Memory: Arrival in the U.S.A.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Farewell at the Airport

To be honest, this has been an overwhelming experience, and I will find it very difficult to describe it. But I will try my best.

I choked back tears as I walked away from my family and friends in the airport. It wasn't that I was afraid of being far away from them, nor was it the prospect of how long four years would be. It was just the feeling of them seeing me leave, watching over me affectionately, loving this undeserving wretch and worm, that tugged at my heartstrings.

In that moment I felt the sacrifice that they made for me by sending me off to a foreign land, believing that I would learn well and grow into a man. I realized that they truly hoped for me to be happy, even at the expense of not seeing me for several years. And deep inside, I had a dreadful fear: that I might fail these people who love me, that I would return home, having spent much time and money, without having changed much as a person. I was afraid that they might be wrong in banking their hopes on me. Thus is the pain of being loved.

In fact, I recently thought that the feeling of disappointing someone who loves you is what hellfire probably feels like. Every human being who went to hell has experienced the (common) love of God before, most having lived for decades in a world where they could feel their way towards God. God bestows innumerable blessings on each person as well as uses suffering to prod people towards Him, the Comforter. Yet, without effectual grace, these only harden sinners; and at the judgment, God rightly casts them away and stops loving them forever.

This is perhaps why I fear being loved, which is strange considering how great is my desire to be loved. I want to be loved, but understanding my sinful nature and my limitations, I know that I will eventually become a disappointment and incur wrath upon myself. My love would run dry, my hypocrisy would be exposed, my selfishness would take advantage of the grace that is shown me, etc. I would show myself as one who is unworthy of love, and be cast into a figurative hell in the hearts of the people whom I have failed.

This, then, is how my journey began: afraid, in need of divine assurance, seeking salvation. Yes indeed, I traveled halfway around the world to America not mainly to get a degree, but to embark on a quest for God. I now realize that everything in my life boils down to one thing, and one thing only, which is to find out whether God loves me, and if so, how deeply.

In the airport, I successfully suppressed the tears and gave them a cheery final wave before I walked out of sight.


* * * * *

Hong Kong

As Jarrett and I traveled through the skies, I felt a fierce sense of independence gradually developing inside of me. Freedom. I felt like I finally get to decide who I want to be. For the first time in my life, perhaps, I felt free of anyone's expectations. This was a fresh start.

We had a thirteen hour stopover at Hong Kong, so we stayed overnight at a hotel. I sat for a long time in the shower trying to take it all in. The experience was quite overwhelming. I couldn't believe I was actually flying to America. It was too surreal. But most importantly, I couldn't believe the amount of freedom I suddenly had.

Then, for one terrifying moment, I realized why I didn't feel sad about leaving home at all; it was because I've always wanted to make my own decisions, and being away from authority figures gave me that freedom. It was a strange realization, because I've always been a very dependent child. This independent, almost rebellious, side of me has been suppressed for so long, and in that moment it emerged with great strength.

Immediately I found the need to pray. I gave the days ahead over to God, asking that He be the one to decide what happens to me. I asked that He would lead me into suffering that would increase my holiness. I asked Him to make me His own no matter what happens, and no matter how much I want to shape myself into a personality that my fleshly self desires to become. I need to be who He wants me to be. And there in the shower, I knew that God heard my prayer. He never rejected any petition to become like Christ. He's always willing to make it so, to glorify His children in Him.

I also tried to imagine what my future days in college would be like, and I wasn't successful. I realized that I truly didn't know what to expect, and I knew what that likely meant: I was going to change dramatically as a person.

One of the times this happened in my life was when, as an early teen, I decided to join theater. The challenges to my deeply introverted and insecure personality were so unexpectedly intense that I was pushed past a certain point. I had some kind of a breakthrough. Suddenly I had an interest in the real world and in real people. I started to drift away from my virtual online life, and at some point I made a painful commitment to say goodbye to my world of fantasy. It wasn't that I decided fiction was bad or anything, but I had to break the innate escapist tendencies in my heart. I couldn't go on pretending that the character in the online game was the real me.

Remember the post where I wrote about a strange and melancholy feeling when I saw a picture of my nine-year-old self? Where the idea that I've changed haunted me for quite a while? There, in the shower in a hotel in Hong Kong, I foresaw that I was possibly going through such a change again. It is the kind of change which is so dramatic that you can't even remember what life felt like prior to that. I couldn't remember what it felt like to be a nine-year-old me, indulging endlessly in my wonderful fantasies. Right then, I was afraid that in a few years I would forget how it is like to be a nineteen-year-old Josh, cool and boyish and shy and full of angst and philosophically reflective and trying to see humor in everything and having little worry other than to love God by serving my brethren.

I sat there for quite a long time, allowing the shower to fall on my head and flow down my face, dripping off my eyelashes and nose and lips and chin. I was almost mourning. Somehow I felt like I was going to die, just like my fantasy-addicted childhood self died. He was gone, and so will I be.


* * * * *

Welcome Week

A.k.a. orientation week, albeit probably much nicer than most other universities.

After checking into our rooms, the first official event was meeting with those in the same department on the lawn in front of Memorial residence hall. I walked over to the history/sociology/political science circle, and there I met the super-friendly Rachel Stevenson. I remember a mini-twinge of annoyance because of how easy God made it for me, as if my social skills were so terrible that I needed someone to warm-up with before I moved on to other strangers. To say the least, she was pretty much a godsend and a very pleasant surprise, because she was very Reformed and very caring. I didn't think it realistic to expect that my first friend at Geneva College would also be one of my closest friends later on, but what do you know, God is exceedingly kind and gentle towards me.

In the meeting for new international students, I met another godsend: Nathan Moelker, the Canadian native who lived in New Zealand for the last five years, who has a Reformed pastor dad like Rachel does, and who later turned out to share four classes with me during the semester. He is also six feet and six inches tall. We would turn out to be an interesting pair, the dwarf and the giant, two international students walking around campus talking about classes, books, movies, the Puritans, and other fun stuff.

Nathan and Rachel and I now go to the same church, Grace OPC in Sewickley. Their respective significant others now also worship there. Good company.

I also met with my academic advisor, Dr. Eric Miller, for the first time. I don't remember much from that meeting, except for the moment when I was leaving his office—he told me with the utmost gentleness and sincerity that if I ever needed him, I could seek him out. I then knew that I found someone who was truly filled with Christlike love, and that drew me to him immediately.

One night, the First-Year Honors Program had a special dinner. As God would have it, Dr. Miller was the new director of the program. Halfway through dinnertime, I went out to get another drink, just as Dr. Miller began introducing the program. Seeing me as I reentered the room, he loudly announced, "Josh!" And he began to clap. Everyone else followed.

"Did you all know that Josh literally came from the other side of the world?"