Moving Day

We're officially moved into our new place!! We're still without internet, hence the lack of updates, but I'm over at our teammate Kenton's house doing laundry and using his internet (He's pretty much the coolest teammate ever and an awesome neighbor!).  Wanted to share some pics with you. Some of them are a little blurry, so sorry about that, but I think you'll still be able to get the feel of the place.

This is our family/living room area. It's still furniture-less, but it's a great open space for when we have parties and friends over.

 Standing in the living room, looking out toward the front door. In the upper left you can see our little "balcony" thing...it's in between our two bedrooms upstairs. To the left of the front door is a little alcove with chairs and a table, and where we spend a lot of our time because there's actually a place to sit!!

 Our lovely kitchen.  This picture actually doesn't do it justice because we've updated it a lot since moving in. We bought an ant cupboard on Saturday that valiantly protects our precious American "kanome" (the Lao word for snacks).  One of Christa's students was helping me unpack our food and put it into the cupboard, and she said, "You could open up a store!"  We hadn't been moved in a day and the ants were out in droves seeking something sweet (more on the lessons the Father taught me through the ants in my next post!)... So we learned a trick from our favorite neighbor (Kenton) that if you put the feet of your cupboards or tables in bowls that have baby powder, the ants will not climb up. So, thanks to that, we've thwarted the ants..for now.

 Our upstairs balcony.  In my lofty chef dreams, I picture having an elegant dinner by moonlight out here with lots of friends and delicious food. We'll see if that ever happens! The mosquitos might have somethign to say about such ideas!

 The front view of our house. Such a wonderful blessing from the Father!

 This picture is blurry, but it accurately captures the flurry of activity that went on at our house on moving day. Several wonderfully helpful friends spent the day with us unpacking, cleaning and organizing!

 The army of people in our kitchen - Christa, Kenton, Leel, Sone and Viengphone.

 The best part about our new house is the neighbors! They have so warmly welcomed us, bringing food, inviting us over to drink beer Lao and just stopping by and being so friendly. Our most frequent visitor is Valisa, the 8-year-old girl that lives next door. She came over the first day and has been over almost every day since.  We love our neighbors, especially the little ones. Two boys - 6 and 8 - who live across the street, come over often to play on our swing and we often try to talk to them and share fruit or snacks with them. No pictures yet... maybe next time.

 We made cookies on Saturday to deliver to our neighbors so we could meet them. Here is Sone's little sister helping us bake them.

 Viengphone (Christa's student) helping to mix up the cookies.

 We don't have a microwave so it is a little tricky to melt things or heat them up. Here's Christa attempting to soften the butter over our gas stove.

 Playing games

Our new home is such a blessing and living close to Dong Dok has been wonderful. This week the weather has been really bizarre..rain every day and soooo cold...so it's been nice to be close to school, even though it still looks like I showered in my clothes by the time I get to the school on my motorbike.  Our landlady seems really kind and has been extremely friendly and helpful so far. The other day she came over while we were having breakfast and talked with us for about an hour.  Our hope in moving closer to Dong Dok was for our relationships to be increased and deepened, especially through hospitality and the Father has been answering that so far. We are very thankful to have a home that is close enough for our students to just stop by, and so far they have been so I hope that continues!

This weekend we are heading to the southern part of Laos for a team retreat with the other teachers in Pakse.  Two nights (Fri and Sun) on a bus, and one night there, but it will be fun to hang out with our other teammates.  Hopefully we'll have internet next week and I can keep you all more updated :)