During Spring Break (the middle of March), Ryan and I went back to Hobbs and West Texas to look at opportunities to open a chiropractic practice. There were some good opportunities, including one in Odessa but nothing felt like it was the right place for us. We headed back to Dallas feeling a little discouraged and questioning whether or not the Odessa practice would be where we wanted to settle down.
We had been praying about it and asking our Sunday School class to pray too - although we're not sure they were helping...they kept mentioning something about staying in the North Dallas vicinity... ;) LOL! We decided to keep our faith in Him that we would know where we were supposed to go.
The week after Spring Break, I was surfing the Parker website, looking at business opportunities. I came across a new posting and laughed to myself as I thought, "This is where we're going to be moving!" That night, I came home and showed it to Ryan, prefacing it with "Don't laugh, but I think I found our practice...it's in Kermit, Texas." First thing he said was "Yah, Right!" laughing out loud! As I told him more about it, though, he looked at the ad and emailed the doctor selling it.
The doctor had been injured in a car accident a few years earlier and couldn't practice anymore. A doctor from Midland had been driving over 2 days a week for only 5 hours to continue seeing patients (so there is a LARGE margin for improvement). There is another chiropractor in town, but he has about 5 practices in the region and is only in town a few hours a week as well. This was all positive for Ryan - Kermit has a population of around 5500 people. A good chiropractic ratio is 1:5000!
Our next question was about Animal Chiropractic. Texas laws are a much better option than New Mexico, but how would Kermit receive it? Ryan asked the doctor, and to our surprise, there were people actually interested in it! They've been asking him to get certified, but he hadn't done it before he got hurt. Another answer to our prayers...
The living situation was next on our list. This office was actually in a building of about 4000 square feet. The office was only around 1500. Attached to the office was a 1200 square foot apartment!!! Its got 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, and would be very livable with great potential. Between the office and apartment is an empty open room that is about 1500 square feet - bigger than our current house! With some time and ingenuity, we could create the house/office space we wanted!!! WOW, what an opportunity!
The more we talked, the more we liked Kermit. But, at the same time, we had our doubts. Kermit is little bitty - not even a Wal-Mart! We didn't know if I would be able to find a job, could they really use a chiropractor....
During one of the phone calls with the doctor, Ryan mentioned that I was a FCS teacher. The doc said his wife taught at the schools and they'd see if anything might be coming open. The NEXT DAY, we got a phone call from the doc with the high school principal's cell phone number. They had a teacher that was 1/2 middle school and 1/2 high school, but he really wanted to hire another teacher. I was supposed to call him the following day! GOD IS GOOD! I called and he seemed really interested in me! He is VERY supportive of electives and wants to offer his students more opportunities. (Music to my ears!)
After that phone call, Ryan and I more or less decided that this sounded really good, but we hadn't laid our eyes on the clinic. Over Easter weekend, we went to Hobbs and made the short (1 hour) drive to Kermit. (We met the doc from Midland, as the owner doc was out of town. This is important to mention, you'll see later.) The picture you see above is the one we saw driving into town....we both had to laugh and smile to ourselves! :) The clinic was kinda stuck in the 70's, but nothing a little paint and elbow grease couldn't help!!! We were really liking this! After some talking, prayer, and sleeping, we decided "I think this is what we're going to do."
We got home and Ryan called the owner doc on Monday to get more details about everything. Well, the doctor was in town, they had been visiting family. So, Ryan invited him over to chat about everything we'd been seeing and talking about. His wife joined him and as they were talking, they mentioned that his wife had just interviewed for a job at a high school in Lewisville to be closer to their family. That was when they realized our house was for sale. It was less than 10 minutes from her new school and (get this) was the EXACT layout of a house they had owned when they lived in DFW before Kermit! They decided then that they wanted to buy our house!!! GOD IS GREAT!
So now, we've got all the paperwork drawn up and the owner doc got our house contract today. We're working on our loan for the business, and we're continuing to pray that everything keeps going on this path. It really is amazing to see God at work! And man, if you're stubborn, He'll all but kick you in the butt to show you where He wants you to go...
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