...After All

I'm pretty sure anybody walking by my desk today at the precise moment I read a particular email would probably have given me a really puzzled expression and asked if I was okay. 

I was, in fact, okay - just rather stunned and too busy picking up my jaw from desk. Then awe settled in as I considered the intricacies of how God brings together the pieces of our world.

I received an email earlier today from my good friend Kate, whom I met while in Kenya last summer.  We quickly became partners in crime and had many an adventure together, our safari probably being the most memorable.  We've kept in touch since then and are both hoping to go back to Africa sometime next summer together, if God wills.  Kate is currently in Burkina Faso with her daughter and son-in-law as those two are adopting a little boy from Burkina.  Kate went along to help with the process and to be of assistance in taking care of her other grandchildren. 

Well, this past Saturday one of the orphanage's staff members from another village came into town to run some errands and help with finalizing the adoption process of the young boy.  Kate and this staff member get to chatting, Kate mentions she had been to Africa before with the Rafiki Foundation.  The staff member turns to Kate and says, "Oh yeah, I know the Rafiki Foundation. I know a girl who went to Kenya with them."  "Well, what's her name?"  "Courtney."  "You know Courtney?!" 

Lo and behold, this staff member is Becky, a girl that I worked with for a year back in Missouri!  Our offices were practically next to each other and we had had several conversations about Africa and our interests there.  Becky was a year younger than me in grad school, starting her first year when I was starting my second year.  She eventually left the program because she just knew that she wanted "to love on little black babies," so away to Africa she went.  She's pretty much been there ever since.

Can you believe that?  What are the odds?  How amazing that God orchestrates these moments where individual lives intersect, but still somehow manage to leave us all connected.   

It really is a small world.

After all.