Have you ever heard that quote, "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous" (apparently Einstein said it)? Well, we just had a coincidence that was actually signed by him. Let me explain.
Sunday was 中秋节, Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival in English, so I had the day off (or rather, all my Sunday classes were moved to Monday since my students had Monday off at their regular schools). This year marks the first year that the Government has made it a national holiday. Anyway, so since I normally work on Sunday morning, Marilyn and I haven't been able to go to church as usual, so we've been getting creative. A few weeks ago we visited Haidian Christian Church, which is a famous Chinese national church that is now a 3 Self patriotic church. The week after that we watched a vodcast of Marc Driscoll over at Mar's Hill in Seattle.
So Sunday morning, Marilyn, Justin, a classmate of his, and I all trotted off to Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF). As we were sitting in our seats, Marilyn saw someone sit in front of us who reminded her of one of our friends from California. But, Marilyn thinks that all the time; besides, what are the chances? But when the greeting time came and she introduced herself to someone, we realized it really was our friend Nina! She was just in Beijing for a few days and happened to sit in front of us at the service.
It's a small world; being a Christian makes it even smaller. And it does mean that there's no such thing as a coincidence. I'll leave it to you math whizzes to crunch the numbers, but the odds of bumping into our friend must be crazy :). The reason I say that this coincidence is signed is rather than just bumping into her on the street (we later found out that we almost went to the cafe where she was before church), we met in the Lord's house! She's back in Tianjin now, but you can follow her adventures here.
So, we had a wonderful Mid-Autumn Festival together, we all had lunch together after church, and then she joined us for dinner at the studio where Marilyn's interning:
The dinner table. So tasty!
Here's Nina, on the left, and our friend Tang Zhi.
The full moon:
After dinner, the director of the studio filmed me and Nina's bellies as part of one of his pieces. Nina got a phrase that meant "Alluring" I got "Humanity"
A most delightful Moon festival!
1 comment:
wow, cool story! it's neat how the Lord brought someone along your path that knows you guys :) that's one thing i've found hard in the u.s. ~ not having that connection here with someone who knew me from before. cool you get to see justin too!
Post a Comment