I feel like sometimes God brings someone into our lives at a particular moment for a particular reason. You could call this a coincidence, or a “Godwink” as a friend of mine shared with our Bible study, but to me it’s simply His provision. This has happened in my life more than once, and I want to share just a couple of those stories with you.
In college I studied abroad for a semester in Santiago, Chile. I had a fabulous time and while it was a time of incredible growth with the Lord and met a I few lifelong friends, it was also a difficult time for me. I felt lonely at times, I struggled with fear, I had bouts of homesickness, and missed my soon-to-be fiancé (this was before Skype!). My host family was nice, but I didn’t really feel at home with them.
Finally I found a church, one that a college friend had suggested. It was a small Calvary Chapel church plant, and I looked forward to taking the Metro (the subway) downtown to where they met a couple times a week. I met the most wonderful people there, including a Chilean woman whose wedding I was able to attend while I was there, and who I still talk to occasionally.
One Sunday I met a young couple at church from America. Luis was Chilean, but his wife Kellie was a gringa from California. They lived in Maui, but had been traveling through Chile for the last few months, visiting his family and surfing (Luis was a professional windsurfer!).
Kellie and I immediately connected, finding random things in common, and just feeling that connection that you feel with certain sisters in Christ. I spent as much time as possible with Kellie & Luis for two weeks. When I met them, that was all the time they had left in Chile.
I see God’s fingerprint all over this chance meeting. While I only spent two weeks with Kellie and her husband, it not only renewed my excitement for being in Chile, and brought me a strangely familiar friendship just when I needed it, but it was also a learning time for me to be around a young, married couple just a few months before I would get engaged.
Sadly, I lost touch with these friends but I just found them on Facebook finally! But I know that it was just a glimpse of the Lord’s provision, an example of Him giving me who I needed, a kindred spirit if you will, at exactly the right time.
To be continued…
Please share any chance encounters you’ve had, or times when God brought you just who you needed!
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Hey, I go to a Calvary Chapel church, too! I love the way they preach through whole books of the bible and not topically… it’s a great church.
I was reunited with a best friend that I lost contact with over the years, too. It was great to get to know her again! I love how God works.
For me it was in college. I was going through some big decisions and changing lifestyles and friend groups. Being in between friends can be pretty lonely especially when some people don’t understand why you shouldn’t be hanging out with them all the time and when you don’t have any good friends at church yet. So you get what you get and end up spending a lot of time with God.
Anyway, I went on my first ever missions trip that summer and didn’t really know anyone who was going. They were all friends already and kind of left me out. Turns out they would leave out another person too and she and I ended up hanging out during the trip. Totally a kindred spirit and desperately needed instant friend. We stayed up late every night of that trip talking about anything and everything. God totally provided for me on that trip and then in life. We became best friends and later decided to spend a year in Cambodia trying out more “long term” missions. It was exactly what I needed in my life, a good Christian friend, a spiritual friend, an accountability partner, something I had never had.
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