” I think God would rather a child running down the halls with excitement and wonder at the doors He can open than a child who sits at the end of the hall too scared to open the wrong one.” – Emilee Kuyper

Hello everyone. It has been a while and I know that even though you were all waiting with baited breath, I could not update you on anything until there was an actual update. So here is my update: I am going to Korea at the end of November. It is happening. It is actually, finally happening. And God decided to work some miracles in the midst of it which I shall explain in detail for those who want to stick around. But the bottom line is I only have six weeks to get things in order. I have to pack and sell my items and make sure all my paperwork is ready to go but I won’t bore you with all those details and I’ll tell the little pre-adventure I got to have lately.

In my last blog, I explained that I was not accepted into the first school I applied to. And that my plan was to reapply to other schools for the next term. But in the end, I only applied to the Yonsei University. It is one of the schools recommended by my Korean teacher and the rival school to Korea University. (The school I attended when I first studied abroad 4 years ago). Though I have good memories at Korea University they did not give me a specific reason as to why I was rejected but I now know that it was actually my fault and thankfully when applying to Yonsei University they explained everything to me. They were very thorough and always responsive. And I have determined that when I get there I am going to be bringing the lady who always answered my questions a gift, because I had a lot of questions.

The mistake I made was not understanding fully the documents that are needed to apply. When studying abroad the University needs a Notarized and Apostilled stamped diploma from wherever you last graduated from. I, however, sent them a regular, unexciting and unstamped diploma. Thankfully, Yonsei contacted me right away to let me know what my application was missing. This was, however, blocked by my own mistake of putting my contact email as one that I rarely check and is not on my phone. To all those reading this – Please check your email and make sure it is the right one. I will save you so much stress and tears. I did reach out and ask if they needed anything else from my regularly used email and they forwarded the 10 day old email alerting me of my mistake. That, of course, let to a panicking meltdown since there was only 10 days left until the deadline and those documents are so difficult to order. But God- but God knew all of this. And Oh how He worked it out so beautifully and seamlessly that you would have thought I planned it this way. I would like to clarify that I did not plan to miss a very important email or send the wrong document – so please don’t think anything special of me.

It just so happened that the day I got the email of my missing paperwork was Wednesday, the day before my friend from Washington, who went to George Fox with me, was coming to visit for the weekend. She also has experience studying abroad and has been such an encouragement during this season of preparing for Korea. So I called her and we figured out that if I called all the offices that would be getting my documents ready and if they could be ready by Monday I would fly back with my friend and pickup my newly printed and notarized diploma from George Fox and drive it to the Secretary of State Office and get it Apostille stamped. Fun fact: going into places in person is often much faster than mailing things. So Monday arrived and I was on a plane to Portland with my friend. Another God thing is that my friends mother is a flight attendant who allowed me to flight for a discounted price which made it much more reasonable to go and get my diploma taken care of. Monday the Secretary of State office was closed for a holiday and so we decided to Tuesday we would get it all taken care of. We drove down to George Fox, picked up the diploma, headed over to Salem for the Secretary of State office and got everything stamped and approved within 2 hours. Then off to Fed-Ex for speedy international shipping.

The deadline was that Friday – which is Thursday evening for us in the States due to the time difference. Getting it mailed out Tuesday meant that it had to arrive at Yonsei in two days. And if it didn’t then they would not give me the visa for studying long-term. When we finally shipped my documents it said it would arrive Thursday evening, which is Friday morning in Korea. Exactly when the deadline ends. And so we shipped it by 1:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday and at that point I had to give it all to the Lord. It wasn’t in my hands anymore but I walked to the end of the line. I did everything I could and then gave the results unto the Lord. In this season, I have often asked Him to honor my waiting. I have asked Him to give me such clarity that I could never be mistaken that Korea was what He laid on my heart. The amount of prayer during these last 2 weeks was overwhelming. Thursday night, I had made it home and was sitting with my mom watching the tracking of the package – which honestly is so agonizing and boring as it only updates every time the package is scanned so I wasn’t watching much. But at 9:51 that night it said delivered. It made it to Yonsei University!!! I could not believe it. Now all I was waiting for was an email of my acceptance or rejection.

If you are still reading, congratulations but there is even more that God has done in this story so hold out a little longer. Friday morning, my mom and I were headed to Sedona, Arizona for the day and I waited until we got in the car to check my emails as I felt that I could barely look. And there it was the email read, “Dear student, Warm greetings from Yonsei University KLI (Korea Language Institute) program. We are glad to inform you that you have passed the screening process and have been accepted into the KLI program.” There were tears, shouts and utter shock. It has been a long time of waiting on the Lord and walking in the direction that I feel like the Lord has put on my heart. A little extra surprise from the Lord was that while we were in Sedona for the day we ran into a Korean family who lives in Phoenix and they were so excited about my acceptance into Yonsei as it is a good school and they have family near there and that I could speak Korean. We exchanged numbers and are going to have dinner with them soon. What an amazing gift God gave that day. He always loves to surprise with things I think.

The biggest lesson I have learned just in these last few weeks is this: Go the extra mile and try all the doors. The Lord can direct us even if we start going in the wrong direction. Because God is fully capable of handling our mistakes, my diploma situation for example. He already knew that I would mess it up and yet He allowed a friend to be part of the adventure and worked everything out for His glory. For those of you who feel like you are afraid of messing up God’s plan or don’t know where to go next – just go. I think God would rather a child running down the halls with excitement and wonder at the doors He can open than a child who sits at the end of the hall too scared to open the wrong one. There is a beauty in the pain and adventures of life. But not many people, I think, take walking with the Lord as one big adventure where He does absolutely amazing things and you get to be apart of it. So even if I was told no by the universities I would have tried another door. Maybe teaching or working. Maybe doing ministry. But until the Lord closed every door and no windows were left open, I wasn’t going to stop. We have to remember that walking with the Lord is never easy. In fact, often times the resistance we face grows and challenges our faith. It gives us something to look back on and see where the Lord has brought us. Because if I just easily got into a university and everything was so smooth, I wouldn’t have this crazy story to tell you. Because those hard and wrestling moments are what shine the goodness and faithfulness of God oh so brightly.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4 (I think I need to go read the book of James now.)

Love you all and I hope you are excited to join me in all my adventures! THE LORD IS SO GOOD!