For many years, Graeme and I had dreams of moving to the country in retirement, but something always stood in our way. First it was work, then it was much-needed renovations that never seemed to be completed. But the dream persisted.
Lock-downs came and went, and the dream became more purposeful. We needed enough room to be at least partially self-sufficient, with our own power and water supplies, chickens, beehives, veggies and maybe an animal or two. Renovations became more urgent, but work still got in the way. However we were still certain that God had placed these dreams on our hearts for a reason!
During a team vision-casting session I asked ChatGPT to create an image based on the song “Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees,” including sheep, chickens, and beehives, and the above image was the result. I hung a print of this on my fridge, to help keep the dream alive and regularly used Young Living's Hope essential oil blend to keep my spirits up when I despaired of it ever happening.
In late 2025 our work and other commitments slowed significantly, so with the light at the end of the tunnel ever closer, we renovated in earnest. About this time we also met a lovely Christian lady named Kristina who also just happened to be a Real Estate Agent.
Now, we had been contacted by many local real estate agents wanting to sell our house, but something about this lady was different. Kristina ran her business on godly principles, so much so that she had left a big corporate firm because she refused to compromise. We felt confident that God had brought us together for a reason, and although we weren’t quite ready to sell, we set up an appointment to hear what Kristina had to say.
Thanks to Kristina’s guidance we were able to sell our partially-renovated house for close to the price we wanted and start looking in earnest for our dream property in the country!
The next weekend we headed off in the direction of Western Victoria, armed with the addresses of 9 houses that looked promising. Disappointingly, many of them were not as appealing in real life as they had been made to look online.
However the very last house was exactly as pictured, with a cute cottage on a half acre, stunning manicured gardens, a large shed, and loads of solar panels! The owner kindly showed us through, and informed us that it had only been on the market for 2 weeks, and we were the first to see it! We were confident that this was the property we had been looking for.
We arrived back at our caravan park that evening, having heard from every other real estate agent that all the other houses were already either under offer or sold, confirming that God had been with us in our search.
On the following Monday morning we put in an offer, and the rest is history…well, almost!
Watch for my next post to learn about the obstacles that we faced before we could call this place our own!
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