Daydreaming

Listen . . .
Ocean rumblings
Fade into horns honking
And humans fussing; wake up! You're
Still here.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Before coming to LA, I had heard from several different students that LA Term was a difficult experience. I had witnessed people come back from the semester hurt, doubtful, bitter, changed. After getting through the first couple of weeks in L.A. without much difficulty or pain, I thought maybe my experience would be different. I began to think back to my semester at High Sierra in Yosemite and to think that maybe this semester would be another amazing 4 months in my life as that semester had so clearly been. 


I am now moving into my eighth week of life in Los Angeles, and it is definitely getting more difficult. No, I am not miserable. No, I do not cry all the time or regret doing LA Term. I still laugh, I still have joy, I am still thankful. But at the same time, I don't think this will be an experience in my life I look back on as extraordinary or "one of the greatest experiences of my life." 


It is difficult to explain why I feel this way or what is so difficult about the semester, especially if you have not experienced it. I sometimes feel ridiculous even explaining why I'm struggling with this semester to others. LA sounds exciting and wonderful, and to some extent it is. In fact, many other students doing this program with me are loving it. After all, what could be so hard about living in a great city like Los Angeles, eating amazing Mexican food every day, living with a lovely and hospitable family, spending time with sixteen other wonderful APU students, seeing spectacular art, Broadway plays, hearing great music, and experiencing city life in one of the greatest cities on earth for a semester, right?  But different people have different experiences.


I can't quite even explain what has been so challenging about the semester. Maybe it is the lack of stability I feel. Plans are always changing, buses are always late, my surroundings continuously change. In just the past 6 months I have moved from APU to Hawaii to L.A., and next semester I will be in England. Part of me loves this, but the other part finds it unsettling. The lack of close community here in LA is also difficult to deal with. Because all of the students here live in different places all around LA and we must all go our separate ways at the end of class, my community basically consists of my roommate, Sarah, and my 9 year old host sister, Stephy. Or maybe my struggle lies in the homesickness that plagues my mind at various, sporadic moments. I miss the safety and comfort of being at home in Hawaii. I have a full week off for Thanksgiving break, and I want nothing more than to be able to go home, to escape from the stress and hardships of the city. I want to eat turkey and pumpkin pie with my family, to decorate my home with sparkling Christmas lights, to sit on the sandy beach and look out into the peaceful, melodic ocean. This is where my mind has been wandering over the past few weeks, until suddenly I drift back into reality and find myself sitting on a dark subway watching a homeless man being shunned by others, or sitting in a classroom listening to discussions of another terrible injustice within the city, or walking on a sidewalk and hearing yet another cat call. 

LA Term is difficult, and I am certainly struggling, but I am thankful I am here. I am thankful I have a roommate and friend who is having a similar experience. I am thankful other students here are having an amazing experience and loving the city, because this shows me the goodness and beauty of the city. It is not a bad place, it is a beautiful place. I am learning, and through the difficulties I am growing. Yes, I will be relieved when this experience is over and I have finished this part in my life, but I would not change my experience for another. God has me going through these things for a purpose and a reason. I know He is good, and I know He loves me. Because of this, I will persevere. 


"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever."

-Psalm 23

And off to Oxford I go..

Well, it looks like I will be spending next semester studying at Oxford University in England! Oh, how plans change.

How did this decision come about? Since freshman year, I had always planned on studying at Oxford during the fall of my junior year. Last semester I applied and was accepted into the program, but obviously God changed my plans a bit since I am now here in inner city L.A. doing LA Term. Once I had decided to do LA Term this semester, I planned to do the Oxford Semester next fall (of my senior year) instead. But a few weeks ago, the idea to go to Oxford next semester was suddenly planted in my head. My best friend, Sean, told me he is most likely going to be going to Lithuania next semester, meaning that if I went to Oxford in the fall we would be apart for 1.5 years. This is what sparked the idea in my mind to go to Oxford next semester instead.

However, soon after I began considering this, I discovered that the deadline to apply to the program had passed a week earlier. Because of this, I decided to drop the idea of going next semester and just apply to go next fall as I had previously planned. Yet I simply could not get the idea to go next semester out of my head. I regretted not thinking about the possibility earlier. Though I had already been accepted into the program last semester, they had told me several times that if I wanted to go at a later point in time I would need to completely reapply to the program; they could not defer my application. I talked to a few friends about it, and every one of them thought going in the spring would be a better idea. This way, I could spend my entire senior year on campus rather than continuously moving on and off campus as I have been doing.

By this time, it was about 2 weeks after the final deadline to apply to the program had passed. I considered emailing the Oxford Study Abroad program coordinator to ask if they would possibly consider allowing me to apply even though the deadline had already passed, but I was unsure this was even a reasonable possibility. And I wanted to be absolutely sure I wanted to go next semester before sending out an email.

So, I prayed. I told God that if I am supposed to go to Oxford next semester, then He really needs to make it clear to me and somehow open the door for me to do so (because at that point, I didn't see much of a possibility). So I prayed, and a couple of friends prayed for me. And guess what?? God answered.

