A Race, Relationships & Redemption

Yesterday, I took part in a fundraising 5k/2k for Beautiful Gate Lesotho. You would think that it would just be a race and in some ways it was. There was Rocky music playing (and a bit of AC/DC), cups of cold water, homemade signs, and medals for the winners.

But it was unlike any race that I have ever participated in.

Because this happened:

Maletsatsi with Aussi Christina

And looking back 20 years, as a girl just entering her senior year of high school, I could have never imagined this kind of day. I was a girl whose life was in turmoil. A few precious relationships were ending and I wasn't sure about anything anymore. What I did know was that there was a guy who lived in Michigan and a God who had big plans.

I'm pretty sure I lived off of Jeremiah 29:11 that year. It sustained me. But the plans that God had, or so I thought, included a highly successful writing career. 

And as I travel the twisty road that has been my life, I see how God has twined amazing and unexpected things together to create, namely, a picture of his plan of redemption for me, for our family, for Mali...and prayerfully, for many others. 

And in a beautiful twist of fate it all came together in the most remarkable morning yesterday. 

It started my freshman year of college. I was far from home, felt really alone and hadn't made many friends yet. I wasn't from the area around my school so I didn't have established relationships like so many other people I met. I took Biology 101 that first semester and then joined a classmate, Lauren, for lunch. I tagged along as she met up with a group of friends from her floor. Sitting at our table was another girl who was equally an outsider. And I threw food at her. 

Yep, the beginnings of a life-long, life changing relationship was cucumber and green pepper slices. 

A year later that same girl, Anita,  gave me a bunch of tulips for my 20th birthday and asked if I would be her roommate the next year. 

We weren't the closest friends. There was a third girl, Meika, who would join us after she returned from her semester in Egypt. I was intimidated by both these women. the one who was coming back from Egypt, well, would I have anything in common with her? She was so exotic and cool.  

My level of nervousness still amazes me. God was knitting together something amazing. Yet none of us had seen it yet. 

The next year we added two more roommates, Julie & Cindy. One whom I liked, the other I didn't. (In fairness, Julie didn't really like me either. But we've worked through that.) But I got married that year and went off to start this new life that I thought wasn't supposed to include these four women. Everyone else got married too--and we all started our lives.

Meredith--from that first amazing small group
Photo credit: A Beautiful Race

We bought our first house and within a year, Anita and Bryan bought the house across the street. We still maintained separate lives, I worked at our church and they had a phenomenal small group. We met and knew and shared life with both Bryan and Anita's family--spending time in Ludington, game nights.

Katie, Hannah, Erynn, and Aaron
All grown up & Racing
Photo Credit: A Beautiful Race

And the five roommates somehow managed to remain connected: weekends in Ludington, in depth Bible studies, our kids knowing each other. (Out Bible study was a crowded place. There were a lot of kids between us: Josh, Katie, Olivia, Aaron, Hannah, Erynn, Megan, Eli, Faith, Mercy, Chloe, & Maryam).

Josh & Mali
Photo Credit: A Beautiful Race

And during this time, the summer of 2009, I felt an incredible burden to pray for a woman I didn't know and a child I didn't know would be mine. 

Terp & the girls cheering racers!
Photo Credit: A Beautiful Race

But again, our ways parted when they moved out to Zeeland and started to attend a new church, Haven. Through that church, Anita fulfilled a life-long promise to herself to go on a mission trip. So in October 2009, she flew away to spend time serving at Beautiful Gate Lesotho. On that trip, she developed new life-changing friendships, particularly with Terp (Christina Terpstra). 

Within months, Bryan and Anita received and accepted the call to direct operations at Beautiful Gate Orphanage. It was just a few months later that I met the phenomenal Terp. And after a blink of an eye, the Geurinks moved their family halfway around the world. 

God continued to knit and weave and twist the relationships around me. I met and got to know a member of the Geurink's first, excellent small group. I reconnected with the one roommate whom I didn't like so much back then, but now, is one of the first people I would call in a crisis. The second is that exotic roommate from Egypt. 

 

Mali & Terp
Photo Credit: A Beautiful Race

And somehow it all culminated yesterday in a race supporting Beautiful Gate Lesotho, the orphanage where Mali lived and where the Geurinks direct operations and Terp is the North American Ambassador. Because Terp was one of the people who gave love to my daughter while she waited for us. Because no one knew this girl would be our daughter. Yet they loved her anyway--so much, that Mali trusts Terp, totally and completely. 

Because at that race were life-long friends and family of the Geurinks, new BG supporters in Holland/Zeeland area, parents who were waiting to adopt, Terp and people who love and support her, other adoptive parents. I met a woman waiting to meet the children God has for her in Lesotho. 

Me
Photo Credit: A Beautiful Race

And the quilt God has made of my life continues to be woven. He's adding depth and layers and relationships and friendship and love. 

I'm not for one instant proposing that the race yesterday had anything to do with me, it was a fundraiser for a great organization and 63 beautiful kids. 

But, for me, it was my life, full circle. It was redemption. It was what God had done in my life in the past 20 years--which I never could have expected. It was the way he brings people together. It was healing from my brokenness and the journey of healing for my daughter. It was people who loved me and people who loved her, before I ever knew she was mine. It's about strangers who care for the needs of other strangers. It's about the hands and feet of Jesus, about caring for the lost sheep, about calling the children to Him. 

It was God's crazy plan in action and view for the whole world to see. He's taken each of us, individuals He created, and made something beautiful. 

And I'm humbled to be a part of it. 

Michael & Yang Feng

Olivia at the finish line

Cindy & Daryl

Julie & Hannah

Josh--looks impressive, doesn't he? 

Katie & Eric