Latest / Join With Me Podcast / Episode 8 - The Retreat
Transcript
- Episode 8 The Retreat: We are honored that you have chosen to listen to this podcast. Join with me, where the information will be biblical, filled with joy, and very helpful. Stay tuned to the end where you will learn how to communicate with Rayburn and Donna about today's episode. Hi, I'm Rayburn Hare, and this is Join With Me Podcast. You know, you you I'm I'm here at the retreat. you might you hear us talking about that. I felt like maybe some explanation about what I mean by that. Donna and I we live in Blue Springs, Missouri. But about an hour and forty-five minutes southeast, there is a place that we call the Retreat. it currently is thirty-six acres. we have Two main cabins and we have little cabins and that we can house or or sleep people and we we do tr retreats here, but but maybe maybe it's worth a little bit of background on what w where did that come from and how did it come about? Well if you heard, you know, recent podcast, I I've I'm always trying to follow the father. back in in old twenty seventeen, that's when join with me came about, twenty eighteen or so, Don and I began to maybe think about finding us a little piece of property to hunt on that we could have the boys and I could hunt and have a place to to go and so we looked at a few places and nothing ever materialized. We put that put it away so we really were not even remotely looking for anything. But In 2019, because I I work for a a company, mainly a land company, and I I brokered offices, quite frankly, across Missouri and Kansas. So I brokered a number of offices. one of those offices that that we opened, maybe around 2012, 2013 or so in Cole Count, Missouri. And very productive office. but but as I was the broker there, each agent would list property and of course I had to approve all the listings. So they would come to me and and then I would approve them before they went out, you might say, on the open market. Well I had one come across my desk on a actually on a Friday. And it was a cabin and ten acres. Now, once again, Donna and I hadn't even looked at anything or thought any of anything for a year. But this came across and something about it just said, wow, cabin in 10 acres for $39,000. And I thought, I'm interested. I'm just kind of curious. I called the agent, I said, Hey, tell me about this property. And she said, Well, Rayburn, it need the cabin needs a lot of work. I said, Okay, send me some pictures. And she did. And I got to looking at the pictures and there's no doubt it was rough looking. but I started doing a little history, a little background. She said, Ravern, this property's been abandoned for eight years. It it really is a mess. I said, Well, okay, I'm just kinda curious about it. I think I'm gonna go look at it. So I I asked Donna, I Hey Donna, you you wanna ride down with me? Let's look at that property. Well we couldn't go till Monday. So we did on Monday morning. We decided we'd ride down and when we pulled up, I mean goodness, it was a mess. I mean it you could just tell. We have pictures of it, but you we got inside and there w right here where I'm sitting, there's a fireplace here. Well, there didn't used to be 'cause we took this whole wall out and put a fireplace in before It had a wood stove, literally where I'm sitting, there was a old wood stove that went up through the ceiling, and in the ceiling there was a where the pipe would stove pipe would go out. It had been out, it was just a open hole right up in the ceiling. So you can imagine the rain, the critters, the it was it was a grand opening here. For i the for eight years it had been abandoned. It was a mess. There were certain things that were good, but there were most was just a mess. So Don and I, we looked at it and we talked, and quite frankly, my thoughts were to buy it, fix it up, and sell it and and profit. We had done a fair amount of that, particularly when we were in North Carolina. I used to do it all the time. and and and so and we had done some of that here, but So I just said, Donna said, Hey, look, I I let's let's let's see if we can, you know, see what it's gonna cost. And so I said, Okay, the way I've always approached these properties is I try to feel like, you know, what can I sell it for, what can I buy it for, what's it gonna take to fix it up, and and that portion in between is kind of, you know, might you might say your profit. And I just have a little formula that I've always used and and so we contracted on it and I had a fifteen day due diligence period. I began to do the the the work on it, the numbers, the and and quite frankly, I just it was just coming back. I always know there's what you know and what what I knew was pretty extensive, but then there's always what you don't know. And that's what scared me. It's what I didn't know. And and so ultimately I s we were coming to the end of our due diligence, and I just Donna and I sat down and I said, Donna, I just don't think these numbers are working. I just don't know that I'm comfortable with it. And this is what my wife said. She said, Raven, I don't see this as profit. I see it as ministry. my goodness, I'm telling you, it like to knock me off my feet because I I I had not even had that thought. I just knew it was not working for me. When Donna said that, you know, I I you know, I've said many times, you know, if if you want to know what the Holy Spirit sounds like sometimes, Donna sounds much like the Holy Spirit at times. So anyway, I just I said Okay. I mean you you're talking about somebody flipping their mind and their thoughts. It was that thought, that very word that Donna said, and I said, Okay. It was no longer now about profit, it was now about ministry. And and so we we literally went past our Due diligence period, we closed on it August the fourteenth, twenty nineteen. that date i we we closed on this property. And and so we began to go to work and liter all the work that had to be done. And and and I could I and I'm not exaggerating, I could take you outside where we literally had a pile of had old chicken houses out back that were just so nasty. You usually wouldn't even imagine. My my son in law with his equipment tore it all down. Everything we took out of here. We had a pile of of of trash that was probably at least twelve foot high and and maybe twenty five foot wide. And we were gonna burn it. And the guys that were helping me said, No sir. We're not we're not gonna burn it. It's too it's too big and it's too close to to this property to the structure. So I had to bring in dumpsters and my son-in-law, we loaded two 20-foot dumpsters. I wanna say 20-foot dumpsters and of stuff we hauled off. Anyway, my what's my point? A lot of work. Join with me podcast is thrilled to have our