The next day, I received an email from the Oxford Program coordinator saying that they still have my application and they want to offer me the opportunity to go to Oxford next semester if I am still interested. All I had to do was resubmit a paper requesting which classes I want to take. I had not emailed her about going, or even told her I was interested. She just emailed me out of the blue the day after I asked God to open the door. I tried to reason out the cause of this miracle. I thought maybe there were a low number of applicants and they just desperately needed students to go next semester, but I found out that there were many applicants and people who got denied the opportunity to go. So, why me? I have no idea. I believe this is God telling me to go. And I feel at peace about the decision. Sean may or may not even end up going to Lithuania next semester, but it isn't really about that anymore. Maybe that was just the circumstance I needed to prompt me in the direction or spark the idea in my mind. I prayed God would open the door if He wanted me to go, and He pushed the door wide open without me so much as lifting a hand. He never ceases to surprise me and mix up my life plans. And so, off to Oxford I go.

In This City That I Love

Never in a million years would I have thought I would spend a semester studying and living in inner city LA, let alone actually want to be here. And never would I have thought I would even be able to get into the program with all the various circumstances and things working against me. But after God told me at the end of last semester that I would be doing LA Term, I knew great things lay ahead.

My home in South Central LA              

Part of my new LA family:)

And as it turns out, God was right. I needed this semester. I have only been living here for three weeks, and already I know my life is changing daily. My eyes are being opened, and God is slowly replacing my selfish heart with His compassionate heart. My heart is breaking for this city, and yet it is this same city that  gives me an unexplainable hope and joy. Every stereotype I have ever been told and believed about this place has been broken in the past three weeks. I have met the kindest, most beautiful people in this city. I found love in the young man who kindly approached two lost and confused young girls and spent a significant amount of time pointing them in the right direction, quickly leaving before even accepting a simple "thank you." I found goodness in the Middle Eastern man who went out of his way to walk us an entire block to the store we were searching for. I found beauty in the contagious smile of Raul, a homeless man in our neighborhood who was God's answer to my earlier prayers. I have found such love and hospitality in this city. I have seen God in the faces of the residents, and everywhere I look I see His mighty hand at work.

My host sister :)

                                                

Griffith Park Observatory

Yet, with the beauty of this city I have also found despair. A homeless man walked onto the Metro with a box of his personal items the other week. Before he had even set the box down, the train driver stood up and looked at him, almost as if she were expecting him to do something wrong. As he set his box down in front of the conductor's door, she immediately told him to move it. He automatically and silently moved it, the pain and destroyed dignity evident in his movements. He sat on the box, and after a moment he looked around the crowded Metro and asked, "Where is this train going?" Silence. Again, he looked around and asked, "Where is this train going?" Again, silence. As Sarah later described it, he looked like a dog who had been cruelly beaten and whipped one too many times. Though he was looking around, desperately longing for acknowledgement, not one person dared even look into his eyes. Finally, a woman about five or six rows back answered him. I was in utter shock. I wanted to shout an answer to his question from my seat farther back on the Metro. I wanted to apologize for the outright cruelty of every person who looked away. I wanted to cry and cry and demand for God to tell me how that could happen. I wanted to scream at those people, and I wanted to run up to the man and hug him and plead for his forgiveness for every person there. This scene will never fade from my memory, this I know. It was the first time I truly and helplessly felt despair in this city.

Hike near the Hollywood sign

With these moments of utter pain, followed by moments of pure joy and gratitude, you can imagine how emotional and difficult this semester has been so far. I am learning and I am growing, but it has by no means been easy. Yet, in the end, hope and joy has conquered the pain i feel. I still have moments where I feel helpless and simply want to sit and cry in God's arms, but I persevere on. I remind myself that I need to experience these things. I must understand and experience these feelings of despair and pain, because these are things God Himself is all too familiar with. He cries and longs for His hurting and beloved children in this world. His heart broke and tears fell from His eyes as He watched His one and only Son humiliated and murdered on a cross. It has been my longtime prayer for God to "break my heart for the people and things that break His," and that is what He is doing. In this city, I have found tragedy and suffering, but even more so I have found an ever increasing hope. And it is to this hope that I am helplessly and desperately grasping on to in this beautiful city.

Day 4-Manta Ray tickets!

For literally the entire summer, I have been dying to swim with Manta Rays, something I have heard is one of the most thrilling and amazing experiences of a lifetime. And Kona is the perfect place to do it. The only thing that has kept me back was my uneasiness about swimming out and attempting it myself, and my reluctance to pay the large expense for going out to do it on one of the boats (between $75-$100 per person). Of course, I asked God to make it somehow possible for me to do it. And guess what? He answered.

Seriously, it was like He just handed me the tickets to do the Manta Ray snorkel trip just because He wanted me to be happy, He wanted to see me smile and be excited. And I am! After a strange series of "coincidences," (which included a random phone call, a food bank can drive, and the generosity of the owner of Jack's Diving Locker) I somehow ended up with 3 free tickets to do the Manta Ray snorkel dive (worth $100 each). It's pretty awesome to have God on your side. So now, next Monday, Sarah, my sister, and I will be out swimming with beautiful creatures that can be up to 25 ft. in size. Life is good. God is wonderful. Praise Him.

Quote of the day # 2

"If we don't change the direction we are headed we will end up where we are going."

Serve

"It is within my power to either serve God or not to serve him. serving him, i add to my own good and the good of the whole world. not serving him, i forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create."


-Leo Tolstoy

Word from God

At the Thursday Night Meeting God told a friend to pray this over me: That "the righteousness of God's Word would sweep through me." I am not fully certain what it means, but I am sure going to try and find out.

Remember this:

Remember that above all else, God loves you and wants to save you. If you do not look at everything else in light of this, you are confused.

---

Lord, help me to remember these truths: You love me, and You want to save me. Sometimes even the simplest and most basic truths are the hardest to come to grips with.

I am a sinner.

"You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. 'My son, give me thine heart' (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that."

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer