Guatemala City

We headed out on Friday to drop off Matt, Jenna and Reese in Panajachel and then continued on to Guatemala City to begin our search for a place to live and to also pick up Katie, a pediatric resident who will spend a couple of weeks in Antigua studying spanish and then will go to Chichi to work with Josefina and Sheri.

This weekend and coming week we are staying at an apartment of a friend who graciously lets us stay here anytime we come to the city, provided it is not occupied. The apartment is also used to help adoptive parents with a place to live during the process of adoption here. It is very clean and comfortable and is in Zone 10 close to restaurants, etc. We try to not abuse the offer too much and enjoy every chance we get to stay here.

Katie arrived with no problems and dropped her off at her host families house in Antigua Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning we started our search for an apartment to rent. We had found some advertisements in the local paper and also a few on the internet. It is much harder to locate a place to rent here as there are no rental magazines or even real estate magazines. It is all in who you know or who you can contact. So our plan of action was to send an email to other missionaries living in Guatemala City and we received a few good suggestions but most were farther away than where we wanted to be. As we began to call, we found that most places had already been rented or had some very high prices for our current situation. Others were not willing to rent for just 6 months or the apartments were not already furnished and we are looking for a furnished one since we are only here for 6 months. We could move some things to the city but that would be a huge hassle here and probably anywhere since we are 3 hours out.

We decided to go look at a place that was out of our price range just to see what they had to offer and to see what kinds of places were for rent. We went to meet a representative for the owner at 10am and got there a little early. While there we ran into another man who thought we were there to see his apartment. So when our person arrived we all decided to go ahead and look at all of the apartments (we thought that strange as they would be in competition, but the local guatemalan friendliness allows for these otherwise awkward situations). This was to our advantage as one was much less expensive than the one we came to see, by 30%! As it turns out the man we met while arriving early was also the owner of the less expensive apartment. So not only were we able to find a potentially less expensive apartment, but the representative also met a future customer as well in the owner as he has other properties for rent. We continue to know God is leading us as he keep easing our path. We though about what we had just seen and weighed our options and decided to tell him we were interested, but we had to do it while the other representative was still there as well. What seemed awkward to us was no problem for them and we started to make plans.

The apartment is a small one bedroom with some basic furnishings and is in a nice part of town with some parks and during easy traffic times will only be about 10 minutes from the hospital. On Saturday we had some heavy traffic and it took about 20-25 minutes. We will be traveling opposite the really heavy traffic so it will work out better. Our final price on the apartment is $450 per month which is to our american standards is not bad, but to those living in Chichi would be hard to comprehend. This is a part of missionary life that is very hard to deal with as most of us always live in a situation much better than those we work with. As compared to other rentals it is a very good price as it is also furnised and has a washer and dryer, cable tv, maintenance, water and parking is included. Our only other acceptable option we had so far was a nonfurnished apartment at someones house closer to the hospital with a lesser rate but would have to do a 1 year lease.

We are now in the phase of applying for approval to rent the apartment but we do not think that will be a problem and hopefully we can move in by Tuesday or Wednesday. Here you must have a co-signer who is Guatemalan and who is willing to pay if you do not. Health Talents has a local board member who owns an advertsing agency who has allowed us to use his name to ensure we get the apartment. He has great references so should not be a problem.

We still have no pictures. We will get some of the apartment and of Hospital Roosevelt to share with everyone in the next few posts. Please continue to pray for Lisa and this new challenge that she has. We know God will be watching over us and she has been through this before, just not in spanish. She is not the first nor will be the last to have to go through government service.

Thanks for checking in!