I thought Deerfield was a small town, like small towns in Indonesia. Two lane streets, small houses, walkable distances to market, doctors, schools, everywhere. Plenty of public transportation. Food stalls and door-to-door vendors. Abundance of motorcycles (hey, they save gas and money!).
I was wrong. Big time.
It came as a shock as soon as we’re out of the O’Hare airport. I stared in disbelief as I watched streets as wide as soccer fields from the car’s window. Large distances looms between buildings. No public transportation within sight (the planes are the only exception!). No food stalls. Not even grocery stores. No motorcycles. This is no small town, according to an Indonesian’s standard!
Arriving on an extremely hot week, plus heavy jet lag and PMS in tow, was not helping at all. Not to mention that we had to move 3 times within ten days. I totally and completely freaked out. I wanted to jump right back into the plane and go back home!
The International Student Services Office (ISSO) informed us that when we would arrive to this new country, we would experience some sort of honeymoon phase, realization phase, denial/angry phase, and then settling down phase. To me, it was a short realization phase, then straight into denial/angry phase. No honeymoon whatsoever. Sigh.
Let me explain. Before we came to the USA from the opposite of the globe, we poured through maps, info after info, facts after facts. Thousands of e-mails were written to and fro with the ISSO and Trinity Chinese Fellowship. We knew that [our family] could not stay on campus because there were only 4 units of 3 bedrooms apartment and all were occupied.
So we had to look for off-campus housing. We contacted the realtor, and we looked at the area mapping and decided in which area we wanted to live. We arrived almost a month early, thinking of settling everything before the school began. We knew we couldn’t and didn’t have to bring everything from home, because there was the Clothes Horse and the Furniture Room. We thought we were ready for this new “adventure."
However, maps
cannot really portray how a place really looks like, even with Google Earth.
You can only see parts and pieces, not the whole picture. So it was a nasty
shock to find that this
“small town” is so different from what I had in mind.
And it hadn’t occurred to us that we really can’t rely on public transportation in this area: the Pace buses are simply too slow and don’t cover all locations, and the taxis are simply too expensive for our budget. Living off-campus without our own transportation and a very limited budget? A sure recipe for disaster and depression. Even if we had a car, we needed to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road (we used to drive on the left side). How are we going to survive?
Plus, living off-campus meant we needed to transfer all our bills (gas, electricity, and internet) to our names. All of that required a social security number, which was not be available to us until the orientation began. And everything had to be settled by phone. For us who were still unable to converse fluently in English, that demanded extra effort. It was not fun having to say everything over and over, and in the end had to spell out almost everything.
HOWEVER,
GOD IS GOOD,
AND FAITHFUL,
AND HE PROVIDED.
Immediately after arriving, we were taken care of by numerous group of people. A PhD student from Ivory Coast, whom we had never met before, picked us up from the airport. The Trinity Chinese Fellowship took over from him once we arrived on campus. They invited us over for dinner (although I was still too dazed to eat well), settled us temporarily into one student’s apartment (they were on holiday), took us to the bank, to the mobile phone provider, to the grocery store, and to church. The realtor, who was a very nice and helpful man, showed our prospective home, and we immediately fell in love with it. He even helped settling down transfers of our utility bills.
A neighbor from the next building of our initial stay on campus invited us to dinner on the 3rd day and introduced us to a fellow InterVarsity staff worker from Europe, who was a Trinity student at the time. He was the one who reminded (and comforted) me, while I was clearly in a distressed state of mind. He looked straight to my eyes and said, “God brought you here not to abandon you.” BAM!!!
“small town” is so different from what I had in mind.
And it hadn’t occurred to us that we really can’t rely on public transportation in this area: the Pace buses are simply too slow and don’t cover all locations, and the taxis are simply too expensive for our budget. Living off-campus without our own transportation and a very limited budget? A sure recipe for disaster and depression. Even if we had a car, we needed to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road (we used to drive on the left side). How are we going to survive?
