Home Sweet Home

As I reflect on the past 6 months, I’ve become more aware of just how much change our family has gone through.  Since the middle of August 2014 up until now, we’ve moved locations/housing 7 times.  Thankfully, we believe this last move to Mossel Bay, South Africa will be for a longer period of time.  We have been so blessed to have a place to stay, although for the last week our family has been split in ½: Josh, Matt and Christian staying in one home and me and the rest of the family staying in another home.  We made things work and spent most of our time together, but I’m happy to say we’re finally under one roof now!! Ever since Josh arrived in Mossel Bay on February 8^th, he’d been diligently looking for a place for our family to live.  He wasn’t having much luck, as most of the places he called on were already let (aka “rented” in America).  When I arrived on February 11^th, he still hadn’t found a place.  We had 2 appointments scheduled for the following day: one for a 3 bedroom apartment and one for a 2 bedroom + loft apartment.  Immediately upon walking into the first one, I knew it wasn’t the place for us.  Josh had seen the second one and wanted me to also look at it.  He thought it could possibly be the one.  It was very simple, close to town and well below what we hoped to pay for rent.  That evening we decided that we would return to the office the following morning to sign a rental agreement.  However, when I woke up the following morning I shared with Josh that I strongly felt like we were supposed to continue looking for a place and not settle – that the Lord has a house (not apartment) for us.  I even had a dream that we were looking at a house, but I don’t recall any of the details.  This isn’t the first dream I’ve had about finding a house either.  The first dream that the Lord gave me about a house, which I journaled about, happened a few weeks prior.  That same morning we shared with Thamar, the lady I was staying with, that we needed to keep looking.  She suggested getting the paper, as it was Friday and new listings come out Friday mornings.  We did as suggested and she helped call on a couple of places because the writing was in Afrikaans.  Long story short, we end up getting a call from an agent that is renting out a house.  The location was a bit further out than we had hoped, about 15 minutes from town, but we decided to have a look at it anyway.  On the drive there we even got into a scuffle about the distance, but I told Josh not to set any predetermined decisions since we hadn’t even seen the house yet.  The house is located in the foothills of Hartenbos, a suburb of Mossel Bay.  The moment we walked into the home, I knew that the door was being closed to the loft apartment, and at this point we hadn’t even looked at the home nor did we know the monthly asking price.

Here are a couple of pictures of the home, but if you’d like to view more, you can check it out on our Facebook page: Mason Family Missions.

The home has 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, plus a yard for the kids to play on.  It was fully furnished when we viewed it, but the initial rent price excluded the furniture.  However, it turns out that the owner was hoping to sell all of the furniture.  Of course, the Lord sent people to the owner that just so happens don’t have ANY furniture.  In a dream I had previously, the amount R5900 seemed to stand out.  To our complete surprise, this home was renting for R5800!!  When we asked how long of a term they were willing to consider, the owner/agent said we could discuss 12 months and then go from there.  We asked if they’d consider 6 months and explained our situation – that there’s the potential to stay longer, but we have some friends from the States that plan on joining us in Africa and will need to re-evaluate living conditions once they arrive.  The owner was completely open to the idea and said we could also have the option to pay month-to-month after the 6 months were up.  We then explained our financial situation – that we’ve only lived in South Africa since September 2014 (Mossel Bay for 1 week), have no jobs/income and are here as missionaries from the United States.  We put them at ease and reassured them that we have $ in our bank account and would be willing to pay months in advance if needed.  We understood that they’d be taking a risk on our behalf.  They said it was NO PROBLEM and that they’d just need to see 3 months of bank statements.  With all of that said, and after jumping through hoops to get the funds readily available, we received the keys to our new home today!!  The Lord has blessed us financially to pay for 3 ½ months of rent (plus deposit) upfront, in addition to buying all of the furniture at a GREAT deal!  We have a limit on how much cash we can withdraw daily, so the owner allowed us to pay for ½ the furniture today and then the remaining will be paid tomorrow when we can withdraw more funds.  It would be much simpler to bank in South Africa, as we are occurring a lot of fees to use ATMs and our US debit card here, but we cannot set up an account here until we have temporary residential visas, which we will be applying for next week.  It has been a steep month for us financially, but the Lord is faithful to provide and we trust He’ll continue to do so.  We are continually grateful for those that support us through prayer and finances.  Your obedience is making this journey possible for our family!

We’ve been to the beach a few times already, and the kids absolutely love it, although they had a not-so-good experience the other day with bluebottle jellyfish. Christian’s shins were the first to be impacted.  He came out of the water screaming saying something had touched him.  After getting him to calm down somewhat, we continued talking about going to another beach.  Meanwhile, Gracie decides to get back into the water and minutes later comes out screaming hysterically.  Her body looked like it had hives all over from the toxin.  I ended up taking her and Josiah home to a warm bath with vinegar, which did the trick for the stinging.

Here is a picture of the car we’ve been gifted with for the next 5 months!  It gets incredible gas mileage and is a huge blessing to our family.

Thank you to those that have been praying over our visa situation.  We received the results to our fingerprints via e-mail in accelerated time!  We were praying they’d arrive before the 25^th, and in fact, they arrived on the 13^th.  We submitted some information online this evening and will be making a phone call in the morning to schedule an appointment to have all of our documentation reviewed and submitted to Home Affairs for our temporary residential visas.  Continued prayers that our documentation will be suffice are greatly appreciated!

Josh and Matt have been meeting with various people to find out more about Mossel Bay and the townships.  They met with the Director of YWAM, whom also said we will have no problem getting into the Juvenile Detention Center so that we can love on the children there.  They also met with a pastor in the townships that would love for us to serve with him so we shall see.  It is important to build relationships with the natives here and people whom have been around for a while, so that will be our primary focus right now.  We want to honor those that have come before us and also let the Lord lead us in how He wants us to serve the people of Mossel Bay.  As you may have heard us say before, we’re continually learning how to go low and slow and to let love be our motive because without love what we do means nothing!