Help the Radcliffes get into a house

The Background

Since Larisa and I sold our house in 2018 and moved to Germany, we have been hoping to own a home again one day. We have been saving what we could along the way, enabled partly because we are living in a very budget friendly place now. It has been a huge blessing with wonderful neighbors, but with growing boys, we find ourselves deeply desiring more space. We also love to host, but current space is very limiting. This year for the first time, getting a house seemed like a realistic possibility from a finance perspective. But as we started looking, we couldn't find any homes the right size for our family in our small town. We thought we had one promising lead, but our mortgage guy informed us it would take upwards of a hundred thousand euros to remove the asbestos that was in that home. 😱

We weren't sure if the lack of options was a door closing, or a redirection, so we sat back to practice patience and wait for more direction. Then, in January this year, some life circumstances changed our plans. Our dear friends, and fellow missionaries, suffered the loss of their wife and mother, Sarah, to a months long battle with cancer. Larisa has known them since college and was in their wedding. We joined GEM because of them, and we are the guardians for their 3 young kids. Immediately, supporting them looked like 3 trips to London in 4 weeks to help in the initial crisis, and then to plan and put on the celebration of life.

This development has caused us to hope for a home which could fit more people, as we want to be able to spend time with this family (in addition to hosting other friends and family from around the world).

The Target

With fresh eyes we went to see what was available for sale in Kandern that might fit these new desires that were growing in our hearts, and to our surprise, we found something! In very German fashion, it is one house with a few different living quarters in separate areas. There is a top floor 2-bedroom apartment, a 3-bedroom apartment in the middle, and a studio on the lowest level. This would give us the flexibility to have friends and family come to stay with us, and when the space isn’t needed for that, we plan to open a space up to missionary families who come to visit their students at Black Forest Academy. This has been a long-term need for the school that we are excited to play a role in filling! The end goal would be to have a consistent renter in one of the apartments to help offset the ongoing costs, and then a low-cost guest option for missionaries in the other space.

The Need

Real Estate in Germany is a little different than in the States. We have been learning a lot. One of the main differences is that yearly property taxes are very low, but there are many more fees and taxes to pay up front when you buy a property. We estimate that we need about $110,000 up front to get this house, which we have half of in “future house savings”. The remainder is what we are praying for and why we are reaching out to you.

Would you prayerfully join with us and help us in this journey of planting deeper roots in Kandern to care for our family and serve the broader missions community in so many ways? We are so excited for the opportunities to host new and old friends, ministry events and more in this space! We would love to chat in person to share photos and more details.