another update for the blog. i guess some people have been wondering what's going to happen to this blog now that i'm no longer on my trip, and to be honest, i'm not entirely sure! i would love to keep blogging during the year with my thoughts and about how God is working in my life, so look for that! either that or maybe God will allow me to go on more summer short-term trips and then i can use this blog again! but yeah pray for me for my future because it's a little uncertain
i'll be sending out an email update shortly after this as well as letters to my supporters, so look for that to find out more about what God has been teaching me this summer :]
i guess i just wanted to recount a story about the perfect culmination to my trip:
so i arrived in boston from london on sunday evening and stayed with mandy. because mandy was going to be at work the whole day, i decided to go to the airport early to see if i could standby for an earlier flight (my flight wasnt leaving boston until 3:30pm). i arrived at the airport maybe around 8am and it was chaos! everyone was frantic. i realized later that a bunch of flights were cancelled or delayed the day before, so people were pretty ticked off and on edge. my chances of getting on an earlier flight were basically nonexistent. i had nowhere to go, and i couldn't check my bags in because they only accepted bags 4 hours before the flight, so i just bought a day pass for internet and tried to work on organizing pictures and writing my update letters (check out my pictures at www.picasaweb.google.com/vankim.dang.bui).
i started getting super sleepy, but i couldn't sleep since i didn't want anyone to take my stuff. i started to be unproductive since my brain wasnt functioning. i was starting to regret not booking a flight for the day before, and i was anxious to get home.
the 7 or so hours passed by quickly though, and it was finally time for me to board my flight! i was even more exhausted at that point that i passed out right when i got into my seat (it was nice because no one sat next to me! yay!). i didn't wake up until we landed in philly. still exhausted, i quickly grabbed some chickfila (i normally do this when i stop in the philly airport) and got food coma! so again...super sleepy. i was excited for my 3 hour flight to houston so that i could sleep, and i didn't have to wait long until it was time to board.
i snuggled into my window seat and positioned myself into sleeping mode. turns out i didn't sleep the whole 4 hours! (it turned into 4 because there was a back up on the runways getting out of philly and we had to taxi for a while). you may be wondering, "why didn't you sleep van-kim? i thought you were so tired! what waste of time" BUT there was a good reason!
so right after i got off the phone with my family to let them know that i had boarded, the guy next to me asked me a question. he had such a thick irish/indian accent that i couldn't understand, so i asked him to repeat the question. he asked again and i STILL couldn't understand him (plus i have poor hearing). this went on a few more times until i realized that he was asking "so whereabouts are you from?" which is a very united kingdom-y way of asking "where are you from?" i was so thankful that i had just spent the last few days in england or else i would still be confused! i told him that i was from texas and he began asking me more questions etcetc. anyway it turns out that he's from belfast and it was the first time he was coming to the states! he had an ex-girlfriend who lived in nyc, but she broke up with him because the distance and she really wanted to live in america and he wasnt living in america. so now he was coming to america to see what kind of life he could afford to give her.
ok but he actually started off the conversation talking about going out and being into techno and dj-ing and drinking and then asked me if i partied. he seemed surprised that i was a "quiet girl" who didn't party because i think he's used to everyone doing that sort of thing. the conversation topics turned me off, AND i was supersuper tired so i started forming ways i could end the conversation. (background info: i fly a lot, and i normally like to sleep through all flights since i don't like to fly. i normally never make conversation with anyone so that i can go to sleep. talking to him was very unusual and definitely an act of God)
anyway at that point, i would give him clear signs that i was no longer interested in the conversation and then fall asleep, but i felt convicted that God was trying to put to use all the lessons that i had learned the whole summer. i continued to answer his many questions. the guy asked me the basics (name, age, university, major) and i told him my name using my super long explanation that most of you have probably heard and then he told me his name (jerry) and explained that it was a catholic name. apparently he got teased a lot growing up because he went to school with protestants. (reminder: belfast is the city in ireland with the most religious tensions between catholics and protestants) i saw this as the perfect segway into discussing God! actually it was really God using this as a way to teach me. i was pretty ignorant to how bad the tensions were in belfast. even though everyone identified with either catholic or protestant, it was really just a label to segregate into two factions (sort of like how the kyrgyz identify with islam or russian orthodoxy but didn't really practice it piously). jerry informed me how his mother is catholic and his father is protestant. i asked him what he was and he told me that he was both. i decided to prod a little more to see what he really believed. i told him that i was protestant, and we began discussing the differences between catholicism and protestantism. it was amazing. his point of view was completely different than mine because of the experiences he's had in belfast. he sees it so differently because of the hate between the two groups, and it kind of made me really sad. i definitely don't know enough about the situation, but i felt sad that the two groups who claim to know of God's love couldn't love each other (1 John 4 came to mind).
then we started discussing missions, and i expressed that i had an interest in being a long-term missionary. he was completely against it. he thought it was so wrong to be a missionary because he didn't think that anyone should disrespect another culture by getting people to believe in what i believed in, which is a very real concern that many people have. he brought up some pretty tough topics and skepticisms, but i was comforted the whole time knowing that God had been working in me the whole summer, and that He would provide me with the words to say and the peace that He would watch over me as long as i was doing His will (even if that means being in the missions field), so i wasn't phased by his concerns. my lack of defensiveness really showed me how much God had taught me and grew me this summer.
we talked about random things the whole trip and it was interesting to see how he viewed things. i felt that he had a very secular worldview as well putting a lot of emphasis on having things and making money and having status, but he also had a good understanding of Christianity. i felt very blessed by the conversation because i felt like i was learning a lot about what i believed in.
finally, it was time to land in houston, and i wished him good luck with his mission and reminded him to try the mexican food and barbecue. he pushed to get my contact information, but i thought it was a little weird so i evaded it. we parted ways and that was that.
if God allowed me to get on an earlier flight, i never would've met jerry. if God hadn't given me enough energy to stay awake, i would've passed out the whole trip. if God hadn't taught me so many things this summer, i would've caved into the pressure of jerry's skepticisms. if God hadn't given me wisdom this summer, i would've shyed away from the religious conversation altogether (i don't like confrontation that leads to debates). God was really using this conversation to show me that He is all powerful. He had been working in me the whole summer and was showing me that He would be using these skills in everyday scenarios all for His glory.
ok anyway i hope i said everything i wanted to say. i'm still jetlagged and it's pretty late, so i'm realllyyy sleepy and i can't concentrate much.
i'll leave you with a few pictures and you can see the rest on my picture site!
aizada and me (see post below)
the cha's + eva, tim, and me (see post below)
ok i hope i don't read this entry tomorrow and get embarrassed because i wrote something incorrect or funny or wrong or something but i'm pretty tired so it might happen
van-kim
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