God's Providence Led Me to StAY

by Shirley

Five years ago I left my home in Malaysia for a new adventure in Melbourne. As I was saying my goodbyes to friends and Lifeline (SFX Youth Group in Malaysia), some of the leaders mentioned that one of the previous leaders was now in Melbourne and I should get in touch with him to get connected to a group here. They forgot to give me his number and I forgot all about asking amidst my hectic packing schedule. 

I came to Melbourne, totally forgot about this ex-Lifeline leader and started searching the internet for Catholic groups. I didn't find many, so I tried attending a few churches to see if there was a suitable group for me. Needless to say I didn't find any as they were either too young (school-going age), or too old (retirement age). 

Sometime in October 2009, about a month after I started work in Optus, this guy Kenny started in my department too. We became friends and we had our little community of Malaysians in the office. When Chinese New Year came around in February 2010, Kenny and his wife Jo invited us Malaysians to their home for reunion dinner. Reunion dinner is celebrated on the eve of Chinese New Year as a family gathering and is one of the highlights of the CNY celebrations. Most of us were living away from home and we didn't have any family here to celebrate reunion dinner with. 

So there we were hanging out in Kenny and Jo's home on the eve of CNY. I was looking at their bookshelves and I noticed a lot of Catholic books. All this while I didn't know Kenny and Jo are Catholic and we never talked about religion at work. I started asking them about their faith and was pleasantly surprised to find out that we shared the same faith and that there was this youth group called StAY that Kenny and a few others were leading, which they invited me to. 

As Kenny was driving me home that night, we talked more about our faith and I found out that he used to attend the same church Lifeline was based at. Suddenly a thought occurred to me... Was this the guy that the Lifeline leaders wanted to introduce me to but never gave me his contact details? I started asking if he knew this person or that and it really was him!! They never connected us but God somehow did in the end! What were the odds of that? 

And so that was how God led me to StAY... 

There is no coincidence in life, only God's providence.. :)