Five months into the Southern American life, we got immersed in the American culture when we got invited to a Christmas-cum-graduation party in a local Savannahian's home. The invitees were to wear gordy Christmas sweaters and the guy in the white pullover sitting in the front on the far right won first prize for the tackiest outfit...he had sewn stockings and multi-coloured rubies all over his woolly..haha! Good one!

The food was great too. A huge spread of cheeses, cookies, brownies, cakes, nuggets, tortilla chips and cheesy seafood dips -- ooooh, all the sinful delights on earth, my kind of food: cheesy stuff -- it was a great start to our trip to Florida after the party. We were going to set off after the party at about 10pm. It would be a five hour drive, but the food would fuel us most of the way!

The guy in the centre of the photo is Joo Sung, a humourous character from Korea. We're fast becoming good friends despite our language barriers as he is really funny and easy-going, no airs and flairs. He is learning to speak English from us, whilst we're learning Korean from him.

I can't believe it's already a year passed since we surprised Don on his 35th birthday last year. Yes, 14 Aug in 15 minutes' time (at least for Don and I in Savannah) will spell his reaching the ripe young age of 36.

This picture brings to mind many fond memories of people we care and love, not excluding some who are not in the picture, of course! We love you all...and thanks for all the well wishes that's been sent.

This is my dearest friend Amy's firstborn son Josiah. I'm so proud of her----oh, not that I'm not proud of the rest of you who gave birth to kids, but---I knew her for so long, and we practically grew up in college together. It's kind of strange to see her turn mother, 'cos I can't help remembering our days together when we were still college kids.

Now, seeing her son just makes my heart melt. He's so cute! A cross between mother (who is so cute herself) and dad who is the spitting image of Andy Lau. I miss them both really. And definitely missing out on being there for them whilst they're going thru all the early stages of parenthood.

To Amy: I wish I'm there! Would have loved to hug Josiah, and pinch his cheeks---heehee! No guesses where that urge comes from...haha! Just keep on enjoying life, don't give up on yourself...all mothers go through that phase. I might not have been a mother, but I have enough mothers around me to tell me so...haha. I luv ya!

Hey Everyone! I just learnt to make a movie on my powerbook with my photographs! Heehee, check it out!

These are some of dishes I've been whipping up since Saturday. We had beef ghoulash to start with; ate out at Wendy's on Sunday; then beef stew on Monday; beef steaks on Tuesday; and finally, today we had spagghetti fried oriental style with fish fillets of Alaskan Pollacks. Yumm-mo! Spot the dishes---I simply love cooking! And not the extraordinarily difficult to prepare sort of food and definitely not extravagant, but all under 30 minutes and
under $5 for a dinner for 2!

Alright, I was really bored yesterday. I was without internet for the whole day and it felt like I was in the desert. Gosh, now I know one more basic need that I have to ensure the quality of my life----internet access!

Anyway, I switched to playing with my webcam, to excite myself and shake off the boredom overwhelming me. Didn't know I could make a video with it until I accidentally clicked on this strange looking icon next to the photoshoot icon. Haha.

So this is me, in the depth of my boredom.

Best shots taken this morning at Tybee Island. After weeks of being cooped up in my rented room with the only outing being to Kroger's (grocery store) every day and church every Sunday, my feelings of boredom were beginning to get to me. Just yesterday, I was reduced to counting the number of times I bit my lip throughout the day. So when Tracy sent me an email to ask if I were to go to Tybee Island for a few hours to chill out, it was like "Hallelujah, I am getting out of here!"

For those of you who know me, I've hardly ever spent a single day in Singapore at home. Now, without a car, I'm suddenly behaving like a handicapped person. I suppose I could take a bus, but it will be so boring to go anywhere alone. I guess, it's not only just the going out, I needed to talk to people. Thank God He heard me!

Don didn't come with me as he had class, but I needed to get a life! I always loved the beach, the sea and the whole idea of people lying half-naked exposing themselves to the deadly sunbeams----it just gives me a kick. I was running all over the beach, chasing unsuspecting egrets, frightening tiny fishes swimming at my legs in the shallow waters and posing for shots whenever I saw a stranger who looked like they could take a good photo. Before all that, of course, I had first smeared myself with my Sun Play Perfect Shield boasting a good SPF130. I hate getting sunburnt, and nothing less than SPF130 will do for me despite all that people say SPF 30 was good enough. If they haven't gone out in the sun before, they don't know what they are talking about. Believe me, the SPF130 is what you need under the sun, and SUNPLAY is a really good brand to use.

