Catching up

I thought I should take some time and catch you all up to speed on where we are at right now.  We have found a place to live and have moved in!  It is just so amazing how it all worked out.  Last time I wrote that we were looking at deciding on a apartment in the city, well out of the blue a guy who was renting out his house e-mailed Heather to let her know that it was back up for rent.  When we first came to Germany we had tried to get a appointment to look at the house but he had told us he already had a contract on it but that if it fell through he would contact us.  Anyways he had us fill out some paper work to make sure we were financially stable enough to rent the house and then let us come see it.  He was getting ready to go on a trip and said he would let us know if he wanted to rent to us when he got back.  Tyler and I thought it was fine so that we would have time to think about it ourselves.  On Thursday night, the night before he left he texted Heather and said that he had already decided and wanted to rent to us.  We took the night to pray about it and felt like God just really wanted us in this house since everything just fell into place right when we were about to offer to rent the one in the city.  We told him yes the next day and agreed to sign papers when he returned.  The funny thing is that he said he hadn't had any hits on the house of people being interested until after he offered us the contract.  Thank you God for working it all out!  When we went an walked back through the house I fell in love with it. I think when we first walked through I just didn't want to be disappointed by another rejection so I didn't want to see all the wonderful things it had.  Now I just love it and think how blessed we are by how it fits us so well!  Our land lord is amazing.  We have been so blessed by him.  He left the kitchen in the house, along with their wardrobes, cabinets in the bathroom, and a desk and book case in the office.  This would have cost us the majority of our housing allowance.  Most of the time places come completely empty.  We did re-wallpaper our living room so that we could paint it. They don't paint just their regular walls.  Wall paper here is different than in the states.  You have to put glue on the back, glue on the wall, let it set for 5 min and then put your paper on.  It took us a few days to get it finished.  I love it now with the color we picked out.  Tomorrow we are going to be getting our living room furniture.  I am so excited for this since we had to wait three weeks.  Matt and Heather let us barrow their rocking chair so I would have something to sit in during this time.  Big blessing right there!  

  We have started language school with our private tutor.  I really enjoy our teacher.  She works with us at our pace and is so kind.  I feel like I am grasping things better than I thought I would so I am still excited about class.  Tyler is enjoying it too.

  We have been venturing out on bikes, going down to the Sea and riding on the bike paths.  I never thought I would love riding bikes as much as I do.  

  We have had several people to our home for dinners.  We have made quite a few contacts and are beginning friendships.  It has been so good for us.  

  So what do we do now?  Well we are working on building friendships and learning the language.  The language is our top priority.  If we can't speak to people in their language, we can not speak to their hearts.  It is like a wall that we must tear down.    

Just a quick update!

Hello everyone!
Well I just wanted to do a quick update on some changes I am making to the blog. First I have started another blog that you might want to subscribe to. It is called The Charvats Missionary Dairy  <--just click there. What we are going to do is post videos on this blog of what things are like for us on a more personal level. I hope you will subscribe and post comments. Thank you!
Elina

It's a little bit Chilly!

Well the one thing we know is this.. It can get very cold where we are at! As we get phone calls from home telling us about 60 to 70 degree weather we are shivering with very low temperatures. I think one night it got down to 0 degree F. That is -17 something C. Along with the cold has come the snow. Not a ton of it but it has snowed a little bit everyday.
This week the kids have been on break from school. So on Friday we went to a strawberry farm that has really expanded into more of a amusement park. They have a play zone for kids with all kinds of climbing jungle gym type things with slides and a ball bit. There is also a ropes course you could do for a extra fee. We went through their ice area that was themed as a circus. All of the ice sculptures were cut as some circus character. It was really neat. They also had a slide made out of ice.

They also made hard candy, candles, soap, and you also can paint pottery. We had a great time and so did the kids.

This week we decided to go ahead and buy a microwave. Now we can reheat our meals without having to do it on the stove. It is quite handy. German microwaves are a lot smaller then in the USA.

As far as the house hunting goes we are leaning towards a apartment in the city. We want to look at it again before we decide. We are also looking at another apartment in the city on Thursday, but I think it isn't available till May. We know God is in control and we are praying that God will give us peace on what apartment to rent.

