The first thing that happened after we went through immigration and collected our bags was buying ice cream for the kids. They needed a little pick me up after such a long trip. While we waited for Kidoong to pick us up in the airport I bought the kids mint chocolate chip and shooting star from Baskin. It perked them up for a good 30 minutes. Ha.
Kidoong picked us up in a van and it took about 2 hours to get to his family's apartment. The kids were sacked out during the ride. He said that the KidsWorship team wanted to greet us at his place and eat pizza together and after that we would go to our agreed upon housing at the church. We were looking forward to finally getting to our apartment and dropping our bags in our new "home" and getting some rest.
From what we understood, our apartment was on the 7th floor of the church building. It's a 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom unfurnished place, but it did have a sink, stove, bathroom, etc. so I knew we'd have everything we needed. We brought clothes, air mattresses and toiletries and were planning to make an E-Mart run to get the basics for the kitchen, etc. This is where the surprise came in. As you can imagine, we're still a little messed up by the shock. We got to Kidoong's apartment and when we walked in the door we saw this:
Kidoong and his family were giving up their apartment for the year and living in the 1 bedroom apartment that we were supposed to live in. Stunned and in utter disbelief we were greeted by the KidsWorship team, ballons, cakes, wings and pizza. Barry and I were both in shocked and almost embarassed. We came to serve not be served! I'm still stunned. I gave up my bathtub and fireplace, Will gave up his legos, Sam gave up her personal space and Barry, well Barry could live anywhere. But, we get here to find beds, cozy heated floors, functioning kitchen, bathtub, legos, wi-fi, TV, DVD player, couches, kitchen table, washer, treadmill and more. WHAT?!? Wow. The learning curve for living here will be pretty steep. That should be an adventure in and of itself. We'll pay the utilities and fees, but God has already provided work, so that's covered.This morning we opened up the devotional that our pastor gave us before we left for this trip. Today's entry was based out of Ephesians 3:20. Our God is a God who does more than we can ask for or imagine. Yes, He is and we are simply amazed. May our thoughts and days continually be filled with thanksgiving and praise to our God.
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