Our New House!

The view of the side of the house when we pulled up in the driveway.

This is part of the playground in the backyard of our new house. I KNEW God was going ahead of us getting everything all set up!!! Of course, this pretty much sealed the deal for the children when they saw this little amenity...

The view of the village out the front window on the second level of our house.
The door that opens up to our backyard... (That's Isaiah saying, "Wilkommen!" -- Welcome!)
The door on the right is the door we will open to YOU when you come to visit us!

Now, the house we are going to rent is actually the Village Gemeindehaus (sp?) which interpreted, means City Hall. The village converted the back side and the entire upstairs, attic, and basement to living quarters. It has four bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms. The rooms are enormous with extremely high ceilings (not sure how high but much higher than our house in Spokane...). The tenant living there now says that pretty much our landlord is the entire village and that the entire time she was living there, people would greet her with, "Guten Tag! Is everything okay for you in the house? Do you need anything?" And in the winter, "Are you warm enough? Do you need more heat?" Which she replied that she was always plenty warm and occasionally a little too warm. The person who takes care of the house directly is the Village Mayor -- I can't remember at this moment how to say that in German. The present tenant says she feels sad to leave because this mayor feels like a "dad" and the village feels like family. So, I've already started to "nest" -- in my heart at least. The village is 800 years old but I think our house is just over 200 years old. Oh! By the way, the name of our village is Seinsfeld! That should be easy for all you Sienfeld fans -- it's pronounced the same way except you say the second 's' along with the first one, like signs-feld!!

Last night when I called Jaylyn (the tenant living there now) to tell her we definitely want to rent the house, she said she was hoping that we'd choose that house and then she listed the different reasons but added that one of the biggest reasons was because when we told her about our family's passion for bicycling she said there's a bike/walking path through the forest behind the house that goes over to the next village. In fact, she said that there's several such connecting paths between the surrounding villages!

I'm amazed with something new and extraordinary every time I turn around. Everything feels like one grand adventure and at times I feel like I am going to explode with the romance of it all. The most amazing aspect of all is seeing this through an eternal perspective. I LOVE being a foreigner!! And as wonderful as all this is, I am in awe that this is not "home" -- this is a season in our lives that we get to embrace and enjoy but that we're simply "passing through." I am reminded that life is short. We have all of eternity to look forward to and that makes me want to savor and absorb these moments all the more. I don't believe God is wasteful; Because of that conviction, I look for the character-building, beauty, romance, art, and wisdom in these God-given gifts I call moments. (But I admit, it almost feels illegal to be having this much fun!!)

We won't be moving into our new house until the first part of September... we're still looking for transportation. There's some Mercedes and Volkswagen vans that seat between 8 and 9 people... so that's what I've been praying and looking for... In the meantime, we're borrowing the van that the pastors generously loaned to us.

As always, all our love to you! And we'll keep you posted...