Thursday, November 1, 2012
Happy or Surviving?
Am I happy or surviving? This is a question
that a good friend just posed to me recently. My answer...depends on the day!
This past week was a week of highs and lows. But while the challenging times
can be difficult, the Lord continues to show Himself faithful...providing what
we need, when we need it.
So here are a few highs and lows of this week:
We were able to share a meal with two other families who also moved to Hong Kong with Andy's company. It was great to get together, share experiences, commiserate with one another, laugh with one another, and connect! Our kids played with one another after they ate, and then the adults sat out on the balcony, overlooking the water, sharing a meal. It was such an encouragement, and we feel very blessed to be able to do this alongside others whom we really enjoy spending time with.
My transit issue with Abby got resolved. Only by God's grace did we figure out that she could take a twenty minute bus ride to a closer bus stop right off the MTR, instead of me having to travel for over an hour to get her. I was leaving at 10am and getting home around 12:30pm. Her new bus stop is about 20-25 minutes away....if all goes the way it is supposed to go. And when you are depending on public transportation, it doesn't always go according to plan...
...after riding the bus with her on Monday to her new bus stop to make sure she was comfortable, I felt fairly confident that this was going to be great and save me a ton of time. On Tuesday, I left just before 11am, caught a HLY(Hong Lok Yuen) bus to the Tai Wo MTR pretty quickly, took the train to the Fo Tan station three stops down, and walked across the street to where the bus was going to drop Abby off. Pretty easy. I arrived there with 25 minutes to spare. While I waited, I spoke to a man who Andy had met and gotten to know in the mornings when he drops Abby off. He was extremely nice, and lived in the high rise where the bus stop was located. That night, Andy mentioned that he was going to get this man's phone number just in case he was running late in the morning. Knowing my husband, I thought this was an excellent idea! On Wednesday I had a relaxed morning that was filled with laundry...but I will get to that later. So I went out to catch the HLY bus (down at the corner) and I had just missed the 11am bus by about a minute. No problem, I thought, since they come every 15 minutes and I had plenty of time. So I waited...and waited...it was 11:20 and the bus was finally in sight. As I went to get my ticket out of my pocket, the bus driver beeped and drove by, indicating that the bus was full. This had only happened to me once before...on a weekend. Now I was starting to panic a bit. I immediately looked for a taxi. I usually saw two or three drive by while waiting for the bus, but of course, there were none to be seen! So as I was praying about what to do, I decided to text Andy to see if he had gotten his friend's phone number. Sure enough, he had, and even offered to call him and explain the situation. As I finally got on the bus after waiting for 30 minutes, Andy got back to me and let me know that his friend was more than happy to get Abby off the bus. So as I got to the stop, only five minutes late, but late nonetheless, Andy's friend, his wife and his daughter were standing there talking to Abby...and Abby had a smile on her face. Yet again, the Lord provided.
The other challenge of the week was that my washer and dryer stopped working properly at different times. Now don't get me wrong, I am extremely thankful that I have both. But these machines are about one third the size that I am used to, and the washer takes over an hour to run it's cycle, so you can only imagine how long it takes me to do wash for our family of seven. Factor in that I wasn't able to do any laundry for five days, and you can picture what my home looks like with all my piles! Luckily, I have an amazing and very handy husband who took care of the problems, and my children have enough uniforms to keep them going.
All that being said, we had some great family time at the club pool and restaurant. We went out to lunch after church with new friends who are very easy to be with (and whose children get along with our kids and are the same ages). I am starting to get into a groove with grocery shopping and cooking. And, the kids got to go trick or treating in our neighborhood. So there are definitely days we are happy...and other days we are surviving. But I think the challenge of it all is how I am going to respond to my circumstances? It would be easy to fall into self-pity, or just stay in a bubble and only go out if I have to...but look how much I would miss. No, I don't believe that we are supposed to be in Hong Kong living "safely"...don't get me wrong, we will be safe...but we will live in the moment and be "all in." In Philippians we are called to be content in all circumstances, and in 1Thessalonians we are called to be thankful. So these are my challenges: contentment and thanksgiving...in the happy times... or times of survival.
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Pic#1 Getting ready to go
trick or treating...Hong Kong style. Sarah slept on my lap while I handed out
candy...and people LOVED our littlest pumpkin!
