After a tiresome three days of travel and arrival, I was finally here. But, having only booked my temporary accommodation for 4 nights, I was on a mission to find permanent housing off-campus. But first! - friends of mine from Bangkok, and more specifically my church in Bangkok, happened to be in town visiting relatives. So I wandered around the campus, got myself a Myki card for transport, and rode the trams to Highland shopping center, where we had lunch and did a bit of shopping before heading back to their relative's house in Flemington. They invited me to stay for dinner, and I of course accepted, so we made a trip to Costco to get some fixin's. I got some snacks to take home with me, and they got all the other stuff.
When we returned to the house, I played with little Jared while some of the other adults got the barbecue ready and prepared the salads.
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| Charis and Jared |
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| Jared checking out mommy's new cookbook |
Dinner was delicious and seemed to never end, which is how I like it. When the evening did finally come to a close, Sam drove me back to campus and dropped me off near my building.
Sunday was a wonderful day, full of surprises and blessings galore.
I was up early and showered and on the tram into the city by 9:15, and arrived just a few minutes tardy to the 10:30 service at City on a Hill, my chosen church here in Melbourne. I had visited this church when here in Melbourne in October of 2012, and loved it, and knew that this was where I wanted to be. To further reassure me that this was the right place, I met a lovely couple, Meshack and Nicole, who introduced me to another couple, Lesley and Calvin, and the four of them took me out to lunch.
"Do you like Thai food, Amelia?"
"Uh..yes?" lol
Thai food for lunch, though I was disappointed when the waitress was not Thai (and therefore didn't speak Thai).
On the walk to the restaurant, I expressed to the group my frustration that I wasn't able to view contact numbers on gumtree.com where I was trying to find an apt. To add to that frustration, I also couldn't seem to get my new smartphone's 4G to work; it just wouldn't access data. Lesley informed me it was because my laptop is American, Calvin lent me his ipad so I could access the contact numbers and send a quick inquiry for an apt, and Meshack fixed my phone later that day at coffee by taking the battery out and waving it around in the air for a minute! Craziness, but so many helpful people that day. And, thanks to them all, I received a response from one of the ads I inquired about, and had an appointment to view a potential apt the following day!
Moral: Go to church! You never know how or with whom God is going to bless you that day! I had (half jokingly, I'll admit) prayed for Him to "reward my faithfulness in going to church my 3rd day in a new country by bringing me an apt with a fridge and air conditioning"...and He did so much more than that! I know I take it for granted sometimes, but He he has never failed me in His faithfulness. :)
After bidding my new friends goodbye for the day, I headed off to the train station to meet Sam, Charis, Jared, and some more of their friends in Williamstown for a picnic at the beach. I spent most of the ride there downloading apps and trying to figure out how to use them. Took me a minute to find my friends once I arrived, but once I did there was once again tons of food (maybe that's why I love Asians - there's always food around lol), and Jared was busy as ever running around exploring and chasing bubbles.
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| Jared chasing the birds :) |
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| Bubbles! |
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| More bubbles! |
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| Learning to do it himself |
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| Charis and Jared |
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