day 22: U-haul

I’m beat. This afternoon was all about our move. After church we headed to pick up two beds that we were purchasing. Since 95% of our current furniture is government owned, once we move into a new place we will only have a kitchen island, a dining room table, a coffee table, a Bahraini bench, and our bed. It was just recently that I realized the kids won’t have anything to sleep on in our new flat/villa.

Luckily half of the city of Abu Dhabi is selling off their household goods in anticipation of leaving the country, so it was easy to purchase 2 beds from a teacher at school. Of course getting those beds from her 18th floor apartment to our house was a problem I hadn’t considered. A prospect that Josh and I were seriously beginning to regret around 1pm today.

Our kids are hard workers and resourceful so we brought them along and against all odds our team managed to disassemble both beds and pack the pieces and mattresses into our SUVs in under 90 minutes. Caleb worked on dismantling the smaller bed, Josh and Carter tackled the canopy bed (I know, how did I think that transporting that huge bed was even possible?!), and Camille and I bundled and taped the pieces and hardware so they didn’t get mixed up or lost.

Camille did her share of the heavy lifting too.

On the drive home we were full up to the roof — a selfie from the front seat of the car. Because they were IKEA mattresses, we were able to flex them enough to fit around the bed frames inside the cargo areas of our Pajeros. I was happy to get everything home and unloaded without incident.

Then Josh and I headed back out to pick up a dishwasher that a friend was selling. Not an essential, but the timing worked out and the price was good so we grabbed it while we had the opportunity. One last stop was another friend’s house who just messaged us this morning to say that they were unexpectedly leaving Abu Dhabi (a common theme these days). They had a list of appliances to sell and wanted to know if we were interested?

We had put off buying all of the necessaries, thinking we should wait until we actually have a place to live and see what fits, but again, they are people we know, the timing works out perfectly and they basically have everything we will need to outfit our house: refrigerator, stove, washer/dryer, vacuum, desk, and a few other odds and ends. Even better, they will use them until they leave, store them with a mutual friend over the summer, and we will pick them up as soon as we can put them into our next place.

I had been stressing a bit these past few months as people were selling things and good deals kept passing me by on the local For Sale pages, but once again, God has provided. Ironically I now have everything we need to set up our lives here, but we don’t yet have a signed contract committing us to work here. Again, we’re trusting that God will provide for that as well and as crazy as it may seem, I’m not worried. I’m positive it’s going to work out. But now I need a day off.