we have our own home now!!! =)))

praise the Lord! we finally got our love nest!!! ^_^ after searching for more than 1.5 years!!! let me mark our hunt down...

feb07 - we balloted for jalan membina and got a queue number that was ridiculously far away
may07 - tried balloting again for mature estates and ended up having to settle for pasir ris if we wanted to purchase a flat when it was our turn. we gave up that chance as pasir ris was too far from our community in hougang, spottiswoode and our workplace
end07 - went hunting for resale flats as we gave up on hdb balloting system. searched for almost 2 months then gave up as the flats we were looking for just couldnt give us that sense of home...

last month we started again... and after a month, we finally found our home sweet home!!! =))) our criteria:
1) 6 floor and above
anything below 6 i felt would be too close to the rubbish chute at the bottom and a particular disgusting pest would be able to come up to our home too easily
--> the Lord blessed us with a 15th floor unit
2) quiet environment
i just cant stand screaming kids
--> our neighbours have no children
3) near corner unit
we valued our privacy and since we were looking for 3 room flat, it was very tough as majority of 3 room flats were along the corridor
--> our place is beside the corner unit and has only 4 units on 1 floor
4) clean environment
i like my surroundings to be clean and it is very tough for hdb area, especially if it is mainly 3 roomers, due to the people that live in the vicinity
--> our neighbours have NOTHING outside their homes. this is amazing as all the flats we have viewed (more than 40 of them) have neighbours with huge altars or many plants or a few bicycles outside their flats
5) convenient location
as we might not purchase a car, we needed a place that has alot of buses or is near a train station
--> our place is behind tao nan primary, across the road from marine parade library, thus is near parkway and has alot of buses running past our place

there are just so many other blessings that God has given us - the most obvious being that this is a lifestyle home, as it is just a 5min underpass walk to east coast. this find has just been so amazing and we are just so excited about our new home =)))

call us the next time you are at east coast or parkway and come visit!!! ^_^ estimated month to shift in might be in apr09 =)))

Exodus 16

2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

Israel was back again doing what Israel did well – moaning and groaning looking only at the natural, and completely forgetting, once again, the gracious and miraculous provision that God had repeatedly made for them. They were even starting to exaggerate as to how good it really was back in Egypt! Moral of the story? Always remember God’s goodness and be confident of His future grace.

This is what i so need to internalize, or rather keep being reminded. At times, i end up thinking that i wish i was not in this or that situation, that this decision i made seems to make life worse for me, on so on and so forth... but yet i forget that these are the choices i made by seeking God and having peace from Him and knowing back then that it was what He was pleased with me to go forward with. So why think that this is not the best for me in this season of my life? God is leading me towards something better - He led the Israelites out of Egypt, out of slavery and yet they still thought that being slaves was much better as they had food to eat. But they conveniently chose to forget the much worse situation that they were in and the much better life they were to be leading in the promised land!

Have faith, all of us! We are going towards where He has called us. Do not doubt Him but have complete faith that He will finish the good work that He started in us as long as we persevere and do not throw in the towel and call it quits.

our wedding montage ^_^ (done by josh ho)