Home Is Any.. Where?

iPhone's panoramic photo mode holding it's own..

For a while now I've been a tad worried. Everyone we know in our soon-to-be hometown has been telling us that unless we're really quick about it we're simply not going to find a place to live. The unofficial real estate guy we'd been emailing while we were in Australia was really putting the pressure on us to say yes to renting one of his places and I was hoping he was just trying to pressure us so he could make a sale, but as we were soon to find out, he was being legit.

The flights to Thailand were fine; long, tiring with the little ones, hard work moving around with most of our worldly possessions packed into one suitcase per person, but ultimately fine. The subsequent 3 hour minibus ride up the mountain and through the now famous 762 twists and turns that lay along the road to Pai were nauseating, but also relatively fine. Yet when it came time to get into the house hunting, that's when I really started to feel the ugly feeling of stress rising up from the inner most parts of my being.

We rented a motorbike and spent a couple of days riding all around the countryside trying to find anything that would be suitable for our family but kept coming back with empty hands. We checked out a couple of places that proved to be way too small for our family of four, one that could have worked out well in terms of living space but ultimately was so far out of town and in the middle of nowhere that it would have left Wild Flower stranded most of her life as she doesn't drive or ride a motorbike (yet) and so wouldn't be able to get anywhere, and the second last place we checked out was literally just two separate and small bedrooms on a second story with an empty space underneath. Whilst these rooms shared a wall, that wall didn’t provide a door or any other access between them and so you had to walk out the door on the left side of the building, down the stairs, underneath the building, up the stairs on the other side and into the second room via the right side of the building! Oh, and the stairs were completely exposed with no railings, perfect for my 18 month old and my threenager. Gah! After walking out of that pad the unofficial real estate fella looked me in the eye and said "listen, I really don't mean to pressure you, but this is all the houses I know of, if you don't take it, and soon, I can almost guarantee you that by this time next week there won't be a single place left."

That night I lay in bed trying to not to let my mind wander into what life would like look if we had to live in that place. In previous years we could have made it work, if Wild Foot wasn't such an energy packed danger-loving little guy then sure, in those circumstances we could make it work, if we were absolutely desperate and simply had no other options then *sigh,* what else could we do? We'd have to make it work. But our family is still pretty frazzled (14 months with a baby that didn't sleep coupled with unexpectedly having to move countries at pretty short notice will do that to a person) and our desire to put down roots and have somewhere to really call "home," a place where the kids can play and I can plant gardens and we have enough space to actually have more than 4 people in a room at any one time is an emotion that's burning white hot within my whole tribe.

So it was in that head space that we hoped aboard our motorbike the next morning and set off to check out what was literally the last place on the list. We crossed the bridge at the edge of town and turned onto a small road that I'd never paid any attention to before and proceeded to follow it around the corner and behind a row of trees. The road narrowed down into a raised dirt path that snaked along between the gloriously green rice fields, only weeks away from the harvest, and within a minute I turned to Wild Flower and confessed that I feared we'd taken the wrong road. There was nothing further along that road to be seen; nothing but open spaces, spectacular views of the mountains and a myriad of green. As the path was too narrow to swing the bike around easily I started easing off the throttle and began to simply enjoy the moment; I was in Thailand, my gorgeous children were sandwiching me on the bike, my ridiculously beautiful wife was hugging my back, the warm sun was shining on my face and the clean mountain air was filling my lungs (a real rarity for us these past years!). I completely forgot about all my housing woes and simply breathed in the moment and thanked God for this incredible part of his creations.. It was about then that Wild Flower saw it.

That's right! We saw the sign for The Pork Healing Center! But what's even better than that I hear you ask? Well the only thing that could possibly outdo that would be the house that was behind the sign, the one in the top image; the free standing, two bedroom, fully furnished, fireplace wielding, semi-outdoor bathroom with bathtub brandishing, giant second story veranda with uninterrupted views of the mountains offering, local farmers market neighbouring, massive back/side/front yards with pet Ducks grazing, house that as of yesterday morning we can start calling HOME!!

We're still in transit mode.. next week we'll be heading back to India to pack up our previous yet also current "home" (it's odd I know) and so won't actually move in here for another month and are therefore still feeling far off from being settled, but today we're reveling in just how incredibly blessed we feel! The last 12 months have been hard, really hard, easily the hardest of my little life, but looking into the future I'm excited and positive and really learning to trust in my Creator for His guidance as I take each new and ultimately wild step. So Sawat-dii Khrap and Welcome friends, to the next chapter in the (hopefully) soon to be more settled story of me!