Customs

Today was another day of looking around and checking out some furniture stores. It was very interesting to see what they think is comfortable. Let's just say the furniture we are used to comfort wise was a little bit more on the pricey side. I don't think 3700 euro for a couch is really in our budget. Most of the couches felt like a very hard piece of foam with no neck support because they are a lot shorter in height. We will see what we can get used to and compromise to.
We went to a mall and had some Asian food. This made Tyler pretty happy. Although I must say we have liked everything we have tried so far. Mine was some fried noodles with chicken in it. It was tasty but things around here are not spicy. It tends to be more on the bland side of things.

We did buy a new hair dryer, it is exactly like Heathers. I have no idea what the features are except that it blows hot air in two settings and has a cool setting too. We got it for a really good price. I would say that the store we went to was similar to a TJMAXX except not nearly as big. Everything is marked down to a good price.

We are still trying to get our boxes out of customs. They seem to think that our personal effects are not really our personal effects. The guy I talked to today said they might even request receipts for the items that are in the boxes. I told him that wasn't possible since we had owned these things for years and are just moving here from the USA. He had me send a e-mail with everything I could remember being in the box with details. I did that but I will probably have to call tomorrow to find out if anything else is going to happen. They don't call back from what I have witnessed. I can't hardly wait for them to give us a verdict on what is going to happen. Tyler really needs his coats since he didn't end up bringing one with him besides what is in those boxes. If you think of it, I would really appreciate your prayers.

In the evenings after the kids go to bed we usually play Matt and Heather in some kind of game. The last three nights Settlers of Catan has been the big addiction. It is similar to Risk but not nearly as long. You have city and settlements and you have roads. You try to build up your settlements to cities so you gain more points and your roads have to connect to them. You also can get points from having the longest road and from other special playing cards you can buy. So far Tyler and I have not won once, but we still really enjoy the game. We will probably buy one when we go home to play with family.

We did not end up getting the apartment. The landlord found someone who was willing to rent for over three years and they went with them. That is pretty understandable to Tyler and I since we are landlords ourselves. We are back on the hunt and hopefully over the next few days we will hear back on some apartments so we can go and view them. It will be exciting to get settled in a place of our own but we feel content for now. Everything is being taken care of.
I hope everything is going well for you all. Take care and God bless!

Landing on our feet

Jan 22nd 2012-
This is going to be my attempt to keep you updated on what I hope will be a weekly or more bases.

Right now we have found a place we are interested in for an apartment. It is two bedroom and one bath. It is currently being built and should be finished in April. I know you are probably thinking "wow that is a long ways off." In reality it is kind of difficult to find a place that will meet your needs right of the bat. We are pretty content to wait if the land lords are willing to rent to us. There is one other place I would like to look at but we haven't received a response back for a showing.

If we are to rent this place we will have to put a kitchen in. It doesn't come with cabinets or appliances. That can be pricey, but we don't have to pay a realtor fee and the rent is very reasonable. It is also in a handy location of town. We would be close to shopping if we needed to walk to the bus and such and it is also close to the missionaries that are here so we could walk there as well.
We do realize that our plans aren't always God's plans so if this does fall through, God will provide exactly what we need.

Today we went to church and had a wonderful time there. We met a few people who do speak English quite well. This was encouraging to Tyler and I. Lately we hadn't met anyone besides the missionaries that spoke English. That doesn't mean they can't, some are just afraid to try. I understand how they feel.
The church is just starting some transitions that are very exciting. They voted on moving into larger building. Right now the building they are in can hold around 80 max. They are pretty well maxed out. The new building will hold I think up to 500. It is also in a better demographic for reaching more people. The vote passed and so they will be starting the moving process over the next three months.

I want to introduce you to the Reigels, Matt, Heather, Nicholas, Gretchen, and Joseph. We have already become quite close. We love each of them dearly and have had a lot of fun. I cannot express to you how wonderful it was to see their friendly faces as we got of the plane. They have truly been a answer to prayer.

I will try to post some more video soon. It takes hours for it to upload so we may keep it to one a week or a couple a month. Thank you for checking up on us! Take care and God Bless.