Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

About a month before we first flew into Santiago, we were told that our apartment would be completely furnished when we arrived. There was one condition though: we would lose everything sometime in December. This was an answer to prayer, though, since it allowed us to put off purchasing furniture until we were more familiar with the area stores and our budget while we slowly accumulated our own furniture. Days passed, weeks passed, and months passed until the calendar finally stopped in December. We still had not purchased any furniture of our own for our apartment. Then the fateful day came when after a long day, we came home to an empty living room. As we slowly came in, our voices echoed off the empty walls. We talked about what we could do until we finally decided to drag the mattress from an extra twin size bed to the living room, converting it to a couch with no legs and no back. Trying to remain optimistic, I told Becki of all the memories we were making. Of how we could look back on this time with such fondness years from now. Of how a twin size mattress really isn't that bad, we could have nothing. Those attempts at optimism bounced off the empty walls, bouncing around in my consciousness but never sinking in, because in all honesty, coming home to an empty living room is not all that inviting.

Several days before break, a friend asked me if I had any prayer requests as I returned to the DR. I told him, "Yeah, it's small, but please pray that we would find some good furniture for our apartment." His reply seemed funny at the time, "Well, I'll pray that you find some furniture that has your name on it." "I wonder what that would look like?" I thought to myself.

The first day back at school, I was stopped by the head maintenance man at the school. He said that he had found a couch and a t.v. that he was going to give us. I was shocked. I immediately went to find Becki to tell her of the good news. Later that same day, we heard from someone else who didn't need one of their couches anymore. They wanted us to have it. I was shocked. It truly was an answer to prayers, furniture that had my name on it.