Lots of Stuff

Oh man, a lot has been going on in the Kremer household!
Where to start....ah yes, our flat...

So I mentioned previously that a wonderful man from our church (Carlo) had found us a flat for a very reasonable price, and that's it's location is ideal for us, being that we have to walk or bus everywhere we go.
There was quite a significant detail however that we didn't know about till recently that impresses on us even more that this flat is a Godsend.
We are interested in moving into a bigger flat in the not too distant future (reason explained further down), so we began looking around at the options. We made an appointment, and spoke with a lady who specializes in helping new arrivals find flat rentals. Being the nature of her job, she was well versed in all of the legalities and technicalities that are involved with letting and sub-letting. We very quickly discovered that in the United Kingdom there are many.

We have been here (Edinburgh) for nearly 4 months now and it was only last month that Raeleen was officially hired with an employer. I have some companies that I am currently waiting to hear back from.
When we spoke to this lady and let her know that neither of us had obtained employment yet, she was very quick to explain a few of the main technicalities regarding letting here.
In Edinburgh you legally have to sign a minimum 6 month lease, then after that you can roll over into month to month, or sign another lease.
In order to be eligible for a 6 month lease you either have to be able to present 2 months worth of pay stubs from your employer (as well as the deposit), or pay all 6 months up front.
There are many other details involved, but those 2 alone brought our plans to a grinding halt.
We weren't even gainfully employed yet, let alone having 2 months worth of history to present.
Also, there was no way that we were going to have 6 months worth of rent money available all in one shot.
When we discussed this with the lady she then began to inquire about our current leasing arrangement, and how we even had one to begin with.
We explained to her how we weren't directly letting from the landlord, but that we were actually sub-letting from the tenant of the landlord. The tenant had to break his lease early to move out of town, and rather then paying the lease penalty, he was inclined to sublet to us (which is completely legal in the UK).
Since the tenant was in such a hurry to move, there was no inquiry into our state of employment, or how we were going to manage paying the remainder of the lease we would be undertaking. We just merely paid a deposit, took over the lease and moved in. We communicated directly with the landlord (who, as we discovered is a Christian), and he was completely fine with the arrangement.
We were very candid with him about not having jobs, and what our situation was, yet he was more than willing to sign another 6 month lease with us once our subletting agreement had expired.
When we mentioned all of this information to the lady who was helping us, she was dumbfounded.
To her it was painfully obvious that we should just re-sign a lease with our current flat, as the rent is extremely low, and we weren't going to find anyone else that would be willing to take that chance.
Knowing this information made our decision suddenly very simple.

The flat that we are in is a 2 bedroom. Halo and Ryder share a room, which has actually turned out very nicely. I mentioned earlier how we are wanting to move into a bigger flat- it has nothing to do with Halo and Ryder having their own rooms. It has everything to do with having more children...
whoa whoa, not so fast...
I know what you're thinking, and we aren't planning on having any more biological children, and no, Raeleen's not pregnant.
We have discovered one of the reasons God has had us move here though.

Let me back up a little bit for some context.
After we had Ryder we knew that we weren't ever going to be able to have any more biological children.
Both of Raeleen's pregnancies were very eventful, and when she was in labor with Ryder she almost died.
We do have a desire for more children though, so we have discussed ever since then the option of adopting.

In that same vein, we explored our options, and prayed continually, seeking God's timing.
When we were in Lethbridge we sensed that it was definitely going to happen, but that it simply wasn't the right timing.
We took a week to fast and pray shortly after we arrived in Edinburgh, to seek guidance regarding what we were to do now that we were physically here.
We sense that there is more than one specific reason, however one of the main reasons has become glaringly obvious.
As we were looking into ways to get our feet in the door with regards to adoption, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the possibility of fostering-to-adopt.
We had decided that we wanted to go that route, but again, didn't feel that the timing was right before we moved here.
We finished our fast, and that was the one green light that we definitely felt.
And, my goodness, it's so apparent why.
Edinburgh is literally desperate for foster parents! There are advertisements everywhere you go.
On buildings, billboards, buses, in schools, in commercials...everywhere!