first sponsor, Hydro Poolin. and Spa located in Blue Springs, Missouri. They're on seven highway located about on the I-70 eastbound exit ramp. But my friends at Hydro Pool and Spa have an amazing October special. For the month of October, if you'll call them, they have a pool closing special that's amazing. Now for 11 years I clope opened and closed a pool so I know a little bit about that. I never did it myself. Why? Because I didn't want to risk freezing and having pipes to freeze and all that additional cost and one thing or another. But so I always contracted with someone to close and open my pool. So here's what they're willing do. For the month of October, if you'll call Hydro Pool and Spa in Blue Springs, they will come and close your pool. Make sure it's done right. Remove your ladder, put your cover on. Put all the chemicals, antifreeze, all that good stuff, make sure it's protected and done right for $455, which is in line with what everybody else charges because I've checked on it. But here's the difference. Here's what they're willing to do. They will then come back next spring and open your pool for free. That's right. For free. So you have to call in October and let them close it. For $455 and then next spring you're already covered. They'll come back and c and open it for free. Now that is a deal, especially to have it done right. So please call my friends at Hydro Pool and Spa at 816-875-7171. Get it scheduled. Get in on this deal. It's only for October. October 1st through October 31st. So please call them. Thank you. And tell them that you heard about it on the Join With Me podcast. And that will be an amazing opportunity for you. Once again, thank you. But early on, God gave me a a verse that really literally became what I'm gonna say is is one of our theme verses that you you can find in Deuteronomy 311. I literally God just oftentimes gives me scripture to kind of give me a something to to to you might say an anchor. Deuteronomy 311, assemble the people. And I won't go into the rest of the verse at this point. But everything we did with this property and beyond always had a the underlying how can we assemble people? And I'm telling you, there's nobody better than my wife at decorating, at coming creativity of of mind, of how what to make things look good. She does it economically because she shops at places a lot of people don't even go to and finds things and that you wouldn't even believe. I I I if you could see these windows, for example, she did these curtains and in a rustic type look. I think she s told me one time she said I I have probably less than a dollar in each window. It's just amazing what she does. So if you ever can't come in here, hope you will sometime, it's a it's you know it's done as nice as we could do it. We're, you know, we're we're wonderfully proud of it. But here's my back to my story. It it became a major project, started in twenty nineteen, continues today. We ultimately wound up buying a pe piece of property across the street that was another twenty-six acres, had another cabin that was it won't quite this bad, but it was close. We put a lot of work into it. it was along that period of time in 2020 after we purchased that property, we knew this is what God was doing. This was where we were headed. We wound up saying, okay, father, we're all in. We sold our house in Blue Springs that we you know, we always thought that was our our lifetime house. We designed it that way and did everything we did was to live there forever. but we knew that we needed one, we needed some more capital, and so we sold our house, took took you know, a lot of the equity and we s began to put it back into the pro into this property. and it just became part of what we do. Here we are 20 26. We're still improving this property. I've got work to do tomorrow to kind of get ready, begin to get ready for the winter and all that good stuff. And but but we're we're just wonderfully blessed with what God has done here. I as Donna and I have said so many times, exceedingly abundantly. Abundantly above all that we could ask or think, as is Ephesians 4 says. That Ephesians 3. That we realize this is what God is doing. And we're all in. We haven't done it perfectly. We've made some mistakes, made some some big mistakes. that I'd do over again that cost us money and one thing or another. So we just continue to go forward. We have a vision right now to build a retreat center. We have the place for it. We have the property for it. we just don't have the money for it. But but we're praying about that. trying to figure out we're willing to invest some to get it started, but we count the cost and when we count the cost, we come up short. And I don't want to start something and Just sit out there and we can't finish it. So anyway, we have vision for going ahead and going forward. And y anybody that ha knows me and knows our our part of our story, I I'm I'm not afraid, even at my age, I'm not afraid to go forward. But I have learned a little a little to to wait. On the Father. and that's where we are. W this whole podcast. This is a whole nother direction for our ministry that that is God. It's not me. That we're trusting to, you know, that that you'll listen and you'll say, This is different. This is not churchy. It's not preachy. I want to learn more. I want to hear. I want to hear about life. Not necessarily my life, so remember it's not always about my life. It is about life. Others, people, experiences. Yours sometimes. I got great guests coming on. so this we're just trying to learn and follow. I hope you you're you're getting a picture of who we are and and and and and next week have some good stuff that I hope that it'll kind of carry on now through the podcast. We have some guests coming on soon. And don't forget, I'm asking you if you have questions for a pastor, I think this can be a lot of fun. Anything, any question about the Bible, about life, about situations, something you would love to have an answer. I'm gonna have him a pastor on here. He'll be right on the camera, right on and and he'll ask, he'll answer questions. Your questions. I think that'll be a lot of fun. So hey, I haven't asked them yet, but I know they'll do it. So so I hope you'll just stay with me, stay with us, because we're gonna have a lot of fun seeking life together. so I'm asking you to join with me. Thank you. Tell your friends, like, follow, all those good things, so we can keep moving forward. This is Rayburn Hair. This is Join with Me Podcast. We trust you enjoyed today's sharing from the heart. If you want to learn more, please feel free to contact us at Rayburnhair at gmail.com. Or you can go to our website, joinwithme.life. Thank you for listening. Be sure to share with a friend. And have a blessed day on purpose.