Housing

I think I've said before, maybe a few times, that we have really been struggling with the apartment we live in on base. We REALLY struggle with it. It's small, tight, on the 2nd floor (but really more like the 3rd because there's a full flight of stairs to the first floor), it smells, our poor neighbor below us hears everything, etc. We've gone back and forth on should we move off base or not. I had finally come to a point where i said "We'll just stay here, and I'll practice/work on being more content with what God has given us."

This week, I got an email. We had bought a table from a woman on an online 'craigslist' type of website when we first moved to Germany. We both loved her home and told the couple if they moved, we'd love to know! I thought she'd told us they were moving in July, so I never tried to contact her about the house, because we can't move off base until Oct. So, this week, I got an email from the woman saying they're PCSing at the end of Aug., and the landlord will need to do some maintenance work before anyone moved in, would we be interested.

I got very excited and called Jon. He said "We'll take it. Without even looking, we'll take it." I said umm, wait... I don't think so. We need to look at it. Come to find out, last week, he had prayed and told God "I want to move off base, but it's just such a struggle and so difficult to find a place, I dont want to go through that hassle. So, we'll be content with where we are, but if you want us to move off base, please drop something in to our laps." I immediately got goosebumps, and worked on setting up a time to see the place.

We went there tonight. It's gorgeous. Five bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 parking spots, and best of all... a yard!!! Modern, somewhat American kitchen. Can hold more than two people like our current kitchen barely can. I know our 10 person table will fit in the dining room because they had it in their before ;-) And even, a room off the den we can use as a playroom. It's basically 4 stories, the basement is a laundry room and storage room, which Jon could use as a woodwork room. Then the main floor has kitchen, bath with shower, dining room, den, patio with backyard, and what would likely be a playroom and maybe homeschool room. Upstairs has 4 bedrooms, the master one is huge compared to what we currently have. And the bathroom has a tub, shower, and two sinks. I'd be willing to share the bathroom with the kids, especially with a separate shower and two sinks. The landlord lives behind the house, and has a nice garden, and apparently offered them a section if they wanted to garden, but they turned it down.

Anyway, we now wait. The couple living there will talk to their landlord this week hopefully and mention we're interested. We'll talk to the base housing and see what is required, how soon we can move out, etc. We really feel like this is from God, completely putting it in our laps. Please pray for us that all will come through fine, as we don't want to get our hopes up and dashed. We wouldn't be moving in until Sept or Oct.