I AM READY, I THINK, WAIT, I'M NOT SURE, WELL.

Previous post: Am I Ready to Walk this Journey of Faith?

I just want to share how God guides my steps in the process of coming back had left me in awe. I was and am supposed to be fearless and faithful to have Him but why sometimes I still doubt. Yet, what's amazing is He never leaves us even when we doubt Him. Imagine this kinda conversation that comes up between us human:

A: Hey, don't worry I will solve it for you.

B: Really? How could you do that? It's impossible.

A: Yeah I can do that, just leave it to me.

B: But I don't think you can. Tell me how, can I really trust you?

A: I said I'm going to take care of this, just lay back.

B: But it's hard. Impossible. You sure? Oh, I don't think you can do this.

A: ARGGGGH WHATEVER DO IT YOURSELF!

Haha, we are so blessed that God is NOT like that, or screw us.

This shall be a reminder for myself, too. If one day I want to give up, I should not. If one day I doubt again, which I know I will.

So, after decided to go to Bible College, the next step was to prepare everything. I went to PBC and met the Dean of Study who gave me the form to fill in. I asked if I could use my TOEFL test result, and she thought I could. I was relieved because then I didn't need to take IELTS test which was expensive, and difficult. My TOEFL result was equal to IELTS 7.5 but I knew if I took the IELTS test itself I might not get high score since it's so different from TOEFL, much more complex. 

So time passed by and four weeks before leaving Australia she told me that I couldn't use my TOEFL test, so I should quickly sign up for IELTS test. The problem was, usually they close the registration two weeks before the date if their seats are full already. I needed to take the test as soon as possible because the result would come out two weeks after. After googling here and there, all institutions had closed their registrations, but I found IDP in City still have seats for June 7, 2014. I thought, ah this one was good, it's the quickest available. It costed me 330 AUD, for Dogai sake.

Then I had two weeks to prepare for my test. I borrowed IELTS books from my friend. Trying to study but so many distractions, which mostly happened because of my irresponsible laziness and procrastination habit. I thought I still had tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, until the night before my speaking test on Tuesday, I practiced with my cousin and totally messed up. Haha. I was so nervous on that day Speaking test was held. They recorded us, so they could listen again and assessed really accurately. 

There were three parts in Speaking test, and the second part required us to speak non stop for 2 minutes about one topic. My topic was: "Tell the story about family celebration, eg. wedding."

We had one minute to make plan, so I already planned to talk about my grandmother's funeral. Then two seconds before I started talking, I just thought again, "Is funeral a celebration? DANG! Maybe it's not! OH NO!!!" Then I changed my plan in one second and start talking about my cousin's wedding. Then after I stopped, the examiner said, "You still have time." I was completely blank, I didn't know what to say anymore. Then there's like 10 seconds pause, before I continued a bit and time's up. Huhu, I knew I messed up. Not forget to mention, I talked too casually, just like talking to people at church. "Yeah, you know, it was like, yeah, yeah, bla bla bla.." Haha. After finished, I just realized and thought, "Gee, what was I doing?"

The requirement for Master Degree is band 7 with one 6.5, so I was so worried. I planned to study well for listening, reading, and writing test which would be done on Saturday. But since I had to make the presentation for my church's mission trip, with a lot of revisions here and there, I couldn't study well, haha. I blamed my procrastination habit for this. 

What's worse? My friend was surprised when he knew I took the test at IDP. He said it's like the most difficult institution. Why among all institutions in Perth I had to choose that? We had one in North that's really easy, or at least other institutions, but why IDP? I said because I had no choice, all full booked, only IDP available haha. It made me worried more. Moreover the reading part, it;s so academic! With all those chemicals and science thing.

When I was doing the test, I was pretty sure with my listening and thank God there's no difficult passage for reading; it's just about historical and cultural thingy. But for writing I was not confident because I thought I presented the wrong idea. I could just pray and surrendered everything to God. Apparently, on June 20 which was 3 days before going home, I checked the result online. 

Unexpectedly and miraculously, I got overall band of 7.5, with 8 for Listening, 7.5 for Reading, 6.5 for Writing, and 7.5 for Speaking! IT WAS WEIRD HAHAHA. But I was soooooo happy!!! It was my last day working, too, and I was hanging out with my best friend celebrating the end of my one year journey, plus after I got home my cousin, his friend, and my uncle were drinking wine so we celebrated it with wine, too. Haha.

Then, I needed to meet the money requirement to apply for the visa. That's why I shared on previous post God is in My Tomorrow, that living with my cousin (Koko) had led to another testimony. How God had introduced me to him! First, I lived in his house and saved up my money for rent and food. Second, Koko helped me by providing financial support letter for my visa requirement. For Master Degree, I had to have 55.000 AUD, which of course I didn't have. So, he gave me his bank statement. I was so grateful that he wanted to help me, remembering that we just knew each other for four months.

