Help is here! part 1 (getting a helper)

Mel and I had being talking about having a helper for a long while. I had alway not being keen about having someone we do not know well in our place. On the other hand, I also know we do need help in our house. 6 years on, the time is right for us to have a helper. As Kayzia will be studying pri 1 next year, her classes will start at around noon time and being working parents,we cant send her to school. Yes, we had went thru many times about Mel not working or working part-time(even worst!), they are not the best solutions. Having a helper earlier will help the kids to get used to her.

We also very kiasi(afraid bad things will happen), what if we get the time bomb one, how? We read so many nasty stories about helpers ill-treating the kids when the adults are not around. Well, also many inhuman stories of horrible sir/mdm torturing the helpers. We prayed for the right helper and determine to be good masters. Our church friends, Siew Hee and Joyce have a wonderful helper. She is a committed disciple in our church. She told us that her cousin wants to work in Singapore to ease the family financial difficulties. We prayed and asked God to show us if there is any reason why we should not take her.

Before i go further, I will list the 3 reasons why we wanted a helper.
1. As stated above, Kayzia is going to pri 1 next year, someone needs to be at home.
2. We need help with our house chores. Someone to help with all our daily cleaning so that we wont be burden and tired by all these unimportant yet necessary responibilities.
3. When the kids are sick, we cannot always take leave to be with them, or get our parents to come down to look after them.

How about getting our parents to stay with us? Without even praying or having any sort of discussion, we knew the answer is no. Not that our parents are not willing to help, they had in many ocassions, even on last minutes notice, came over our place to take care of the kids. They deserved a break, they had it hard raising us(especially me), should we burden them even more with our own kids?

So with that in mind, our help came last Sat. Her name is Modesta, she is 40 years old, married to a pastor back home in Philippines, and they have 4 kids. The youngest is Kieran's age. It must be hard for her to leave them behind. She called back on Sunday, the kids were crying for her. Mel took Monday to Wednesday leave to be with her and teach her the routine of our home. She used to work in Taiwan in 1999, but have forgotten most of the Chinese she had learnt back then. O, her pastor husband dun get paid in church for preaching, voluntary work. They sell veg to get by monthly. How much a month? 1000 peso, which is about SGD30! O mine! I almost fainted when i heard that. Then we told her why we needed a helper (the 3 reasons), her pay, the kids, and so on. We had a good talk. Both of us think she is a good person in nature. We prayed sincerely that she will care for the kids like she will care for hers.

For the past few days, both Mel and I felt physically less tired. After the talk with Modesta, we had time to go for a jog. The last time we did that was just before we found our Mel was pregnant with Kieran. Hm, is this a sign? Help is here. We are grateful for her.