I shared in a recent blog post, A Closer Look at Our Latest House Hack, that we recently finished renovating our single-car garage into a guest house. We were planning to use it for family, friends, & guests on Airbnb.
In our first 2 stays on Airbnb, we had a 30-day and a 31-day booking. In each of those stays, we made almost double what we made per month in our previous Airbnb. We were hoping to continue the 30-day booking streak when the Lord put something in our path we couldn't ignore.
We received an email from a campus ministry informing us that the university near our house was planning to scholarship 5 Afghan girls to come to college here & finish their education. These girls were in the middle of a degree plan in Afghanistan but had to flee the country when the Taliban took control in August 2021. They knew that the opportunity for women to get an education or a job would be vastly restricted under Taliban rule.
Their university helped them get to the Kabul airport and the US military put them on one of the big military airplanes we all saw in the news. Remember the images of hundreds of Afghans huddled together on those big planes? These 5 girls were among them.
The university near our house was informed about this & offered to have these girls come & finish their education here. But there was one problem. They didn't have any place for them to stay.
The campus ministries were notified about this need. They put out the word to their contacts to see if anyone had a place these girls could stay free for 6-12 months while they acclimated to the area.
When my wife saw this email, she looked at me and said, "I think we need to take them."
I knew she was right. Even though we had just finished redoing this guest house to make extra income each month, we knew that could wait. This was the opportunity of a lifetime to serve traumatized girls from one of the most unreached places in the world.
We let the university know that we could host 2 of the 5 in our guest house. Another pastor nearby also had a guest house & said he could take the other 3.
As a result, we pulled our guest house off Airbnb & we’ve been eagerly awaiting their arrival for several months. They are currently being held in a refugee camp at a US military base in Wisconsin. They should arrive in Texas tomorrow!
I tell you this story to say that "house hacking" has benefits beyond just making extra income for your family. Having a guest house or some kind of on-site rental option gives you the opportunity to serve people who may be in desperate need.
While I was super excited about converting the garage & making money each month renting it out, I've got to admit that I'm far more excited about this opportunity the Lord brought our way!
