). It's been sitting - basically untouched - serving only as a storage room for our sound and light systems and a host of musical instruments. We've been working to raise funds, while searching for the best materials and the manpower, to soundproof it so the band could begin using it regularly to practice. But still it remained a storage room.

This week, in view of their upcoming gigs - Thursday in Lisbon for MSN Portugal, Friday and Saturday in the Algarve - Triplet needed a place to practice. So, in lieu of "the real thing", Denny, Ben and Ruben (Triplet's guitarist and bass player) set to work soundproofing that room with the resources we had on hand - a roll of industrial carpeting, mattresses, pillows, blankets - you name it, it's hanging in there.

And last night, when the first sounds of Triplet's songs began to fill the house (not near as loudly as I had anticipated :o), I felt such a sense of completion... like finally, that room was fulfilling its destiny, being used for the purpose God had in mind when He gave us this house.
Sure there's still much to be done in every room of this house, but God's faithfulness is so amazing to me. Because as we offer all that we have to Him, He creates something that is so many times greater... and rooms built with brick,mortar and wood become places of destiny.