Exciting May News

Dear friends,

I have much to share, so I will begin by apologizing for the length I’m sure this update will have.  It has been a month full of stuff happening, but most of it we have not felt at liberty to share until things were certain and those effected had been communicated with.  We will be moving into a smaller apartment, probably sometime in the month of July.  We are so excited about it, but first, I want to share my heart on God’s provision of a home since we arrived in Hungary.

When I first shared about our moving here, I told the story of how this house being available to rent was a huge confirmation and blessing.  It has been that and more.  We are in our old neighborhood; only a few blocks away from the house where Norbert grew up and where we lived when living here from 2000-2003.  Being surrounded by the familiar in regards to corner markets, bakeries, bus routes and roads to navigate has all been such a blessing.  We love this part of Szeged, called Alsóváros, and if we are to ever buy a home here, it will be in this neighborhood.  We were also so blessed by a home to come to immediately, fully furnished and ready to go – and one large enough for our big (by Hungarian standards) family of five plus two dogs.  We did not have to spend time in a hotel, or squished in at Norbert’s mom’s small apartment while house-hunting.   However, we had not been living here very long before we discovered that this house, while large enough, was also rather too large.  It is in a townhouse style, with the rooms all spread out between three floors.  Norbert’s office and Joshi’s bedroom in the 3^rd floor re-done attic can seem very far away from the living room and kitchen on the 1^st floor.  The thought of finding another place has been tossed around for a while now.  Szeged is a college town, so before a new school year is a good time to get new renters.  With that in mind for our landlords’ sake, we looked ahead to a summer/early fall move…if we could find something else to rent that could accommodate us.

In April we began talking about a new place more seriously, and Rachel began some online real estate searches at the end of the month.  Two bedrooms is common, three bedrooms is a ‘large family home’, the hopes of four bedrooms (Joshua really, really, really wants his own room) made our search very limited.  And then we have dogs.  We expected a long search, which is really why we began looking several months before we expected to move.  To have found a place after only a few weeks is amazing, and is fully God’s provision again.  It has four bedrooms (Joshi must have a very strong prayer life, as a few 3 bedroom places were being heavily considered) and is in a beautiful historic building in the very heart of Szeged, and while downtown, is also at the end of a large park on a quiet side street – far removed from any shopping/busy districts.  We had not looked downtown at first, but when we weren’t finding anything in Alsóváros, we expanded the search to downtown, to be near Norbert’s mom.  Her place is a 5 minute walk away.

Rachel has been rather consumed by the search for the past weeks, stretching her Hungarian to include new real estate terms.  We found the apartment listing last Tuesday, called about it on Wednesday, and we got to tour it on Friday morning.  By Friday night emails and phone conversations had happened, and they told us it was ours.  We have communicated with our current landlords and finally feel free to share with the world.  God has answered so many little prayer requests, some never even voiced, that we are just blown away.  This whole process has been drenched in prayer, and while it began slowly, the last week has been very fast and feels so out of our hands and amazing.  It’s funny, we were actively looking for a new place, but really, with the small handful of places within our budget that fit our requirements, we really were not sure it would even happen.  So there is a huge element of surprise and shock that we really did find a new home.  And like I said, we are very excited.  We know that God is always there, and working on our behalf, but it is such an amazing thing when we get to see what He was doing.  We totally feel like little kids who finally got to open our Christmas gifts, and are blown away when it is exactly what we wanted without having to give God a list or anything.  He knew.

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