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Read this highly engaging and inspirational book and let Joyce Roa take you on a simple path to living a great life. Live It Great traces the journey of Joyce and her husband from their home country the Philippines to New Zealand and the lessons she learned in the process of moving and living in a new land.
Filled with Joyce’s conversational warm tone and inspiring stories from other people who have gone through the same process, the book will inspire and motivate you to live a happy and meaningful life as a migrant
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Seitenzahl: 104
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Live It Great:
12 Real Life Lessons to Help You Create Your Own Happy and Meaningful Life as a Migrant
By Joyce Roa
Live It Great
12 Real Life Lessons to Help You Create Your Own Happy and
Meaningful Life as a Migrant
ISBN # 978-0-473-43997-2
Copyright 2018 by Joyce Sosoban-Roa
74 Sawyers Arms Road,
Northcote, Christchurch 8052
New Zealand
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, except for brief quotations, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Christos Angelidakis
Cover photo by Hester Roa
Internal design (paperback) by Reynaldo de Guzman
www.JoyceRoa.com
www.Facebook.com/joycesroa
To my Pogs,
coz where will I be if you didn’t cook dinner?
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FREE!
Just to say thanks for purchasing my book, I would like to give you the Audiobook version 100% FREE!
(Check the back page for more details)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Lesson OneDive In Anyway
Lesson TwoOpen Yourself To Miracles
Lesson ThreeHave A Bring It On Attitude
Lesson FourLive On Grace
Lesson FiveWalk Through Open Doors
Lesson SixTrust In The Great Planner
Lesson SevenBe Grateful
Lesson EightGive (Of Yourself)
Lesson NineLive For Real Wealth
Lesson TenLearn To Slow Down
Lesson ElevenLaugh
Lesson TwelveStart All Over Again
Endnotes
Acknowledgment
FOREWORD
I love this book.
Joyce’s words are simple yet penetrate the heart.
You will love her stories. How she met her one true love. How she stumbled upon happy miracles. How she became a tourist, then a migrant, then a tourist again, then migrant again. (Crazy.) How this gifted writer became a caregiver (or what they call a “bum cleaner”). How tears are turned to laughter. And how God continues to lead her every step.
If you’re a migrant or overseas worker living outside your country, give yourself a special gift: Read Joyce Roa’s book, Live It Great. It will refresh your soul. It will inspire you to live deeper, happier, and embrace this amazing thing called life.
Bo Sanchez
Bestselling Author
INTRODUCTION
Two tourists, one from Europe, the other from Canada, were talking over dinner in a holiday park dining room. The European said, “The roads here are crazy. It would say 100 kilometers per hour on one stretch, and then all of a sudden, it will be 30 kilometers per hour on the next bend.”
The Canadian said, “Exactly! In my country, a 100-kilometer per hour stretch of road will get me to my destination right away. Here, who is the comedian who gave those directions? You can hardly run 100 kilometers per hour when there are so many twists and turns!”
These two visitors of New Zealand have learned what many other tourists had sooner or later found out; that Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud—or more fancifully, Middle Earth—has different kind of roads from other countries.
The popular paradise and the last bolt hole of many of the world’s richest people, has roads with twists and turns that will sometimes make you suck in your breath, or make you a bit dizzy from the elevation. There are unpaved roads, and single-lane roads that allow only one car at a time to pass through.
Life, too, is like that. It can be filled with potholes, then a curve appears, and before you know it, another bend comes into sight.
It is not always possible to run full throttle. Sometimes, you can only muster a brisk walk. And sometimes, not even that.
You probably think your life now is the way it has to be. As a migrant, you have responsibilities to attend to and there’s no way you can get out of them without ruining other lives. “You can’t be a dreamer,” you might say, “and still be able to feed your family.”
Do you really want to live that way until you expire?
Or do you want to live a happy and meaningful life?
My last four years as a migrant in New Zealand has led me through ups and downs, highways and byways, narrow roads, and dead-ends. I came as a tourist, became a worker, and then became a tourist again, before becoming a worker again. You can say it’s been quite a ride. Along the way, I have met many local people, other migrants, and tourists. Their stories, together with the things I have learned in the process of making a new life here, plus the lessons of the past, form the basis of this book and the simple great life that I want to share with you.
What is that life? Let me tell you a story.
One weekend, we decided to visit Milford Sound. We’ve heard it’s one of the most beautiful places in the country and we wanted to spend our anniversary there.
Travelling through the area, I could see that it was true. We passed through thick forests where tall, leafy trees meet halfway across forming an arch over the road. We traveled on roads that ran along bubbling brooks, their delightful sound carrying through the air. High, snow-capped mountains stood guard over some areas we passed by.
Then, after a bend on the road, we came upon a burst of color—beautiful lupines in pink, purple, and white. A bridge split the beautiful fields of lupines in half. It was the most picturesque scene I’ve ever seen.
