New Home

As most of you know we've finally been able to "settle" a bit. We arrived in Brooklyn on Sunday February 8th. We stayed in hotels for the first 3 nights and we were starting to be a bit worried about where we would end up. The apartments are quite expensive around here. Not only do you have to give a security deposit but most places (reputable ones) we looked at required at least a month's rent as a deposit plus the broker's fee which was also a month's rent. So by the time you've moved in you've paid for 3 months rent plus a security deposit. We really didn't have that much money to play with.

My godmother emailed us with the contact information of a local priest and suggested to us that we get a hold of him to see if he knew of any family looking for tenants. When we contacted him he told us he didn't know right off hand but that we could post a sign at the church. We went to the church and put up the sign and started venerating the icons (all the ones we had been praying to for help to get here were there which was really incredible and encouraging) and the warden of the church asked to show Matthew something. It turns out it was a sign written in Russian by a priest who had a bedroom to offer. We gave him a call and he suggested we meet him the next day. As we had a day to "waste" we drove all over Brooklyn to familiarize ourselves with it. We came to the conclusion that there doesn't seem to be any danger (during the day at least) even in the "shadier" parts of Brooklyn. Seeing pretty much all of Brooklyn in a day made me feel a tiny bit more at home. There was less mystery with the place and that felt good. When we got to the apartment that evening we learned that we would be sharing it with a Fr. Andrew's family. He showed us the room which is quite spacious and we got to meet his two daughters who are nonidentical twins. We also found out that other than the two girls who speak English fluently as a result of going to an English school, we would have to work on communication with Fr. Andrew and Matushka Jana. Their English is somewhat limited and our Russian is somewhat non-existent so it takes a bit of work to get something across sometimes!

They have been extremely generous to us giving us the best they have and sharing their food with us. We feel very welcomed here and are really excited at the chance to learn Russian. They are also invaluable when it comes to finding our bearings in NY. It's truly an answer to prayers to have found this place.

This is the view as you come in. The bed's on the left and the computer "desk" is directly on the right.This is our nice fancy futon which hides our clothing. We don't have a dresser so this seemed to be a good solution and overall it is, until Matthew gets up to go to work and remembers he didn't take his underwear and socks out the previous night and has to lift "me" up to get to it.


This is our storage/computer area. It's nice and cozy and if we feel we need privacy we can put towels across the front and it feels like a tree house. It's a nice bedroom full of light this is where I will be spending most of my time. That's it for now. It's taken me a bit to figure out how to do this. I'm having a bit of a hard time with uploading the pictures. They keep going to the top of the post as opposed to coming up where I tell them to. Any suggestions?