2025 Faith Leap - Chapter 5: Our Chakvi Home away from Home

 

2025 Faith Leap - Chapter 5: Our Chakvi Home away from Home

The Parable of Found Treasures: A boy (Bob) asked for a wallet so that he could keep his earnings safe; his mother bemoaned not packing a lightweight/low-space ball for her children to play with while away from home. While walking on the beach, they found a wallet (nothing in it), and a well-inflated ball, and they rejoiced in their good fortune.

The Parable of the Lost Watch: To protect his watch from being ruined while playing in the sea, a young boy (Kroc) removed it from his wrist and placed it in his jacket. That evening, to his dismay, he discovered the watch was missing. With little chance of finding the watch in the dark, the boy's father walked with him along the beach and, behold, there lie the watch - just above the water's edge. And the family rejoiced with the boy.

While these two stories may seem rather insignificant, they are huge miracles to us: demonstrations of God's love and watchful care. Truly, He loves and blesses His children.

"My brothers and sisters, the Lord is in all of our lives. He loves us. He wants to bless us..." - President Thomas S. Monson.

"But my God shall supply all you need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19

"Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost." Luke 15:9

Highlights:

• Our AirBnB's housekeeper is super friendly and helpful - such a blessing
• It is nice to be finding a rhythm/routine after being in upheaval for weeks
• Bob NEEDS social interaction! Let us know if you'd like to video chat!
• Our home is full of charm and quirks - mostly good, some less than awesome: Septic Tank = not our favorite
• Miss has all sorts of imaginative play games in this house
• Kroc can't get enough of the outdoors and dogs
• Nothing says "I Love You" like a graffitied fence

Prayer Requests:

• This Sunday, we will be Fasting for members of our Commonwealth, as many are facing difficult challenges right now. We'd be happy to have you join us.
• With Christmas this week, our family's separation will likely hit a little harder. Pray for all of those who are separated from their loved ones during the Holidays.

Details:

Mari - our helpful AirBnB manager

We arrived in Chakvi in the pouring rain on Monday evening. We were greeted by our new Russian friend, Mari, who is the housekeeper for our home. She speaks little English, but is very friendly and talkative in Russian and she thoroughly showed Richard the ropes. The landlords of our home are Georgians who are, apparently, very particular and very much treasure this home and everything in it. So we are extra motivated to be the very best stewards we can be while we are here. (The kids broke two glasses and a light at the other Airbnb - so here is hoping they got it out of their system 😬 In their defense, they were never doing anything out of the ordinary. All of the items were near the end of their life as it was, and the landlady didn't hold us accountable for any of it).  But it is nice to have Mari as our buffer - she is quick to make adjustments to make us more comfortable. For example, as we are staying for so long, the owners want her to check up on us weekly to make sure we are keeping it clean. She said she will just stop by to say “Hi” and peak her head in the door, but not invade our space. They also want her to keep extra items (like towels and linens) locked up, but she wants to ensure we have everything we may need, so she pulled stacks of things out of the locked cupboards for us to have access to. She has been very responsive to our questions and concerns (like when the microwave was sparking - more on that in a moment), and sending us useful information - like where to buy groceries, how to pay for parking in Batumi, and what community events are going on for Christmas. We like her a lot.

We would be lying if we didn’t admit that we were initially a little downtrodden when settling in to what is to be our current home. Our moods matched the weather as we went to bed that first night, and as we unpacked the next day. But, by Wednesday, the sun came out, and our moods brightened with it. It is amazing what sunlight does for the soul. But also, a good round of the Glad Game helped us discover over 40 things we like about our new home, and time has given us the chance to get used to some of the harder things.

Back to the microwave: Richard and I were upstairs when we heard Miss yelling that she was being electrocuted. Richard ran downstairs and found that, while microwaving popcorn, the microwave was sparking and shocked anyone who touched it. He quickly unplugged it and messaged Mari. She came over right away and decided to run it while she filmed so that she had video evidence of what was going on. She then called the landlord, who came over with his screwdriver to look at it. Of course, when he attempted to run it (without anything in it at first 😮 - Richard suggested they remedy that so they obliterated a hotdog - on a silver-plated plate -

 by running it for 5 minutes.)  It, of course, was no longer sparking - so Mari felt very gratified to have evidence. He took off the back panel (without unplugging it) and fiddled around - finding a piece that looked like it had broken off and diagnosing the problem as now fixed. We would rather not be the ones who find out whether or not it is a fire hazard, so we will just forgo popcorn for the remainder of our stay. (Popcorn is the only thing we'd use a microwave for anyway. At home, we kept ours in the garage because the counterspace was more valuable to us. So we'll be fine without this appliance. But enjoy a nice bowl of popcorn for us 🍿😋)

Read on if you would like to hear a little of the Day-in-the-Life of the Browns in Georgia, and to see some of our favorite things (and least favorite things) about the house:

It is nice to finally be landed somewhere long enough to get back into a routine. After personal devotionals, we gather for family exercise, breakfast, and devotional. Then we have individual time to work on school/projects until lunch - during which we have some language study together. The afternoon is spent outside exploring/treasure hunting on the beach and working on chores and projects again (like the Musical, and the kids are creating a film), and then family games/movie night in the evening. We are loving the consecrated family time! (Even Bob MOST of the time - though I recognize that not being able to speak to people is especially isolating for my extrovert. This will hopefully improve as we get to know people in the Branch, and hopefully in our neighborhood. In the meantime, we are making Video Chats with friends in the U.S. a priority so that his social cup can be filled.)