Pic#2 Our smily Sarah
Pic#3 Grace, the US soccer player holding our pumpkin
Pic#4 Abby met a friend on the MTR on our way to lunch...they talked for at least 15 minutes...not sure if it was English, Mandarin or both!
Pic #5 Totally relaxed!
So here are a few highs and lows of this week:
We were able to share a meal with two other families who also moved to Hong Kong with Andy's company. It was great to get together, share experiences, commiserate with one another, laugh with one another, and connect! Our kids played with one another after they ate, and then the adults sat out on the balcony, overlooking the water, sharing a meal. It was such an encouragement, and we feel very blessed to be able to do this alongside others whom we really enjoy spending time with.
My transit issue with Abby got resolved. Only by God's grace did we figure out that she could take a twenty minute bus ride to a closer bus stop right off the MTR, instead of me having to travel for over an hour to get her. I was leaving at 10am and getting home around 12:30pm. Her new bus stop is about 20-25 minutes away....if all goes the way it is supposed to go. And when you are depending on public transportation, it doesn't always go according to plan...
...after riding the bus with her on Monday to her new bus stop to make sure she was comfortable, I felt fairly confident that this was going to be great and save me a ton of time. On Tuesday, I left just before 11am, caught a HLY(Hong Lok Yuen) bus to the Tai Wo MTR pretty quickly, took the train to the Fo Tan station three stops down, and walked across the street to where the bus was going to drop Abby off. Pretty easy. I arrived there with 25 minutes to spare. While I waited, I spoke to a man who Andy had met and gotten to know in the mornings when he drops Abby off. He was extremely nice, and lived in the high rise where the bus stop was located. That night, Andy mentioned that he was going to get this man's phone number just in case he was running late in the morning. Knowing my husband, I thought this was an excellent idea! On Wednesday I had a relaxed morning that was filled with laundry...but I will get to that later. So I went out to catch the HLY bus (down at the corner) and I had just missed the 11am bus by about a minute. No problem, I thought, since they come every 15 minutes and I had plenty of time. So I waited...and waited...it was 11:20 and the bus was finally in sight. As I went to get my ticket out of my pocket, the bus driver beeped and drove by, indicating that the bus was full. This had only happened to me once before...on a weekend. Now I was starting to panic a bit. I immediately looked for a taxi. I usually saw two or three drive by while waiting for the bus, but of course, there were none to be seen! So as I was praying about what to do, I decided to text Andy to see if he had gotten his friend's phone number. Sure enough, he had, and even offered to call him and explain the situation. As I finally got on the bus after waiting for 30 minutes, Andy got back to me and let me know that his friend was more than happy to get Abby off the bus. So as I got to the stop, only five minutes late, but late nonetheless, Andy's friend, his wife and his daughter were standing there talking to Abby...and Abby had a smile on her face. Yet again, the Lord provided.
The other challenge of the week was that my washer and dryer stopped working properly at different times. Now don't get me wrong, I am extremely thankful that I have both. But these machines are about one third the size that I am used to, and the washer takes over an hour to run it's cycle, so you can only imagine how long it takes me to do wash for our family of seven. Factor in that I wasn't able to do any laundry for five days, and you can picture what my home looks like with all my piles! Luckily, I have an amazing and very handy husband who took care of the problems, and my children have enough uniforms to keep them going.
All that being said, we had some great family time at the club pool and restaurant. We went out to lunch after church with new friends who are very easy to be with (and whose children get along with our kids and are the same ages). I am starting to get into a groove with grocery shopping and cooking. And, the kids got to go trick or treating in our neighborhood. So there are definitely days we are happy...and other days we are surviving. But I think the challenge of it all is how I am going to respond to my circumstances? It would be easy to fall into self-pity, or just stay in a bubble and only go out if I have to...but look how much I would miss. No, I don't believe that we are supposed to be in Hong Kong living "safely"...don't get me wrong, we will be safe...but we will live in the moment and be "all in." In Philippians we are called to be content in all circumstances, and in 1Thessalonians we are called to be thankful. So these are my challenges: contentment and thanksgiving...in the happy times... or times of survival.
Pic#2 Our smily Sarah
Pic#3 Grace, the US soccer player holding our pumpkin
Pic#4 Abby met a friend on the MTR on our way to lunch...they talked for at least 15 minutes...not sure if it was English, Mandarin or both!
Pic #5 Totally relaxed!
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