On Tuesdays, I teach two classes at DBU. I have one student who is in both
classes. This past Tuesday after my
first class, she walked and drove with me to the International building where I
teach the second class. I love
interacting with students like this. She
explained to me that she also works in the International building and as we
walked in together, the International students (Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese,
etc.) all knew her and greeted her.
After one young lady hugged my student, I looked at her and we both
recognized each other at that moment.
A year ago last August and one week into the semester, I was
walking out to my car after teaching my class.
There is a secluded place along the sidewalk that has a couple of
benches and tall shrubs around. When I
passed the benches I noticed a young Asian girl sobbing all by herself. I stopped and told her that I couldn’t
possibly just keep walking by and I sat down beside her. She smiled a beautiful smile and had such a
gentleness and innocence in her eyes. Keep
in mind that I am horrible with understanding accents and I really get
embarrassed when I have to ask a person to constantly repeat what they are
saying because I can’t understand them.
So, reaching out to her was easy, understanding her was incredibly
difficult.
Through her very broken English, I learned she had just come
to America to go to DBU two weeks earlier and she was incredibly alone and
regretting her decision. She felt so
lost. I remember asking her why she
decided to come to DBU and she said she had been told that DBU is a place where
she could be who she really is. But, she
didn’t know who she really was. I asked
if she had made any friends in the short time she had been here. She hadn’t.
I encouraged her to spend time at the International building, get to
know people, and talk to her advisor. I
asked her if she wanted my number so she could call me and we could meet for
lunch the following week. She walked
with me to my car and I got a business card and gave it to her. As I drove off, I looked back at her and she
was standing there hugging her books in one arm and grasping my card in the
other and waving good bye to me. She was
smiling.
She never called me and I often wondered what happened to
her. A few months later I saw her in the
library and she remembered me and greeted me and gave me a hug and said she was
liking DBU. I hadn’t seen her again
until this week when I was walking into the International building. Her English was remarkably better and she
looked genuinely happy. My student was
surprised that we recognized each other and the girl (I still don’t know her
name!) told my student, “Without her (pointing at me), I wouldn’t be here
today. She’s the reason I stayed.”
Geez Louise! What do
you say to that? Like a dork I said,
“Really??!!” She just beamed. Pretty cool.
It just goes to show that you can never be sure how you are impacting
someone. You may never know. But, we don’t have to know. The importance lies in our walk with God and
how we demonstrate that to others.
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