True enough, I was hardly scathed under the scorching sun that afternoon, except for my lower back, which I, unfortunately, failed to reach properly and went rather red from all the floating around in the sea on my belly whilst chirping happily to Tracy.

At this very moment, I still can't believe how much fun and relaxation I had at the beach today. This is a naughty Kat's life, indeed! I can't wait for the next outing. I'm going to plan for a trip to Jekyll Island next. Till then....

Above is a nice photo of our family taken at the airport before Don and I left for America. I'm so glad we had a chance to take this photo cos it's pretty hard to get everyone together. I can't even imagine another time where my paternal grandmother could possibly meet up with Don's family.

I have actually never liked my own folks very much, but I love them because they are my blood-ties, and nothing can change that. You see, sometimes, you just don't like someone because they have such a different personality from yours and you find yourself not getting along. But love is not about liking or getting along even. It's about respecting the other person's point of view and giving each other space to have your own views. I find that I do that best in a distance from my family, so that's what I'd done most of my life. Stay away from my family, visit regularly but live in a distance so I could have my own space. Perhaps my favourite family member would be Patricia and Rueben, my brother's wife and son. Though Pat and I meet something like twice a year during Chinese New Year and perhaps Christmas, I find I get along with her much better than anyone else in my family (I can see some of your shocked faces!). Basically, we can talk better and longer together, most likely because we give each other a lot of respect and space to be different. This is so impossible with my parents and brother, whom I feel somehow never understood the way I did things in life because they refuse to. They want me to follow them, be like them. They want me to be fearful of life, to worry, to know that the world will swallow me up if I don't first make myself ugly and bitter so that the world wouldn't dare have a taste of me. They felt I was too care-free and gullible.

But I'm not like them. I've been different all my life. I can't help believing in God, and having my pinciples rooted in love, in helping other people, in daring to give people chances at the cost of making myself vulnerable. All my life, as though the minute my mind was aware of the spirit realm, I had believed in a loving God and in Jesus to save me. I can't remember who it was who first preached to me. And I don't remember being given a choice. It's like I was born a Christian. It's really strange. I don't even recall a significant initial moment when I gave my life over to God (although I do remember many incidents of giving my life to God over and over again later as I went on my life journey with God, haha).

I remember this strange occasion when I was six years old, and I'm sure I have never come across the bible yet, or known about Jesus at that time. I was kneeling on the floor of this huge Taoist temple, in front of a mega-sized, golden buddha statue. My parents were kneeling beside me and making their prayers in all sincerity, joss-sticks held high. I looked up at the statue and the wierdest thought came to my mind. If I were to throw a stone at the statue right now, would it not all shatter to ground? Why do my parents choose to put such faith in a statue that would all but be destroyed by a mere stone? As I continued to kneel there whilst waiting for my parents to finish, I pondered on the reality of the god before me. How could this be god?

That very moment in my heart, I knew I would never be the same as my parents in their beliefs. Later on, I think I must have first heard about Jesus in primary school. By a strange twist of fate, I failed to get into Haig Girl's Primary School even though my brother was already in Haig Boy's Primary School. Instead, I ended up in Kuo Chuan Girl's School, a missionary school (The school has since changed its name to Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Primary School when it became co-ed).

