Like many humans, I enjoy the number of candles on my cake less and less as they grow more numerous. But it always makes me feel better to look backwards and recall what I have done before I look forwards and see what I haven't done. This year, in particular, has been especially productive. Tonight, on the eve of my 25th birthday, I took a walk with my Chinese family in the park across the river from where we live. They were all running and walking and dancing and it's hard for me to think about myself when I'm with them so I wandered off while they did their thing so I could really focus on my 24th year.
Man, what an accomplishment! In just one year, I moved from the safe, homey environment of 901 to a new, completely different in almost every way, third world country to LIVE for what I thought would be at least a year. I got in numerous motorbike crashes and even got to live in an extremely popular tourist destination. Things happened that I never in a thousand years would have imagined happening. God taught me things so valuable, I can't imagine going through the rest of my life without knowing them. He also saved my life, and my faith, on more than one occasion.
After 6 months in Thailand, the unthinkable happened. God moved me out of southeast Asia and into the America of Asia: China. At first it seemed like such a big and scary place to travel to. Even my first few hours in Shanghai were stressful and confusing. But today as I went out to the supermarket to get some Gatorade and walked back and nodded to my doorman as he let me in, it was weird because it felt...normal. Taking Jonathan to school at 7:30 every morning feels normal. Eating rice for every meal feels normal. Even secretly drinking water during meals so the boys don't see me and want to copy me feels normal.
I know how to get around this small city of 4 million and it feels weirdly normal. It's strange when I see other foreigners walking down the street and I think to myself, "what the heck are they doing here? This is my city! I'm the resident foreigner here..." Maybe that's what the locals think when they see me? Either way, I feel like a local. Every night before I go to bed I look out my 23rd story window at an extremely small portion of this gargantuan city and marvel at the huge blessing it is to be where I am right now. I even went to the grocery store today and I only bought one imported food, peanut butter. But that doesn't even count for me because I always need that. Cheese has become nothing but an afterthought. Chicken is the favorite food of the past. And all fast food has been purged from my mind.
I will say that 24 will be a hard age to top, but I know there are just as many lessons, challenges, victories, and failures in the next one. I have a plan B for Ben part 25, I'm letting God do plan A; even though He hasn't told me what it entails, I trust it implicitly. And I'm even more excited to find out little by little what He will do with me, for me, and through me. In my heart, I'm always ready to age up another year. It's my brain that has to catch up.
