So, we are basically done with the second week of the first month
of this new year. The grand collide of family, holidays, gluttony and bad
sunburn is gradually fading into the background as the flustered faces of
fellow colleagues begins to filter into your everyday vision. It’s the slow
phasing out of one year into another. Letting go of what was and could have
been and holding onto hope in the potential of what the next twelve months
could hold. A process of perspective.
I have a friend who is working on a project that seems excessively
massive. However, she puts up a post every now and again to chronicle her
process, and this draws me to think about my own process and feel a little more
brave about it. Most of us spend our days in some process or other, and I want
to share what that process has looked like for me lately.
Sitting on the edge of my seat as I was asked to go up and make an
impromptu speech on a word I’d genuinely never heard before. A Toastmasters
meeting at the Italian Club in Bedfordview. The Portuguese lady next to me began telling me about her
son (Pedro) who was in South Korea teaching English. An idea like a flame was
lit. A moment in March 2012 that seemed senseless, awkward, insignificant, soon
to be forgotten… like any other.
But our lives are always more than that.
Made up of dots that somehow connect looking back.
“When there’s a burning in your heart, an endless yearning in your
heart.
Build it bigger than the sun. Let it grow. Let it grow. When there’s a
burning in your heart – don’t be alarmed.
When there’s a burning in your heart, and you think it’ll burst
apart.
There’s nothing to fear. Save the tears. Save the tears. When there’s a
burning in your heart – don’t be alarmed.”
(Death Cab for a Cutie – You’re a tourist)
From that moment at Toastmasters to sitting on the edge of a small
seat on an SA Express flight with my backpack on my lap and eyes as wide as a
frightened deer. Not knowing a single person in a land I never imagined
stepping foot into.
My car, fridge and bed sold.
My sentimental life stacked into a couple of boxes.
My heart beating to the sound of adventure.
I knew it didn’t make sense to some or most. I am 27 and should be
“settling/ed down”, climbing a corporate ladder, positioning myself to meet a
good, christian South African boy to marry and begin having kids (my gran
reminds me of this often enough). But I’ve always known my life would look a
little different. I’ve always known I’ll dream of the impossible and pursue it.
I have learnt to follow my heart as God whispers into the areas I am yet to
tread. I know I’m far from perfect and will bump my head more than once to live
without regret. However, I am ready to risk it all. I am no longer afraid of
the stuff that used to weigh so heavily on my shoulders. I was not pursuing some romantic ideal. I know culture shock is
real but I had no intention on backing out “the first time I cry”. I didn’t
hold some great mission to save Asia or be a rockstar gangham DJ. I wasn’t going
to simply pursue adventure or travel. I was going because each day this aching
conviction grows within me that LIFE IS SHORT. And I’ll do anything to feel
alive.
It began with survival of the 9 – 5. It began with wanting more.
It began with a realization. It began with an idea.
I allowed the idea to simmer since early March 2012. The idea
moved from zoning in on a number of things to having its place onstage. I filtered
through the research and cut out the most important and interesting parts. Then
it had begun coagulating. Like a soup that starts thickening, a story started
emerging. Shortly after completing an online TEFL course - I resigned from my
rather comfortable job at an environmental company and began selling, shifting
and moving. I moved home (Eastern Cape) for a month or two, hoping to confirm a
position at a school in South Korea as soon as possible. It took a little
longer due to the overload of paperwork required (ASIA is passionately
fanatical about documentation). I eventually received a position in August for
an academy in a small city named Gumi. I passed the rather intense two-hour
interview and was told I got the job. The next part of this process was
finalizing the rest of the complicated and rather dramatic documentation, which
entailed driving to Port Elizabeth and Pretoria and sending a few costly DHL
packages over to South Korea. I had to be there on the 28th October
for training on the 29th in Seoul so it was a race against time. I
only received my final documents on Thursday 25th October and had my
flights booked on that same day to leave Friday morning 26th
October. I spent a load of cash on all this, including doctors appointments,
vaccinations, buying toiletries to last a year (blame it on the paranoia about toothpaste
and face cream that leaves you ugly), a good quality backpack and camera,
buying dollars and all the other odds and ends one needs to think about when
moving overseas for a year. I packed on the Thursday night (with the help of
both my parents) over two bottles of good wine. We played house music, chatted
and tried to squash as many items of winter clothing that could fit into my
case.
