Moving Day- Come and Gone

Welcome to life in Ukraine, or to life in any other former Soviet-bloc country. If the landlord's child is getting married, or another child is moving back in to town, or even if he wants to come to the beach for the summer, you will very likely be asked to move. It's very common here to move frequently if you're a renter- and not because you want to, but because you have to. So what happened?? I've been asked that question multiple times by friends and family back home who didn't even know this was happening until it was pretty much over and done with. Basically, it's like this: I signed a 10 month lease back last August and it was over on June 21st. In May I asked my landlord if they were planning on coming to the beach again for the summer. If they were, I wanted the time to find a new place. He assured me that they weren't(they live in Moldova) and that he was going to come to Odessa at the end of June to sign a new contract with me. When I went to pay for July, my neighbor told me that my landlord had called, changed his mind and that they would be here on July 10th, so I needed to be out before then. I found out about that on June 25th and he called to confirm it four days later.

At that point, I had no idea what to do, because the Girl's Retreat was starting and I didn't have time to look for a new place. Thankfully, God is in control of crazy situations and July 8th I moved in with two other single missionaries- about 20 minutes away from my apartment. It's definitely taking time to adjust:I no longer have two large grocery stores, two huge markets, church, and most of my co-workers within walking distance. I'm spending a lot more time on the stinky, hot buses and it's much more difficult to do that with my viola and grocery bags, plus it takes a lot more time to get anywhere. The area where I now live is much noisier, so I've had to go back to sleeping with earplugs and a pillow over my head to block out the street lights. I actually have a bed now, but it's pretty awful and I really miss my little pull out couch I've slept on for the last eleven months. Those things are minor nuisances, however. Really, it's a quite nice apartment and I'm so thankful for the quick provision of it and the willingness of Laura and Michelle to take me in on such short notice!

My new bedroom

How, you may ask, did you fit everything from an entire apartment into one bedroom? Well, the answer to that is...creative stacking and storage containers, as shown in the next two photos.

I can't stand clutter, so this will probably really get on my nerves eventually, but it's working for now.

You can't see this, but behind the front row in the cabinet is all of my kitchen supplies.

Kitchen

Tiny little bathroom- shower is to the right

Living room. My room is the door that you can see

My geraniums made the move, as well. If you look closely, you can see the grapes hanging on the vine that has grown up from the ground and are attached to our balcony.