William Chong

 

“Unless the LORD builds the house, whose who build it labour in vain.” King Solomon (Psalm 127:1)

Today, Cheryl and I signed our very first rental agreement.

With our wedding less than 3 months away, we decided it would probably be easier to make living arrangements at a different time to the madness of wedding preparations. And since Kim’s going back to Malaysia for a holiday in December, it presents a good opportunity to start moving things into our new home.

Here’s a brief Q&A session (yes, this is a new writing style called self-interviewing), for those who are curious:

Q: Ooo a house! Where?
A: We went for a 2-bedroom unit that’s pretty close to amenities, bus stop, and slightly easier access to the motorway. It’s nice and homely, gets pretty good sun, and has a single garage below us. It’s close to Howick and to family and friends we love and care about. Rent was at a good price for a location in Howick.

Q: Did you look long and hard for a place?
A: God’s been a great provider. We started seriously looking about 2 weeks before, but have been checking the market out in the Eastern suburbs for about a year now. We were able to find one we both liked in a matter of days (chalk that up to a blessed provision). After praying and asking around for advice (e.g. concerns and issues), we were told by the landlord: “It’s yours if you want it.”

Q: Aren’t you getting married in February? Or are you moving in together first?
A: I’d plan to move in first on my own, and Cheryl would move in once we’re married.

Q: I wanna rent too. What’s the market like out in these here parts?
A: Rental prices seem to have actually fallen slightly over the past year, but may pick up now with the economy straggling upwards again. We called and enquired about 10 different properties, Streetviewed about 15, and visited a couple that looked like potentials on paper. Not all were as beautiful as their Trademe photos…

Q: Why rent? Isn’t it a great opportunity to buy?
A: Yup, if you have a big deposit in your bank account ready to go (we don’t), and you know you’re putting your roots down in a particular place for 20 years (we don’t know). For now we’re content to rent and see where it goes from there.

Q: Why not just stay with your parents and save up your rent money?
A: As much as we love our parents and where we live, I think God knew what he was talking about when He said: “A man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife” (Gen 2:24). Some people we talked to shared their experience of starting out fresh and gaining a new understanding and insight (e.g. how to make your groceries go further when you’ve run out of money that week). Others told stories of conflicts arising from living with your parents as a married couple and running into difficulties asserting leadership of one’s home – who is the head of the house when you have a young husband and his father or father-in-law there? These are hard questions to resolve, particularly in my case when I’m a Christian and my dad is not.

Q: Can I stay at your place? Like in case I get locked out of my house and stuff?
A: Sure! I’ll look for a sofabed on Trademe right now!

If you’re curious feel free to ask more questions. Then again you may not really care! Whatever your disposition, it’s an exciting time for us. Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated!

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In preparation for moving out, we did a big clean up over Labour Weekend.

Just thought I’d share this photo of my bed (I sleep on the bottom bunk). We’ve had it since I moved to New Zealand at the age of 9, and I’m about to dismantle it for the last time:

Another chapter in life is about to begin!

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(This post is replicated on our wedding site, which is off to the side for now.)

Cheryl:
My mind has always gone for the small, intimate wedding: more meaningful, and less expensive (in general). So we construct our guest list, and without at all intending to we are edging on 150 people. Great, stop right there, that’s fine. Happy, happy, all is well. We present the guest list to our parents for the final approval, having estimated a few people here and there that we think they’d like to invite as well. Everything seems to chug along smoothly, so we start making more detailed plans according to our very long list of to-do’s.

When the parents get back to us, we very quickly learn of one item of asian culture neither of us expected to encounter, despite that we have both been asian all our lives: The parents are supposed to invite EVERYONE they know.

(Deep breath. Note to self: negotiate guest list numbers to the glory of God.)

And negotiate we do, as humbly as we can. After a lot of discussion and back-and-forth-ing, we agree, just as happily as we have the first time, on another, final, number. Praise the LORD, we’re all still alive!

William:
And that’s a big interlude to the topic of this post… which is about invitations!

Most of you know that we like doing creative things. And we like saving money. So our approach to invitation designs were no different. We’ve elected to design and make our own invitations (all 200+ of them!) by using the following:

- nice card, bought at bulk for a cheap price – we can then print our invitation text on them
- a stamp purchased on my recent impromptu Malaysia visit for the red seal with our surnames written in Chinese
- green organza-like ribbon tied betwixt some well-placed hole-punched corners

Here’s a preview of some of the designs we’ve tested out:

Experimenting with different invites.

(This post is replicated on our wedding site, which is still under construction.)

I found an excellent site a few months back called My Heritage – it’s a site which lets you build your family tree as far as the branches will go.

I started working on this site, as one of the things I originally wanted to include in our wedding day programme was a detailed family tree. This hope of mine quickly faded away when I looked closer at the Chong family details. You see, my paternal grandmother (Jong Ah Moo) – when she passed away in 2004 – had around 200 descendants!

It took me a good part of a week to painstakingly trawl through the Chinese names in a printed newspaper obituary (which included a comprehensive list of family members down to great-grandchildren) to realise that there’s actually just too many names on the Chong side to possibly fit onto an A5, A4 or even A3 programme!

Have a look at the family tree and see if you can figure out how to fit it onto a piece of paper: Chong | Ning family tree.

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It was so windy today that the awning area out the front of the restaurant was rattling and shuddering from gale-force winds.  Pretty grateful our power has stayed on so far.

Nathan you are pretty lucky in Samoa right now.  (He got married)  Oh, and some pics of Jared and Cheryl looking cool.  Both of them have now undergone a fantastic glasses upgrade!

Oh, Dad and Kim returned from their holiday in the summery conditions of Brisbane and the Gold Coast.  Exceedingly envious.  They got clear skies every single day.

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Last couple of days at work have also been pretty fun-filled.  On Friday I did a random chef’s shift, which gave me a good idea of how to do certain bits and pieces like our tapas menu, and a couple of entrees.  I’m very good with ovens and deep friers now, haha.

I’ve been really slacking off on the violin practice, to the point that I think my exam proficiency from practising before has gone back a whole month, it seems.  Perhaps it’s the runs and arpeggios at 11pm at night, but I should ideally be able to play at any time of day all my pieces well.  Urgh.

Anyways, stay at home if you are in Auckland.  Not worth driving in these stupid conditions.  See ya!

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On Saturday afternoon I attended the wedding of one of our ballroom dance tutors, Maugan.  It’s weird because his wife Joan I used to call Ms. Edington, back when she taught Space 4 in Wakaaranga Primary.  It’s the oddest thing to remember, because I’ve even got a certificate from her (they were highly-prized when you were 10) commending me on some amazing bit of homework.

Heres a couple of things I noticed:

•  A Catholic priest holds up the sacrament and wine and it transfigured into real flesh and blood (hmm.)
• CCM is not just an American evangelical thing.  The residing Father did a pretty powerful “Shine, Jesus Shine” (you know the one) – Hillsong numbers like “Shout to the Lord” also present.  You really need to be in a Catholic church to break the preconceptions that their services consist of Medieval plainsong, so I’m glad I was there.
• Maugan and Joan = cool match
• Flowergirls are adorable in any shade of wedding.  Why argue shades of grey (semantics of salvation, true) when you have such moments as these:

Anyways, hope *my* father doesn’t walk me down the aisle – that’d just be strange!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!