Happy New Year! 2018, here we come.
For those of you who don’t get my email updates, we moved…countries.
To sum it up, due to the ongoing visa volatility, particularly given our frequent travels in and out of the country, the team and organization have felt it best to move our location. Right now, there are just three of us on the field, but we will be adding 4 – 6 new members in the next 6 months.
So, instead of waiting it out, and risking not getting in every time we travel out (and my boss travels at least once a month), not to mention not getting those teammates in, it was decided that moving now would be most prudent.
We are now in a country east of where we were. If you remember the farming project I mentioned over the summer and its location, we’re in that country.
Since we continue to work with persecuted people groups, we will still maintain a level of anonymity, particularly for what goes out over the internet.
Now you’re all caught up on that front, let me tell you a little about God’s provision over the last month, because it has been awesome.
First, we had to get household belongings from point A to point B. If you’ve ever tried it, you know that international moving companies are not inexpensive. The solution was a 7m3 van sent by our contacts here, driven by one of the community members and his wife, which we loaded up and sent back. It didn’t go off without a hitch, but it made it here. Point One for God.
Point Two is a funny story. When I went to college in Missouri, we had a lot of international students, one from this country. I found her on Facebook and reached out, and it turns out she lives in this city. A friendship formed 5 years ago means I already have a friend here outside of our team, a friend who can introduce me to the city, and other people our age.
And my boss and his wife have former colleagues from a decade, and several country-moves, ago who also live in this city. But that’s their story.
Now, Point Three is a big one: We have homes.
We landed here the Friday before Western Christmas (here, Christmas won’t be celebrated for another week. Hello, Orthodoxy), and immediately started apartment hunting. And finding.
We looked at four apartments, and number five was the one, and it hadn’t even been listed yet.
Here’s what happened: During our hunt we ended up at an apartment quite a way outside of the city, which wasn’t ideal. But then the landlord mentioned that his cousin owned four apartments a little nearer the city, and as it happens the airport (win!), so we went ahead and checked them out.
Now, we were looking for one three-bedroom apartment, since I was intending to live with my boss and his wife for the next year or so. What we found were a three-bedroom apartment, a two-bedroom apartment for a teammate arriving this week, and a one-bedroom apartment for me. All in the same building. All well within budget. All with the same landlord. If that isn’t God’s provision, I don’t know what is.
And there’s a bonus: Two of these apartments are brand new (the three-bedroom and mine). As in never lived in, and not yet furnished (here apartments are rented furnished). Because we got them when we did, the landlord invited us to pay 4 months of rent up front which he will use to purchase furniture that we also get to pick.
How often do you get to go furniture shopping and someone else pays for it? Well, I mean, technically we’re paying for it and then getting three months of free rent, but whichever way you cut it, it’s pretty awesome.
God is pretty awesome.
Most of you know that I felt God’s call to the original country, and I was sad to leave before I had even really arrived. But God has made it abundantly clear that this move was the right decision on so many fronts, and that it’s not about where I am, but the work I’m doing.
And now, before this post gets any longer, I’ll leave you with the video of the fireworks, balcony rockets and all, and wish you a “Happy New Year, and Merry Christmas”.