Homes in Kamapala are big or very small.  There doesn't seem to be much in-between.  Although we would certainly fit into a smaller home, like a condo/apartment or a townhouse, they apparently are not nearly as available and the ones I have seen are pricey.  We have a budget for furnishing our home and I know it is possible to do so within the budget as long as we use local craftsmen (which is what I would like to do anyway).  The intimidating part is walking into the large empty living room and the empty bedrooms.  We're starting from scratch.  We've been here about 5 days and I don't have a single chair in the house!  I can't change light bulbs!  We're working on it, of course, and there is a place a few miles down the road where there are lots of furniture makers lined up right next to each other.  So far we've bought a 4-post bed (the four posts are a practical feature for hanging your mosquito netting), and we've placed an order for a dining room table and chairs.  The prices are reasonable and the furniture available is very nice.  It is all hand-crafted and has a "rough" quality to it - just enough to identify that it was hand-made locally.  It's perfect.  Right now we're sleeping in our bed in our home but the rooms still feel cavernous and empty.  With all tile floors and no curtains there is quite an echo in an empty room which only magnifies the feeling.  Fortunately we have an excellent lead on curtains: hand-made, ready in two days for the entire house, simple, and most importantly, affordable.  It wouldn't be such a big deal except for the privacy they provide (I'll blog on that later).  Despite our mostly-empty house, it is home.  And it feels like home already.  How is it that God works in our heart this amazing comfort when it seems as though sometimes all we have is Him and each other?  What a blessing it is to walk hand-in-hand with Christ even from the other side of the world!      -Shauen