Sri now calls Australia home

By Sarah Schwager
WHEN Sri and Rick McHugh were married in 1998, they worried they would never be allowed to live together.
Rick was reported in the Gazette in 1999 after he had been desperately trying for six months to bring his Indonesian wife Sri to live with him.
Just a month after the article was published, and seven months after they were married, the couple was reunited when Sri was finally granted permanent residence.
The couple is now living happily in Pakenham with their new baby, Jordan, eight months.
“It was fairly stressful at the time,” Rick recalled.
“You have to prove your relationship. They were asking Sri all sorts of questions. When the Gazette did the story I was pretty stressed about it all.”
Sri and Rick met when Rick, a Pakenham Golf Club worker, travelled to Indonesia to visit a friend who was building a golf course there.
Sri, who has a university degree in business, was working on a promotional stand for Subaru.
“I thought he might buy something,” Sri laughed, “but he just wanted my phone number.”
Rick, 37, rang her every two weeks afterwards and kept going back for holidays.
Sri, 35, said when she took him to meet her parents he was shaking.
“Her family weren’t keen on her marrying a foreigner,” Rick said. They were married in Indonesia in September 1998.
When Sri was awarded residence she rang Rick straight away and he flew to Indonesia to bring her back.
Rick was still living at his parents’ house in Pakenham at the time and they lived there until their first house was built.
Sri got a job at Robert Gordon Pottery not long after.
“The first year was so hard, you don’t know anyone and can’t go anywhere,” she said. “The job helped me adjust to the Australian culture. I made some good friends.
“Now I have lots of Indonesian friends as well.”
Sri confessed she was a ‘bit of an Aussie’ now and loved the food.
“When we go to Indonesia to visit she says she wants to come home, meaning Australia,” Rick said.
The couple bought a new house this year and moved in on 25 June.
Sri is in the process of applying for Australian citizenship, which would mean she would have to pledge allegiance to Australia
They said their future plans were to have one more child, which would take up most of their time and energy.
They would also like to have some family come over for a holiday.
“We hope to get back (to Indonesia) next year,” Rick said. “They haven’t seen Jordan yet.”