My First Days In Melbourne

As some of you know, I will be commencing studies at the John Paul II Institute beginning 15th Feb 2010. I will be there until Nov 2010. Am really looking forward to this.

Just like to introduce you to two people whom i am sharing the same accomodation with.

The first is my landlady Shirley Low. She's a Singaporean who has been staying in Melbourne for close to six years already. A mandarian and teochew speaking evangelical christian who accepted Christ a number of years ago she loves gospel music (in chinese of course) and plays it when she is at home and in the car. When i asked her about her conversion story, she simply said that there was a time when she really needed help and she prayed to Jesus and soon realised that He truly was the true and Living God.

                                                                                                                       Shirley reading the Bible

The second is "auntie susan" as we call her who is renting a place (like me) from Shirley while looking to buy a new house. She was originally from Cambodia and arrived in Australia in 1983. An australian citizen, i found out today that she was one of the vietnamese boat people who packed into boats by the 100s, drifting into open sea and hoping to be rescued, in the hope of escaping communist oppression and for a better life. In her case, she fled cambodia for vietnam in 1975 when the Khemer Rouge took over her country and had to flee again in the early 1980s when life under communist rule prove unbearable. In a matter of fact way, she told me that escaping from Vietnam was a gamble. If you win, you get rescued by boats and may be able to fin asylum in a friendly country. If not, you get drowned when you boat capsizes. What was not an option (at least for her) was continued stay in Vietnam. She is grateful to Australia for accepting her and proudly recounts how her two children are now successful in life. Her son is a professor at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) while her daughter has her own business. She too became an evangelical Christian but only a couple of months ago.

So i have a landlady and a fellow tenent who prefers to speak Mandarin and Teochew. Devout Christians both, i am very happy to be here and will surely be developing my faith, and chinese langaguage skills while i am here!