Finally settled...

It is incredible to us that this Saturday will mark the first month since landing in Sydney. It feels like we only landed a few days ago, but we've been moving non-stop and it seems that time just passed by with us hardly noticing. We couldn't even stop to update this blog (well, that and we didn't have internet access for the last couple weeks). If I were to update you on all we've done--our settling in process, ministry work, life here, church, old and new friends... this entry would be pages long. So for now, I'll just update you on how we've settled in and where we are now.

The Sydney housing market can be pretty ruthless, but Dan and I fortunately didn't struggle too much with finding a place. Since I haven't started substitute teaching, we both were free during the week to view and apply for apartments. Most other applicants had to wait til Saturday for Open Inspections because of work. This gave us a huge advantage and we were able to see a good number of places before settling on our current home.

This isn't to say that things didn't go wrong. MANY things went wrong. Here's just a small list of things off the top of my head

-wire transfer failures (4 times); we were broke
-forgot to hand off fundraising checks in US before our flight so we had to mail; empty bank accounts
-didn't have my bank card because it was at my friend's address but she was in Korea for the last two weeks; we were broke
-didn't have a car for the first two weeks because we had no money to buy one and Jim and Claudia were still house hunting as well
-my laptop AC adaptor broke which severely impaired our house and car hunting endeavors(ordered a replacement from Hong Kong and it's arrived)
-frustrated and angry at one another constantly
-New South Wales Teaching Office kept telling me I was missing documents I needed to process my application to teach
-went WAY over our first cell phone bill because the Aussie cell phone plans are WEIRD
-Dan's Blackberry we unlocked wasn't working
and lastly...
-ALLERGIES ATTACKED US FULL FORCE!!!!

Yup. I may have blocked out more things during the coping process, but we felt like we were being tested. Haha. Looking back though, it wasn't so bad. It was more that Dan and I felt so rushed to be comfortable/settled, harassed in a new country, and powerless/out of control of the situation. When I consider now that there was a good place to sleep every night, that we ate great meals, that we were able to fully participate in ministry in spite of our situation...I can say that God was providing. Maybe he wanted to break us in to the Australian mission field and say, "It may not be third world, but it's not home!" =)

So where are we now?

We now live in a two-bedroom apartment in the suburb of Rhodes which is approximately 15 km from Sydney's CBD (Central Business District). Rhodes is a recent real estate development. It was formerly a land fill, but in the past few years there's been a huge push to build apartment buildings everywhere. And with the erection of a new shopping centre (with an IKEA) and the convenience of a train station, it's become a pretty popular housing district for apartment dwellers like Dan and me. I GoogleMapped our current address and came up with this...


Yup, it's that new. Those four little pool looking things are the foundations of the four towers that make up our apartment complex. We live right over the train station so it gets PRETTY loud at times, and we certainly don't have a view of the water, but it's home. And every night we thank God that we have a clean, safe place to rest our heads and call our own.

I also want to say:
I, Theresa Choi, vow to update this blog more frequently.


Thanks, guys!

Off and Running

Day 6 in Australia

We’re just rounding out our first week here in Australia and we’ve already been blessed by some amazing encounters on campus. The other night, Theresa and I both led small discussion groups on the campus of the University of Sydney. This was the first time we were meeting most of these students, so we started with a few ice-breaker type introductions to get the discussion rolling. To Theresa’s surprise, she had two newcomers in her group who were raised in a mormon family. They were here for the first time because they had recently begun to question their faith and were seeking some more answers about God.

So, we talked about the contrast between religions that seek to “reach God” by way of a demanding “to-do” type lifestyle (works based salvation) versus a genuine christian faith that seeks God by simply humbling ourselves to accept that Christ lived and died to accomplish all the work for us (grace based salvation). They said this made some sense because they've been feeling the burden of living a works based life. Needless to say, this is just part of a working conversation that's just starting out so we’re hoping to follow up much more throughout the year.

Anyways, it’s just exciting that we’re not even one week into our stay here in Australia and God has already led us to some awesome encounters with young people who are hungry for the truth! Praise God for exceeding our expectations and for the work that He’s doing here in Oz!

Now, we just need to find an apartment and a used car somewhere so ya'll can visit!