It is crucial that I do one load of laundry every day here. The washing machine is tiny in comparison to what we have in the U.S., but that is fine because I do not have space to dry more than a small load anyway. I think the only people in Georgia who own a dryer are the Americans who work at the Embassy. Every Georgian home has clotheslines full of clothes hanging across their windows or balconies. I don’t like drying our clothes outside - partly because I don’t want to have to worry about sudden wind or rain, partly because I don't like the idea of my underthings being seen by the world, and partly because the clothes smell different than I am used to (at least, they did when I tried it in Tbilisi the last time we were here. I guess the fresh air of the seaside might be different). Regardless, I prefer to dry our clothes indoors. We brought a drying rack inside and placed it in the one place that gets good warm airflow: our living room 😝). There is just enough space on it for one load of laundry - which takes about 24 hours to dry: just in time for the next day’s load to be hung.

In addition to the washing machine, all appliances in Georgia feel miniature. And grocery packaged products too. We go through a jar of peanut butter in a couple of days, and a box of laundry detergent in a week. (I miss Costco! But then, I’d have to get really creative about storing Costco-sized groceries, so I guess it is best I don’t have access to it 😆) Our kitchen is miniature in general - with extra low countertops/sink. But, the benefit of everything being so small: Miss voluntarily has made half of our meals! I think she enjoys it so much because everything is her size/easy to reach. She loves to set up her camera and pretend she is on a cooking show. Then, the house has a fancy old-England style cart that she uses to pretend she is the maid serving the royals (us) our meals. 

The biggest adjustment for us in this house is that it has a Septic tank that cannot handle toilet paper. So we are becoming well-versed in using the bidet, and we have all agreed to use the same bathroom for ease of regular garbage emptying. The bidet is attached to the sink, so we turn on the water when we walk into the bathroom so that it can be warming for when we are ready to use it. All of the water here comes from a natural spring nearby, so there is no concern over water use - an adjustment from our Utah draught mentality.

The couches and beds are firm (you don't realize how often you collapse into furniture until it doesn't have any give), the curtains do not fully cover the windows (I do not enjoy feeling like I live in a fishbowl at night. Ask anyone who has lived with me and they will attest that I close every blind the moment the sun goes down - regardless of whether or not people are likely to see through. So the lack of curtains is very uncomfortable for me.) I also do not understand why both of our Georgian homes so far have had floor length curtains when the primary heat source (radiator) is beneath every window. Why not cut the curtains to rest just above the radiator so that they aren’t directing the heat to the cold window rather than into the room? I spend a fair amount of time bunching curtains into windowsills. (This picture shows the windows that feels the most invasive - those peach curtains only cover the small windows on either side of the bay - so only the transparent white pulls across the large window. This picture also shows Richard playing his table piano while working. By Tuesday we should have a real piano for him to work on. Oh how we all look forward to playing the piano again!)

The front door has a "Lord of the Rings" vibe (and it auto locks, which is cool but also nerve-wracking. So far we’ve always remembered to take the key with us).  It opens into a roomy mud room, and they provided us with house slippers. It is so nice to be able to let the kids get their shoes as muddy as they want and not have to worry about them bringing any of it into the house.

We were greeted with a Christmas Tree! What a thoughtful touch!

The kids love how ornate all of the furniture and fixing are. I am working to let go of my perspective (an old person’s estate sale) and see it through their eyes (fancy and magical). We have a nice big table with plenty of seating, the kitchen is well stocked with enough dishes, the kids like that the kitchen closes off, and that the faucet can point any direction (we are learning to check it before turning it on to avoid an unwanted shower). We have two reading nooks (one will become the music nook when our piano arrives), plenty of rooms/beds (we are leaving the 3rd floor mostly untouched so that it is ready to receive any family or friends who want to come visit 😉). 

Each bedroom has a door that opens out to a balcony with a view of the Black Sea.

As long as he is outside, Kroc is in his happy place. We brought our rubbers, so the kids have the freedom to explore the backyard (full of bamboo, mud puddles, and a shack that looks like a bomb destroyed), the gated garden, and the boardwalk and beach beyond. The cold doesn’t bother them at all. While I am bundled in my coat and gloves, they’ve got their feet in the sea 🥶🌊 There are several collared dogs owned by people in our neighborhood. The kids are loving being able to show affection to animals again! And the animals love the unusual amount of attention they get from these American children - so they follow them around and lay outside our front porch waiting for them to come out.

In addition to their plan to write and film a movie while we are here, the kids have found creative ways to fill their time while they do not have access to many Things. Here they are playing "Dress to Impress" with CJ as their judge over video chat. We love having ways to include big brother in the play over the distance. (Can you guess what their theme was this round? If you don't have kids exposing you to pop-culture, you may have no idea even if I told you. I wouldn't have been able to get it...)

Graffiti is everywhere in Georgia. But, unlike at home, much of the things written are kind and encouraging. We leave you with this graffitied message: "miq'varkhar" Translated: I Love You (ignore the word someone else added above (vodka) - despite me looking a little drunk myself in this picture 🥴 )