Dear Prayer Partners,
Hello. No we did not disappear, though from the lack of communication it may have seemed that way. Though we were never off-line completely, staying connected with people was getting difficult since we didn't have internet access in our house. That problem is officially over - effective today we are back on-line at home and will hopefully be able to more effectively communicate with you.
To summarize things briefly we are doing well.
We have now been in our own apartment since Sept 1st and are greatly enjoying having our own space and such. For the most part we are settled with pretty much everything finding a space. Indeed God provided just what we needed. We have a nice 2 bedroom apartment and it's fairly large for only having the 2 bedrooms. Our living room is a very nice size with an extension that can be made more private to serve as a bedroom should we have company come to visit us! (We expect family to come at some point, however if anyone else is interested then let us know). As further blessings we have tons of storage room, are extremely close to the train station (a 5 minute walk which is great as we are primarily taking public transport to get everywhere), 5 minutes (walk) from the beach which provides a huge sandbox for the kids on the wends, 5 minutes (walk) from a large park which we think has play equipment but we haven't found yet, and 3 minutes (walk) from McDonalds. While we don't need the food at McD's they have a wonderful park complete with swings, slides, monkey bars, etc which is great since we don't know where the play equipment at the other park is. We are also very close to the market and to the church we attend. I think I already mentioned this in our prayer letter, however the cost at which He provided this apartment is well below normal rent.
Kids arrangements. Elsa, a lady from the church we attend is watching Asher and Josiah for us while we are in language classes each day. She has also been keeping Karunia for us until school starts for her. The kids love her and she's doing a great job at beginning to help them with Portuguese. As a bonus, her house is only about a 15-20 minute walk for us (amazing at how the perspective of a short walk changes when one moves to a country where you walk bunches to get to the transport).
We were having trouble finding a school for Karunia - we falsely assumed we'd arrive and go register her at either the public school near our house or the one near where Elsa lives. Unfortunately here one registers kids for schools in May and once registration is complete if a school is "full" then they don't have to accept more students even if they move into the area. Well both schools are full. A lady from the church here, Maria Clara has taken us under her wing and one day took us around to several school offices. We left the last one with one of the head teachers saying yes a school here in our sub-city would have room for her definitely but she'd look more to see if one even closer to our house would be available. Praise the Lord. We still don't know all the details - schools here in Lisbon are reorganizing this year; teachers are being moved around and even at a meeting today they were saying all the schools are starting late and some don't yet know when they're starting, etc. This is something to keep praying about but we are trusting that God has provided and we just need to be patient on the details.
We have enrolled Karunia in some private Portuguese classes for 2 wks - she was not playing with the other kids at Elsa's house claiming they didn't speak English. While we know she'll quickly pick up the language once school starts (and we know there will be a few wks of tough adjustment) we figured giving her a head start might help on both those fronts. She is doing wel in her classes - we'll see if they help down the road.
Language for Dan and I: we are doing okay. Portuguese is such a difficult language - at least much more difficult than Indonesian. We finished our 2 wk course at Cial - the school we started in and have since switched to Margarida school. The course there is much less intense but she is also very well known for getting people to speak quickly. To supplement our learning we have hired a tutor to meet with us for an extra 6 hrs/wk. Employing both these methods is much cheaper than it would have been to stay at Cial and so we are very excited!
I guess that is all for now. Please let us hear from you. Now that we are back on line in our house I'll try to keep up with everyone regularly. I don't remember if I've previously sent our address or not but just in case I've typed it below just as you'd want to put it on an envelope.
Dan and Robin Been
Rua da Torre 10 R/C ESQ
2780-081 Oeiras
Portugal
Phone number is 21-441-4462 (that's Lisbon city code and our number - you'd need to find the country code in the phone book). We're 6-7 hrs ahead of Eastern/Central time in the States.
Thanks for your prayers.
Robin and Dan
