Home is Where the Heart Is

     It has been two and half weeks since Zach and I have moved into our new apartment together.  Our new home for the time being.  Our little home is a safe haven – a place of rest and peace.  It has personality and character.  It has life surrounding it throughout the week – it is never lonely.  It is witness to many first time cooking experiments.  It fills with the aroma and sound of coffee brewing in the morning.  It is our first home together.  This little place has been good to us.  However, if you were to ask me the question, “Was it love at first sight?” my answer would be, “Absolutely not”.  I thought I would use this next post to tell you a little bit about my journey (even if it has only been a very short one) towards cultivating a thankful heart for our apartment. 

The kitchen is really not this dark, the lighting was just bad.

As some of you know, Zach started the process of applying and interviewing for an intern position with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) on the campus of Western Carolina University (WCU) back in early June of this year.  As things started progressing, we came over in late June to visit the campus and have a personal interview.  We arrived at WCU, saw the beautiful campus and met some of the students.  Everything was going just right.  And then… we walked into a small, two room space on the bottom floor of the BCM building and were told, “This is the apartment you guys would be living in.”  As I looked around, honestly my first thought was, “No, this is not going to work.”  Deal breaker.  Every place I’d lived in before seemed like a palace compared to this tiny, cement walled, pipe-exposed, basement apartment!  And that included the flat in the ghetto of Cairo, Egypt where my roommate and I had to jimmy-rig one of the doors that led to the outside in order for it to stay shut!  Nope, this was not the lovely vision of a cute one bedroom, cozy kitchen, newlywed apartment that I had in my head.  Where was I supposed to cook?  There was no counter space!  Needless to say, I went away from the apartment feeling a bit discouraged. 



This is where I will speed up my story (maybe).  As we went on throughout the afternoon and discussed details of the ministry and what our roles there would be, we were very affirmed that the Lord was leading us to be here.  However, I was still stuck on the issue of the apartment: its size, its location, its seemingly dingy atmosphere.  And while I was thinking through all of this, the Lord really spoke to my heart and I was convicted of my American, consumerism, “more is better”, mind-set.  I was reminded of how many people there are all over the world who live in homes even smaller and more simple than this.  And many times they will have 5 people or more living in one space.  I was very humbled by this thought and realized that if the Lord wanted us here, I could live in this apartment – and I definitely could for the 10 months that we will be here.  Later that afternoon Zach and I went to look at the apartment again and this time I saw a whole different place than what I had seen the first time.  I saw an apartment big enough for the two of us, with many possibilities of how we could arrange furniture and decorate, and a place to do ministry.  I mentioned there was no kitchen counter space earlier, and there isn’t.  But what I did not mention is that right across the hall is a very large kitchen that is used to make dinner for 80 -100 students each week and we have complete access to it whenever we want to prepare our own meals.  I love that.  I love that we live right on campus and Zach’s office is just right upstairs!  Not only do we save a ton of money on gas, but I get to walk up there and see him anytime I want to (and vice versa)!  There are events in the building – it’s never a boring place!  And the students have been very respectful of our private space.  And I have learned that you can make anyplace a home.  We have been able to make it quite homey and comfortable.  I am thankful for this place and I’m sure we’ll both look back on this time with fond and funny memories. 

Honeymoon!!

We have been married for 2 weeks now and it has been absolutely wonderful.  Newlywed bliss!  For our honeymoon we spent a week in Gatlinburg, TN.  We stayed at my aunt Cindy and uncle LD's cozy chalet, Cloudy Dreams.

This is the view we saw from the balcony every day.                            

I was hoping to see some black bears while we were there.  Zach, however, was not super stoked about the idea of meeting up with "Smokey".  Turns out we both got our wish.  The very first evening there we saw (from the safety of the car) a bear walking up the road in front of us on our way back to the chalet.  It turns out that was the one and only bear we saw the whole week, but I was glad to see it!  Neither one of us had our cameras at that point or else there would be a picture to show you. (Yes, I got way to excited about the bear).  So, moving right along throughout the rest of our honeymoon week....

 

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 A Few Highlights

Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies

 

All the yummy food!!!                        

Hiking to Abrams Falls

Spending the afternoon at Splash Country!  We had planned on the water park being our "fun splurge", but while we were in line to buy tickets a very generous lady came up to us and offered to get us into the park for free with some extra passes she had.  It was an unexpected blessing from the Lord. :)  And finally, just being together was the best part of the whole week!