In February 2019, we felt that we should view some properties to see if we could find anything that felt right and to give us a better idea of what we actually need, so we arranged 5 viewings over a couple of days. Before going Ruth was talking to a friend and said that she was going to ask God for a sign if any of the houses were right. Off the top of her head she said, something like red tulips (knowing that it was too early for any to be out in the gardens). On the day of the first viewing, we had to drop another friend off on the way and Ruth was telling her about the sign, but said "what I’ve actually been praying for is a camel" (to tie in with Micah's word, because who has a camel in their house?).
The first property, on paper should have been ideal, but it just needed too much work and didn't have much outside space. The second house was much better, but had even less outside space. But the positive thing is that we were narrowing down what were the main criteria/features that we were wanting. The third house looked much more promising from the outside and came with about 7 acres of land. On entering, we were encouraged even more when we saw a huge collection of model animals on a large window sill in the dining room. Ruth made an excuse that she was keen to check out the view, but she was actually busy studying the animals, but there was no camel! Then we entered the lounge and sitting on a small coffee table was a vase of red tulips with a small wooden camel underneath! It blew our minds slightly, Derek managed to take a sneaky photo on his phone just to prove it. We came away excited, but unsure what to do next as we had no money and still had properties to view.
A couple of days later we visited the fourth house, it was located about 3 miles off a main road, down very narrow lanes. It was set on a hill and had absolutely amazing views and had quite a lot of land, but the land was set on quite a steep slope and wasn't usable except for grazing sheep. As we were shown round, we knew that it didn't really work for us, but sat in the master bedroom were 4 camels! The house was owned by a couple with grown up children, so why they had camels was anyone's guess! We left feeling rather confused, why had God allowed us to see more camels? Was he just having a laugh with us? We then went to the fifth property, it was older with much more character, but not much land and was set near a busy road. We were following the agent round trying to have an open mind and think how we could get round the obstacles, when he made a big statement that the room we were going into had original wood panelling with a large period fireplace, but as we walked in all we could see was a photo of 2 camels on top of a piano in the corner!
So here we are, we'd asked for red tulips and a camel and we'd had red tulips and 7 camels. It seemed more than a coincidence! Who has model camels, stuffed toy camels or photos of camels in their houses? No one we know. The significance of us seeing all 7 as prophesied by Micah was not lost on us. We thanked God for each and everyone of them. We were half expecting to find 7 actual camels wandering up to our front door laden down with provision!
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