SGS

The conversation started as we celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary at Orita’s.

“What do you think about relocation?” asked Steph.

“I thought I will stay in my current job for at least another 4 years…” replied Sam.

One month later, following much prayer and advice from family and our close mentors, one thing was clear: It’s time to relocate… now is our chance before the kids come.

Steph’s side of the story:

The thought came into my mind about July 2010. I was sensing that the events that were happening at that time was building up to something. At that time, we were married for ~7 months and came back from our honeymoon in Osaka / Hokkaido. I could feel that something was shifting, it was leading to something. Something that we were prepared to do, but I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly it is at that time.

Around December 2010, I was chatting with my colleague and he mentioned one of his mates went to Cathay Pacific to work. At that moment, something sparked in my mind. Cathay Pacific? How awesome will it be if I can work for them. I’ve been travelling with Cathay since young and my Dad used to take heaps of airplane photos when the HK airport was still in Kowloon City. Cathay was always my preferred airline – maybe it’s the “Hong Kong-ness” in me.

I didn’t dwell on that thought too much until our 1st year wedding anniversary dinner. The question came out of my mouth – “What do you think about relocation?” That’s how the journey started and now we have decided to relocate to Hong Kong for couple of years.

For me, the relocation decision wasn’t the hardest. It was the first time that I truly experienced… making a decision with my husband. As this thought did come to my mind about 6 months ago, I guess I was more mentally prepared than Sam. Right from the start of the conversation, I know whatever I say or imply will have a big effect on Sam’s decision. Therefore, I tried to spend more time in prayer rather than “discussing” about this with Sam. I know how “influential” I can be with Sam :P, yet forcing him to “decide” to relocate to Hong Kong is the last thing that I wanted. I would like Sam to come to a decision himself, and I really really wanted to honour my wedding vows – “I will submit to you as God has delegated His authority to you. I will have my poms poms ready to be your greatest cheerleader and encourage you to chase your God given dreams, purposes and plans and most importantly, I will follow you.” I knew when I wrote the vows – “I will follow you” is one of the hardest promise to honour. (Asking an eldest child to follow is not exactly intuitive!) It was a tough time to bite my tongue and not sway Sam into a decision. I was so glad that I had my wifey group to support me along the way. The amount of encouragement and wisdom that my girlfriends have is amazing!

Sam will talk about how he reached the decision in the end:)

To cut a long story short, once we’ve made the decision, God has been orchestrating things in a supernatural way. I couldn’t thank God enough for what He has done and is going to do. These things just don’t happen without divine intervention. I can’t go much into details in this public blog, but yes! I will be working in Cathay Pacific, but employed by an Australia business consulting firm. I wasn’t expecting to find a job in just a few weeks after we’ve chatted about it, and now I’ve signed the contract and flying off on Good Friday! And somehow Sam’s company was bought over last week, and guess what, the parent company has an office in Hong Kong and is keen to have people to “cross-pollinate”! My heart is really full of gratitude and thanks, and I really couldn’t say anything else but to thank God. I know BIG stuff are waiting for us in Hong Kong, not only career-wise; but more so in other areas of life – I wonder who will be in our mentor radar? Can we still live by our convictions even when the environment has changed?

Sam’s side of the story:

…so my mind went abuzz when Steph popped that question.  The first clear thing that came up, however, was my career.  The second was the car: I only just started a novated lease! Slowly, my mind raced to various checkpoints within the past year… on numerous occasions I reminded myself: there will be a time when my passion and career collided, but I’m not there yet. The plan was regardless of what occupation I would end up in the long run, I would like to have  a solid go at engineering (perhaps 10 years) and then project management (perhaps another 10), but at certain moments, I found myself actually loving what I did:

• when I taught English to some high-school students over a 2-week period in 2006 and again in 2007,
• when I was a leader in Sunday school looking after the (mischievous) Grade 5 boys in 2009

Education was something that had been in the back of my mind for a while – and with Steph bringing up relocation, I thought perhaps this could accelerate things.  After all, if we plan to have our first child in 2-3 years, it is now the perfect time to relocate!  As usual, we prayed and we turned to the mentors who care about us…. interestingly enough two of them mentioned:

test the waters

…the advice was not to totally take the plunge, but rather to take small steps.  As Steph went searching for Hk jobs, I enrolled myself into TEFL to give me a licence to teach in Hong Kong… the relocation is the opportunity to ‘test the waters of a different career path’, vis education.  On the flip-side Jacobs Engineering recently acquired the Process and Construction arm of Aker Solutions, and there’s a possibility I could get an internal transfer to the Jacobs Hong Kong office and continue engineering.

I guess the adventure is in finding out which door (or doors) will open…