We made the journey down to Arequipa to try to determine whether God wanted us to move down there before the baby comes in September or whether we should wait until next April as we had originally planned. We were going to wait until April because our team was originally going to be 3 families short in Lima from December through April: one was planning on permanently moving to Cuzco, one would be in the States from Dec. through April and one would be in the States for an entire year beginning in December. But the moving plans fell through for the family going to Cuzco, so it began to look like the people left in Lima might be able to manage without us. In addition, we began wondering if the reason our plans to move to another apartment (which we were assured would come to pass the end of April) continued to fall through and the reason we never felt completely satisfied with any of the doctors we had found in Lima could be due to the fact that God had a place for us to live and a doctor waiting for us in Arequipa. So that is why we drove down to Arequipa last week.
We were a little disappointed with the way the week was playing out at first. We had called a realtor the week before and asked her to begin looking for places to show us on Tues. When we arrived in town and called her she asked if we could get together on Thurs at 4:30 pm (we were originally planning on leaving Friday morning). Finally she agreed to meet with us on Wed. at 4 p.m. but said she only had three houses to show us. Anyway, Tues. kind of felt like a wasted day to us.
The first house the realtor took us to was all locked up and the people who were supposed to have the key never could find it so we never got to see the house . . . but it looked huge!! The second house she had the keys to, but apparently they had just changed the locks so we were only able to get in the front gate. However, as we were walking back to our taxi to leave, a man who was working in the yard said one of the windows was unlocked so he climbed through and let us in. This house was huge also and had a half-dozen staircases which did not seem appropriate for small children . . . not to mention the decorative swimming pool/fountain in the front yard which goes beyond mission policies! :) At the third house thankfully the keys worked. We liked it best of all, but there were two serious problems with the house. One was that our stove would not fit in the given space (they like "Barbie-sized" stoves down here) and the only other option was along a wall of glass. :( The other serious problem was that the laundry area was on the third floor/roof and the only access to it was a narrow metal spiral staircase . . . we would definitely have to hire someone else to do the laundry, lest I break my neck trying to get up and down the stairs . . . and I suppose the washer and dryer would have to be hauled up onto the roof over the side of the house. So, all in all, Wed. was a bit disappointing as well.
Thurs. I had a doctors appointment scheduled with a lady who came recommended by two of our fellow missionaries. The doctor was everything I had been looking for and had been unable to find in Lima. We had been praying that God would make His will plain to us through the doctor's appointment and the house search. So far, the house search was not looking so promising, but the doctor's appointment went so well that I was almost in tears as we left her office. I asked Steve whether I could just fly down to Arequipa to have the baby there even if we couldn't find a house! :)
But the house search took a positive turn on Thurs. as well. We have a single young lady serving with our team in Arequipa and that is one of the reasons our team wanted to place a family down there as well. Anyway, she spoke with one of the guards on her street and he said there were two places for rent in that area. One of the houses was furnished, so that didn't work for us. The other house was an older house and the inside looked a little worn, but it had a nice area for Mark to play outside and a good layout of rooms (laundry on the bottom floor) and a fairly reasonable price, and it is located about 2 blocks from our teammate. We actually might not have stopped by to see about this second house except for the fact that the realtor told us she would meet us at 3pm and show us two more houses, though they were smaller ones (and we are thinking, "yes, please show us something smaller!") but then she wasn't at her office at 3pm nor was she answering her cell phone, so we decided to go check out the second house and come back to her office later (and we still got back to her office before she did!). When the realtor arrived she said that one of the houses had been rented just that morning, but she took us to see the other one. It was a beautiful brand new house in a nice gated neighborhood. We went back to our hotel that evening trying to decide which of these two houses would work for us and whether we should still leave the following morning as planned or whether we needed to stay in town to look into the two houses a bit further.
We decided to stay in town for one more day and try pursuing the older house first. Friday was filled with lots of "yeses" "nos" and "maybes"(if such words exist:). In the end, we were glad we had stayed an extra day because it helped us iron out some details. We ended up saying "yes" to both houses and waiting to see what would happen by Monday when we went to our office for approval.
Just today (Tues.) we received the final approval from our office for renting the older house and we are really excited about moving there in a few short weeks. All in all, we feel like God has graciously fulfilled Ps. 107:7 for us during the past week.
