15 January 2010- Con-dominion

There are many things that rely on the miraculous in life. Some decisions depend on God's intervention in the status quo. Some aspects of one's life require the stamp of God authority on them. We knew that finding a place to stay was one of them.

I had always been a scoffer of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Until I needed a place to stay in Asia. It is amazing how important a roof over your head actually is.

Getting the job provided some thorny odds. Getting the work visa was inconveniently troublesome. Major battle #3: Finding a place to stay on a shallow budget.

Monthly expenses only go so far. Only one of us had a job. We could afford squalor. I had spent a gloomly day moping around the basement-sales bin of the rental market, depressing myself and avoiding bacterial and other Dickensian diseases in the process. We could afford those sort of places that can be roughly equated to some sort of two-room entymology experiment.

Bravely, we toted our desires and wish list on a piece of paper. Quantify the ideal and then be prepared to retrace your steps toward reality, was the war cry. The scrap of paper read:

1. Max $2,500
2. Close to Anna and Ella's school
3. Under 30min door-to-door commute for me
4. Three bedrooms (one room to lodge foreigner travellers)
5. Big lounge to facilitate the work of the church
6. A pool (pools give Jess a religious experience)

One Hussein was our agent. We showed him the list. He cleared his throat. And diplomatically managed our expectations, pulling the rip cord while we weren't looking to open the parachute to avoid the crash landing on the farmer's barn. He said that he would give it a try and that nothing ventured nothing gained and he just never knew. He narrowed his eyes with doubt and proferred professional skepticism.

It took God 24-hours to pull of a dazzling heist. Excitedly Hussein phoned us the next day. You'll never believe it! Actually, I do believe it. There's this place, he stammered with a professional stammer. It's going for well under market value. It's about 300m walking distance from the children's school. It's on the same road as the children's school. It's a 25min run-in to the law firm. It has three large rooms, a spacious lounge, and did we mind that the swimming pool was only 20m long?

They say there is no better place to reside than in the dead centre of God's will. There was something inevitable about us getting our flat. It was like God had demarcated it, cordoned it off, reserved it. 1 to the Christians; 0 to the lions.