specific reason

During Sunday’s sermon, the preacher told the congregation (of mostly non-Australians) that God brought each of them to Brisbane in 2008 for a specific reason and that they were not there by chance.

This was something which my female owner had always believed in, that God brought her to Brisbane (for reasons still unknown). What my female owner had always struggled with was that she could have been in Brisbane a few years earlier, if not for her past relationship. Hence, she had always felt that she missed out on a few years of her life due to her stubbornness.

Anyway, the journey to Brisbane was such a remarkable test of faith and patience, that I just have to pen it down for her.

It started when my female owner just graduated from Honours many years ago. Being impulsive and upon the encouragement of her then telepathic colleague in her first job, she made a last minute application to a few Australian universities located in Perth without doing much research. It was not surprising that she was not accepted.

Thinking that she would have a greater edge in being accepted if she had relevant work experience, my female owner laid aside her postgrad dreams for a few years, while she clocked time working in a psych-related field.

She ended up working in her second job for about three years. Truth be told, she joined the organisation partly so that she could get a post-grad sponsorship. However, at the point of entry in 2004, she was number 8 in line in her department to be sponsored. By 2007, she was number 2 in line, even though no one had been sponsored during her stint there. Rather, some decided not to further their studies, some resigned and others further their studies using other means.

Come June 2007, my female owner broke up with my male owner, partly because they could not see eye-to-eye regarding her long-standing desire to further her studies. Breaking up made it easier for my female owner to decide that 2008 was the year for her to go. Also, her mother had been persuading her to pursue her postgrad studies, saying that if she was not sponsored by her organisation, she would fund my female owner.

My female owner decided to sound out her bosses. They were largely supportive, except that because she was not next in line, they had to put up a case for her and for the department to send two staff to pursue postgrad studies at the same time in 2008. Her bosses wanted her to apply for a one year Master’s programme at Institute of Psychiatry in the UK. In all comparison, that would have been a more prestigious option.

My female owner was hesitant because she knew that the UK programme would not allow her to practice as a clinical psychologist as it did not have the practical component. Nonetheless, she went ahead with the application of sponsorship and at the end of the route, obtained the necessary support of the boss of the HR department.

At the same time, my female owner decided to apply to Australian universities, in particular, for her current university. This was the institution which she had identified as her dream school. Being a procrastinator (and daunted by the amount of paperwork she anticipated doing), she decided to start the application process only on 18 August 2007, after she attended the Australian Education Fair.

She was in for a rude shock. She found out that she had to apply first to the Australian Psychological Society (APS) to get them to verify that her degree was equivalent to an Australian’s degree. That would take about 8 weeks to process, excluding buffer time needed to get her documents in order (e.g. certify her transcripts) and delivery time. Her application deadline for the programme was 30 Sept 2007. Effectively, before she could start doing anything, she had already crashed the deadline head-on. Without the APS endorsement, her application would be incomplete and rejected. In fact, the counselor at the Fair told her point-blank, “you are too late, you should have started earlier”. Ouch!

Next, she had to get three referees to support her application. Asking for help in such circumstances was particularly difficult for my female owner. Firstly, she had to cold-email her honour’s supervisor whom she had not spoken to for many years (and who had previously been her referee in her first attempt) and cross her fingers that he would send off the documents in time (he was by then, head of the department of psychology). Amazingly, her colleague knew his secretary and having that connection of course made it easier for my female owner to express her needs.

Then she had to approach her boss whom might have a conflict of interest. He knew that if she got into the Australian university, she might not stay in the job. Hence, my female owner was apprehensive at whether he would be willing to write a favourable report. The final referee was quite easily settled.

Time was a major concern then. Besides working, my female owner had to get her documents certified, write bombastic essays and CVs to highlight herself and sort out her referees. She managed to do all those without taking too much leave, mainly because she was sent for a Photoshop training class which was located very near the local university where she had to keep running to. Such divine timing.

There was nothing my female owner could do regarding the APS application but to email them, pleading for her case to be expedited. They were sympathetic but their hands were tied, given that it was a peak season. However, they offered to send the outcome of her application directly to the school. That would save about 6 days in delivery time. Speaking of delivery, my female owner’s Second Onli Fren worked in a courier company. Hence, she was able to send her documents over within one working day at a fraction of the original cost. Again, a divine provision!

My female owner knew that God was in control of the situation when her friend (who was already a student at the school) told her that the programme director was away until a week after the official deadline. The administrator who was processing all the applications assured her that as long as the completed set of documents reached the director’s desk before then, it would be valid. The administrator would also look out for my female owner’s application. Ah, the APS approval letter reached the school at the last possible day.

And so, despite the tight deadlines and negative prophecy by the counselor, my female owner was shortlisted for a video-conferencing interview. She naively thought that she could set up one using MSN or Skype. Three days before the interview, she was told that she had to arrange for an actual video-conferencing facility. The interview was scheduled on a local public holiday and firstly, my female owner had no idea where to rent such facilities and secondly, even if she knew, would any office be open on a public holiday at 8am?

Using the power of MSN and yahoo, my female owner managed to locate a company who could help her with her request, even though it was on a public holiday and beyond normal working hours. She found grace in the sight of the liaison personnel who offered to wait for her after work so that she could make a trip down to the premises to orient herself to the camera and to get some tips from him. Such amazing outcomes! Only by God’s grace!

Okay, so she was all set to go for the interview, after surviving all the hiccups along the way. Obviously she got a place, and quite immediately in fact. They informed her the very next day, thus cutting off much of the suspense.

Now it was back to the question of whether to pursue the sponsorship or to resign. It is a $100 000 question (at least). For many reasons, my female owner chose to resign. It was a difficult choice to make but what made it so much easier was that her mother did not exert any pressure on her to get sponsored. Her mother was fully willing to fund her studies. No questions asked.

Many of my female owner’s friends would know that she got progressively depressed as the time drew near for her to leave Singapore. The unknown and uncontrollability of the future was nerve-wrecking for my female owner.

Out of the blue, my female owner got connected to someone working in Brisbane (through her auntie’s friend) and this person, without knowing her at all, was willing to house my female owner and her mother during their first 2 weeks in Brisbane. She even insisted on picking them up at the airport. Again, strangely, the lady happened to be in Singapore sometime in Jan 2008 and this allowed my female owner and her mother to make face-to-face contact with her before they leave for Brisbane.

While preparing to leave for Brisbane, God brought a few more people into my female owner’s life to help her ease into the unknown. One was her auntie’s client who was a current student in the university. The other was my female owner’s friend (mentioned above) who gave her a prepaid SIM card to use in Brisbane. Those were huge blessings, both emotionally and practically.

That’s not all.

On her first day in Brisbane, my female owner attended a talk on looking for accommodations. One of the students told her that he had been trying to look for a house for a while, without much success. According to him, people are starting to interview potential housemates because there were more demand (of students looking for rooms) than supply of rooms. That set my female owner off on her catastrophic train of thoughts. Many would have heard of the amazing way she found her current housing.

This sequence of events cannot be merely coincidences but an elegant plan crafted by God to bring my female owner to Brisbane in 2008, for a specific purpose.