(Pictures: Grace always sweaty and a little dirty here; Tom working to put the bunkbeds together for our leaders’ boys)We have been house hunting this week, trying to find a home for us for the next two years. We didn’t exactly know what to expect from the process but we have been pleasantly surprised. It all started with getting the word out. There are no real estate agents or online listings, but on a small island word of mouth is a powerful tool. By telling people we needed a house to rent, suddenly opportunities to see houses came shooting out of the woodwork. Sometimes, we simply walked into neighborhoods and asked, “Are their any houses for rent?” We never failed to be shown something. Some we looked at were way too big and more expensive than we wanted. People hear that Americans are looking for a house and immediately show us the best. Some were in bad locations. One home we looked at was very nice and had a very kind woman landlord, but the house was out in the middle of nowhere (Not good for learning language!). Some homes needed major overhauls to be livable. Still we were generally impressed. We had been preparing ourselves for a small room and simple concrete floors. But most homes that we were shown had tiled floors and spacious living quarters.
After a couple of visits it was becoming clear to us what our priorities in a home were. Ideally we wanted a cool, breezy house that’s not too big, in a good neighborhood, not isolated, and with good water and electricity. But the most important aspect was location. Until this point, the team had all lived in the southern part of the city. Looking at a map, we decided that we wanted to move north. But even as we came to this conclusion we realized that all our contacts and all the homes we had seen had been in the south. If we were going to live somewhere else, someone would have to step in and help us.
One night we were catching a taxi in the dark, when a car stopped to give us a free ride. The driver commented that he knew of a house in a section of town we were interested in and offered to pick us up the next day to see it. It is a relatively modest, two-bedroom house near a couple of schools, just a short walk from the main market and a block from the ocean. Now no house is perfect and it looks like it could be a hot house—it doesn’t seem to get a good cross breeze. Still we went home excited about this possibility but then began to worry. The closest neighbor, in a home adjacent to ours seemed gruff. He was a younger man, and he acted grumpy. We had really been hoping for someone close by that we could count on to help us out. What if this guy was going to be a problem? So we prayed about that and waited. We returned for another visit and this time went over to introduce ourselves to the neighbors. Who should come to the door but a very kind woman with her cute four-month old son. It turns out her husband was the one we had seen the other day. He travels a lot and had just returned from a trip, so he was tired. Another prayer answered and our fears allayed we are ready to rent. All that is left to do is to negotiate with the landlord to get screens on the windows (very important for minimizing mosquitoes). What an answer to prayer.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
We have picked out a home! Our initial language lessons have gone well. We can greet, tell people our names, tell them that we can only speak a little and ask some questions. We moved into our team leaders’ new home, it is nice to not be living out of a suitcase finally. Grace was not feeling well earlier this week, but she is doing better now.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that all the talks with our future landlord go well. Pray for the team truck (it has been in the shop since we got here and they are having trouble finding the parts to fix it on the island), it would be very nice to have for moving. Pray for our team leaders’ computer, it won’t boot up and it is hard to get computers fixed here. Also, we seem to have lost our cell phone, pray that we can locate it. We start our village home-stay (living with a local family) on Monday and we’ll be there for a week. Pray that it would be a good time of language and culture learning and that Grace would do well.