We spoke to two of the main fostering agencies here and they provided us with some very useful information.
Unfortunately for us, fostering is quite the extensive process.
First of all, you need to have a home that has an extra bedroom/bedrooms for the foster children, as they aren't allowed to share a room with your biological children.
Also, you are required to have lived in a home for a minimum of 6 months before they will even consider starting the process. The reason for this is to show stability. A lot of these children are in and out of homes, or have had a very unstable existence with their biological parents, and are really just needing stability in their lives. Also, the fostering agencies figure that 6 months is long enough to have a reasonable understanding of your neighborhood and the amenities that are offered there. The more comfortable you are with your surroundings, the more comfortable you will be able to make the new child/children that will be staying with you.
This all makes complete sense, and we appreciate the steps that the agencies are taking to protect the children. However, this means we are looking at a year to a year and a half (roughly) before we could expect to have a child/children in our home.
Once you have passed the 6 month eligibility, then you can contact the agencies and notify them. From there you begin the very exhaustive application and preparation process. There are multiple background checks, peer checks, police checks, interviews, classes etc... that are involved in the months following.

Foster parents are such a desperate need here that the government pays them well for the care of the children. There are various people here that have made careers out of it.
And that, my friends, is one of the major details.

Our immediate plans, once we are eligible to foster, are to take in siblings.
We are really interested in adopting a couple of siblings (brother and sister, brother and brother, sister and sister, doesn't matter).
It turns out that siblings are one of the hardest cases for agencies here to foster out.
Usually if people have any interest in fostering to begin with, they go exclusively for the singles.

When we told the agencies that we wanted siblings, you could almost hear them breathing heavily into paper bags. They told us (based off of the information that we gave them) that we are exactly what they are looking for, and that they wished they could start the process with us immediately. But alas, there's the itsy bitsy detail of protocol, yada yada, so here we are....waiting.

The more we have been praying though, the more we have come to realize that the fostering isn't just going to be a means to an end for adopting children of our own, but also an ongoing ministry.

We've been reading about George Müller, a truly remarkable man of faith and character.
He started an orphanage in the 1800's which saw thousands of orphans over the years.
He grew the orphanage to the point where it was housing 2000 children at one time.
He never told anyone what his, or the orphanage's day to day needs were. He just brought all of the matters to prayer. He was never let down even once. His books outline in great detail the many ways God provided all of their needs, and it has spoken volumes to us.

We are at a place in our lives where we have no credit cards, no debt whatsoever, no savings, and no backup plan. We felt God told us to go, so we went. 
If God doesn't come through for us we will literally be on the streets.

I can tell you unequivocally that the thought of that from a strictly logical perspective is absolutely terrifying and debilitating. However, we have God, and through Him we have that peace that truly does pass all understanding!

So, jumping back a bit...
We would feel completely fine staying in our current living arrangement, save for the aforementioned details.
We found ourselves in quite the conundrum looking at the fact that we have to be in a place with more rooms for at least 6 months before we could even begin the fostering process. Yet we were in a situation that required us to stay at our current residence for another 6 months.

It's one of those situations where you kind of have to laugh at the ridiculousness and frustration of it.

Not only is that our one clear direction that we have at this present time, but also, it could have been an immediate source of income rather then being in the situation we've been in for the past while having to search and apply for jobs.

If you could imagine applying for a job that you are extremely excited about and getting an immediate and resounding "HECK YES, YOU'RE HIRED!", followed by a "in 1 or maybe 1 1/2 years", you might have a slight inkling as to how we feel. 

We have something to work towards and wait for so we are very thankful for that!
But in the meantime what do we do? Well isn't that a fun question?

God has provided us with some truly amazing friendships here! 
First of all, Adrian (the pastor of our church) and Christine (his lovely wife) are absolutely wonderful people.
They used to live in Dover (south eastern England) and moved to Edinburgh to pastor the Life Church.
They had to go through many of the same changes and adjustments that we have, so they have been immensely understanding and supportive. Also our friendship with them and their 2 daughters (Evie and Freya) has been growing at a rapid rate. 

Also there is Ken and Angela and their son Isaiah.
Now here is an interesting story...
Months ago we emailed Adrian, letting him know that we felt that God was sending us to Edinburgh, and that our church was to be the Life Church.

