So I’m not going to share my life story online here but I’d like to share my faith story with you.
God truly works in mysterious ways to bring us to Him and for me it was friends, music, and free food!
My journey started in 2007, a year and a half before I ever even attended church. It was my final year of my B.Sc and the plan I had for myself was to graduate and work in an aquarium as a marine biologist using my degree. One day in an elevator at school I saw an advertisement looking for English teachers in South Korea. I already had a love of travel and I needed to make money to pay off my school debt. Also I figured it would be a good opportunity to work with kids as I never had spent a lot of time around kids and I figured aquariums are crawling with kids. So, 7 months later a job landed in my lap I was on a plane to South Korea. I loved my job and I realized I loved working with kids.
My time in Korea only lasted 6 months but within 4 months of arriving home I was on a plane again this time heading to my dream job working for an aquarium on the West Coast. I got to use my degree and combine it with my new found love of teaching kids. Unfortunately, even dream jobs have their challenges and 7 months later I decided to begin down the road of changing careers. I was still working for the aquarium but was taking distance courses and applying to B.Ed programs back home. I still loved working with marine animals but becoming a teacher offered me stability and a life long career that the aquarium didn’t and surprisingly I did enjoy teaching. Never in a million years did I ever want to be a teacher yet here I am in my 4th year of teaching. I truly believe God called me to be a teacher starting all the way back in 2007 with the advertisement in the elevator to teach English in South Korea. As part of the application I needed to write a test. Obviously I wasn’t able to go to the university to write it as I was half way across the country and there happened to only be a few select types of people who could oversee the exam. I figured the easiest person to find on the list would be a pastor and so one Saturday night I sat down and googled churches in my area and it just so happened there was one with a service later that night. I figured I should go and sit through the service so that when I talked to the pastor I could break the ice with “Hey, good lesson” or something like that. So I headed off to church. I arrived and suddenly this girl sits beside me and starts talking away like she has known me for years, which while a little weird was nice as I still didn’t have a lot of friends in town. Then we started singing, but not stuffy old hymns, music that I actually enjoyed! I used to sing all the time in high school and university but since graduating I hadn’t yet found a place to sing. Then during the service they start talking about a program they were starting up called Alpha, a place where I can make more friends, can sing, AND be fed! Best of all it was free!!! I was sold! Long story short I found myself attending church for the remainder year I lived on the West Coast…but I wasn’t yet a Christian.
I started my B.Ed back home but was no longer attending church. One of my classmates knew I sang and asked me to join her church choir for their upcoming Christmas Eve caroling service. It just so happened that I had been attending the Christmas caroling service since my grandpa died a few years earlier so I figured why not. I practiced with them Sunday mornings but left as soon as practice was over, I didn’t stick around for the service. Then after Christmas I stayed on with the choir and over time started to stay for service. That was 2010. Over the next 2 years I explored Christianity, joined a small group, and sang on a worship team. But I hadn’t yet truly connected to God.
January 19, 2012 during tea with the girl who had invited me to choir, I told her I felt God was asking something of me but I didn’t know what. She told me maybe it was God asking if I was ‘all in’ since up until now I had been merely observing from the sidelines. I figured she was right but didn’t yet have an answer. That evening on the drive home I felt God asking me the same question but this time telling me not to be afraid, that he wasn’t asking me to change my whole life but rather to trust Him and let him work slowly in my life. That night I welcomed God into my life and my heart and was so excited I wanted to shout it from the roof tops.
It’s been a wild ride but I wouldn’t change a minute of it!
