New Year, New Starts

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope you had a blessed festive season and that you have had a wonderful start to the new year.

Mine has been good thanks.

New Years Eve was spent very quietly with Christal and the children and New Years Day with Christie. Both very special and a wonderful way to begin.

Then reality check. On the 2nd January I finally officially moved into my new flat. This involved lugging two suitcases on the MTR (Hong Kong’s underground) from Tung Chung to Tin Hau. This is about an hour each way and I had to do it twice. The first time was fine. The second time included me loosing my balance and like a scene from Harry Hills bloopers falling backwards into the arms of two nice Hong Kong men. Embarrassed much, definitely and where a confident cute woman would be able to turn it into an opportunity to flirt all this young lady could do was go red and apologise keeping her eyes down for the rest of the trip.

This was strenuous work but I had a mountain to climb at the end. As the apartment is on the fifth floor of a walk up building. BMF is a great way to keep fit and as many know when I finish that I look like an overly ripe tomato 🍅 and that’s after an hours workout. After dragging the suitcases up the stairs (as there is no lift) I looked more like a lobster meets tomato red.

Finally, in and life begins again.

The first week involved buying new curtains so that any peepers (and apparently it’s common in Hong Kong) looking won’t get the horror of me changing. The other curtains, although black, were a little transparent. This involved my first ever trip to IKEA and although it is a great place to get stuff I don’t know if it’s really my cup of tea.

The highlight of my first Sunday in January was going and watching my very talented cousin, Gabby Parker, performing in Cats as Victoria the white cat. It was a brilliant performance and one that I enjoyed. It was also great to meet up with my cousin Julie, Gabby and Dougal on the Monday evening. So nice to just catch up. Let’s not leave it as long as before.

My roommate is back from her Christmas in Germany with her family and it’s so nice to have another person in the flat. She’s lovely and hopefully we will get on. We are so far.

This Saturday she had persuaded me to go to my second live concert in Hong Kong. Again to a group that I had never heard of before, Imagine Dragons 🐉. Although totally different to what I normally listen to it was a brilliant show. My new resolutions is just to say yes to new experiences. After that we went to an area called Wan Chai which is where the night life of Hong Kong can be both wholesome and on the rather risky side ( I did the wholesome side) it was interesting.

It was amazing Imagine Dragons 🐉 and believe it or not I came away with some very theological thoughts. One of the songs about how you cannot have a tomorrow without a yesterday. Although this may seem like we are missing today,what I came out of it thinking is that for so many years or days we dwell on the yesterday’s. The what ifs of life, the if only I had or hadn’t and this sometimes, mostly just brings us down. God doesn’t want this for us. He wants us to have a full life. We must be grateful for the past – and yes I know it’s hard (believe me). I’ve often thought what would it have been like if I didn’t leave Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 and I still miss it every day. For me that’s home and always will be but to dwell on that strips the joy of today. I have to trust that I’m here in Hong Kong for a reason even if I don’t know the reason yet. Being secure in the past, enjoying or appreciating today makes me trust that the future will be fine no matter what. I have God’s promise to be there for me.

Whatever or wherever you are may 2018 be a year of blessings, growth, and a deeper understanding and appreciation for where you are. Know that whatever you’re making a difference to even just one person and that like a butterfly 🦋 in that saying it will ripple out to others.

God bless you and keep you x