We found out way after the fact that he has received emails like this many times in the past, however we were the first people that have ever actually showed up.
Either the people's plans would have fallen through for one reason or another, or they would have just fallen off the face of the earth and were never heard from again.
So naturally when he received the email from us he had a mixed bag of feeling happy that we were coming, but half expecting that it wasn't going to happen.

Well you can imagine his and Christine's surprise when we ended up showing up to church that first Sunday.

Now, round about the same time we emailed Adrian to begin with, another Canadian couple emailed him as well with a similar (but not identical) message.
There are roughly 38 different nationalities in Life Church, but it has never had North Americans as regular attendees. In fact, in the 7 years Adrian has been pastoring this church, he has never met 1.

So when he received this second email from a Canadian couple, he was so baffled that he received an email from 2 different Canadian couples that he just presumed he must have mixed up the facts in his head, and that the 2 couples were actually the same couple.

Upon rechecking his email he did, in fact, realize that there were 2 different couples.

Fast forward once again, and within a month of each other 2 Canadian couples arrive.

Now let me tell you about this other Canadian couple, cause this just screams God.

Ken is actually British (from London), but moved to Vancouver for Angela. 
Angela is Canadian through and through and grew up in Vancouver.

O.k, quick tangent- Ken grew up in London and then lived in Vancouver with Angela for 8 years. 
The resulting accent is Australian. Seriously! The first little while I was chatting with him I thought I was speaking to an Auzzie (he gets that all the time), when in fact he is a Londoner, but his accent has mixed with a Canadian one.

Back to the story.
So here's where it gets crazy...
I was born in San Diego, Angela went to University in San Diego.
Angela grew up in Vancouver, we lived in Vancouver.
Their son Isaiah (6 years old) was born at the same hospital as Halo.
Ken and I, as it turns out, worked in the exact same building on the exact same floor (for different companies) in Vancouver, only 1 year apart.
They are daft about travelling, so are we.
They are spicy food fanatics, ditto.
They felt specifically that God was sending them to Life Church, and emailed the pastor, same as us.

We talked to them for about half an hour before we felt like we'd known them our whole lives.

Also, we JUST met another lady named Stacey a couple of weeks ago that started attending the church. Crazy enough, she is also from San Diego and may have even been born in the same hospital as me! 
Raeleen and I, while living in Lethbridge, decided to take a Sign Language course at the College there, just for fun, and because it intrigued us.
It turns out that Stacey is here for 3 years finishing her PhD in Sign Language and Interpreting.
She also is daft about travelling and spicy food!

It has been so great to have a few people here that understand the culture that we came from and who speak the same language as us.
When we chat with them is the one time that we can turn off our mental auto-translators and just think and talk how we are used to.
Also, it's mind-boggling how much we have in common! It's just so easy to talk, about anything!

We knew that there was going to be a period that we would have to go through of feeling somewhat on the outside until we started to make some definite connections with people here. But we have gotten over that initial hump now and are really starting to connect with various people in the congregation.

Also, we have started becoming involved in the church as well.
A few weeks ago I started playing and singing in the worship band.
It sounds like I'll be on a rotation where I'll play acoustic guitar, bass guitar, or lead guitar and sing when needed, as well as occasionally play drums.
Raeleen is now helping with children's church (which she is brilliant at).
Eventually we have plans to run an Alpha group as well.

Halo and Ryder started school in the middle of August and they are really enjoying their teachers and classes! We are extremely impressed with them (the teachers) as well, they are really blowing us away! 
The curriculum is based and catered more to the needs of the individual child. Halo is one grade ahead already as she is starting here in Primary 2 (Grade 1 in North America). However, she is proving to be advanced even in this grade, so her teacher has been giving her more advanced reading books to keep her challenged.
Ryder's teacher intertwines the Nursery's (Preschool's in North America) curriculum with his individual interests. For example, he's all about volcanoes, instruments, Yoda and the band Coldplay right now, so she found Volcano books, pictures of Yoda and instruments to use in teaching him. Also she found Coldplay music and started playing that for him, mixed with the musical interests of the other kids.