So my life carried on further and further away from my family it would seem. Whilst they prayed, burned their daily joss-sticks, sacrificed their countless animals to their gods and folded innumerous paper money for the spirits in exchange for blessings on the household, I grew in my daily secret prayers and worship of God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I didn't go to church then for I respected their wishes. But I spent nights tinkering on my piano making melody in my heart to God. Nobody told me then that that was worship. But I just wanted to. Felt like it, and did it. When I was lonely, I talked to Him. When I could not understand life's difficulties and pains, I asked Him straightforwardly. God was, and is, always with me. I never doubted His presence. I didn't even know that was called prayer at that time. I even ended up singing in tongues one night without knowing what I was doing. A foreign word escaped from my mouth and I shut it quickly, stunned. I was singing praises to God, whilst lying in bed at that point, so what was this strange word that had come out in the middle of my chorus? I thought I might have overdone my singing in praise to Him that night. I thought perhaps that I might have been too tired since it was already about 2 a.m. in the morning. I apologized to God immediately and told Him I was going to sleep as I must be tired. It was much later on, whilst studying at the University in Manchester up north of England, that I learnt about such things as speaking in tongues from a preacher in one of the churches. I laughed to myself whilst the preacher exhorted the congregation to speak in tongues. So that was what it was...it had puzzled me for so long, I never understood what had happened until then.

England taught me many things about God. I happily attended the Manchester Chinese Christian Church, I learnt more about singing in tongues and I served in every ministry there was in church. I was a Sunday School teacher every Sunday morning; I was the pianist during service; and I was also the conductress of the church choir when we had special presentations. I arranged music for the choir enthusiastically; I attended prayer meetings faithfully; and did just about everything there was to do in the church. I loved it all, I loved the church, I loved the people and I wanted to give my all to God. Whatever talent I had, whatever breath I had left of my waking life, I would give it to God. That was what I felt so deeply called.

Of course I know now that I must have been overdoing it. Perhaps too much thoughts of trying to repay God for His love for me. I know now that I can never repay God for His love. Still, I enjoyed it all thoroughly. I never felt tired and was never unhappy about any of it.

There was also a rather significant incident that happened in England that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was staying in the halls of residence during that time. It was a convent hall only for girls, but during the vacation times, the halls would be opened for some of the public to rent the rooms and justify the costs of running the place. It was during one of those times that the strangest thing happened to me whilst I was playing the piano and worshiping God on my own in the chapel.

You see, I did that every night for hours in the chapel, so it was not a special night of worship for me. But there was that one night, after I finished singing one of the worship songs, I heard a loud but spaced out applause. I turned my head sharply to see who it was. The sight of the man who had clapped frightened me quite badly as I could see immediately from his reddened face and rolling eyes that he was drunk. I noticed that the exits of the chapel were far behind the man and I could not escape if he were to attack me. It did not help that he was dressed completely in black. He had on a neatly pressed, black shirt, fully buttoned, and matching black pants. He had a dreadfully receding hairline, leaving mostly only hair on his sides.

As if noticing the fear in my eyes, he knelt down in the middle of the chapel and tried to explain why he was there, listening to me sing. Meanwhile, I thought to myself that he was either a drunkard man or worse, the very devil himself manifested before me. God help me, I screamed inside of me! If he opened his mouth then and said he was satan himself, I would probably believe him. He just looked so mysterious and had seemingly appeared in the middle of the chapel out of nowhere! Maybe I was too deep in my own praise and worship to notice his entrance, but still, his appearance baffled me.

Thank God he said he was human (ok, he didn't say this first bit, I did in my mind) and was in the bar downstairs when he heard my playing and singing. He said he couldn't help himself but come upstairs. He begged my pardon for intruding my privacy but he beseeched me to come with him downstairs and play on the piano in the bar for them as they all wanted badly to hear me sing. I wondered if this was all a bad joke. I told him I only sang worship songs, nothing secular, and he said that was exactly what they wanted. Of course, I asked God in my mind immediately, and all I got was,'what harm could there be?'. So moments later, I found myself clad still in pink pyjamas track pants and a black-and-white sweater, hesitantly following the dark, mysterious man down the stairs to the bar.

The bar where about 15 well-dressed people gathered was blaring loud music and most of the people were sitting around chatting when I appeared. Thank God the only one drunk was the one who came up to fetch me. Apparently, they had really heard me above all their blaring music and thought it was the most beautiful music they had ever heard. Their story was that after some egging around, they sent the drunkest of them all in search of me.

