Its been one week since we arrive at the beautiful urban desert. We have been blessed to have a nice two bedroom furnished apartment to sort of settle into as we wait for a permanent visa. The kids were amazing flyers and we had no issues coming over. We arrived at 11:30 at night and took a taxi to our place and slept until morning. Black out curtains are amazing and have helped the kids sleep until 8 most mornings. To help avoid jet lag, I keep the kids busy, lots of sunshine and playing, and no nap for the most part. It has really worked and our nights are full of sleep, but now I am afraid Abby Grace thinks this no nap in the day thing is great... one step at a time.
We have a small kitchen in our place so I have been learning where to get the things I need to cook. Thankfully, there are several grocery stores within walking distance and even one so close I can run down get the one thing I need and back up in 5 minutes. Fruits and vegetables are pretty cheap here so we have lots of fresh items for snacks and I love giving them real fruit instead of fruit snacks! We have a stove but not an oven, which is not a big deal, until I start cooking and realize my recipe calls for 350 for 30 minutes... but its amazing what you can improvise on the stove top! We have taken the metro, gone to the highest tower in the world, and explored several malls. There is so much more of this city to discover. Ryan figured out how to rent a car, (taxi's were so expensive, and we will learn the city quicker driving ourselves) so we have a cute little sedan. Traffic here is so different than what I am used to (its a far cry from small town Arkansas and lots more rules than the Indian roads) but we are learning our way around. I even drove us to IKEA which is only about 15 minutes, but I felt so accomplished.
One thing that really excited me was seeing people from all over the world living here. The neighborhood we are staying in has mostly South Asians, and as I pass people, I understand the conversations (and they have no idea I know Hindi) and the grocery stores sell the familiar brands from India. There are also people from Africa, other parts of Asia and lots from Europe and Australia as well. We have visited a church that has people from all over the world. I realized as I was talking with a sweet family from China that as we live and work here, my children that have come from different parts of the globe will have the unique opportunity to have mirrors of people that look like them. I love them deeply and can teach them about living right, following the Lord, all the things they need academically... but I have never been an African man, or a Chinese woman... And here are people worshiping the lord alongside us that could be a mirror for our kids. This is a huge gift and I thank the Lord for giving us this opportunity to live here in this season and to pour into the lives of the people we come in contact with. There were three African men who high fived the children, and their class seemed to have light skinned kids as the minority. The Chinese family we met home schools and has a son my boys age and she really wants to meet up and talk through how to help the kids learn well even with short attention spans. I told her I am in the same boat, but we can learn to paddle together and find ways to learn through play and let the kindergarten year be a year we teach them to love to learn.
We hope to find a more permanent place hopefully by July, but for now, we will enjoy this cute little space. We head to India in a few weeks to get out stuff from there and see our friends again! So excited to see them!
We have a small kitchen in our place so I have been learning where to get the things I need to cook. Thankfully, there are several grocery stores within walking distance and even one so close I can run down get the one thing I need and back up in 5 minutes. Fruits and vegetables are pretty cheap here so we have lots of fresh items for snacks and I love giving them real fruit instead of fruit snacks! We have a stove but not an oven, which is not a big deal, until I start cooking and realize my recipe calls for 350 for 30 minutes... but its amazing what you can improvise on the stove top! We have taken the metro, gone to the highest tower in the world, and explored several malls. There is so much more of this city to discover. Ryan figured out how to rent a car, (taxi's were so expensive, and we will learn the city quicker driving ourselves) so we have a cute little sedan. Traffic here is so different than what I am used to (its a far cry from small town Arkansas and lots more rules than the Indian roads) but we are learning our way around. I even drove us to IKEA which is only about 15 minutes, but I felt so accomplished.
One thing that really excited me was seeing people from all over the world living here. The neighborhood we are staying in has mostly South Asians, and as I pass people, I understand the conversations (and they have no idea I know Hindi) and the grocery stores sell the familiar brands from India. There are also people from Africa, other parts of Asia and lots from Europe and Australia as well. We have visited a church that has people from all over the world. I realized as I was talking with a sweet family from China that as we live and work here, my children that have come from different parts of the globe will have the unique opportunity to have mirrors of people that look like them. I love them deeply and can teach them about living right, following the Lord, all the things they need academically... but I have never been an African man, or a Chinese woman... And here are people worshiping the lord alongside us that could be a mirror for our kids. This is a huge gift and I thank the Lord for giving us this opportunity to live here in this season and to pour into the lives of the people we come in contact with. There were three African men who high fived the children, and their class seemed to have light skinned kids as the minority. The Chinese family we met home schools and has a son my boys age and she really wants to meet up and talk through how to help the kids learn well even with short attention spans. I told her I am in the same boat, but we can learn to paddle together and find ways to learn through play and let the kindergarten year be a year we teach them to love to learn.
We hope to find a more permanent place hopefully by July, but for now, we will enjoy this cute little space. We head to India in a few weeks to get out stuff from there and see our friends again! So excited to see them!
Aww, what a wonderful city and such a good fit for your sweet family! (This is Betsy, in case you don't recognize my full/married name :)
ReplyDeleteExciting! Praying for all!
ReplyDeleteDebbie