“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way,
consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your
faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for
when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and
complete, needing nothing.”
—James 1:2-4 (NLT)
Hello, friends!
I’m afraid that to say “its been a while” would be a gross understatement—it has, in fact, been nearly over a year and a half since I last posted on Folds of Faith!
My last post (May 2018) was all struggle and uncertainty. I was eleven days away from my college graduation and the world seemed open, and big, and bright—TOO open, big, and bright. The fear in that last post is palpable, and reading it now (December 2019) is so interesting and, in a way, profound.
So much has happened between then and now...where do I even begin?
I left for a short school trip to China the morning immediately following my graduation (not only was this trip amazing, it set off a chain of events which would lead me to where I am at this very moment, but more on that in a moment). As amazing and challenging as this trip to China was, it was the coming home which would prove the most difficult. The year sandwiched in between my graduation and the job I have now was undoubtably the most spiritually frustrating of my entire life.
Soon after I came home the Lord blessed me with a job at Dutch Bros Coffee, where I worked from July 2018-August 2019. As reluctant as I was to embrace a “minimum wage job” which I felt somehow “I was overqualified for” (ah, yes, me and my lofty Bachelor’s degree), this job blessed me immensely. My coworkers were like family, I blessed and was blessed by many amazing customers, and I was given a year of reprieve from school or a job that consumed too much of my time and energy.
This past year was about growing in maturity, growing in my relationship with the Lord, and waiting as He prepared my heart for the next step.And what was this next step?
If, as a senior in high school or freshman in college, you had told me that I would move to China in the future, I would have laughed at you.
Sure, I might have said, I’d move Italy or England or Australia, or even Japan...but China?
At that time, I wasn’t fascinated or drawn to China. I knew little of its history, its people, or its culture. The language seemed wholly unfamiliar and difficult.
But as I progressed through college, the Lord was slowly preparing me to come to this country, to love its people, to know its culture.
The summer job I took (and worked for three consecutive summers!), the friends I made, the travel I did, the connection I gained, and the professors I had—when I look back now in retrospect, it all points to one thing.
Every single thing that has happened in my short life—from high school to college and even earlier, the Lord of all Glory and Honor was making the way for me to one day move here and to take a job as an English teacher here.
So yes, friends, I moved to China.
I’ve been here for a little under four months, and to recount everything that I’ve seen, I’ve learned, I’ve experienced, I’ve ate (oh yes...) I cried and laughed over—would be impossible.
There is so much I could so, so much I could write, so much poetry I could share...but rather than turn my blog into a glorified book, I’ll say this—
The Creator of Heavens and Earth is so, so good. His mercy, His power, and His love is unending and furiously all-reaching. He speaks to us in so many ways—in the quiet of the night, in the buzz of humming crowds, in learning a new language, in the insignificant work you do every day.
He speaks in life.
In midnight bike rides to clear your mind—He speaks. In heartache and loneliness—He speaks. In confusion and frustrating language barriers—He speaks. In the laughter and smiles of strangers—He speaks. In loss, in homesickness, in the fear of (all) this unknown, He speaks.
In the feeling of being left behind and unforgotten at home, He speaks.
He speaks in the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard. In the peculiarity and messiness of my life in this country, He heaps grace upon grace upon grace on me.
Moving abroad, like many things, is much different in practice than it is on paper. It is nothing (and everything!) I could have ever imagined.
Yes, it is funny and interesting and joy-filled and novel, but it is also isolating. I have rather limited daily interactions with people who have an advanced conversational level of English. This makes deep, profound, and philosophical conversations (the kind that sustain us as intelligent beings) nearly impossible. Conversations, therefore, take a lot more work to maintain and tend to be more surface-level, if they happen at all.
So where does this leave me? Stripped bare, unable to rely just on people for strength. I must go to Him for my joy. Prayer has become less of an afterthought and more of a necessity. My time with Him in prayer and thanksgiving gives me strength. My 6 AM coffee and prayer is literally survival.
Even now, as I sit in a milk tea shop surrounded by groups of friends chatting and belly-laughing in quick, incomprehensible Chinese, I ache for the loneliness from my lack of deep relationships here and also for my own dear friends back in the States
I know, if He wills it, friends like that for me here will come and develop...but in the mean time, I will wait on Him. I will do the work He has set before me. I will, like writer of James declares, strive to grow in endurance as my faith is tested. I will consider this vocation of mine (even on the days when I perhaps wish I was elsewhere) pure joy!
He is so wonderful to me, and He has done (and will continue to do) wonderful things.
Hallelujah!
In Daylight & Darkness,
Zoe
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