After their explanations had been done, I reiterated that I could only play praise and worship songs, and that I couldn't play secular music. They actually said that was what they craved. One lady called someone to turn down the bar music. Another lady started saying she remembered hearing such singing when she was in church as a child, but it was so long ago. I started sharing a bit about myself, my Asian background, how I became a Christian and the persecutions I faced from my family. They were all intrigued that a Chinese girl would become a Christian, when they themselves bring born into the religion, had somewhat watered down their faith in God. I could see light flickering in their eyes, as though trying to kindle a long-forgotton faith.

As I sang the night away, the group of them gathered around my piano listening quietly and joining in when they could remember the words. It was such a crazy night for me. Totally unexpected. It was like God had called me to witness to a group of at least 10 people who had needed to remember Him again. I recalled one of them said they were Norwegians from Norway. I had no idea where that was, and still am a bit fuzzy about the landmark and its culture. But the real significance of the country came unto me when I later heard that Pastor Prince felt the calling to go and preach in Norway. I felt absolutely honoured. For perhaps I had been a part of a bigger plan of God to save the people in Norway. That I might have paved the way for one among the group to be revived, or maybe all. That would be so exciting. I would never know I suppose. There were no exchange of names and addresses that night. Whoever they were, God bless them all, especially the drunkard.

There were a few things I learnt that night. One was that you never know when you'd be called. Just get yourself ready by continuing to invest in your talents, whatever they may be. So when He calls, you're ready. Secondly, never think yourself too small to be used. Even drunkards can be called to His kingdom and be put to good use! As for voice quality, whether you sing loudly or not, and angelically or not, is not a factor God considers when He calls you to worship. Some might dispute that but I know I did not have a good voice. And whatever the Norwegians heard of my singing, they really only heard God whispering to them in their hearts. Thirdly, I was reminded that when we sing in praise and worship, every word is significant to God. I was singing in my normal voice and my normal nature, I'm sure my voice was far from being angelic. But God uses whatever we have, and brings it above our physical understanding. I'd never understand how my paino and my singing could have been heard from the bar downstairs whilst it blared its music so loudly. Sound travels upwards right, so how did my voice go downstairs and above all, entice them enough for them to ask me to go down and play for them? Therefore, the final thing I learnt was this: somethings cannot be explained. The ways of God cannot be limited by our human ability to understand. He is far and above, beyond that. We would never scarcely even been aware of how we have been part of His plan. And I love that about God. It makes Him God. It makes me safe. Praise the Lord!

Don and I teamed up and came up with the above greeting card. You might have to click on the card for a magnified view to read the words. He first did the dino drawing for fun. I thought it was so cute and after some chirpy bantering between the two of us, we came up with the prose for the card. Most appropriate for guys needing to make a proposal. Hmmm, who among us still needs a proposal act? Haha, perhaps Alex?

This is my darling little cat, tibby. She's no longer little I suppose, but I always remember her as the weak and forlorn little kitten tied by the neck with a rafia string to the pipe on the second floor of our 4-storey shophouse. She was so pitiful, not even daring to meow, but just standing there shaking in fear next to the pipe. Whoever tied her there had cruelly kept the string short so she could not even sit. My heart was lost to her the moment I saw her teary eyes and shivering legs. Untying her, we took her home with us to our 3-room flat on the 4th floor, cleaned her up and warmed some milk from the fridge for her. We were not even sure what cats ate then, but as she lapped the milk and gained strength steadily, we relaxed our gaze on her and thought further of what to do for her. We would have wanted to bring her to the vet's for a check-up in case of any diseases, but night had fallen fast and we weren't sure where the nearest vet was.

That night, we placed her in a cardboard box lined with a towel gently, wandering if she would understand the box was meant for her. She circled the inside of the box slowly, looked at us through half-slit eyes for approval before lying down finally to rest the night.

Tibby was really a sweet kitten. She was always very loyal to us in her affections and would come towards us all the time. She was also very intelligent and would know instintively that some behaviour was wrong. Whenever we rumble,"Mmm!" to instruct her not to do certain things, she would stop and lower head to apologise for her behaviour. Sometimes, we would spank her with a ladle if she was wilfully jumping on furniture or dirtying the floor with her kitty litter rebelliously. She would slink away most times, but within the minute, if we were to call her name, she would come out crouching on the ground and inch towards us, in remorse yet obedience to the call.

