40 Days in the Desert...

Today marks the 40th day of my arrival in the Down-under. It's time for some updates. When I reflect and look back of my 40 days in the La-la land, I can't help but give thanks to God. Here are some of the happenings:

My flight took off from Kuching on the 8 June '10, flight delayed at KL and it finally arrived at 3am, on the 9 June '10. Thanks to Kiaw who fetched me real early in the morning. I reached my sis' place at 630 am, showered and took a 2.5 hours nap right away. At about 11am, Sigit brought me for lunch at the Korean Lunch Box at Glenferrie, where SUT is. Welly, Joshua Naw and later Kiaw joined in too. There goes my 1st meal here; surrendered to the Korean & yes the portion here is HUGE. If you start to convert it to RM it's rather pricey though. Generally a meal would cost abut RM30. Can you imagine a huge laksa cost RM30? Haha...one principle, just eat, don't convert! :)

We then hurried to the airport again at about 130pm to catch my 320pm 'Harimau' flight to Brisbane. Praise God, there was no delay. I was happy to see Hwei at the airport. He's a great host!

Over my 5 days at the sunny state we managed to go to Dream World, Glow-worm farm, and few other places which I have forgotten the names!

More pictures can be seen at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228041&id=592551367&l=e094775f86 & http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228050&id=592551367&l=1286f8b791.

On Friday morning, we drove to Gold Coast Airport to fetch Joshua. He almost got stucked in the immigration place because he was suspected to be part of the 'run-away' group. Hehehe...does he look like one??? Maybe!

We then drove to Tweed Heads before going to Gold Coast city. We saw so many old antique cars there. Apparently they were celebrating some kind of festival & it was a real treat for us! The most happening part was the parade at the end. It was so hilarious; many dressed up in the mood of the 60's & 70's with imitating different famous characters. Believe it or not Joshua 'kenak' molested!

More pictures can be seen at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228491&id=592551367&l=c6c5b02840

We then drove to Gold Coast before arriving at our main destination at the Bryon Bay, the most Eastern tip of Australia. Guess what! We had Sizzler for lunch! Can you imagine three grown-up men spending almost 3+ hours enjoying themselves feating? Hahaha...yes we did! We basically did nothing but eating and chatting about everything under the sun.

Oh yea, before the late lunch we went to the tallest residential tower in the world, Q-Deck for a view of the whole Gold Coast. It's quite stunning I must admit.

When we reached Bryon Bay, it was already dark. After taking shower, we took a walk at the quiet street. We ended up buying some stuff and celebrated Hwei's birthday in the hotel room. Hehe...we even had the opportunity to watch one action movie. While half way watching the 2nd one, we all almost dozed off.

More pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228519&id=592551367&l=a09b609ab5

We prayed hard for a good sunny morning and God was good! We didn't have a super-clear morning, at least it didn't rain! The forecast said we'd be expecting storm that day. Anyway, we woke up at 5am, in the freezing temperature & managed to take quite a few good pictures. We also saw dolphins around!

Oh yea, I almost forgot about something. God was so good. Though we didn't see great sunrise, we did see a full rainbow while we were on our way back to the hotel! It was beautiful!

More pictures at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=228798&id=592551367&l=5cba6bf2df

When we reached Hwei's place, we were all gone flat! Thanks to Hwei's sister, Alice, her gang & her cooked so much that evening! They invited few good friends to celebrate not only Hwei's birthday but also James, Michael & Chang Ming. Gosh, what were the similarities? They are all Foochows!

Alright! Enough of my honey-moon vacation story in the Sunshine state! What happened when I came back to Melbourne then? In the 1st week I attended 2-day refresher course for teachers who have never taught in Victoria before. Overall the course was really good. It gave me a good overview of the education system in the state.

