Our New Home

If you like details - read the story below.  If that kind of stuff bores you, scroll down for pictures of the house.  

I have to start this post with a story from earlier this year when we first came to Chile in May.  We left the property where we will open the outreach center and took a bus to Valparaiso. On our way out of town I noticed a nice area of town up on the hillside with some cute little cottage type houses.  The next morning, Jeff and I took a taxi to that area of town.  We walked around and really liked the neighborhood.  If you visit this earlier blog post - scroll down to the end of the post and notice the pictures we took:  http://zealwithknowledge.blogspot.com/2013/07/quilpue-part-ii.html.

Fast forward 5 months and we have arrived in Chile and have started the search for a home.  Read a couple of earlier post about the difficulty of this search.  We "just so happened" (the Lord's providence) to walk into a real estate agency that had a house for rent in that exact same neighborhood we looked at back in May. 

As I mentioned in that earlier post, when we first came to see the house, it seemed a bit run down and needing some work.  But when we came back for a second time, we felt a peace about the house.  The things that needed fixing were easy fixes - like new paint throughout the house.  Then things just started falling into place:  The owners went down in the price of rent when we asked, the utilities were still on in the owners names and they were willing to keep it that way (at that time we still didn't have ID cards and it would have been very difficult to get utilities set up in our name), and the owners were willing to rent to us without the ID cards. 

So in the Lord's perfect timing - we were able to rent the house with just a few days left at our temporary housing.  We got the carpet cleaned, purchased the most important appliances and beds for the children and had them delivered all before we moved in.  Some of our new missionary friends helped us move our luggage from the temp. housing into this house and just a little over a week ago, we moved in!

Already the house has been such a blessing.  The children love it.  I was scared they were going to have trouble with yet another transition (this is our 4th house in 4 months), but they have done really well. 

Here are some pictures of the house and neighborhood.  This was before anything was moved in.  Stay tuned for future posts of the house when furnished.  (We are still working on getting all the things we need.)

Our new house

Our street

This little playground is right across the street from our house.  I can watch the children playing while I wash the dishes in the kitchen.  Nathan loves playing and meeting some of the neighborhood children.

Looking into our backyard

The backyard with the small pool.  Looking forward to try to plant some veggies in that back garden area.

Looking out the front door.  Dining room is on the left and living room is on the right. 

Dining room.  Love looking out into the neighborhood.  That is a heater on the left side of the pic.  The only one in the house and I'm not quite sure why it was put in the dining room.

Living room - looking onto the backyard. 

Kitchen - we had to purchase all kitchen appliances.  Out that door you see is an outdoor laundry area. 

An extra room upstairs - we are using this as the family room - TV, comfy couch, kids play area.

Nathan and Juliana are sharing this room.  It has helped with all of our transitions to have them share a room.

Guest room - when are you coming to visit?

For some reason, I don't have a picture of the Master bedroom.  It is located downstairs across from the kitchen.  We also have two full baths. 

Two cute children enjoying the new house and lots of space to play.