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GREENSBORO — I'll be home for Christmas

A home for Christmas — that's what Kelvin Peay wanted to give Shannon, his bride of almost four years.

It would be the perfect surprise gift, something to alleviate her lingering disappointment from all the almost-but-not-quite attempts to buy a house that had fallen through before they had keys in hand.

And he knew just the one: the cute gray-and-white number about three doors down from their rental.

"I started looking at it and said, 'I wonder why no one has moved into that house,'" said Kelvin Peay, 41 . It had been on the market for about a year.

"A little voice came in my head that said, 'You need to go check out that house.'"

If only in my dreams

Shannon Peay had a dream house: a lovely two-story with a spacious backyard. She'd never been inside. She didn't need to to know it was perfect.

About a year ago, she tucked a picture of it in her Bible, but she never mentioned it to her husband, Kelvin.

She did, however, mention it to her Lord.

"I'd have these dreams," said 38-year-old Shannon, "dreams and a whole lot of prayer."

The snapshot bookmarked a verse in the Gospel of Matthew: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

Christmas Eve will find me

Where the love light gleams

Kelvin Peay worked on his holiday surprise for weeks, hurrying home to check the mail or schedule inspections before his wife got home from work.

"I said, 'I hope this all pays off,'" he said. "The Lord had blessed both of us with this house. This is a good Christmas present for both of us."

He hatched a plan with his real estate agent, Kenny True , to show her the house as a lease-to-own possibility.

"The Realtor told me to look into the laundry room because it was huge," Shannon Peay said. "I was thinking, 'Good, I have children. I need a big space.' That's where the banner was."

A banner that said it all: "Welcome Home, Shannon."

Reality dawning on her — that the home was hers — she fell to her knees in tears.

"After I got off the ground and crying, I actually hugged him," she remembered. "It was something. I'm still kind of speechless."

The Peays and their two children moved into their new home on Beckford Drive about two weeks ago, just in time for Christmas.

And Shannon Peay no longer has to flip through her Bible when she wants to look at that snapshot of her dream house.

Her husband bought it for her: that cute little gray-and-white number about three doors down.

Contact Lanita Withers at 373-7071 or lanita.withers@news-record.com