Do you remember that I said I wanted to bring my mom here? Because I didn't want her to live alone there. I know money can't make my mom happy. There's no point I send a lot of money to her, because she will not use it anyway. She just wants to be with me, and so do I. So I expected to apply for tourist visa for my mom, maybe they would give three months for the first time. Or maybe I should just come back as a student first, then invited her over. I was so confused, because if I came first, then how could my mom come here alone? I should picked her up again, which would cost a lot of money, right?

Then all of a sudden, my another cousin (jie-jie) who lives in Sydney contacted me on Facebook. We hadn't contacted each other for long time because she deactivated her Facebook. So, she messaged me and asked what would I do after this. I said I wanted to study, and she said that's good, have you sent money to your mom, don't forget your mom, etc. So I said, I wouldn't forget my mom, I wanted to bring her here with me. Jie-jie said, "Oh, you should try to write a letter to immigration, stating that your mom is a single parent and you are the only child, who knows they give you one year visa instead of three months." Then she explained a lot and I asked her, "Jie-jie, how do you know everything about visa?" She said, "Because now I am working as migration and education agent." WOW! ISN'T GOD AWESOME? HE SENT ME A FREE AGENT TO HELP ME!

So I asked Koko again, could I change the letter a bit, stating that he would financially support my mom also. We discussed about this and he signed the new letter. Actually when typing this I am so joyful, remembering how God has provided these people to help me. I was so worried if my visa got rejected. Or my mom's visa. But my godmom tried to convince me, "If this is God's will, then He will make it happen. If not, then God has a better plan for you." So yeah, I went back to Indonesia, and tried to look for an agent to help me with this student visa application. But I ended up applying by myself, which was pretty simple, just like when I applied for my work and holiday visa.

Thank God I applied on June 30 after getting my Confirmation of Enrollment. The officer told me if I applied the next day, July 1, the price would increase significantly. Hahaha. God's timing.

Then I joined my church's mission trip in Kediri for a week, and on 9th day after my application, my mom's tourist visa was granted, and guess what?

She got THREE YEARS tourist visa. She still has to leave the country every three months, tho. But it's even better than I imagined. Three years! So I don't need to re-apply again every three months or one year, which will save me a lot of money! Praise God!

On 11th day, it's my turn to have my visa granted. We praise God for His kindness, and for giving me chance to bring my mom to Australia. It means a lot to her.

So, we were ready to go. We booked our tickets. We packed everything we needed to bring. Unfortunately we couldn't bring Dogai. #tearful

Oh, were we really ready to go? Hmm, yes? Were we ready to walk in faith? No. Suddenly I trembled again, a week before departure.

I talked to my godmom again on BBM, that my money is only enough for one year tuition fee. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how illogical it is to study Master for three years.

My godmom said, "Oh, again?" Haha. So here's the long advice:

"If God knows you can't make it, He will not open your way to this point. Even your cousin (another one in my Bachelor Degree's testimony) said this is a miracle. Miracle means it's not your own strength, but it's God's hand working. You think it's not enough because you can only work 20 hours per week, but God's blessings do not depend on your wages only. If you keep saying negative things, you will be weak. Nothing will be in vain if you walk with God. Every step in our lives is in God's plan if we pray and lean on God. If you doubt, it means you think God doesn't know what He is doing. If only you know who God is. God bless you in many ways. Maybe you feel that your faith is so shallow, but it's okay as long as you want to lean on God. By walking with God you will see His providence and accompaniment, and your faith will grow. Don't be shy that your faith is not strong, everyone starts from zero. That's why I said this is a privilege, because you can have the chance to have a growing faith. You just need to be grateful for what you are facing. You said before that it's just like a dream, you could pass the IELTS test although you didn't prepare well, you got your visa granted because someone wanted to help you, you can even bring your mom with you. You are afraid of the uncertainty of your future, but God is more than our parents. Parents will never play on their children's future. Moreover God, He will never do that. You said you are teary now? I am drenched already. Because I can see how God loves you abundantly, while you are still lazy to pray, but He still loves you this much. Now you have to learn to walk by faith not by sight. It all starts with the first step of faith, which is not easy and seems impossible. But if you love God and trust Him, He will make miracles."

Long, hey? Haha. I was so teary because I was sad and ashamed. I have walked with Him during these five years and He has shown how faithful He is, is that not enough? I said sorry to my godmom for doing this AGAIN (I had done this several times before), and she said, "Don't worry, believe me you will come to me again like this in a very short time. This is part of the process, as long as you keep going, don't be afraid to step forward."

So yeah, after the enlightenment and encouragement I felt ready then. 

Uh-oh, but three days before departure, I got an email from my campus saying that there's no unit available for me. So where am I and mommy going to live?

to be continued...
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