Deep Breaths

Apologies!

We would like to offer our sincere apologies for keeping a low profile this past month. Quite a lot has happened and we have been flooded with all kinds of things. Here is a quick run down of the last month BUT our next post will be filled with exciting pics of all I will now tell you.

First of all, we had a wonderful time house sitting for our friend Nicky who was in England for two months. Her apartment is beautiful and it was a lovely extension of our honeymoon when we returned from the USA. We had many decisions to make and a great deal of business to take care of after our vacation time so we felt extremely overwhelmed. Amazingly, or should I say expectedly!, God helped provide us with many answers and opportunities.

For a while now we have been looking for a car and finally, after quite a lot of looking, we have bought one. It's a Vauxhall Zafira (picures will follow!) which is rather big but works out well for helping to carry round the youth! My uncle is a car dealer in England and found it for us (thanks Taki) and sent it to Cyprus. The best thing is that there is air conditioning and power steering...our old car had neither and it was a miserable summer driving it around!

Also, we have found our own place to rent. It's a beautiful 2 bedroom apartment and we got an amazing deal. John and I had been wrestling with many options about renting/buying furniture/electrical appliances and spent many an hour at night worrying and stressing going round and round. Because we have no idea how long we will be in Cyprus, it was difficult to make the wisest decision. BUT God helped provide a place that answered all the 'maybes' and 'whatifs'! (again pictures will follow). My cousin Christiana, her fiance Eric and their daugher Nadia, found the apartment back in July. It belonged to an old man and when he passed away early July, his daughter didn't want to deal with moving all the furniture, kitchen stuff and linen so she basically rented to them 'as is'. In August (just after returning from Nicky's place), Chris and Eric decided to move back to England and needed to find new tenants so as not be penalised for breaking the lease. It worked out perfectly for everyone and they left us a heap of things they couldn't take with them which saved us a lot of money. Thanks guys...we miss and love you.

During all this time of moving from Nicky's, moving to a new place and running round government offices for car and residency paperwork, John and I have been painting a room in the church for the youth to call their own. What we thought would take a couple of nights, ended up running into three weeks! However, after much sweating and sore muscles, it is finished and looking very cool. We are in the middle of buying furniture and fixings but we have already had one meeting in there with the youth.

Other than that, I start work again on Monday :( which is a bit sad because I have enjoyed the free time to dedicate to the youth and our new home. This year will be easier in some ways but just as difficult in others. There is no wedding to plan (PHEW!) but we are starting a college group ministry and we want to have more time for the youth in general.

Thank you for all your comments and prayers during this time. We are especially grateful to my parents for all their help with moving and running around to sort out all our paperwork. We truly appreciate all that you have done.

So, our next post will be another great photo catalogue to hopefully give you all a better idea of our life here in Cyprus. Please drop by and post comments...they are a real encouragement and keep us going....don't just visit and not say anything! It helps us to know there are people reading.

Love you guys

posted by John and Leia @ 10:31 AM 5 comments

The Big Update, Pt. 4: The Honeymoon

I know, I know . . . we've been stretching out this Big Update post longer than George Lucas strectched out the Star Wars saga. This is the last installment, I promise. The reason for the lack of activity on the blog is that we've been house-sitting for a friend of ours (sans internet access) since we returned from the States. We should be back online more regularly in about a week, and we will have plenty of exciting things to share, including pics of our new car and the new youth room we've been fixing up at the church. But for now, feast your eyes on this little virtual photo album of our honeymoon.

This is our cabin (tastefully named Midnight Fun), just outside of Pigeon Forge, TN in the Smoky Mountains.


The cabin had a nice comfy living area, as well as a host of other fun features . . .

. . . like this jacuzzi . . .


. . . a rock wall shower with a waterfall shower head . . .

. . . and a hot tub on the back deck, perfect for soothing my aching muscles after a long day of shopping at outlet malls.

Clearly, the cabin was not somewhere we wanted to leave very often. But when we did venture into town, we enjoyed some of the local culinary specialties, like breakfast at the Pancake Pantry . . .

. . . and dogs from Fanny Farkle's. Seriously, isn't my wife cute when she's enjoying her food?

Clearly, we stuck to a strict low-cal regimen while we were honey- mooning.


We took a ride up to the top of a mountain on a ski lift that offered equal parts scenic beauty, quaint charm, and heart-pounding terror.

You guys can make up your own caption for this one. Only in Gatlinburg . . .

Upon returning to Cleveland, we took part in a 1920's-era murder mystery. Here we are, the (slightly crooked) district attorney and the sultry lounge singer.

And here's the entire cast of characters. Special kudos to Adam for busting out the mutton chops.

Leia had never taken part in a 4th of July celebration before . . .

. . . so my brother-in-law Sean and I put on a little pyro- technics display for the whole family.

The ladies mostly just stood on the porch and yelled at us to be careful . . .


. . . but at least Leia got some cool pictures. I think this was right before the fire department was called in.

After nineteen glorious days, we headed to the airport for our looong return trip to Cyprus. We had a couple of final photo ops with my family . . .

. . . then said our tearful goodbyes. *sniff*

We had a twelve hour layover in Amsterdam on the way back, so we thought we'd do a little sightseeing (in spite of the fact that we were complete zombies by this point). This is the central train station. European architecture never ceases to take my breath away.

A lovely old church. I find it sad that Europe has all these beautiful cathedrals that basically stand empty for lack of worship- pers, while we in the States content ourselves with meeting in sparkling new high-tech spaces that basically feel like public auditoriums. There's just a certain lack of sacredness in most of our churches that really hits you when you visit places like this.

We took a boat tour along the city's famous canals. This is a spot where you can look down under seven bridges that stand in a row. (Admittedly, you'll have to squint pretty hard to see all of them in this picture.)

Finally, this is the statue that stands outside the Anne Frank House Museum, a sobering place if ever there was one. Compre- hending the horrors of the Holocaust never gets any easier, does it? Leia and I both felt that this experience was worth the stopover in Amsterdam.

So that's it: the end of our wedding and post-wedding adventures. We hope you'll keep coming back to see what's going on in our new lives as man and wife. We think the best is still ahead. We love you all.

–John

posted by John and Leia @ 1:02 PM 4 comments