Moving on up!

Hey, Jen here. What a day today was. I woke up early out of excitement/nervousness for what lie ahead--we signed our lease today! Roy was on top of it, taking care of things by God's grace...what a blessing to be able to trust Roy and God. Roy bought me breakfast before met with our new landlord--he still thinks of my hungry belly. :) Nancy, Grace's right-hand woman came with us just to make sure things were right and went smoothly. It all went great and by the end of it we were left in the apartment with the keys. Yay. Our new home. :) I'll post pictures sometime...don't want to get out the card reader now.

The kicker of the day was that we needed to check out of our hotel by 3pm, we had TONS to pack up, and Roy had to teach a Chess class at 3pm (but leaves at about 1:30pm)...so plan was I would stay and finish packing and have the concierge hold our bags. Guess how many bags we had held? 7. Yes 7. 4 rolling suitcases, and 3 duffel bags. I probably looked like a crazy woman-"Hi, could you please come and bring down my SEVEN bags? I have enough clothes for 3 months..." haha... oh well. Slight lapse in the story here...I taxied with all our luggage to the bottom of the stairs we must climb to get to our apartment building; Roy met me at the curb. And there we were, two people on the side of a random sidewalk in Hong Kong with seven luggage bags around us...people watched, probably thinking, "What are those strange people doing? And how are they going to move all that luggage? Why did they pack so much?"

My strong ishi grabbed the three duffel bags and slung them around his shoulders, and with each hand grabbed one rolley suitcase. This left me with two rolley suitcases. Off we went toward the massive stairs. ugh. Where's our Mars Hill move in crew? We scaled up two portions of steps and paused for a break. Roy was probably carrying at least 100 pounds and pulling 120 pounds or so up stairs. We rethought our plan. Roy took a smaller load up to the apartment while I stayed back with the luggage. Sounds fine. I got some funny looks from people walking up and down the steps and one old lady stood on her porch and watched our trek (though we did exchange smiles because of the humor of the situation). As I watched them walk by I wondered, "Why don't any of these men offer to help?"

So, moral of the story is: If you see people trying to move more luggage than they can handle, offer to help! Don't just give them a funny look and keep walking. Or, if you know of someone who is moving, help them because it is a big job! And we only brought a fraction of our stuff to move!

While I waited, it began to sprinkle (we're on a Level 3 typhoon warning...level 8 means no one has to go to work, so we can all hang out with our friends...when we make some...). More people walked by. Here's how I describe the rest of our trek. Stairs, sweat, pause, sweat, stairs, sweat, pause, sweat, stairs, sweat, stairs, made it to our building, sweat! Now only 4 flights of sweating stairs left (why did we rent a walk-up???)...sweat, gasp for air, stairs...and AIR-CON! Ahh! Where's that cold juice in the fridge? Oh I wish we had a bed on which to collapse! Ah...

And here I am, hours later, my belly full, my thirst quenched, all 7 bags in our apartment, lying on a makeshift bed with my tired ishi, reflecting on the day. I fretted and worried so much about the lease-signing and rent-paying yesterday...and it went well. Roy took care of it wonderfully. God is faithful to provide...and I was stressing. Silly Jenny. Hope in God, trust in God, for He will never leave you or forsake you!

Praise Jesus for a place to dwell. I pray that we will serve and glorify God in this place. More to come later...