My husband stopped the car so we could take pictures. I, for my part, took a deep breath and stopped myself from saying, “Yeah, it’s beautiful, but we have to keep going because there’s a boat waiting to take us to see Milford Sound.”
It was at that point that everything became clearer for me: Life is not about being a race car driver. It’s not even that of a meandering tourist. At that point, I realized that life is one long pilgrimage. Every twist and turn, every unexpected bend in the road, both the sudden show of flowers and the end of a dead-end road, all are holy places that form pivotal parts of our journey.
So, in this book, I’d like to share with you twelve lessons that will give you a simple but great life through stories and insights. In lesson one, you’ll learn about diving in. In lesson two, you’ll read about how to open yourself to miracles. In lesson three, you’ll hear how having a bring-it-on attitude can make the difference between living a life of pain or enjoying the ride. You’ll learn about grace in lesson four. In lesson five, you’ll walk through open doors. And in lesson six, you come to a truth: trusting in the Great Planner is the only way to go for a beautiful life. In lesson seven, you’ll learn about gratitude. And in lesson eight, you’ll look at giving of yourself. In lesson nine, you’ll learn about living for real wealth. In lesson ten, you’ll learn about slowing down, and in lesson eleven, you’ll learn the importance of being able to laugh. Finally, in lesson twelve, you’ll hear about starting all over again. At the end of each lesson, you have a chance to personally apply the concepts in the lesson through some guide questions.
These are simple lessons. And more often than not, simple is really the wise thing to do. So, don’t wait now. Turn the page! The lessons in this journey can transform your life.
Come on, let’s get on with it!
LESSON ONE
Dive In Anyway
“This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.” (Omar N. Bradley)
A wedding. A red dress. And of course, a Facebook status update. That’s how my love story goes, and how we came to New Zealand. The longer version is that I was a bridesmaid at my friend Jen’s wedding. I wore a red dress. I caught the bridal bouquet when Jen tossed it and I was so excited that I posed for the camera, and posted the picture on Facebook.
My husband and I were already Facebook friends because we belonged to the same faith community. He saw my picture, was captivated by my smile (so he told me!) and decided to message me. We started communicating through Facebook, Yahoo Messenger (it was still the in thing then), text messages, and mobile calls. After a few months, we arranged to meet although we lived on different islands. It did not take long for us to fall in love, and after a few more months, we were married.
If our story was a fairy tale, it would have read “…And they lived happily ever after”. It isn’t as straightforward in real life though. You learn to adjust and then compromise regarding jobs, living arrangements, and other not-so-airy-fairy details.
In our case, it meant that I had to move to his area, and lose a big chunk of my regular income. It meant moving to the city—around 1.5 hours away from my husband’s hometown —and starting a new branch of his travel business.
We decided to purchase a lot, and to be honest now, I don’t know why we did it. After a short while, we also started paying for a house-and-lot. I was also paying off my own condo mortgage.
It was both a blissful and difficult time. It was beautiful because we were making a home together, and living as a newly-wed couple. Full of dreams and hopes, we were very excited and happy. After spending a lot of money renovating the place for our new business, our travel agency looked beautiful, fitted out in classy green and brown shades. We opened with a small gathering of friends and family with a priest to bless the premises, as well as some good food and high hopes.
Then came the trying months. We had hired a staff for the travel agency by then. The takings for the first month were well below our expectations. That’s okay. Then the next month came, and the next. One or two months of those difficult months, we almost achieved our target income.
But then disaster struck—one of the city malls was bombed and our business was adversely affected. Meanwhile, our debts from the renovation and opening the premises were mounting; the interest on our loans kept on piling up.
One day, I picked up the mail from our front door; some of the envelopes were from our creditors. I sat down at our dining table and went through the letters. I looked at our mounting unpaid debts and my heart wrenched at my great desire to have them paid. I felt frustrated at how little we have to be able to answer to these responsibilities—and I cried. The burden and stress were too much to bear.
That’s when we considered leaving our country to try to find greener pastures.
Were we afraid? Certainly. Unsure? Without a doubt. Were we excited? Indeed. Yes, we were all those things. But as we contemplated leaving the country and going to another one, we didn’t actually just leave everything behind and hop on the next plane. We also planned. We prayed. We had consultations with immigration advisors from three different countries. We talked to friends and family who had lived or were living in the countries we were interested in, and we asked them about their experiences. We researched and researched. In the end, we made the jump and decided to go for New Zealand. That was four years ago!
What’s Stopping You?
Perhaps you are a born-and-bred local and you cannot imagine ever leaving your country. Perhaps you never had to worry about finances, and you cannot relate. Perhaps the mere idea of changing the status quo tie you up in knots. Perhaps. But there was probably one moment in your life when you were torn between staying and moving forward, between the devil you know and the devil you don’t, or between the status quo and the unknown. That’s how it was for us back then.
