4 Years ago we as a family made the decision to move to Cape Town from Boksburg on the East Rand, Gauteng. We have been chatting about moving or relocating somewhere else for a long time. Mostly because of a quality of life and also that I as the husband could work basically from anywhere. When I was in Cape Town for business I drove around for days looking at places to rent but could not find anything suitable for us as a family. It was either too far out (simonstown) or too small or too expensive! Then on the last day of my business trip my wife Sharyn phoned and said I must go look at this little place in Blouberg… When I saw it I was sold and knew that Sharyn would be as well.
So we took the plunge and moved to Blouberg for our first year. We rented a fully furnished 3 bedroom house. We left all of our things in our JHB house where Sharyn’s mom Caryl would look after it for us. We enjoyed our first year in Cape Town. Doing lots of the touristy stuff, visiting the beach etc. We have met some awesome people along the this journey. At the end of our first year we decided to bring our own things to Cape Town. Sharyn went back to JHB and packed up the house. Yes, She is that amazing…
We took keys of a house just down the road in Big Bay. This time having all of our furniture. it had a small garden with a small splash pool. 4 Bedrooms with a beautiful modern kitchen. We enjoyed the stay at this house as it did provide a nice sanctuary in winter with an awesome fireplace and with a pool in summer helped a lot!
The one place a lot of people have told us about is Durbanville. Its very Afrikaans but also surrounded by a lot of wine farms as well as the Tygerberg Mountain Bike club trails and very close to the Tygervalley area. So for our 3rd year in Cape Town we looked for a place in Durbanville. We found a nice affordable place in Aurora. This place also a 3 bedroom house with a big garden but no pool. But being in a very nice area we decided to take it. We have lived there for the last year now. We thought we would stay there for another year when the lease expires. Unfortunately the owner of the house, who lives in Australia now had other ideas and decided to sell. We obviously were not happy about this as this means we are basically being kicked out so to speak. The place did not take long to sell because the asking price was within limits and the area is one of the nicest in Durbanville. So we got given notice to be out by the end of June. This was end of April for us.
Needless to say we have been looking for places almost every day. I think Sharyn spent looking at either her phone, iPad and laptop most of the day trying to first get to seeing the new places being listed. One thing I can say is that prices for rental have gone up substantially in Cape Town! Places similar to what we have now have gone up with R3k to R4000! That is huge in my books. We have been through a lot of houses in the past 3 weeks. Some would suit us but too expensive, others too small and some just falling apart. We are looking for a 3 bedroom place, with a seperate lounge if possible, a study and a granny flat of sorts or just a room outside. As we home school its always nice to have a room to have the homeschooling/playing to be in. My mother in law Caryl is coming in September this year from the UK to live with us. She has been there for a couple of years making some extra money for her retirement. One of the reasons why she is coming back is that her gran kids are growing up way too quickly and she is missing out! I am sure the whole family will enjoy her being back with us like she was a couple of years ago.
We saw 5 houses yesterday. One of them was a beautiful house, actually a perfect place for us. We would have space for the cars, all the bicycles (yes there are a lot of them), trailer, furniture, home school room, braai/entertainment area and space for my mother in law. We have put in the offer to rent this for a period of 2 years at a little less than their asking price. We have been praying and asking God to have His will be done in this decision. The only downside to this house is that we have to pack up and leave in 2 weeks! Eish! Met up with Sharyn and kids at the gym for lunch just now and they told me that they have been praying this morning. Prayer is powerful especially when doing it together and I believe even more so when you do it as a family.
So this is about telling you how God answers prayers and how He supplies according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Its been a stressful couple of weeks for us as we might have been without a place to live at the end of June if we have not found this new house. We were making plans and seeing what we can do to make this work. We even contemplated putting everything in storage and Sharyn and kids go visit my mom in Namibia for a couple of months until we find something. Think my mom would have been thrilled! We also sit with the situation that if the current owner would let us leave at the end of May instead of end of June like the notice period. I have sent a mail and left a voice mail to this effect on the owners voice mail.
We have just heard they have accepted our offer and that we can move in! We have also had confirmation that the current owner will allow us to leave without penalties at the end of May. Now the packing starts again!
We just want to thank God our Father for once again and as always providing in our lives.
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