The Story - Long Version: Chapter 4

Let me start by mentioning that I fail when it comes to chronology. So much has happened since I got to Champaign that I decided to break the chapters since I've been here into themes rather than to present the happenings in order of occurrence. For those of you who don't like stories that skip around, tough cookies! If you've already read chapter 3, be aware that I was in the process of discovering the Ecuadorian connection throughout the events that will be described in this and the next (final) chapter.

Chapter 4: Why am I here?

I initially never really questioned how I got to Champaign or why I ended up here. It was just a next event in my string of seemingly nonsensical life events, and so I came. Of course, I also had no real reason to question why I was here. I was coming for work, because I was obligated to repay the scholarship that I had received from the DoD by working in civilian service for a year, and CERL was the facility that chose me. 

When I started working for the Army Corps of Engineers, I was excited. The research was new, the ideas were exciting and the were very different from developmental molecular genetics training. Awesome! I wanted to expand my skill set anyway. As soon as I got plugged in, I was given the challenge of coming up with a way to couple a cell-based microfluidic system with optical output to create a sensing system to detect cellular stress in response to toxins in a water sample. What?! I'd never cultured mammalian cells before, never worked with microfludics, knew nothing about sensor devices, and had little experience with cell-based optical systems. It was a bit overwhelming, but I took off with it and surprised myself. I actually came up with an idea that my boss went with! And so I was up and off on a project of my own just like that. It wasn't too long before I had received a couple of fairly prestigious awards as a member of a team of researchers. I had been here for less than a year and was already receiving awards! I won't lie. I didn't feel at all like I had done anything to earn a place on that research team as a part of the award nomination package, but my boss wanted to include me. And we were selected. 

So, as I said, there was no real reason to question why I was here. It was for work, obviously. Things were going great. Even better, our organization is affiliated with the University of Illinois, well known for their College of Engineering. As I had always planned to be a doctor, it seemed a logical next step to get my PhD. Working at CERL, I was in a perfect place to do that. The leadership at CERL highly encourages advanced education, so balancing work and school schedules is not a problem. As I was already a salaried employee at CERL, I'd also be applying to a PhD program with my own funding. There's not really a better deal for a PI accepting a new grad student...It's a free student! So I started looking into programs that would be most beneficial to me considering the types of research I was involved in and settled on the Bioengineering program. Sure, I was lacking the engineering background, but I had spoken with the graduate coordinator in that department, and he had given me a list of courses that I needed to take over the next year to prepare me to apply for the program. Yes, I would have to go back and take a year's worth of undergraduate courses in math, physics and basic engineering, but I was perfectly okay with that. So next thing I know, I'm registering to take Calculus III...a whole seven years after completing Calculus II. Call me crazy. I often call myself that. So I spent the next year battling through courses like Calc III, Differential Equations, Intro to Computer Programming, Thermodynamics, Systems and Circuits in Bioengineering.

Much to my advantage, about 4 months after moving to Champaign, I met an exchange student (guess where he was from) in Mechanical Engineering. We hit it off and soon after began dating. Having a boyfriend who has already taken all of the classes that you're working on and who has a super smart grad student as a roommate who majored in physics and now studies electrical engineering is a major bonus when trying to go back and fill in the gaps in your basic engineering background. So though the courses were difficult, I had a support system. And I was happy: happy at work, happy with the the thought that I'd soon be starting my PhD, happily in love. 

But as always happens, exchange students go home. As if having the guy you're deeply in love with move to another country isn't stressful enough, only a couple of months later, my grandfather died a rather slow and painful death. I started struggling to keep up with work and school, my grades started slipping (okay, I was getting B minuses, which most people would be perfectly happy with, but I was not accustomed to having anything less than an A), relationship issues arose, I started struggling with anxiety and depression. Everything had begun to get so unstable. It was like my whole life had become shaky, but it was still standing...until March 12, 2010. On that day, the waves finally washed my foundation out from under me, and my world collapsed. The love of my life decided he couldn't do it anymore. He wasn't ready for me and for love and for commitment. And I was completely crushed. And my grandfather would have turned 91 that day.

As if that wasn't enough already, the following month I got a letter back from the Bioengineering Department telling me that though they were highly impressed with my application, they had decided not to accept anyone into the PhD program who did not have a degree in an engineering field. So I had spent the last year struggling through classes for nothing, and my research at work had suffered because of it. It was as if I wan't enough for anyone or anything. I wasn't living up to my potential or expectations at work, I wasn't able to keep that most precious relationship together, I wasn't even enough for the PhD program, even though I came free and had taken all of the courses they had told me to take a year earlier. It was like my life had become the perfect storm of disaster, which left me spinning in circles asking "God! Why am I here??? If not for work or school or love, why did you bring me here?!" 

I felt as if I was standing in the middle of desert at noon, with the sun straight overhead and nothing but sand in all directions, nothing, absolutely nothing to give me direction or show me which way to go. I couldn't even begin to take a step forward because I didn't know which way forward was. So I finally gave up and resolved to sit and wait. "Fine, God, I'll just stay here and try to survive until you tell me which way to go." 

Even through my struggles, as soon as I saw the mission trip to Ecuador in September, 2010 announced in the church bulletin, I knew I was supposed to go. I prayed about it and soon after signed up to go. There was no hesitation. Yes, it was a bit costly, but already knowing how beautiful the country and the people are, and knowing that I'd be going to do God's work, the financial factor was never even a question. So I went on the trip, along with 10 other wonderful people from the church, and we had an amazing time. I don't know that there could've been a better group of people assembled together to experience what we experienced that week. I'm pretty sure details of that trip can be found in some of my earlier posts. If not, let me know and I'll do a post later just about our adventures for the week (Brandi, I count on you for this, and, yes, I realize that I still owe you the racquetball story).

As I stayed an extra week to visit a family very dear to my heart, I did not travel back with the rest of the group. I flew back to the states on September 20, and as I was sitting in Chicago's O'Hare Airport eating my Chicago style hotdog and chips, I felt that all-too-familiar feeling of unease come back. It's a feeling that I've carried with me really since I left for college in 2001 - a feeling of not knowing where home is, not knowing where I belong, of being transient and unsettled. The interesting thing about feeling it come back though is that I had never even realized that it had gone away in the first place. But as I felt it come back, I realized that while I was in Ecuador, I felt at home. Then thinking back on it, every time I have been there, I have felt a certain peace, a certain sense of belonging that I haven't really found here. And so upon feeling that heaviness return, I knew. I knew God was calling me to Ecuador, and I knew why He had brought me to Champaign. It wasn't for work or for an education or even for love, though the love has played a big role in the whole story, but it was so that He could show me where He wants me to go, where I need to be in order to make the greatest impact for His kingdom. How crazy, yet amazing, that He would bring me to central Illinois to lead me to the center of the world.