Thoughts so far...

1) We have been here for five days now.  But we can't breathe a sigh of relief just yet.  Our apartment search has been kicked into overdrive and yet we still can't find anything within our budget (generally anywhere along the spectrum from "they pay us to live there" to "free") and inside of the city.  We thought we had found a quaint little place (read: barely large enough to house ants comfortably) on the west side of the city that would have suited us just fine, but we were turned down by the owner of the apartment after we had already gone to view it and spent the day in the area.  Frustrating.  We are still looking though and are less discouraged than ever because...

2) What a great God we serve.  Essentially from the moment we made the decision to step out in faith and move across the world, he has blessed us time and time again in order to get us here.  And he doesn't seem to be stopping now.  Our biggest point of stress in our first few days here was the fact that we were paying $70 a night to stay at a hostel in downtown Jerusalem -- money that was adding up quickly as we looked for a place to live.  Finally, Kels desperately emailed a couple that we have never met -- they pastor a church here and we knew of them through their son whom we met in the States -- to ask if anyone at their church might have a place where we could stay just for a short amount of time as we continued to look.  They emailed us back and told us that they were traveling for the next week, but we were welcome to stay in their apartment while they were gone.  And here we are, in a beautiful rent-free home that we can stay at while we look.  The generosity of our friends and fellow believers has stunned me over the past half-year and continues to humble me now.

3) I want to learn Hebrew quickly.  Nearly everyone here speaks at least a little English, so it is generally not difficult to get around.  I feel like such a tourist though, and also at least a little disrespectful for traveling to a country where the official language is not my own and still expecting people to speak English to me.  I think I will be quite motivated once I start studying the language in -- yikes -- one week from today.

4) This probably deserves a post of its own (and will get one at some point), but I love my wife and daughter with everything in me.  Kels and I had a major turning point in our lives as parents (if we have been parents long enough to even have something called a turning point) while we were traveling last month.  Out of a good, deep conversation with friends spawned conversation after conversation between the two of us about the way we want to raise our children, and this became one of those rare moments in life where we were able to somehow put a lot of thought into action.  We certainly have not done everything perfectly since and obviously we will not do everything perfectly in the future, but I think this is yet another area in which we have been given an enormous amount of grace.  After a tough first four or five months of her life, Charis has never been happier and it is an honor to get to wake up with her and spend all our time with her every day.  The way I feel when she smiles at me (which is all the time) is an impossible feeling to describe.  I love her.  And Kels has been the greatest mom in the world.  I can hardly believe what God has done in her life over the past month, but it has been a very visible shift and a giant leap closer to the woman I know he is calling her to be.  I love her too, and I love her even more for forgiving me after I scared her half-to-death by walking around on the streets of Jerusalem for two hours looking for a grocery store when I was supposed to be back in twenty minutes.  Whoops.

I know we will continue to experience giant peaks and deep valleys in our lives as a couple and as a family (and I wouldn't have it any other way).  Right now, though, we are simply content.