I
woke up at 2am on Friday morning, unable to sleep with last minute ideas. We
headed to the airport at 8am and I booked my luggage through from East London
to Inchon (South Korea). As I was standing there, a curveball was thrown in my
direction and landed perfectly in the middle of my chest… BOOM! Instant
adrenaline-rush of fear.
I
received an email from the academy I was going to be working for. It was a
basic outline of what training would entail and how I would need to do an
online test on Sunday before I began their training on Monday. At the end of
this email they stated that “depending on the outcome of your training in Seoul
we will decide as to if you are employed with us or not”… I read those few
lines as if I’d been given a life sentence in a Syrian prison. Pure panic.
There I sat with my tickets in hand, waiting for my boarding call as the hair
on my neckline stood on edge. Going to a foreign country in Asia, YES ASIA, not
knowing anyone and being highly dependent on this job to be the real-deal when
I arrive. However, there was nothing I could do about it. As much as I wanted
to, I could not back out or run away.
I
bid farewell to my parents and seated myself on the small SA Express plane
whilst my over-analytical brain began creating headlines: “South African girl
left to fend for herself in the streets of South Korea.”; “Teaching English
Scam uncovered through misfortune of SA girl.”; “Scandal uncovered as SA girl
fights to survive in South Korea.”
STOP.
STOP. STOP.
As
I sat there, I closed my eyes and began to pray. I asked God to stop this entire
thing if it was wrong or if I was making one big mistake. I asked HIM because
it is all I could do. My mom said that as my dad and her were driving away from
the airport she also prayed that God would do something big if it was wrong.
She said she kept reminding herself, “No man, God is so big – of course she can
trust that.” About 10 minutes of sitting on that plane an announcement was made
that the starting engine of the plane wouldn’t start so they would be
“rebooting” the plane. A flight full of businessmen sigh in unison. Time was
ticking. There were important Friday meetings in Jozi they had to get to. They
attempted to restart the plane three times, and as they switch everything off
for the third time – I began to realize that maybe, just maybe, God was in the
midst of this...
The
next announcement sent shockwaves of muttering rippling through each passenger,
“Please disembark and collect your luggage as this plane will not be able to
leave East London until we receive further technical assistance.”
Everyone
hustles off the plane to collect their luggage. The absurdity was that I felt
complete relief. My phone wouldn’t work so I asked some random guy and his
girlfriend if I could use their phone. He gladly offered it to me and allowed
me to call my folks. As I handed the phone back to him, while we were all still
waiting for our luggage, he asked me to explain where I was supposed to be
heading. I described the general outline of it all while he seemed to stare
blankly at me. As soon as I had finished talking he said, with a dead-straight
face, “Wow, so you are Jonah! You’re the very reason we are all standing in this
airport.”
To a man in a whale, the world is a whale’s stomach.
As
comical as that may have seemed, something within my heart was beating to the
drum of this supernatural and divine story that was unfolding before my eyes. I’d
been spat out the whale. I was confused in this stormy water, but relieved at
what was going on.
I
went to customer services and requested assistance as it had been announced
that the flight that was meant to leave at 9:50am was now going to leave East
London at 15:00. There were loads of businessmen and women all complaining that
this had never happened before. The consequences of the delay meant my missing
the flight from Johannesburg to Dubai which was due to leave at 14:10 that day (and
then from Dubai to South Korea). The service centre for SAA could not assist me
as the agency (who purchased the ticket) were required to contact Emirates
directly. They also stated that they could get me to Dubai but not to South
Korea before Monday (when the training was due to begin). I spoke to the
manager of SAA and requested he draft a letter stating what had happened for me
to send to the agency (needing proof of what was going on).
The end result was my not being able to go to South Korea.
No newspaper headlines.
No foreign country.
Just the process of reaching dry land.
It
is a strange thing. We plan our lives and attempt certain feats. We work, save,
eat, exercise, board planes, and yet, God is always at work. I know that
everyone has an opinion on God and his reality or existence. I know everyone
holds certain convictions about the amount of control He has over our lives. I
have seen his fingerprints all over my life and known his intervention in crazy
and impossible situations. There is no silly coincidence. It is all about Him. Life
can seem messy at times. Things don’t always turn out as we expect or plan or
desire. However, I wanted to write this down, this way-too-long post, because I
believe that as much as there is mess – there is beauty. And I really hope that
this year finds you tumbling down a rabbit hole of seeing His reality in your
life. In the words of Switchfoot:
“Born for
the blue skies – we’ll survive the rain;
Born for the
sunrise – we’ll survive the pain.”
