When we finally decided to accept the fact that maybe we were right where God wanted us, we started looking for local properties to possibly build a house on. Far enough away from city life to feel privacy and seclusion but close enough to get to work.
We were looking for at least 10 acres with some trees for privacy and a good spot to build. We took a Sunday drive in the mountains near our town and didn’t see much. There isn’t any cell service in the mountains and we were a little lost. Two days later, I mapped out a bunch of properties, loaded up the kids, and drove to each of them.
I didn’t see anything promising but there was one property left to see. It was a 10 acre avocado grove at the end of a cul-de-sac, already prepped with a spot for a house at the top. I started driving down the cul-de-sac and I saw some really cool trees on the side of the road so I got out my phone and started recording.
Then I put my phone away and made it to the property I came to see. It looked like the property was through someone else’s gated property so I decided not to go up and just turned around and went home.
The next night, Lionel and I were looking for properties on our phones. We both happened to look at the same listing that had only been active for a few hours. I kept scrolling because it was out of our price range for just land. But we kept going back to it because it already had a house and the house was actually pretty cute, especially for some of the older homes in the area. It also had 20+ beautiful acres of oak groves and a mountain top! When I pulled up the map to see where it was located it turned out to be the exact property I filmed the day before with the cool trees! I knew in that moment that I wanted it!
Lionel contacted the realtor right away and got early access to see the house before they held open houses through the weekend. He had recently read the story of Abraham sending his servant to find a wife for Isaac. The servant went looking for a very specific sign. The right woman would come and offer him water and also offer water to his camels. Lionel decided he’d look for a very specific sign. He’d ask the realtor what it would take to make the home ours and the realtor would name a very specific price. After the showing, Lionel asked the realtor and the realtor mentioned that if he let the house show through the weekend like the owner wanted, he thought that it would go for *the exact price Lionel named as a sign!*.
I, on the other hand wanted a literal sign. One that pointed to the house and said “This is the one!”. We really wanted to be able to buy some land before our 10 year anniversary that was only a month away. I knew that a literal sign was a far reach, but when I walked up to the house at one of the open houses, Lionel pointed out a sign. Written on the sign were the verses in Corinthians that were the lyrics to our first dance song at our wedding. That was good enough for me!
It was the longest weekend ever as they held open houses and took in many offers to be presented to the owner Monday morning. We presented our offer Sunday evening and just like that it was ours!
After exploring the property top to bottom, we fell in love with the property right next to it. The original 10+ acre avocado grove I never got to see the day I first drove down that cul-de-sac. It has amazing views, the only access to the top of the hill to our other property and, hello, AVOCADOS! We made an offer that got accepted and now we’re officially farmers!
The Remnant Family Farms 