God our Realtor
Our first taste of Malaysia was the nine hour bus trip that took us from the Singapore border to Seremban, about an hour south of Kuala Lumpur. The bus meandered its way north, frequently stopping along the way to pick up and put down locals.
We were eventually deposited at the Seremban bus station where a young man from the church we would be attending at Port Dickson,.met us and took us the 25 minutes to our final destination.
Port Dickson is what the Malaysians kept calling a ‘small’ town. It was however big enough to have several multi-storey resort complexes, a lot of restaurants, many suburbs, a decent shopping centre and a major hotel.
Port Dickson was to become our home for the next six months.
When we had first planned this trip, we had gone to the internet as the place to find rental property in Malaysia. An hour or so of searching yielded about five places available - all in Kuala Lumpur.
“This is crazy”. I said to my husband. “I can’t find any rental properties outside of KL. I can’t even find a Real Estate Agency.”
The following Sunday at Church, I asked one of our Malaysian friends how to find rental property in Port Dickson.
“Word of mouth,’ was his instant reply.
“But what about Real Estate Agents?” I asked.
“There aren’t any. In fact I don’t know of any in the whole of Malaysia. You’ve got to find a place by word of mouth.”
“But how is a foreigner supposed to do that?” I queried.
“You go there and ask people.”
We arrived in Malaysia in May 2005 and stayed at the Corus Hotel for 12 days, during which time we ‘asked people’.
Our plan was to find a place we could call home for six months, furnish it if necessary, rent a piano so the children could continue learning to play the piano, move in and get on with the writing that we believed God wanted us to do. We committed our needs to God, asking for His wisdom and guidance.
People were kind and helpful. Once people understood we were looking for a place to stay, hardly a day passed without someone contacting us with news of possible accommodation.
There was a problem though. It was hard for them to know what we were really looking for.
We preferred to have a house with a yard, but people kept offering us pokey apartments between the 2nd or 9th floor.
We discovered that kitchens don’t automatically come with a property. You generally have to put them in yourself. That would be a major undertaking, and with less than six months in the place, the effort seemed hardly worthwhile.
One person rang and excitedly told us of a house near his place. It had several air conditioners and four bedrooms. “It needs a little bit of tidying, but it would be great, and it’s only R500 a month (about Au$180 at the time).” We went to investigate and the ‘little bit of tidying’ meant clearing the large yard of weeds that were growing past window height, fixing broken windows, repairing air conditioners, putting in a kitchen, getting rid of mould, patching plaster, painting and sundry other things. It could take us six months just to get the house ready for occupancy.
Port Dickson is situated on the Malacca Straits and we had hoped to find a house beside the water. About a week after our arrival, we were invited to look at a house that sounded ideal. It even included a car. It was partly furnished, and had lovely drapes throughout. There was even a poor excuse for a kitchen.
The backyard was very pleasant, with cool trees, lovely views and a gate that took us straight out to the water. But we were barely halfway down the yard when we found ourselves attacked by mosquitoes. Our visions of eating dinner on the back verandah while the sun set before us quickly disappeared and we turned to continue our search for a place to live. We had no desire to spend our time in Malaysia battling with mosquitoes.
By our 10th day in town, people were beginning to get some idea of what we we didn’t want, even if they still didn’t really understand what we did want.
We weren’t trying to be difficult, or, believe it or not, particularly fussy. But we went to Malaysia to write so we needed a home that could foster that in some way for both of us. We needed air conditioning, room for our children to play both inside and outside, and space for them to invite friends. We also wanted a spare room for guests as we expected to have several relatives visit us during our stay.
On day 11, we looked at two houses both of which could have done the job for us. Things were looking up. One was large and rambling, but the owners wanted to leave most of their belongings in the house while we stayed there. The upside was that it had a full kitchen and we wouldn’t have to buy furniture. The downside was that their cupboards were full and there was little space for us to put our own things.
The other house was empty, though it had a basic kitchen. We would have to buy furniture, but we wouldn’t have to negotiate our way around the owner’s belongings.
We decided to take it, but before committing ourselves, told the owner we wanted the rest of the day to think about it.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a furniture shop. We’d been there before, but now we were seriously considering our purchases.
We chatted to the owners for some time before leaving. I turned to go and had barely gone 10 steps when a thought came to me. I called back to them, “You don’t happen to know of any place to rent do you?”
Their son, who was helping during a break in his University studies, began walking toward us. “Yes,’ he said, and, gesturing with his right hand, continued, ‘up the hill behind us here.” He didn’t give us a chance to respond before he said, “I’ll ring the owner for you.”
Even as I had asked the question, I had felt like retracting it. We had a place. It wasn’t completely satisfactory, but we could make it work. I began to tell the son not to worry about it, but he insisted and began dialling the number.
I was relieved when there was no answer. We thanked him and again told him not to worry about it.
However, about an hour later, we received a phone call. The voice was male and very British. He was the owner of the house we had been told of at the furniture shop, and we quickly learned he was a retired Major. Our efforts to dissuade him also fell on deaf ears.
“I will come now and show you my house”, he said. “You will like my house.”
Arrangements were made to meet him at his house in about an hour and a half. We didn’t know it at the time, but he lived in KL and had about a 70 minute drive.
The man was right. We did ‘like his house’. The moment we laid eyes it, we knew this was the one we wanted to live in. It had a neat yard, a carport that adjoined a wide front verandah and looked large. A quick look through the windows revealed a clean and tidy interior.
The Major arrived and soon let us into the house. The cool interior was a welcome relief to the humid heat outside.
There was a large lounge downstairs, a second living room, three bedrooms, a laundry, bathroom and full kitchen. There was even some cutlery and crockery. Upstairs was the master bedroom with an ensuite, another large lounge area, an office and a balcony. The whole house was fully furnished. There was not a stick of furniture we would have to buy. Every bedroom and living area was air-conditioned and there were several ceiling fans throughout as well. It even had a piano!
We moved in the very next day.
I still smile when I think of the way God provided the house for us. He knew all our needs - and blessed us in ways we didn’t understand on the day we moved in. A retired school mistress lived across the road. She became the children’s tutor. Two of our neighbours turned out to be people who attended the little church fellowship we joined! We lived in a neighbourhood that was convenient for a tennis tutor to pick the children up for their twice weekly lessons, and a piano teacher lived just at the end of the street. We were a mile from the shopping centre - and could have been in places up to14 miles away.
God put everything together beautifully. How good it is when we walk in obedience and let God work out the details!