Right after the course I worked really hard in job hunting. Waking up in between 9-10am and online till past 12 midnight was my daily routine for the that 4 weeks. I did not fail even to leave my comfortable cough for 10 minutes. The only time when I left the seat was when I needed to go to the toilet or get something to eat! 1st it was sending the resumes to the schools in Victoria, after a while I got impatient & started sending more resumes to more schools across the countries. It was such unbearable thing to do; sitting at home writing and sending applications to countless-countless numbers of schools. I even tried places like Darwin & Alice Spring! Yoohooo...see how desperate I was!

How did I survive spiritually & emotionally? God really has been so good. Indeed He never fails guiding & affirming me; through the sermons that Ps. Ian & sis. Ruth in Hope Waverly Center as well as Ps. Mark's sermon today-Let Your River Flow! I especially remember the messages on Daniel, Freedom in Christ and definitely the story of Joseph have deeply moved my heart! I remember clearly that Sunday when I decided to respond the call by walking up to the front to be prayed for. I understand it takes the humility to respond in this way & what I wanted to do was to let God speaking to me even more...

I have always wanted to do more reading & since I have to travel by using train, it's a perfect time for me to read this book written by Philip Yancey, 'Reaching the Invisible God'. I found some simple answers to many simple questions that many would always ask yet do not have clear answers. Great book to read indeed! Everytime I travel now on the train, I have the opportunity to reflect on many things! This is so great - making me a thinking Christian, we all ought to be a thinking Christian; a believer that is alive not just keep doing & doing!

There is nothing fancy about big cities which always offer better, louder kind of lifestyles. There is nothing fancy too about big-mega churches. I've the opportunities to visit two other churches over the past 2 weeks. Those who have been 'out' of Hope Kuching would understand how heavenly Kuching is - and yet many might take things for granted, ignorant to certain extend and refuse to accept many facts of life. It really takes great humility to realize that in all things that we do, at the end of the day it is really about God and I. The song 'My Reward' says 'Jesus You are my reward, to hear Your voice on that day, it's all I'm living for...' It's a good song; tough to receive.

God has amazing ways to work things out. With much praying & hope in the Lord for few weeks God started to make His plans even more visible. Just last Thursday when I was still busy settling my license stuff I received a call from a school in Perth. The lady asked whether I was still interested in the music teaching post. Who would say no??? So on the next day over the lunch I had a 40-minute phone interview with 2 heads of the school. The interview went pretty well. At about 5pm, the Deputy called me & offered me the job! He spoke to my ex-principal & she spoke highly of me. The 1st thing that came into my mind was S-T-R-E-S-S!!! This is just too overwhelming. My responsibility is not only to teach music from Kinder to Year 6, there are also 2 groups of choirs, a band & some liturgies singing, etc. They have few public performances through out the year too. As the matter of fact, they need to perform in the Art Festival in 4 weeks time!!!

The world is really small. The Deputy also know my ex-Deputy! Wow...amazing!

I'm flying to Perth this Wednesday morning. It's gonna be a super early flight; 610am, arriving at 830am Perth time. I would need to rush to view few rooms which are near to the school. Then I would have to rush to the school and get many things started!

Awwwwwwwwww...I realize when we ask God, when He gives, we need to learn how to handle it. The moment when I was given the job, my confidence dropped tremendously. Argh...someone told me that's how normally a melancholy person would response in such situation. Ouch! :@)

I am ready to see how God's love & Grace continue to be shown more visibly in my life in the new land. God reminded me again in the service today of what I experienced in Cape Town almost 3 years ago. He who brought me through then would continue to be faithful to do the same today and tomorrow because He is a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow!

I pray that you too will be encouraged and make Him known!

p.s. Many thanks to Sigit who has been so supportive & helping me in so many ways; airport transit, Lifegroup, Church, license, food, etc. / Welly for being my super postman / Kiaw the superwoman who is always ever ready to lend her hands / Antonious who taught me much in the Word & also the photography session / Joshua who is the 'panadol' dealer / Eric who inspired me to see how God can transform a person like him hehehe / and many other names that I won't mention here (Chieng, Nita, Yuli, Frans, Mai, Audrey, Lily, Sonia, Kai, Chai, Vincent, Louise, Timmy and many more...)