Moving

Yesterday me, my girlfriend, our two co-signers (we can't remember what it's called in English but it was Garigran and Gabriella for those of you who know them) and the owner signed the papers on the lease of our new apartment.

This will be the 5th place we've lived in Brasil (if you include the hotel we lived in for the first 3 weeks after our arrival). And it's been more than 7 years since we've lived in an apartment. It will be an adjustment for sure but we are excited.

Why are we excited? Because new moves are exciting. New place, new neighborhood and new friends. It's like I tell the kids when they go to a new school or go to a new sports class, "Who knows? Maybe the best friend you'll ever have in your life is in that group of people."

A new move is cool because it's like God gives you a new beginning.

We are also very excited because of where the apartment is located. We can, literally, throw a rock from the entrance of our apartment building and hit the kids' school. All four of our younger kids go to school within a block of where we live. Ansley teaches a private English class on our street and English to pre-schoolers a block away.

We will be driving 15-20 hours less per week just by not taking kids to school, after school classes and practices. Our stress level has already gone down just thinking about staying out of rush hour traffic 2-3 times (we have 4 rush hours) per day.

God worked in an amazing way in giving us this apartment.

We'll probably share more about that story and some pics from the new place (we know how you love those new house pics Jennifer) on a later blog.

For now, we ask that you pray for our move this weekend, for things to get repaired in the apartment (hot water heater, leak in bathroom and glass enclosure installed in one shower) quickly, for us to repair what needs to be repaired in our current house before the next missionary family moves in and for our health. We have a few people with colds right now.

Don't know how much we'll be blogging over the next few days. If we miss a few days you'll know why.