Plus, living off-campus meant we needed to transfer all our bills (gas, electricity, and internet) to our names. All of that required a social security number, which was not be available to us until the orientation began. And everything had to be settled by phone. For us who were still unable to converse fluently in English, that demanded extra effort. It was not fun having to say everything over and over, and in the end had to spell out almost everything.
HOWEVER,
GOD IS GOOD,
AND FAITHFUL,
AND HE PROVIDED.
Immediately after arriving, we were taken care of by numerous group of people. A PhD student from Ivory Coast, whom we had never met before, picked us up from the airport. The Trinity Chinese Fellowship took over from him once we arrived on campus. They invited us over for dinner (although I was still too dazed to eat well), settled us temporarily into one student’s apartment (they were on holiday), took us to the bank, to the mobile phone provider, to the grocery store, and to church. The realtor, who was a very nice and helpful man, showed our prospective home, and we immediately fell in love with it. He even helped settling down transfers of our utility bills.
A neighbor from the next building of our initial stay on campus invited us to dinner on the 3rd day and introduced us to a fellow InterVarsity staff worker from Europe, who was a Trinity student at the time. He was the one who reminded (and comforted) me, while I was clearly in a distressed state of mind. He looked straight to my eyes and said, “God brought you here not to abandon you.” BAM!!!
This student taught my husband to drive on the right side of the road, with the steering wheel on the left side of the car. Patiently he explained all road regulations that might be different from our country's traffic laws.
The Trinity Chinese Fellowship helped us find different student apartments to stay in while we’re still finishing our rental arrangement, and they saved some useful and basic household items from the Clothes Horse for us, too. They helped us move and lugged our findings from the Furniture Room and all. (Have I told you? They are unbelievably terrific! We can’t thank them enough.)
And God provided car after car after car. Yep. Someone lend us his car for one day, then someone else for a week, and yet another couples lent us their second car for an indefinite time until we get our own car. And last, but definitely not least, somebody we didn’t know, from a Chinese church, decided he didn’t need his extra car, and we can have it for FREE. The car is still in a very good condition. I still can’t believe it!
And the list of people that God used to look after us goes on. And on. And on.
GOD BROUGHT US HERE NOT TO ABANDON US.
Let that sink in.
This coming new school year brought all these memories fresh to me, and I can’t help praising Him for His faithfulness, His providence, His love, and for who He is.
New students and new families will be coming to Trinity. I remember last year, when I had to say the same words of comfort to some of our new wives arriving from faraway places. I related my own story to them, letting them know that they’re not alone.
We all can do the same. Why don’t we tell our stories to one another? Comfort and strengthen each other? Who can understand what we had gone through than fellow student wives? Let’s show that God does not abandon us. We are not alone.
The Trinity Chinese Fellowship helped us find different student apartments to stay in while we’re still finishing our rental arrangement, and they saved some useful and basic household items from the Clothes Horse for us, too. They helped us move and lugged our findings from the Furniture Room and all. (Have I told you? They are unbelievably terrific! We can’t thank them enough.)
And God provided car after car after car. Yep. Someone lend us his car for one day, then someone else for a week, and yet another couples lent us their second car for an indefinite time until we get our own car. And last, but definitely not least, somebody we didn’t know, from a Chinese church, decided he didn’t need his extra car, and we can have it for FREE. The car is still in a very good condition. I still can’t believe it!
And the list of people that God used to look after us goes on. And on. And on.
GOD BROUGHT US HERE NOT TO ABANDON US.
Let that sink in.
This coming new school year brought all these memories fresh to me, and I can’t help praising Him for His faithfulness, His providence, His love, and for who He is.
New students and new families will be coming to Trinity. I remember last year, when I had to say the same words of comfort to some of our new wives arriving from faraway places. I related my own story to them, letting them know that they’re not alone.
We all can do the same. Why don’t we tell our stories to one another? Comfort and strengthen each other? Who can understand what we had gone through than fellow student wives? Let’s show that God does not abandon us. We are not alone.
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What a testament to God's provision no matter what hurdles He calls us to leap in faith! Thank you for sharing, Lily. You are a blessing and encouragement!
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