waiting for our house

Several months ago we found a house that we wanted to buy.  It's close to my family rather than being on the complete opposite end of town like we are now.  It's larger and has 4 bedrooms all on the same floor.  It's in a great school district.  And the best part is that our monthly payments would be drastically reduced which is a big help since Ben is a full time student for another 2 years. The house had a fire in the master bathroom so that bathroom has been gutted.  All the flooring in the whole house is down to the subfloor, every wall needs to be painted, the hardwood floors have to be fixed and the random holes in the walls from where the firemen checked for heat spots have to be repaired.  And there are miscellanious other things to be done that will add up to about a month's worth of work for Ben. It's a great investment for us and it's just what we were looking for while Ben's in school. Our first close date was April 24th.  That's when we found out that the seller owed money on the house.  Three weeks later her bank said it would need to be a short sale but they would push it through in 2 weeks.  Yeah right. It's now the end of July and we have extended the contract 4 times and still don't have a close date. It's been one of the most frustrating experiences and a true test of patience and faith. But now we're running out of time.  Ben starts school the first week of September.  He had taken this trimester off just so he could work on this house. Given that there is a month's worth of work to do, we NEED to close within the next week or so.  I try to stay calm about it but sometimes I just want to strangle the people at the bank who have made this take so long and given us so many false promises along the way. 

A few weeks ago, we found a family to rent our house once we move.  All seemed great and they were more than thrilled about this but as more time went by they decided they couldn't afford it.  Since we don't know for sure what's happening with our new house, we hadn't signed a contract with them.  This was disappointing but I felt like it wasn't meant to be afterall.  I put a new ad on Craigslist and within 2 hours we had another couple very interested in renting.  They are waiting to hear if he's getting the job he's applied for which would be their reason to move to our area.  So while they're waiting for their news, we are still waiting for ours.

Prayers would be appreciated.