I went to see my language helper sometime in the next few days and told her the story. It was great to see her after being gone so long. She patted my shoulder, gave me tea, told me not to cry and offered some suggestions. We could move into a house that was for rent across the street. But we didn't have any furniture. Our house had come completely furnished, with mattresses and all. Then she offered a room in her home. She said her one daughter who normally would be home for the summer was doing an internship at school and wouldn't be around. It would just be her all summer. Relief flooded over me. A place to live.
We told S, the owner's sister, that we weren't leaving until she paid us the money she owed us (she had borrowed $300 from us) and the rent money we had already paid. These were high sums but she agreed. She had been in the hospital with her new baby and had just arrived back home.
With her arrival came the whole family. The tradition when someone has a new baby is that the entire family, from both sides, comes over or in from another village and throws a party. That means 3 days after us arriving, our house was packed with drunk people wanting to see the baby, helping get the house setup for the baby, cooking or just making a mess and a lot of noise. It was not a pretty scene for us who were trying to move things out piece by piece or trying to catch some sleep when they were hanging a clothesline in the room next door at midnight.
Curt and I finally decided that this was our final sign from the Lord that He did not want us to stay. Our visa only gave us three months. Campus Crusade only gave us three months. We didn't have a place to live.
So, we began selling everything. All the stuff that we had been carefully buying and setting up just months earlier was getting sold. Buckets, containers, our stove, fridge, firewood bought for the coming winter, etc. Piece by piece we tried to sell as much as we could.
Living in that house was tough. The couple never apologized or even tried to help with anything. It seemed totally normal that they should come in and take over. So, we lived with anger and stress for a week and a half. Finally, the families left and it became quieter but we still had to deal with things like them lighting the house stove in June until it was about 100 degrees inside to wash the baby. They have lots of superstitions and one is that a baby should never be cold or chilly. When the baby needed a bath, the whole house had to be hot. Siberian houses maintain their heat and we sweat the whole night.
Finally, they got us our money, bought a few things off of us (thankfully they also bought the firewood and we didn't have to move 2 dump trucks in our CRV) and after multiple trips to Zoya's, we were out. We were so glad to be done with that. Zoya had a good sized shed where we could store things that hadn't been sold and she was so welcoming. If there wasn't Zoya, we would be lost. The Lord knew what He was doing when He introduced us.
