God is sovereign. He already knows everything about every one of his own, even before creation. There was never a time when he didn't know everything about the past, present, and future. For him, there is no time. He is eternal and outside of time. He knew that I would be born, and he knows when I will leave this earth in death. That is comforting. It really is.
Jesus said that we should not worry about what we will eat, drink and wear because our Heavenly Father, who clothes the flowers that are so temporary, will surely take care of his children. He is a God of details and knows what we need.
Sometimes we plan for years to be able to retire. We have matching retirement plans at work, and if we are outstanding, we have a nest egg in an account somewhere and maybe even stocks and bonds.
When I worked at GM, I had a retirement plan that had me investing in GM stocks. The company would match my contributions, and I was on a roll. I kept that option going for a while. However, it always seemed like there was just enough money for each week, and with the girls, in private school, we were always tight financially.
I sold those stocks years ago before GM went bankrupt. When my dad died in September of 1993, I received enough inheritance money to pay off our house, which was the same year that Dawn and I became missionaries with Baptist Mid-Missions.
From 1993 until 2016, our house was tagged as our investment for the future. When we retired from mission work, we would move back to our roots. What I did not understand during those years was what is called equity.
The dictionary definition of equity is as follows, ... a degree of residual ownership in a firm or asset after subtracting all debts associated with that asset.
So, for example, when we paid off our house with my dad's inheritance money, we had 100% equity in that property. Back in 1993, that equity was probably around 100,000 dollars. Oh, if I had only known!
Our mission adventure would take us to the ends of the earth in the deepest jungles of Brazil, JUST KIDDING. It would, however, take us to Brazil, which is a long way from Lake Orion, Michigan. In preparation for that life change, we believed that we should keep the Michigan house as an investment. We began renting it for 650 dollars a month in February of 1997.
From then until May of 2016, I never raised the rent. Thus demonstrating my ignorance of real estate investing. True, we did keep the place, and for the most part, we broke even by paying taxes, insurance, and maintenance. But we lost money a lot of money by not renting it out for market value. We helped the four couples and the rock band who rented it during those years. But when you are in a business, you must remember that your goal is to make a profit and not be a charity.
In 2015, when we put that property into the hands of our property manager, she immediately raised the rent to 1,720 dollars a month! I almost fainted just before I danced for joy.
It was not too long after that huge adjustment that I sat next to a friend at a Thanksgiving dinner in São Paulo, Brazil. There was one seat open at our table, and he asked if he could take that seat. He began a conversation that would change the course of my investing career.
More tomorrow
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