That was what made Tibby so special. Not all cats are like that. We were later to learn from books that Tibby is an American Shorthair, tabby cat. Her species are known for their affection towards human and friendly temperaments. No wonder she was always making her presence around us, unlike other species of cats who would independently strut their own ways. In fact, Tibby functions more like a dog and was more like a watch cat than a lazy, self-centred one. See the photograph of her with Don? She was screening the environment outside the door for suspicious looking people, and Don could not help quickly posing with her for the shot! Ingenious, haha!

Tibby was a wonderful pest killer and still is everywhere she went. She rid our 3-room flat of all cockroaches living or passing by and I lived happily ever after. When we first moved in, there was already a family of four elderly roaches I unmercifully killed under the stove. Their children no doubt had scattered in fear, and I had occasionally had to make my territory clear to them with much screaming and beating about the rooms. But ever since Tibby came to be part of the household, I honestly never saw another cockroach in our flat, at least, not alive. Occasionally, there might be remnants of some carnage, a leg here, a wing there, but never any live whole ones.

You see, we used to also see many cockroaches that would mistakenly crawl into our flat in a state of stupor, no doubt in a daze from over-eating. There was a huge hawker centre downstairs, and it was there that the cockroaches lived like kings and queens, holding feasts everyday on the abundance of crumbs from the hawkers. But they would never live to see another day if ever they creeped into our 3-room flat. If they could only read, I would surely help them out by sticking a sign up that says,"Beware of cat. Trespassers would be eaten alive."

Three years later, we moved to the 24th floor of a new block of flats and that was so cool! There were no cockroaches to start with and the rubbish chutes were structured outside the flats. So we had none climbing up regularly to enter our domain. I did remember there was an occasional one or two that did trespassed. I suspected they came from the rubbish chute and crawled in to our flat through the kitchen window, which was about 1 metre away from the chute, although really, I must take my hat off to these determined creatures. I mean, climbing 24 floors up must be like climbing Mount Everest to them. Where did they get all that energy? Perhaps they camped at each floor daily, and made their way up after 24 days of steel iron determination. Anyway, their end was a rather tragic one. Tibby had them performing for her endlessly like a king would have his court jester. She let them die a slow and painful death as she insisted to play with them for as long as they could last. You must understand she must have been pretty bored since moving to such a cleaned out place compared to our previous flat that provided her endless, exciting pursuits. The 3-room flat was like her amusement park!

Well, I must say she is now returning to her days of thunder as Savannah is a haven for cockroaches. Exactly the same, big, brown, juicy ones from Singapore. Actually, the ones in Singapore are of the species: American Cockroach. So guess what? They're natives here in Savannah, and move in swarms as opposed to those in Singapore, that are usually at most 3 or 4 feeding together. The ones here are really in swarms of at least 10. Their families are big and healthy, with generations to boast. I daren't step out of the house by nightfall as I know what lays outside. It's really a frightful sight.

Ray, my landlord, told me to get used to them as they are very much a part of life in Savannah. I could not close my mouth when he said that to me, tongue-in-cheek. He also continued to tell me facetiously that ever since he had an encounter in Mexico where a Mexican cockroach he sprayed some shaving cream on screeched to its death, he had never found those in America challenging. I felt ill as I imagined the Mexican species with its hideous screams. Somehow, I couldn't see myself surviving a face-to-face encounter with such kind. There were no happy endings for me in my imaginations of such an episode. I could only look to Tibby for comfort. Suddenly, having her with us in Savannah bore another meaning for us, apart from our affections for her.

And yes, Tibby has already busied herself with nightly heavy patrols to the bathroom. The wooden window sill cracks that we sealed up were no longer providing a route for the cockroaches to come in, but the bathroom wooden panels still had many crevices for them to sneak a peek. Still, after I showed Tibby one in the bathroom a week ago, she seemed to have awakened from her bored-to-death, belly-up poses in our room and gone back to her nocturnal hunting spirit. Every night, she goes out for her snack in the bathroom. Whenever I see her come back licking her lips, I actually do want to show approval of her actions by petting her or giving her a good rub on the belly, but the thought of her wolfing down one of those creatures and possibly having splattered some juice around her mouth stops me in action.

