2/21/2014

It All Now Seems So Normal

Can it be that I’ve lived in Asia more than 10 years now?

Some days, it never once strikes me that I’m the only blond for miles; an oddball foreigner. I go about my day, doing the tasks one does to keep the gears of life running, not thinking about my blessed and unusual life being in the midst of fascinating sights and practices and languages. I don’t think about the ethnicity of some of the sweetest friends I’ve ever known, I just think how great it is to be a godmother, or how soon I’ll get another foot massage with Namiko, if Yi Hui will stop by or how I should probably do more jazzercise than the once a week trip to the Clementi Sports Complex with my next door neighbor Jeannette.

Some days, however, I try not to leave the apartment because I don’t want be a head taller than everyone else in the supermarket line again. Ever.

I might very well have been the only Caucasian person on the flight I took to meet Jim in Ho Chi Minh City that week. I didn’t really notice.

I talked nearly the whole time with Brian, a young salesman for a new English multiplatform magazine for enjoying life and culture in Vietnam. He was a bit afraid of flying so I just kept him talking. We talked and talked about family; about his schooling in Singapore; about soulless people of the city; about the vibrancy of developing countries like Cambodia and Vietnam; about personal productivity systems for keeping a hyper-creative person organized and realistic. About experiences in life that make have made me absolutely convinced that it’s more than just “fate” but that there is a personal God who knows and loves us and wants us to know him as our Heavenly Father.

“I’m so encouraged to meet a person like you.” He said.

“Yeah?”

“Forgive me, but, it’s just that…for your age…you have so much life.”
I laughed.

“It’s encouraging to think that in your 50’s you can still have so many ideas and thoughts. And that you enjoy life.”


“Well, the way I see it, I’m only a little more than ½ way to the end of this side of eternal life. I got a long, long lot of time left.”

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