Our home stay ended two weeks ago and we moved into a home
of our own. While our host family had
offered their house to us for as long as we wanted, we were presented with an
opportunity we couldn't pass up. We are so encouraged to see how we have once
again been provided for in amazing ways and with incredible timing.
Three weeks ago we started looking at rentals to get an idea
of what was available. A local family we
have gotten to know during our first weeks here, had a 2 bedroom rental within
a 15 minute walk from campus for $220/mo, but 100% unfurnished. The thought of
completely furnishing (refrigerator, washing machine, dresser, couch, table....whoa)
a home we plan to live in for less than 2 years did not seem like the best use
of our resources. The second place we looked at was beyond ideal. It was a 3 bedroom home, just a 5 minute walk from campus, and completely furnished (we're talking right down to silverware and family photos hanging on the walls)! The asking price was $460/mo + $50/mo for utilities and fees = $510/mo, which was so far above our budget we didn't even want to bother bartering for it. So we looked at a third house for $240/mo: a 2 bedroom place which was unwalkably far from campus, not as well kept up, and again 100% unfurnished. Who knows how many hundreds of dollars we would have to spend buying everything from beds to brooms.
Due to the incredible hospitality of our host family we were not in any rush. However, the owners of the 2nd home (incredibly ideal) pursued us as renters. Two days after first seeing the house, they scheduled a meeting with John, knowing our budget of $300/mo. We were perplexed as to why they would request a meeting since our budget was about 58% of their asking price. John and I had agreed that, though we'd only been looking for a few days, we would take the place if for some miraculous reason they wanted to rent it to us for our budgeted amount and not a penny more. Now to make this even more of a long shot, our budgeted amount for housing needed to include our monthly bills for water, electricity, garbage, and neighborhood security fees. Over the course of that 1 hour meeting, the owners eventually understood we couldn't budge on the budget, yet they still wanted to offer us the place, including all utilities and fees for $300/mo. We were floored.
Not only are we now a 5 minute walk from campus¸ we are also just a 5 minute walk from our host family, and 10 minutes from our closest family friends. Since moving in we have found out the director of the preschool Caedmon is attending (today is his first day!) lives two doors down. We are so close to our usual activities we don't feel any pressure to acquire transportation of our own. It is very unusual, even for furnished homes here, to include dishes, bedding, brooms, mops, etc, but when we moved in, we even found all of these things already provided. And what is more, because of our proximity to campus, the language center here has seen the benefit of sending the teacher to our home (they are running out of rooms to have class on campus) which means Erin and I can be in class together, in our home, while the boys take their afternoon nap!
One more eyebrow raiser in this whole experience came when it was time to pay for the place. The standard practice here is to pay a whole year's rent up front! Still licking our wounds from all the costs incurred in getting here, and then paying the government fees for permission to stay, and then our initial tuition expenses, we were confronted with this new $300x12=$3600 bill. In the end, all of the money was here one day before we needed it, and we didn't need additional money to clean or start living in the house, this was just incredible to us! The day we moved in we found the beds made, floors mopped, and a totally decked out kitchen.
We feel so blessed! Enjoy the pictures.
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| Our house |
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| Front room: like a formal living room, where we serve tea to guests. |
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| Kitchen |
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| Upstairs |
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| Bathroom: shower, toilet and sink! |
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| Family room and dinning room in background. |
