I think I might begin today’s post (warning… it’s a long one…) by clearing up any confusion you might have about to how and why I made it to China in the first place.
As for why, the truth is, I don’t have the faintest idea.
Sure, I can give you facts, logistics, anecdotes… I can put you in touch with people who’ve followed and drawn lines between very scattered dots… but, the plain truth is that knowledge and understanding of big-picture purpose is something very few people are gifted with.
I am not necessarily one those people.
I will say, however, that I sense within me a type of peace unlike any I have ever felt before and that my relationship with Him is more real, more tangible, more breathtakingly personal and more mind-shattering than it ever could have been at home. And that, at least, is verification enough for me to know that there is a bigger plan at work here, and that I am exactly where I need to be.
But as for how this all happened, let’s start by taking it back a few months… actually let’s take it back a full year…. Vroom-vrrooom-beepity-beeeeepy-boop-bop-screeeeeech… (that was my imitation of a time-machine. Hope you enjoyed it.)
Okay. October, 2010. It was about at this point in my young life that I was realizing that my life was becoming another cog in some great machine. Hippies would call this machine (insert an ominous music tone here) The System.
Ooooh, scary. SO dramatic, right? But, I’ll be honest… I really did come to realize that since the day we’re born, the world makes it clear that our central purpose in life is to (insert an even more ominous music cue here) make money. Our education, preschool through college, prepares us for a life in constant pursuit of happiness… happiness that supposedly comes in the form of graduation from Ivy league colleges and lucrative business dealings. And so, as the pressures of this supposed future life loomed like stormy mountains ahead of me, of I sat through Geometry and English and Chemistry with a mind filled near bursting with ideas of how to break “The System.” My plans involved everything from writing letters to the president to hiring my nerd friends to build me an escape rocket. I even started praying that God would send some marvelous cataclysm that would destroy all AP national exams. Now, don’t get me wrong! My high-school is a wonderful place! I love my friends and my teachers… my time there was filled with more love and fun than is altogether fair for any high school student’s underclassmen experience. So, understandably, some of you are reading this and thinking, as my own mother and father did, “You’re enjoying high school, so what’s the issue? The system is real life, kid. Suck it up and do your homework.” And I’d have to say that you’re right for thinking along those lines.
However, all joking aside, I did (and still do) truly believe that we are all meant for something greater in life… and that if you feel an opportunity to be and do “something greater,” you shouldn’t have to wait until after college. Or until you’ve wangled your job into some financially secure position. I truly had a desire in my heart to go out and do something good and real and meaningful and big with my life… and I believe that desires like those should never be ignored.
So, with our hearts beating in our brains, my parents and I began to pray.
One thing led to another (I normally hate that phrase, but it will have to do for now) and my dad came up with a brilliant idea. Education overseas. Immediately my mind went to places like Paris or Venice or Barcelona. Beautiful cities? Surely. Educational? Of course. Would I be breaking the system? Well, kind of. Would I find God there? That question was answered with silence in my heart. I then knew that if I were to leave PV, I’d want be going somewhere that was truly different… truly another world. A place where nothing of my old life would thrive, and a place where I would be forced to rely on strengths greater than my own to survive.
A place like China, maybe.
My parents were soon on board. (Man, how I love them… shout-out to Mom and Dad! Miss you!) And so we eventually came in contact with a woman on the east coast who had connections in Asia. We shall call her Linda for security purposes. Her immediate reaction to the idea of setting me up with a Chinese host-family for the year was, “No, no. Certainly not. Madeleine is far too young.” However… and heaven knows why… she contacted a family here in Beijing anyway “just to scope things out.” Remarkably, the family replied to her immediately with, “Oh, what a coincidence! We’ve been praying to have a high-school student stay with us for about six months now!”
For some, that scenario would be called an outstanding stroke of good luck. I like to call it a “God-wink.”
Now, fast-forward a week or two. At this point in time, another desire is unearthing itself in my heart. I thought about it. I prayed. I thought. I prayed some more. And then I determined that, if I were to be out and about in the world, I wanted to be doing something. Getting my hands dirty. Serving in whatever way God saw fit. One thing I knew for sure… I wouldn’t want to go somewhere like China unless I knew that I’d be moving in ways that would further His kingdom.
That’s when we learned that the host family we’d come in contact with owned a kindergarten, and that they were in want of English-speaking teachers. I speak English. I can teach… or at least I think I can teach.
Either way, for me, that was God-wink number two.
Fast forward again… by now we should be in the spring months. Mother (as mothers often do) was getting worried about the idea that her only daughter would be gallivanting around China… alone. Apparently there were some sleepless nights involved. You know how it is. Nevertheless, Mom came up with a brilliant plan… a plan that would keep me safe and secure, not to mention the fact that the execution of said plan would allow her to sleep soundly.
That plan boiled down to finding a very special person… someone with skills somewhere between Jason Bourne’s and Mary Poppins'… to watch over pwecious widdle Madeleine during her adventures China.
Take a moment now to rest your brain for the coming rollercoaster of relational connections that led us to the ever-so-awesome 23-year-old Kristin.
First, my mother begins the hunt for Mary Bourne/Jason Poppins by asking one of her colleagues, Megan, if they’re interested in an international-nannying-gig. For various reasons, Megan declines… however, her brother, Ben, knows of a friend on the east coast that possibly would be interested. He contacts Kristin, who sends her résumé to my Megan, who then sends it to my parents… after an exchange of e-mails and some long phone calls, Kristin agrees to visit Beijing with us in June of 2010. At this point, we are all still utterly unaware that Kristin and Linda (our first contact in regards to this adventure) knew each other, or that Kristin’s mother had travelled to China with Linda in the past.
“God-wink” number three.
Kristin is, in and of herself, a kind of God-wink… another brilliant piece to add to this increasingly complex and ever-enlarging puzzle. My parents had dreamt of someone relatively skillful in math and science to act as my guardian during this adventure… so as to keep me from completely and utterly ignoring my academic career. Kristin just so happened to have majored in bioengineering. Kristin needed a job and one that fit her major… My dad just happened to have a spot open for her to work with him on patent law… a business 80% of which deals with medical devices. My parents also dreamt of someone with experience in world travel... and surprise, surprise… Kristin had studied abroad in Hong Kong! We were hoping for someone with leadership experience… Kristin had recently finished the Fellows leadership Program through The Falls Church.
And then…(don’t worry, I’m almost done) then there’s Elizabeth, another young east-coastian with an eye for Asia. Kristin meets Elizabeth one morning in August at a Starbucks. She learns that Elizabeth plans to spend the year in Beijing to teach at a kindergarten… and to live in a three-bedroom apartment with a few other international teachers. Lo and behold, Elizabeth was planning to teach at the same kindergarten I now teach at. And the apartment mentioned happens to be the same apartment that Kristin and Elizabeth now share. Not only that, but Kristin and Elizabeth’s mothers just happened to be in the same bible study… And later, we learn that Elizabeth’s father happens to indirectly know my father. But again, none of us had the faintest inkling of any of this before coming here… to Beijing, China. We came here practically blind, knowing no one. Can you imagine our joy in discovering the links and lines that connect us and our purposes half way around the world?
The list of God-winks goes on, and on, and on… all of it is impossible to record in written word without the risk of frying your hard-drive. We’re still discovering things even now, a month into this adventure. Call it luck, chance, coincidence, fate, destiny, probability, opportunity, connections, happenstance… call it anything you want. I’ll just call it God.
P.S. To track the photographic side of this adventure, drop by Kristin’s wonderfully colorful blog: http://perpetualescapades.blogspot.com/
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