When we arrived back in Perth, we landed amidst the largest October quarter YWAM Perth has ever had. There are nearly 600 students and staff on base right now. As our direction to stay back from the Kimberley was a bit late-in-the-game from human standpoint, and there were no empty beds on campus, our housing predicament was significant and urgent. Some friends delayed moving into their own new apartment on base so we could stay there a few nights. Then there was quite the scramble to find us a place that could or would immediately accommodate a family of 7 (somewhat abnormal for this area… okay, very abnormal), for a month, and not be obscenely expensive.
Our best option came up to be a hostel in city center. We went to visit it. It was a nice place, in terms of a hostel, and they would rearrange beds/rooms to keep us all together, and I believe we would have been safe and fine there. But it was not what I had interpreted “settle and rest as a family” to entail. Especially over Christmas….
Pregnancy hormones were not serving me well at the time, and as the tears flowed in the courtyard of that hostel, our friend who’d been searching diligently for housing options got a return call from a real estate agent. We were offered a holiday home of three bedrooms and two bathrooms, in a quiet community (walking distance to the train station into base, and the grocery, and a library, and a lovely park). It was immediately available, and we’d be given a discounted rate “because of the situation”… a rate even a bit cheaper than the hostel.
It’s only available until the 9th of December. Would we like it?
YES. And THANK YOU, Lord.
We have so enjoyed this little home and the comforts and conviences it offers. We’ve felt like a somewhat-normally functioning family again, just over the past two weeks. That kitchen has accommodated all of my pregnancy cravings (cinnamon rolls, biscuits and gravy, spaghetti with meaty sauce, pancakes, casseroles, hummus and veggie wraps, crunchy cereal and milk!, big colorful salads, and loads of fresh fruits). There’s also a barbecue on the front patio, next to the outdoor dining area, which Bob is loving. And you saw that bathtub, right? Oh, yes. A bathtub.
Whoever said “it’s the little things”…. they were largely right.
We have less than a week more here, now, but God has already opened a place for us to stay after that: a lovely townhouse on the other side of the city, just across the street from the famous King’s Park (go ahead and look it up and get a little jealous), and nearby to our only non-YWAM friends in Perth and their kids. Also at a reduced price, because of the kindness of strangers, the gift of God.
While I’m tearing up again at the generosity of God and His tenderness toward me in my most vulnerable states, toward us all in our fatigue and need for rest, would you just take this one little story -and it is only one of hundreds- and be encouraged to walk by faith? To trust that your Father is a good Father? That He really is God and not a sparrow falls without His notice… and we are much more valuable than they. That while we are wise and responsible and plan and prepare best we can, we don’t have to do all this worrying and all this depending on ourselves. I don’t know about you, my self has long run dry and I need Someone far more capable and with far greater supply to call the shots and direct the steps. He is faithful, friends. He is faithful.
OH… and… of all the places in the world we could be, we’re in a place that celebrates Christmas. Not just a community, but an entire culture. That’s a gift I don’t know that I’d counted until this time ’round. The co-op kids decorated one building on 1 December: the first day of Aussie summer. (There are “real”/artificial Christmas trees, too. We just didn’t put them up!)
