From Shack to Sanctuary

Progress report: Tuesday I went with four guys to the realtor guy. I figured if every time I came with more guys, we might eventually scare him into giving us a good deal. But, alas, he said the owner couldn’t give us a lower price for the bigger house. We were all pretty disappointed, because we didn’t want the smaller place – even though we had all agreed that we should get it if they wouldn’t give us a better deal on the bigger. So, since one guy had never seen the bigger place, we went back and had a look.

Which, of course, means we rented that one! The place was trashed – used to be some kind of internet cafe. No floor besides some kind of thick rubber matting that was pretty gross. Walls pretty dirty and peeling. But the location’s fantastic – just about ten minutes walking from the university dorms – and it’s on the second floor. Plus the place really is pretty big – about 10 square meters bigger than the other place we’ve got. So it should suit us for a long time to come.

Which is great, because it’s going to cost us a lot of money to get it ready. Actually, the progress we’ve made in just two days is unbelievable! We’ve got some “before” pictures already taken, but an “after” would already be pretty amazing. Floor was installed today, all but one room has been painted, and the kitchen, which was brown with cooking-with-oil-produced grime, is now gleaming white. About fifteen students came to help yesterday, about six or so today. I feel like I’m on one of those crazy “blow-up-your-house-and-build-it-again-in-a-week” shows. All this work is helping to produce some feeling of anticipation though, and that’s really all I could hope for.

We have some students coming in a couple weeks that will be living in this house, plus we hope to start services around the same time, so that’s our big deadline! Keep us in your prayers as we try to (somewhat discreetly!) turn this shack into a beautiful sanctuary!