just to give you an idea

The summer team left early Monday morning and we were able to move to our apartment later that afternoon. First off, let me say that it was a HUGE blessing to live with the Gainors for a couple weeks before moving to our own place. They were so wonderful to open their home and family to us. It was so helpful just to see how they live, learn cooking tips and LOTS of basic living tips that they have already learned. THANK YOU GRAY AND BRANDY!!!

We have spent the past couple of days cleaning and getting unpacked. We've lived out of suitcases since we moved out of our townhouse on June 11, so it has been nice to unpack and settle. 

so... WELCOME to our home! This is the road we live on. Our apartment building is on the right (you can't see it in this picture) where the white gate is. 

 This is the Hindu temple that is across the street from us. You can hear people ringing bells to awake the gods and often times we can hear chanting or praying. We've been told that Saturday night is really loud because they have a worship time that goes late in the night. 

This is our building. Our apartment is the lower left balcony (you can see our washing machine sitting on the porch). 

To get to our apartment you walk thru our gate then to the left of the building and up these stairs. Our guard and his family live at the bottom (to the left) of these stairs. 

There are two apartments on our floor. Ours is the door on the right. We leave all our trash in the hallway and a trashlady comes and picks it up each day. 

This is the living room. I took all of these pictures right after we got here. It is GREAT because it is already furnished and has a lot of extras in it. This is how it looked when we arrived. We have just been going thru everything and organizing and cleaning. So these will serve as "before" pictures and once we are a little more settled I will post some "afters". 

The kitchen. see all of that stuff that was already here? What a blessing! We don't have to buy pots, pans, dishes, fridge, etc. We did buy a microwave from a girl who just moved back to the states and we are going to buy a good water filter for drinking and brushing our teeth. But that's it!

Bathroom- the one we use. There are 2 bathrooms. One is a squatty potty bathroom and the other is this western toilet. There aren't shower curtains or even an individualized shower. The shower head (it is above that spicket you can see on the right) is just in the bathroom and everything gets wet. We are having to teach ourselves to remove the toilet paper from the bathroom before we take a shower. We have already ruined 2 rolls!

The bedroom. There are also 2 bedrooms- this is the one that will be our room.

It has been a big adjustment for us to have our own space again. We had gotten very use to living around so many people and spending all day, each day with the team (so thankful for them!!!) We are trying to figure out what our life here will be like/look like over the next year and how we can best serve. Please pray that we will use our time and days wisely.