Hello all!
We are finally back online again after a week of no internet at our new place…that’s right, you read correctly! We finally moved into our own little home. While we are incredibly thankful to our recent hosts, we are very excited to be setting up our own little nest 🙂
We are now located at:
30 Gordon Avenue, Unit 2
St. Albans, Christchurch 8014
New Zealand
We love mail 🙂
Our new place is situated north of the City Centre-about a 10 minute drive from our church and many of our friends. It is only 6k from Ev’s job at Tait, so he is excited to bike to work once we can find a second-hand bike and the winter rains and temps are more forgiving. Unfortunately, it is quite a distance from my (Morgan) job at Tai Tapu that starts in less than a month. So, our current lease lasts until January 31, 2o13. We will know by then if the commute is too much to handle and make future living decisions at that point.
Our quest to find a place to live has been somewhat of a challenge for many reasons.
1) The market is very competitive. Many kiwi families have moved into rental properties because their homes are still not fixed from earthquake damage. For many families, insurance money has run dry so they are currently paying both a mortgage and a rental fee…Yikes!
2) Most homes and areas east of the City Centre suffered quake damage. Therefore, many homes are not available and the ones that are can be surrounded by homes with boards on the windows, twisted bridges, and closed roads.
3) Geo technicians, engineers, and builders are coming from abroad to live in Chch, thus also taking some of the rental properties.
4) Rent is EXPENSIVE! Many landlords are taking advantage of the high demand for properties and prices have jumped incredibly in the last year or two. So, although we are still paying heaps more than we should be, we had to find something vaguely in our price range.
However, true to His character, God is faithful. We were not only offered a place, but it has an open floor plan with a heat pump (really important for cold kiwi winters), brand new renovations in the kitchen, and carpets and curtains, and it is CLEAN! (Much to my good pleasure!) We even have internal access to a garage-the first garage Ev and I have ever had. God moved us in His perfect timing. We moved in on Sunday, 12 August; on the next day, Monday at 7am, a huge tree collapsed onto the driveway at the house we had previously been staying-right in the location where we had been parking our 3-day old, un-insured car!! Thank you Lord for protecting us!
Check out this video of our place:
As you can see, it is unfurnished-no fridge, washing machine, beds, couches, pretty much everything. We are now spending our days looking at bargain shops, garage sales, and warehouses to fill our empty space. Evan is particularly excited to visit a flea market this Sunday!
We have sure had our share of memories and we are adjusting to kiwi life!
We are currently sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. We purchased a fridge (fully equipped with fish still in the freezer…ew!), purchased a kitchen table (which we later realized Evan’s legs do not fit under). But above all, we are having a blast!
We also like our new car a lot. Although I don’t think I would ever buy this type of vehicle in the States, we like our little European style hatchback. We are saving a lot of money on petrol (it is equivalent to about $9 per gallon here at the moment) and it has good room for visitors and luggage (another shameless plug)! We wanted to find something that would take us on many wonderful road trips…I could easily sleep in the back with the seats down…Evan may be a little squished for space. It is a silver 2005 Honda Fit-imported straight from Japan!
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