It just hit me today that we are finishing up with Saturday and you in the states are just starting it. So in a way, we can tell you the future! Saturday is going to be a great day!
I was able to sleep right on until about 6am this morning. However, Rick was up at 3:30am. “While I was sleeping” he rearranged the whole living room and set up our office space! And he did all of that and didn’t even make a peep! He is good!
I checked my email and had heard from some of you. If nothing else, I hope the blog helps remind you to pray for us AND to write! If you want my new postal address you will have to email me and ask me for it!
My quiet time with the Lord this morning was sweet. As if He needed any help remembering, I reminded Him of how He had granted compassion on Nehemiah and provided him with the permit from the king he needed to go and rebuild the wall. Without that permit, look what would have happened. We are in the same boat with our permit. We have to have it before we can do anything! I want to remind YOU all to pray about that without ceasing!
Today we hit yet another set of stores in our exploration. I promise we ARE going to do more than shop while we are here. We are just trying to familiarize ourselves with the bus and subway system. It is so much cheaper to do that than to get a taxi everywhere. We left at about 10am and stopped off at our new favorite little internet café down the street from our apartment complex. We had coffee and a sort of strange omelet that was pretty good.
We went to the grand opening of the MRT mall. The MRT is the bus system here. There were all kinds of stores and I was even able to pick up our first Christmas present for one of our kids! Since Rick is headed that way early October, I will have to get my Christmas shopping done early!
We had lunch in another food court. I had bean curd soup (delicious!) with rice and Rick had friend prawns (shrimp). Later we got a fried scrambled yam. Okay, I can’t explain it but it was delicious, too.
Our next bus trip took us out to the IKEA store where they sell furniture. There is actually one of these in Nashville so some of you may have heard of it. However, this one was at least three stories tall – each story about the size of a super Walmart! We walked and looked and planned. We will have to buy several large pieces of furniture including some chairs, a dining room table and chairs, a bedroom suit, a washer and dryer, and possibly a small refrigerator. We also have to set up the office so we looked at desks and cabinets, etc. IKEA had some really beautiful stuff.
Next door to it was a COURTS megastore which was a lot like IKEA and just as big. Across the street there was a GIANT – yes, a grocery store, but we didn’t make it over there. By the time we had walked through both of those BIG stores, I was pooped and ready to head towards home!
We caught a bus outside the stores and it was packed. In fact, every bus and subway we got on was FULL and we had to stand most of the time. So that made me even more tired. By now our jet lag was really kicking in and I didn’t know if we were going to make it. We still had to stop for supper – remember we don’t have much set up in our little apartment kitchen yet. We stopped at a mall on the way home (got off the subway, walked up to the mall) and had supper. I had the most delicious cup of broccoli and cheddar cheese soup PLUS two pieces of garlic bread. Rick had some kind of ham and cheese puff balls (local food) which he enjoyed. He is much braver than I am at trying all of this new food. He could have also gotten octopus puff balls but decided it might be too late in the evening to have that!
We have now arrived home and I am bathed and ready for bed. I even managed to color my hair – which was in bad need of it – so I am ready for Sunday. I know that the Lord has a wonderful day planned for us as we have our first worship service here! And I’ll let you know how that goes!
Lori
