House Hunting with the Ultimate Real Estate Agent...

NOTICE: SHARON IS THE BEST REAL ESTATE AGENT EVER ON EARTH.
OTHER NOTICE: IN THIS PARTICULAR POST I AM SPEAKING OF THE LORD.
OTHER OTHER NOTICE: WE LOVE SHARON A WHOLE WHOLE BUNCH.

As you know from Shan's previous post, we are not staying at the Passion Guesthouse anymore. That calls for some house hunting! With Sharon and Theary in hand, we drove around Phnom Penh looking for "For Rent" signs. Our drill was to spot a sign, roll up, Theary would jump out and ask the people how much it was a night in her brilliant Khmer and if it was too much, would jump back in the car, but if it was doable, we would all climb out and go look at a room. We did this about five or six times with no luck. To be fair, we did find a few places, but they were either too expensive for our budget or too far away from where we needed to be in the city.

So, we started just driving through random streets, looking for places and happened upon a place called Alma. We all climbed out because Theary came back to tell us that the "Big Man" spoke English. It also had a sombrero man out front, so I always consider that a good sign.

We walked in to a cute little open cafe kind of restaurant and began talking to the man that was in charge there. His name was Aaron and he explained that they were a brand new, been-open-ten-days, Christian guesthouse and organization. That was pretty cool. So, we explained our situation and he in turn told us it was $15 dollars a night per person (most places charge only per night, not per person). That was Shan and I's budget combined for one night. After haggling it down to $10 dollars a night per person if we were to share a room (which we were planning on doing anyways), Aaron informs us that they will actually be booked starting next week for a while because of some team coming in from Thailand or China. We were bummed, even though it was out of our budget. So, we all climbed back into the car and were about to leave when Aaron comes running out and asks us for our phone number so that he can calls us if he finds anything else for us after talking to some other missionaries. We of course gave him our number, thanked him, and went on our way.

We went off to the next possible guesthouse, Sugar and Spice, and discovered that it doesn't open until July 1st. While we are all brainstorming of all the options of where to stay for a couple weeks and then transferring to Sugar and Spice, our phone rings. It was Aaron. He asked us if we could come back straight away and sit and talk with one of the missionaries that works there about living arrangements. We had not been gone from Alma for more than fifteen minutes.Woohoo!

So, we all raced back to Alma and went inside to find Francel, a young lady our ageish (twenty-three) waiting for us. She explained that she had an apartment about two streets down from Alma (coincidentally it was two streets from Sharon, Dennis, and Theary) and she had an extra room that we were welcome to stay in if we were to pay $5 dollars a day each ($10 a day = $35 a week = $70 a month = ridiculously great deal) and that would include our own room with an air conditioner, a queen-size bed, our own bathroom, a kitchen, running refrigerator, access to the laundry machine, a closet, a fan, wifi, a living room, tv, and a balcony. Basically $5 dollars a day with that including all utilities. W-H-A-T. That was better than any of the guesthouses we looked at pricewise AND as an added bonus we would have all those amenities whereas at the guesthouses we would have had a bed, a bathroom, wifi, air conditioning, and been a twenty minute walk away from Sharon, Dennis, and Theary. After talking to Francel a little bit more, she explained that she was a Christian from Singapore and had been living in Cambodia for about six months and had just renewed her visa for another six months. She works with an organization that helps orphanages and she teaches English and Bible classes at a school that they attend. She later told us that she had actually been thinking about what she was going to do about needing a roommate because the one she has currently is moving out this week and her permanent roommate wasn't going to be back until the end of July (how interesting, we need a place from now till the end of July...HMMMMMM...). She had just come to grips with needing to pay the rent all by herself. And then Aaron called her as she was leaving the school and heading to Alma. SUPER COOL. She seemed really really nice, I got a good vibe from her. Later that day, after her shift at Alma (she also picked up work there in the afternoons) she took us all to the apartment and showed us around. I will post pictures after we move in TOMORROW (does a little dance). It is a really nice place. The view is spectacular as well because it's on the third floor (SO MANY STEPS. This place puts Gardner AND Smadams to shame)!!

After a very quick conference with Shan, we decided we would like to stay there. And everything was great! We get to move in tomorrow!! It is going to be so nice to have a place of our own to stay at and a place with space so that if we need to get away, we can. Super excited about the kitchen and always-running-fridge so that we don't have to eat out every night (the fridge is exciting because in the guest houses, all the electricity turns off after you leave the room which kind of defeats the purpose of a fridge).

This is just a small testament of how good, great, awesome, FANTASTIC our God is. He cares about everyone. He cares about you, he cares about me, and he cares about the things that go on in our lives. Every thing, big or small. There's nothing too big or too small to pray for, he wants to hear about it all. He wants our hearts and everything that comes with them just as they are right now. That's something I've learned and relearned this week, that our God loves us. Our Dad LOVES us. He wants to dote upon us and shower us with gifts and blessings. All he wants is our heart. And you get his in return. You already have it. Like in Job, one of the things that book is all about is being real. Real and radical. Job was very upfront about what he was feeling with the Lord. He never was wishy-washy. Whatever you are, whether you're mad, sad, happy, joyful, hurt, stale, stuck, unsure, doubting, falling, rising, running with him, walking with him, or ashamed, he just wants you to be real with him. Talk to him about everything on your heart and he will take your worries, your aches, your pains, and carry them so you don't have to. You are his. You belong to him, whether you acknowledge that or not. Your identity, my identity, is in him, it IS him.

We prayed for the right place before we set out and right when it looked like we needed to give up for the day, he taped on our shoulders and said, "Hey, I have something super cool for you that you couldn't have found on your own and it's better than anything you have or would have found so far and I got it for you because I love you and I wish to give you the desires of your heart."

Boom. Roasted. God's love. Reaches everything. Even the seemingly little things.

Needless to say, this was a good day:) 
Peace and Blessings.

Stay classy.
Mallory Jean