Reflecting on the Beginning

This past week I began teaching my students about personal narrative essays (a short story about an event in your own life told with a purpose). I handed them a graphic organizer (teacher jargon...bear with me) to begin outlining their story, to make sure that each paragraph had a point. I wanted to give them an example of how the graphic organizer would work...I was thinking of telling them a story of how I had to wait 45 minutes for a bus or something short and silly like that. Instead they asked me to tell them how I got to Argentina.

So I began to tell them the story. It started in China (when I was student teaching) and they were hooked. When I got to the part when I was filling out the really long application for NICS while sitting at C&C Coffee and my page refreshed they groaned right a long with me. (I had been working on it for about 45 minutes to an hour). I told them I almost didn't fill it out again, "But Ms. Shadle, if you didn't fill it out again, you wouldn't be here now!"

"No," I answered, "but I had a friend who worked at that coffee shop who reminded me I had nothing else to do that day, what would it hurt to fill out the application again?"

"Ms. Shadle, tell your friend thank you for us." (Mitch B. - I don't know if you remember that day or not, but your encouragement has helped to touch many lives and they are very grateful.)

But in reality, my story did not begin in China, it began so many years earlier. This morning as I was listening to the podcast from King Street Church from Sept 2, my heart resonated with the hearts of the students sharing about their trip to Nicaragua. My story began on those first mission trips overseas, I fell in love with cross-cultural relations and knew I wanted it to be part of my future. Those seeds are what led to my studies at Eastern University which gave me the opportunities to go to Asia two different times and finally brought me to Buenos Aires. So to the students who feel a pull to international missions, don't squelch that desire. Keep it in mind as you go on to university (yes a university degree is necessary to go overseas, trained professionals are needed all over the world). Go on more trips as you have the opportunity. You never know where God will lead you next.

To those of you who have supported me all along the way, thank you and my students thank you. Maybe when I finish my personal narrative, I will share it with you all.

-Kait