Home Sweet Home

Here is a slideshow tour of our new home! The pictures are in order moving from the front to the back of our house. If you put your mouse over the slideshow, you'll see controls at the bottom left that will allow you to stop and show and look at the pictures one at a time. You can also click on the slideshow to go to the photobucket page where the pictures are if you'd rather see the larger originals. Enjoy!

Two Weeks! (Joni)

We've been in Moldova exactly two weeks! I say it feels like it's been much longer than that, but Justin says he thinks it feels like two weeks. But look at all that we've done in two weeks:

- Met a bunch of new friends
- Started working at a new place
- Learned how to navigate a public transportation system
- Learned our way around Chisinau, including where to buy all the things we need
- Eaten at Andy's Pizza at least 10 times in 14 days... :) (I'll post about Andy's soon!)
- Started learning a new language (Joni) or gotten better at the language we already knew (Justin)

Also, last night we moved into our new home! There's still a little work that needs to be done in it, but they got it to where it's liveable, so we moved in last night!!!!! IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! I'll post a photo tour on here soon, but we are just thrilled with it! It's very spacious and lovely - much nicer than anyplace we've lived since we got married! We have a full-size refrigerator with freezer, a washing machine, and even our own water heater! All these are somewhat rare in Moldova. In the next day or two, we'll be getting internet at home, and I hear a rumor that before winter, we'll even get a clothes dryer. I don't know ANYBODY that has one of those. So this place is amazing.

I even managed to cook dinner tonight for the first time in over a month! That felt really nice. It was just pasta with meat sauce and sauteed zucchini, but we weren't eating out at a restaurant! Yeah!

In other news, my language study is going SO WELL! Thanks for praying! Please keep it up! We are moving SO FAST, but unbelievably I feel like I'm keeping up so far. I'm doing all my homework, and I carry my flash cards with me everywhere to pull them out and practice when I have a free moment. Thankfully, I don't have anything else to do yet but study language. It's a lot harder for the others in my class because they're either working or trying to take care of a baby or both PLUS trying to learn language. Please continue to pray for all of us.

Third Time was a Charm (Joni)

After three days and a total of about 6 1/2 hours waiting in lines at the clinic, we FINALLY have our medical approval for work permits in Moldova! So we won't have to go back to the clinic, but this is still not the end of the road for us. Now we'll have to go to other offices and wait in lines there to get all the paperwork submitted. Please keep praying that God comes through mightily in providing this permit for us. I think it will still be a couple weeks before we know for sure whether or not we get the permits.

On an entirely unrelated note, I wanted to give you all a few pictures to let you know what our life looks like here.

This is Justin standing in front of our house! At the moment, we are living on the third floor of the building behind him - that balcony with the flower boxes is off our bedroom. It's nice to be able to sit out on the balcony and look out onto the street. The weather has been really nice until yesterday when it started raining - and it's still pouring now!

The building on the right side of this picture will be our new house once it's completed. You can see on the right that there is a step underneath a window. That used to be a porch for a door connecting the house to the courtyard. Now they've walled that off and made it a window, so the only entrance to the house is from the street. That gives anybody staying in the house a little more privacy, and also the family doesn't have to be disturbed by our coming and going. I haven't been in the house yet, but Justin has seen it and he says it's going to be great! A bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom - all we need! They're working hard to get everything in the house completed this week, and they're hoping we'll be able to move in Sunday.

Finally, I just wanted to post a picture of a fine eating establishment here:
Yes, we have 3 McDonald's in Chisinau! This is the main location on downtown's main street. We ate at one of the different branches on Sunday after church, and I was surprised with how popular it was with the Moldovans! The place was packed! The prices are about the same as they are in America, but that's kind of expensive for food in Moldova. We probably won't eat there much, but it was tasty!

So those are a couple of pictures for you to get an idea of what it looks like here. Check back tomorrow for my long post about transportation!