Our Schedule:

Teaching English and Art together, putting on the GospelCafé concerts, prayer, meeting with our new French friends. It's a good life!


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Monday, January 17, 2011

Trying to find a place to live in Paris these days...

Here is a post from a couple of our team mates, Erica, Nate with toddler Kaden, who arrived in France on Dec. 28th. Our staff locates apartments ahead of time for new missionaries arriving to help them acclimate quicker. But times have changed. Read on:


     "As of this weekend, we remain without any apartment in sight. We have visited three more since the other fell through on Tuesday, and after submitting all necessary paperwork, all three fell through as well.
     It's given us a bit of a lesson on France's legal system with laws constantly changing and people constantly finding more ways around them. So many laws have been created to protect renters that it has become next to impossible for landlords to kick out tenants if they are not paying their rent. (ie: You can't be kicked out in the winter, because it's too cold. You can't be kicked out if you have kids. And that's just the start.) As a result, landlords have started renting through insurance agencies, letting these agencies decide who the best tenants will be, and then landlords are guaranteed to get their money. The problem is, these insurance agencies seem to have something against foreigners--perhaps because this town has a large immigrant population with a bad track record, or perhaps because they expect foreigners to move on fairly quickly. 
     Add all this up, and it means we can't get into an apartment, even though we can and would pay the rent! We promise! We've unfortunately missed out on some pretty perfect places, too."


On top of that, Erica is 4 months pregnant so in the mean time they are either staying with someone from the team and having to take buses and trains to get to language school that started the first week of January. Our apartments for school are supposed to be within walking distance. Visualize Nate holding Kaden with a 30 lb. backpack on the back and Erica outdistancing them to catch this transportation. Everything in French to get to language school and drop Kaden off to his child care on time. Please pray for Erica and Nate to find housing soon. Carol

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