Perhaps my best way of showing approval would be really to feed her with more catfood, although she probably wouldn't need those with all her midnight snacks. Or should I say, heavy suppers? Oh Tibby, my dearest Tibby!

Going to Tybee beach on 3rd July was one of our first outings in Savannah. It was a glorious day. I must say one month into living in Savannah without anything to do but watching television and cleaning the room we stay in is just about doing me in. I needed to go out----I'm an extrovert! I need to socialise...gosh! It was so good to go out with others, meet new people and chill out. Besides, I'd been so looking forward to going to Tybee Beach even before coming to Savannah. I'd been really pleased to hear during Don's orientation programme for international students that they were including a trip to Tybee, but then Don had a last minute extra class included in his schedule and we had to miss the trip :(. I was rather disappointed then. Don had said I could still go ahead, but I'm never really interested to go anywhere without him, much as I'd like to go out. So when Tracy, another new-found, American friend we met during Don's orientation, emailed to ask if we wanted to join her on a trip to Tybee and watch the fireworks, of course, I said, "Yes!". So there we were! And did I mention I love the sea and the beach? That's why I stay in Telok Blangah Heights. It's 5 minutes from the South-West coast of Singapore...sigh* I missed our flat yesterday with our 24th floor view of the Telok Blangah hills and Pasir Panjang Harbour, not to mention Mount Faber and Sentosa. Oh well...2 years...hmmm...Sandra, Siew Chin, William and little Joseph can enjoy it all for us...

These are our new-found friends. Kanako Muraguchi to my far left is a lovely, young Japanese girl who have been in US for quite a few years now. She did her first degree in the Virginia Islands before coming to SCAD for her masters majoring in Fibres (I never knew there were such courses! And yes, she deals with all kinds of textiles, including wallpaper textures and designs, not just clothings.) So her English is pretty good.

Park Hye Jin in the middle of the photo is doing her masters too (I can't remember what she's majoring in, I think something to do with film productions.). She has apparently made 15 films in Korea, but she says humbly that none had been blockbusters. Still, FIFTEEN films is enough credit to her name, I think! We got to know her as a friendly and outgoing girl. She is also the one to break the ice when we first met during the orientation for international students. We answered all her questions about us, and were only too pleased that there were people interested to get to know us.

They joined us on our night out on the river front to watch the fireworks go off on 4th July, Independence Day. Apparently, it's tradition to let off fireworks on America's national day, and every state holds its own fireworks celebration, paid for by its city council. In Savannah, fireworks would be released on 3rd July on Tybee Beach, and 4th July on River Street.

Incidentally, we were on Tybee Beach on 3rd July watching the first lot of fireworks. We almost missed both actually. The Lord divinely brought about a trivial conversation in church on 2nd July with a local Savannahhian, Janey, living on Tybee Beach. She told us it was always fireworks on Tybee Beach on 3rd July, followed by fireworks on River St on 4th July. We told her we had made arrangements with an American friend, Tracy, who was going to bring us to Tybee Beach on 4th July to watch the fireworks. In fact, we had turned down Ray's initial invitation because we thought we had already made arrangements to go Tybee Beach on 4th July. Janey told us we had definitely got the dates wrong. So we quickly called Tracy, changed the dates, and we ended up enjoying ourselves tremendously for the 2 days in a row! Praise the Lord!

This is our new home for the next 2 years. It's a really huge house, also known as John H. Estill House. There are 5 bedrooms upstairs and 2 bathrooms to be shared among 5 tenants. The ground floor is separated into 2 wings. In the east wing is where Ray, our landlord resides. He has a big kitchen with a connecting laundry room, a dining area that somewhat opens into his office, a good-size guestroom, a large living area and of course, his own bedroom with mega sized entertainment unit (it must be at least 72" across the screen..., it's the largest I'd ever seen). He even has a mini-library housing all his classic collections in the landing outside his bedroom. Perhaps most impressive of all is the variety of China that lines his mantelpiece and all his shelves. He is no doubt an avid collector of Porcelain items and China from all over the world, making his home decor very Victorian.

