The Unveiling :-)

Yesterday was the BIG DAY!!!! We got the keys to our new apartment! I finally had the chance to take some decent pictures and am ready to unveil the photos of our soon-to-be home.

I will tell you the story of how we came to find it. I love telling it since it's such a clear testimony of His love for us. We started our apartment hunt with a very specific price range and a very specific area of the city in mind where we wanted to live. The weekend before we began our hunt, I spent hours online with our friend Lisa, researching places to look at and making appointments with real-estate agents. We were having a very difficult time finding exactly what we were looking for, but we made several appointments. Monday we showed up and met our first agent. The first place we went to was......disappointing. It was exactly the price range we were looking for, but on a dingy alley street and was filthy inside. The building itself looked as if it would be ripped down within the next year or two. We started to become concerned that maybe our price expectations were a little unrealistic. We followed the agent to a 2nd home which was in a beautiful complex and was again for the price we had asked, but was much smaller than advertised. As we looked around the apartment, we asked the agent a few questions which he promptly answered. However, the complex manager, who had unlocked the apartment door for us, rebuked him for lying to us. We were very surprised and thanked her for her honesty. We dismissed the agent, and began to ask the complex manager about other places in this complex. It was very nice and in a perfect location for our needs. She told us there was another larger apartment for rent and she could check into it with the landlady if we could wait. We listened as she called the landlady, and my friend could hear the landlady asking if the manager thought "the foreigners" were with a company and could she charge a lot for the apartment. The manager said she really wasn't sure. When they got off the phone our friend Lisa mentioned to her that we were only English teachers and wouldn't be getting money from a company. She asked if the manager could communicate this to the landlady and she kindly agreed.

We waited quite a while for the landlady to arrive and almost decided to leave so that we could make our other appointments. But as we waited outside we discovered the complex had a nice little playground and ground for the kids to play in. Just when we were getting ready to go, the landlady arrived and showed us up to a beautiful 10th floor apartment. As we walked in and started to look around, Rob said to me "Don't get your hopes up, we can't afford this place" I knew he was right, but I did enjoy looking around. It was unfurnished, but beautifully finished. There were 2 full bathrooms, one with a glassed in shower, and one with a bathtub, both of which are a major rarity here in China. It has 3 bedrooms with air-conditioning and heating in every room. The view was beautiful. The kitchen was small but nicely done. But, we knew it wasn't something we could afford, so we had our friend tell the landlady that we were very thankful for her time and the apartment was beautiful, but we were quite sure we couldn't afford it, so we would be going. She laughed and reminded us that we hadn't asked the price. So we asked.....and she told us the EXACT price we were looking for.

We almost fell over right on the spot. In fact we laughed out loud. This place was bigger than we had been hoping for, in a great location, and with a very nice interior. We knew for a fact a furnished one a few floors below was WAY more expensive. We were so excited but didn't want to be foolish, I mean who finds an apartment on their 3rd look? So we quickly told her that we would let her know by the end of the day if we would take the apartment. We proceeded to visit a few other apartments just to make sure. The ones we could afford were awful, the ones that were livable were too expensive. The more we looked, the more we realized how amazing it was that we had come across this apartment. So we returned to speak to the landlady. She was very kind and agreed to rent us the apartment with no deposit fee ( a months rent) and starting on the date we chose. We also avoided paying a zhong-jie fee (another months rent) since we hadn't needed to use a real-estate agent. HE prepared this place specifically for us and just about dropped it in our laps. Nothing we had scheduled to look at was remotely suitable, and we couldn't have found this place on our own. The landlady doesn't trust the real-estate agents (who frequently are dishonest here) so she wasn't listing the apartment, she was just waiting for the right person to come along, and HE knew it was us!

Our friend Lisa had prayed with great faith every day leading up to our trip that we would find an apartment on our first day of looking. She was convinced that it would be so. Although I was quite sure God would meet our needs and we would eventually find a suitable apartment, I was very skeptical of us finding our apartment in one day of looking. I was very rebuked by my lack of faith, and amazed at His very specific provision for our needs.

We returned this past saturday to pay our years rent and get the keys from the landlady. It was Robbie's first look at his new home and he had a great time helping Daddy measure the spaces and explore the apartment. We can't wait to move in and get settled!