So we are beginning our third week here, and have been back and forth between the two sites of the children’s home, sometimes sleeping at the country site (in the nice 3 bedroom house) and sometime sleeping in the city site (in one room). After lots of consideration, we have decided we need to make the city site our base. Although the house at the country site is really nice, there were both logistical and safety issues with staying there. We are here to raise money, and out there, the problems with the electricity and wi fi make it almost impossible to do any work which requires being online, emailing, calling, etc. Also, the administrative staff that we need to work with all are here at the city site. We are not sure how serious the safety concerns are… so it was just another reason to err on the side of caution.
Here at the city site, we have one bedroom for the 6 of us. We all have beds and room for some of our suitcases. The rest of our stuff is stored in the car or still in the house at the other site. It has felt a little disorganized with what is here or there, but really, we are downsizing even more than i thought we could, to basically work on fitting everything into one room. We are not quite down to a backpack apiece, but maybe we will get there! 🙂 We also have living room with couches that we share outside our room, and a bathroom which contains a shower and toilet (but no sink or mirror) that we are the only ones using. Just have to use wipes to wash your hands. Thankfully, the heat has gone, so now we are back to the normal wonderful weather!
We do have to keep the windows shut at night so stray cats do not come in. But Martha gave us HER fan, which was so nice! We eat most of our meals with the kids… can’t lie, I love not having to cook! 🙂 Even if breakfast is at 6:45 am every day! Except on the days that it is not. 🙂 That is how a lot of things are… dinner is at 6:30, except for the days it is not, and maybe someone tells us, maybe not that it has changed! It’s all good… if we miss dinner we can go to the most awesome taco stand in the world!
The kids are doing a good job with school in whichever room we happen to be in. And no matter which site we stay at, the kids find other kids to play with. Someone asked me if I was missing all the sports and activities that the kids do at home. So far, none of us are! I haven’t even taken my calendar out of my backpack to write anything on it yet, as we tend to schedule meetings with other staff like this: how about today, in a few hours? How about tomorrow morning? And that is about how far in advance we know our schedule!
The admin staff here are gracious as always, taking good care of us! I am thankful to just be a little more settled. And we have some clear direction as to our fundraising work… more about that coming!
In reflecting, I also am thankful that we moved out of our house and stayed in my parents’ house this summer, as that was downsizing a little, and I started to get used to living with others, and not having an entire house to ourselves, just parts of a house. It was fine in the summer (actually, really fun!), so downsizing a little more to a room and a half is probably easier than if we had gone from a whole house to this. God knows that I like my personal space, and so He was gracious in letting me ease into this 🙂 I am thankful for His leading… and its all good!
