New House and More Roommates

A little over a week ago, Me and my two roommates, Melody and Liz, moved from our small, third floor, one bath, empty Mirandela apartment to a beautiful 3 story, 3 bathroom, fully furnished house with a garden! It was definitely a blessing from God that we were given this place to live. A couple, who worked at the school last year and were planning on returning to teach this year, decided last minute that they were not going to come back this year. (You may remember from previous blogs my thoughts about the situation and having to take over some kindergarten classes because of their decision to stay in the US). Everything has worked itself out now and we are super excited about living in a place that feels like a home. We were also given many extras that aren't so necessary for living in a foreign country as missionaries such as a video projector and surround sound that we can hook up to our computers to watch movies on the big screen that pulls down in our living room! We are loving the company that comes with having such a cool piece of equipment! Another really awesome thing we "inherited" that everyone can take advantage of, if you'd like, is a US phone. That means anyone, anywhere in the US, who wants to hear my voice over the phone, can call for free! The phone works through the internet and we pay only $25 total for unlimited calls! (I really really really love this because it is so much more convenient to talk to my wonderful boyfriend. And, my parents can call me instead of worrying for hours if I have been kidnapped yet!). It's amazing how this simple piece of technology can make me feel less far away from the people I care about! Maybe homesickness won't be too much of a problem this year. Anyway, if you want the number, let me know!

Saturday night, Rebecca, the fourth of our roommates arrived. On Sunday we went to the only English speaking church in the city (as far as we know) and then took Rebecca up the mountain to a favorite restaurant of ours called "La Mazorca" which is great for typical Colombia food.

Tuesday night my 5th and final roommate, Katherine, arrived. It is going to be a fun, but interesting year, living with 5 girls! We are all pretty different but have lots of fun together exploring Bogota and other parts of the country. I do not doubt that we will have conflicts at times, but we are all we have here and we are similar in that way. So far the only stressful thing about living in this big house with so many roommates was finding beds and getting the beds to our house from the guys' house (which sounds simple but dealing with the laid back view of time in latin american culture means you could wait around for hours or days or weeks before something gets done). Also, because of construction of our neighborhood road (that has been going on for 6 months) we lost water Tuesday, which was the day before staff picture day at school, and for 2 days we couldn't work our gas to warm the water. Anytime something happens like this, we, the Americans, say "T.I.C." aka "This is Colombia". So if you ever want to travel to Colombia, don't worry about the guerillas because that is not a problem. So far, the biggest problems we have had is understanding and adjusting to the different culture.

I will be on a staff retreat for school at 3pm today until saturday night so I will load some pictures when I return. We are going to Tocaima, which is about 2 hrs down the mountain, which also means it will be 20 degrees warmer (hopefully at least 80 degrees)!

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the end of your summer (I am really missing the warm weather)! Thanks for your prayers and support!