We just had our first Parent/Teacher interviews a couple of days ago (which felt very bizarre) and both teachers raved about our children. Both of the kids are excelling in every aspect of their classes, and get along swimmingly with the other children. They are always eager to help when they can, and are both taking leadership roles in their respective classes.

Now, Raeleen's new job...

First of all, for the first couple of months that we were here we weren't even looking for jobs.
We really felt like we were supposed to focus our time on adjusting to the new culture, getting settled, and spending as much time as a family as possible. 

The transition, although enormous in scope, was much easier since we were able to spend that extra time with the kids and focusing on getting them comfortable with  their new surroundings/life.

We are very thankful for the time that we took, and in hindsight know that that was exactly what God was wanting us to do.

Anyways, after a couple of months, we started applying for jobs.
After another month or so we started to realize how tough the job market is here. There is extremely intense competition for all lines of work!
This isn't because Scotland has a high unemployment rate. Actually, many people from other European countries that are currently in a very desperate financial state, and that have high levels of unemployment are flocking to the UK for work.

Also, companies just take much longer to reply to applications here then anywhere we've lived in North America.
For example, Raeleen  applied to run a bakery in a grocery store chain here. She didn't hear any response from the company for 1 1/2 months. So naturally she figured that she wasn't successful.
That was unfortunate however, as that was THE one job that she was actually really excited to get out of all the jobs she applied for.
Well, it turns out that she received emails from other companies saying that she wasn't successful. 
Then one day, she received a call from Tesco (her now employer) asking her in for an interview.
She was very shocked, considering how long it had been since she had applied, but was excited to have the interview none-the-less.
At the interview, the person asking her questions (who turned out to be her current manager) started the talk with "just so you know, there have been 894 other applicants for this position).
Well, as you can guess, Raeleen's immediate thought was "great, I have no chance!"
Raeleen enjoys baking, but has no formal training in it. She applied simply because it sounded like fun and like something she would enjoy for now.
Raeleen's manager spent a majority of the interview talking about the company, and only ended up asking a few questions.
When the interview concluded, Raeleen asked him if he would like a copy of her Cover Letter and Resume (or CV as they call them here), and he said "no thank you, that won't be necessary, we'll call you next week if you have been successful."
Raeleen left the interview thinking there was no chance at all that she was going to get that job.
A week passed with no reply, which really felt like the nail in the coffin.
Then at the end of the second week, she received a call that she was successful!
We were floored!
She has now been officially employed with the company for a few weeks now, and I had an opportunity to meet her boss last week (Garry is his name).
He loves her! He spent a couple of minutes telling me how amazing of a worker that she is, that she's a superstar and that she is an absolute joy to work with!
God is definitely giving her favor!
When we were praying about jobs, Raeleen was really wanting something that would allow her ample time with the children, and that wasn't too mentally exhausting.
This job is so perfect for her! She works 19 hours a week, Monday to Thursday from 5:30am-10:30am.
This means she's off in the mornings and has the full day to dedicate to family and whatever God would have us do! We both go to bed earlier now (we just love being together) and rise earlier.
While I've been waiting on a job, I have been helping out more with the church, designing a video for the latest sermon series, and making contacts with various companies, getting everything in place so that the church can start renting out it's building on weekdays as an additional source of income.

God will provide me with the job that I need, and it will be His perfect timing.
As terrifying as it is to completely rely on God each month to pay our bills right now with only one part time job, He is faithful!
We asked God to grow our faith and trust in Him, and He's doing just that, in spades.

It is a truly amazing feeling to be in a position where you are 100% reliant on God. In our weakness, He is strong. And we are definitely experiencing God's strength, provision and faithfulness.

Today, Raeleen and I are attending our first F.A.S.T. (Families And Schools Together) group.
It consists of 20 sets of parents (couples or single parents) that are split into 4 smaller groups. The parents have to have at least one child between the ages of 3-8.
It is a weekly group ran by the school to help parents in the community to meet other parents, and do fun activities with the children. Also, there will be times where teachers take the children into a different room to play and the parents can have adult time.

We're excited, as this will be a great opportunity to connect with parents in our community and build relationships. We want to minister any way that we can, so we're trusting God that some opportunities are going to open up through this group.

God is in control, we are in complete peace, and are absolutely loving this city and it's people! God is good!