The West wing is where Don and I make our little nest. The dark brown door on the right of the photo leads to our room from the foyer. Through the door, a landing separates our room from Chris's room, our ground floor house-mate. Then there is the master bathroom. Absolutely luxurious. A huge, enclosed shower area, enough to house 4 people showering all at the same time! This is a great delight for me since I love to shower with Don. Beside the shower room, a good-sized, jacuzzi tub sits, perfect for a good soak after a hot summer's day. Might be a teeny bit small for 2, but not much to complain since I love to have a good squeeze with Don!

How we got to stay in Estill House is a little miracle in itself. Before coming to Savannah, I had been calculating and re-calculating, even considered transferring money from one account to another (which I don't know why since all the money is ours and putting them altogether does not add a penny to our name! Arrgh! This is how the human mind plays tricks...that perhaps we might have enough to get through, that perhaps we sell this, do that and so on.) To no avail. Finally, I worked out that we would have enough to eat quite comfortably if only our rental budget could be lowered to about USD400 per month.

Unfortuantely, having searched through the internet for a possible place to rent, I knew that USD400 per month was really pushing our luck (Thank God we don't need luck as Christians!). One of the rental agents even replied in his email to me that with that kind of budget, it would be near impossible to find any decent living quarters. I prayed to God and asked Him what kind of journey He had in mind for us. I mean, surely, if a blessing like a scholarship could come our way, His blessings do not come with any sorrow. I relented in my questioning when I sensed His peace. All is well, He always reassures.

Then when we got to Savannah, within the 3rd day of our arrival, I was in correspondence with Ray and we went to view the unit. We were going to look at a carriage house behind Estill House, not knowing that he had rooms to rent too. The carriage house was rather old, and being USD550 per month excluding utilities, I felt it was too steep a price. I told Ray we were going to view another unit later that day, and since his was the first we were viewing, it was too soon for us to make a decision. He understood, but not before showing us all his other available rooms in Estill House and Kavanagh House (another house a block away...he's got so many houses, gosh!). The rooms were all actually within our budget between $350 and $375. There were additional charges for laundry and internet access at $8 each, but these still meant we would be within our budget. There were melodious bells chiming in my spirit...God, is this it?

I liked Ray immediately upon conversing with him. He is an elderly gentleman who sounded responsible, intelligent and attentive to others' needs. We were to later find out that he's already 66 years old and still running businesses in the West Coast of America, apart from investing in real estate down South in Savannah. This explains his keenness for listening to others, showing of respect to allow space for others to consider options and a certain magnanimous demeanor in his character. Not foolish generosity or charity, but wise management of funds. I wish I could learn from him one day how he manages his businesses.

After seeing the second unit that day, we unanimously decided we would take the room in Estill House, despite its size. The second unit smelt like a dog den, the toilet looked ready to crumble any minute and the floor was littered with bits of food. The man who received us at the door introduced himself as the landlord's friend and we were immediately thrown off his appearance. He had white paint down his jeans, had funny-looking teeth and looked somewhat gangly. I was sure if the landlord had such a friend, he couldn't look far off, and I didn't think I could stomach it looking at people like that everyday. So the second unit was out!

Upon reaching back to the Hep Yo Sef Inn, I immediately sent Ray an email to say we would take the $350 room. He told us we were just in time, as another lad had been around and he had told him he could not commit anything until he heard from us since we viewed the place first. Integrity, I like it!

Then things took an unexpected turn the next day when he emailed to say he would have to charge us $50 more as there were 2 of us. That meant $416. My spirit stayed silent for a while. That's $16 above our budget. Doesn't sound like God.

The first thing I remembered then was Justine's face. In my spirit, I saw him in caregroup. The Holy Spirit took me back to the time Justine said in his sharing, "You don't get because you don't ask." I put to task immediately to write an email to Ray, negotiating for the rental to be charged an extra $34 instead of $50, so that our monthly total rent would come to $400. I just knew in my spirit that Ray would agree. And he did. I knew God was as good as his word. He couldn't have left us with an extra $16 to pay.

In my spirit, I couldn't help but praise the Lord for He is faithful! And with that, I just knew that our 2 years in Savannah would be taken care of, with no lack or want. Incidentally, we went out to celebrate at the local food court after securing our shelter for the next 2 years. Finally, something other than bread and olive oil margarine! Praise God!