Dream Home

When Bing and I heard that there was a home being raffled off, we discussed buying a ticket. With all of the medical nonsense we were dealing with, it didn't seem plausible to spend $100 on a ticket that would likely not win us a home... Lord only knew how many people would buy tickets, our odds couldn't be good. I suggested that we pray about it and let God provide the answers (could we afford this, how many should/could we buy).

Bing wanted to buy 3 tickets. I said, "If God wants us to have this house, we only need to buy 1 ticket". We compromised and bought 2 tickets using some of the money from the benefit in Grays Harbor.

Weeks later, Bing approached me saying that the Lord was really laying it on his heart to buy a third ticket. It is hard to deny a request when you word it that way... even in all of my anal retentive frugality, I couldn't deny him the third ticket. I went in to McCall Homes to buy another ticket and spoke with two gals from St. Jude. While they looked for the right book of raffle tickets, I shared our story with them and left them with tears in their eyes. As I left I said " See you in a few weeks when I win the house".

The Bing-efit was on Saturday, September 26th and the drawing for the house was the next day. At the beginning of the week I told Bing it was going to be a good week, "we have the benefit on Saturday and then the next day we are going to win a house". I fully trust that the Lord has our best interest in mind, but I never, never, never thought that we would win. We were watching the live broadcast and eagerly awaited the drawing for the house, I was bummed when we didn't win $10,000 worth of new furniture because my couch is worn out and sinks in the middle. A beautiful little girl with brain cancer, reached into the hopper and pulled out the ticket, handed it to the news lady and...............drum roll please, announced that Lane Perrine had won the house. I screamed at the top of my lungs, jumped out of the sink-hole in my couch and landed on top of Bing. We both jumped up and down, screaming, squealing, crying, hugging and kissing. We immediately started calling our family and sharing the good news. In between phone calls, Bing hugged me and confessed, " I didn't tell you this, but on Monday nights when you were working, Maddox and I went down to the house and prayed over it".

I missed the call from St. Jude, so they called Bing and asked us to come down to the news station. When we walked in, the gal who sold me the ticket stared at me wide eyed, started bawling and said, "it's you". We hugged and cried and shook hands with a huge group of people who were waiting there to congratulate us and then we all headed down to our new house.

News crews, the builders, neighbors and the St. Jude folks were all there watching our reactions as we walked through. Bing had toured the house before, but it was my first time seeing the inside of this beautiful home, and let me tell you, it is AWESOME!

I don't have photos yet, but I will soon and I cannot wait to share them with you. We have to meet with lawyers and figure out all of the tax stuff and what not, it could be a month or so before we are even close to moving, but we hope to be able to host Thanksgiving.

When Bing bought the first two tickets, he put "Mr. & Mrs. Bing Perrine" on them, when I bought the third ticket, I only put my name on it. That is how we know that the third ticket was our winner. I am grateful that Bing was so faithful in prayer and had the wisdom to listen. I am grateful that I was able to submit to my husbands wish for a third ticket, and didn't argue our lack of finances. God has blessed us with more than we could have dreamed, THANK YOU GOD!