Try not to fall of your chair, but we bought a Porsche.
Yes, a Porsche. What????!!!!! How can this be? You hypocrites! Trying to get out of debt and then you go and spend who knows how much on a sportscar!?
Well, I kind of half-wanted that reaction which is why I just dropped the Porsche bomb with no explanation, but now here's the, once again, funny story!
You know how we've been praying for mercy, for God's hand in our lives to get out of debt, well, he's up to something and this is how I know - it comes back to all the new and creative ideas God is giving Renaissance Man and I to get out of debt. It also goes back to the Elisha story - what do you have?
Well, he isn't called Renaissance Man for nothing. There isn't anything that man doesn't know how to do. Seriously, we built a house as he just happened to have experience with house building and lots of it . Well, guess what else he just happens to know how to do - yup, build cars, particularly Porsches! When he was a younger man, still in his teens and early twenties, it used to be the comment amongst his bored friends who had nothing better to do, "Let's go see what (insert RM's name here) is up to. He's always up to something." And they were right. Most of the time, he was building an old sports car, or rebuilding, or fixing up something. God has given RM a mind for all things mechanical. In fact, he is a mechanical engineer by profession.
Back to the Porsche...when we got married we owned a Porsche for a year or so (he had owned it for a number of years before we married). It was his primary vehicle and it took a beating as it became a year round car. Porsches are not supposed to be year round cars! Needless to say, it had to be fixed multiple times, by him, as it would have been way too expensive to get a Porsche mechanic to look at it, so it was starting to look like it was time to get a regular car that you could drive all winter and all summer! Remember, though, God uses everything in life for some reason - even fixing cars....
In some ways, we were sad to see it go as it held our first courting memories in it, the places we'd travelled to before kids, and uh yes, it was pretty fun to drive! But we sold it and this is where I was shocked - it doesn't matter if it is a Porsche - if a car is old - they sell for peanuts. We weren't about to invest the time to recondition it and sold it as-is for, well, peanuts.
Fast-forward nearly 18 years and here we are again, wondering how we could make some extra cash. Our older boys have always been fascinated with whatever fascinates their Dad. RM has never lost his passion for cars. At one point, he was even considering whether or not to build his own Lambourghini! There are kits out there, who knew!? He even went so far as to buy the Lambo tires (see, I can talk the cool car talk, too) and those gigantic tires sat in our garage for awhile while he debated on build car, spend time with family, build car, have more children......aaahhhh, I know what I'm supposed to do - we had more kids and he sold the tires. He realized it was probably a mini-mid-life crisis and quickly got over it, but thought to himself.....one day I'd like to do that again, but with my kids.
The boys love the knowledge he has of cars, love the fact he's owned a few really cool cars himself and love the fact he's done all of it himself. He's begun to pass on that information slowly over the last few years of living here at the farm by having them watch him fix all the old farm machinery, lawn mowers, and most recently an old snowmobile. They are starting to catch on and the passion is developing for all things mechanical. I love this as I think it is a great life skill and will definitely keep them from going to a mechanic all the time.
Recently, in the winter evenings, the boys and RM found themselves around the computer looking at old Porsches - I don't really know how that happened. Perhaps just for fun, not sure, but once they started, it got RM thinking.....this is another skill God has given me.....a money-making skill. How so, you wonder?
Basically, most Porsche owners drive 'em, but have no idea how to fix 'em. Enter Renaissance Man (and his sidekick sons). Fortunately for us, RM does know how to fix 'em as he spent hours and hours rebuilding his own! Looking back, those countless hours of fixing our car seemed like such a waste of time, but it was far from a waste of time - God uses everything, EVERYTHING, for a reason. It's just that sometimes we don't see it right away - not for 18 years, in fact. Isn't it interesting to note, as well, that he acquired these skills pre-marriage and pre-kids, when he had loads of time on his hands? He could never have acquired those skills now without neglecting his family. God had a plan all along. Love it.
According to RM, who has worked on all models of all cars, the Porsche has been the nicest to work on...must be that German engineering (did I mention RM is German?) To explain it to me, he said it is the difference between a Kitchen Aid and a dollar store hand mixer - everything is just better quality and is built better with more thought put into the design. I've had my Kitchen Aid nearly 20 years and only now is it starting to show signs of age - my cheaper kitchen tools have been gone and broken years ago. Quite frankly, a Porsche is more expensive, but he gets why.
If you go on-line and search these cars out, you'll see the busted ones also go for pennies, as a car isn't worth much if it doesn't drive, but once rebuilt and refurbished, in a fairly short amount of time and with not too much effort, you can sell them again for much more. Thus, the purchase. We basically bought ourselves a contract!
This is where I feel the Lord has shown us mercy. How so? Because it is a skill we had completely over-looked. But when we started to think about it, we both realized this was a major money-making skill. It won't interfere too much with his other work as it is something you do on the side, in the evenings, on the weekends. We could have waited until the mortgage was paid off, but then we started to think - our boys will be gone soon. We have a small window now where they are with us and are obsessed with all the things their Dad is obsessed with - we felt we needed to act fast. The bonus - we work on the car, we sell the car, we make money on the car and it helps to pay down the mortgage! The extra bonus? It is actually FUN to get out of debt! This is where I smile, this is where I see God's hand of mercy - he took some of the drudgery out of making money. He gave us a way to make some fast cash where we can work alongside our boys (and our girls as our oldest girl will be driving in a matter of months - how 'bout taking the driver test in a Porsche????? She's pretty excited about that!) and the work is fun!
So, that's my Porsche story - for those who are interested, it is a 28 year old 944 Turbo (that is a REALLY FAST car! 100 more horse power than the regular 944 (which is what we owned when we were first married) - yikes). It is considered highly desirable by Porsche enthusiasts, a true Porsche classic.
Who knows, today it might be Porsches, tomorrow Jumbo Jets (did I mention he's worked on those, too? Just kidding.)
Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete