Starting to Settle

I want to start with the biggest news first, so here it is: We have our flat! We move in tomorrow!  

The less-abridged story follows:

We were in a bit of a predicament. As I think I may have already written here, when we first went to look at flats, we had a lead at one agency that ended up a bust. We tried a few others that happened, strangely, to be all over the main street in that neighbourhood, more out of convenience and single-mindedness than any special affection for the borough (although Islington really is lovely). We finally arrived at one with one studio flat just barely in our price range only a couple minutes' walk away. She took us to see it. It was gorgeous. Pictures are coming soon. We mean it!

We had to make a decision quickly. This place was a bit of a diamond in the rough and another couple had a viewing scheduled for an hour and a half. We had to put a holding deposit on the thing to cancel the other couple's viewing. But we had a slight problem. We didn't have a UK bank account, and we only had about a hundred pounds cash in our pockets. We needed to put down at least two hundred to call keepsies on the flat. So I ran outside to a bank machine. It turns out there was one practically right next door, sticking out of the wall, with free debit withdrawals that actually accepted my Canadian card. And guess what the daily cash withdrawal limit is? Yep. 200 pounds. 

God 1, Worries 0

We were instantly presented with a bit of a new problem. We couldn't actually move in without paying a deposit, admin fee, first month's rent and a couple other little costs, and there was no way I was going to be able to get that much cash out of the corner cash machine. We needed to set up a bank account. No worries, we thought, since that was already on our to-do list that day. We went downtown, first to meet the employers and fill out some paperwork, talk about teaching (I had almost forgotten that we'll eventually be working here), and then to the bank. We hunted for an HSBC where I thought I'd seen one on Google Maps the evening previous (and I thought this would be smart, since they're in Canada too. Maybe they could expedite the money-sending process). But it was gone, and we ended up at a Lloyds TSB (a big British bank; they're everywhere) just in time to be told we'd have to make an appointment. By the time the day was over, I was genuinely concerned, since I didn't know when we would be able to get at our money to move in. I was concerned we'd have to stay at the hotel indefinitely, and that would get expensive, never mind inconvenient for the hotel, since they were undoubtedly planning on having someone other than us in our room eventually.

Worries 1?

Well, not exactly. We confirmed we could stay at the hotel until Friday, and then went to our bank account appointment on Tuesday with a lot of uncertainty and questions. Our banker was a very nice man named Eric who got our account set up very quickly and without a lot of hassle, which I was quite surprised by, considering we're immigrants without a house or income. 

God 2

When we asked him how to get our money over, he told us our initial plan of writing ourselves a check was a really bad idea, since it could take weeks for a check to clear internationally for lots of money. And it may never clear, what with money laundering laws and things like that. So much for our plan. But he said our bank could probably just wire-transfer it in 1-5 working days. 5 is a lot of working days. That would have taken us to the following Tuesday. If it took that long, we would need to find somewhere other than the hotel to stay, and we were really uninterested in shlepping all our bags out to Dartford, Kent to crash at our only friend's house. We went back to the hotel, called PC and got it set up. He told us 2-5 days.

Worries 2

Wednesday we had nothing to do and so we did it. We walked, napped, played cards and watched TV. After a crazy week and a half, we needed a break. 

Today it was with great fear and trepidation I checked our online bank balance at Lloyds. But when I opened it up, the balance was quite a bit more than the paltry opening-cash we'd put in on Tuesday. The money had transferred. We had English money to use! 

God 3 Worries 1

So we hustled to the bank and made a really scary cash withdrawal, and then tore back to the realtor people to give it all to them. With some paperwork signed, we're booked in to pick up our keys tomorrow. Aside from being the beginning of living in our flat, the added bonus is that our checkout time here at the hotel lines up almost perfectly with picking up the keys at our flat! So no scary lack of roofs over our heads!

God 4 Worries 0

To make a very long story short (WAY too late!), We (especially John) have been freaking out and very unhappy worrying about getting settled, only to watch God do it His way far better than we could have planned. He's systematically knocked each barrier down one by one, and has done it in such a way that we know it's had nothing to do with any great feat of planning, savvy, or cleverness on our part. He's put us in a more beautiful part of the city more smoothly than we would have and more quickly than we could have. He's poured grace upon grace on us. It's hard to wrap our heads around why, but we're determined to praise Him and enjoy this time of reaping, and let it strengthen us for whatever time of sowing will come later. We're so grateful that He's helping us keep Him at the centre of our season of plenty, since we know how easy it is to forget God in harvest time and then cry out to him in seasons of trial.