Remembering...

Everyone has one.  A moment where a big change in your life begins.

It's usually pretty small, and you don't really know about it until long after it happens.

Mine? The day that I decided to attend Urbana '09.

Every three years, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship puts together a huge conference. Its goal?  To bring the Father's work to the forefront of the minds of university and college-age students from all over the US and Canada.  Its method? Plenary and break-out sessions on a plethora of different topics, Book studies, and a huge room filled with all kinds of organizations that fulfill His purpose in a variety of ways.

It all started many, many years ago in Urbana, Illinois, hence its name.  Now, however, the conference is held in St. Louis, Missouri.  For about 6 days, 17000+ people take over the city.

Talk about information overload.

I don't remember much about the plenary sessions. Oh, wait. Now that I think about it, my pastor's session was really good. As were the times of singing.  The break-out sessions were alright, and I could have done without the Book studies with the way they were structured (I chose to go running at that time instead, which served me much better).

Now, I know it sounds like I'm bashing the conference.  I'm really not.  Those aspects just weren't meaningful to me for whatever reason. I'm still not sure why.

But the conference was still worth attending, even if it were for this one reason alone: it's how I discovered my current employer.

The Exhibitor Hall is what I remember best, because it's where I got the most jazzed up to see possibilities of what I could do, where I could go, to fulfill the Father's purpose for my life.  Every day, I waited, sometimes impatiently for the hall to open. I wandered around talking to a million and one exhibitors from all over the place, looking at everything from yet another master's degree, to working on a ship (!), to working on a university campus in Montreal. And every day, I walked out of the hall with a new idea.

But the one that stuck was definitely my current employer, even though I had never, ever thought of China as a legitimate work opportunity. But somehow ... it just seemed to resonate with me.  And the further along I got in the interview process ... the more my then-future employer agreed with me.

And now, 1.5 years in, I'm certain this is where I needed to be. With all the bumps, bruises, and everything else ... it's been an adventure. But He has shown Himself to be faithful, loving and has always given me exactly what I needed.