| my how you've grown enoch reunion 2002 |
| Some are already there, but others trickle in one by one...just like in the movies when families have holiday dinners and everyone arrives separately from different cities. They come in through the front door unannounced and walk into the kitchen where everyone is milling around, eagerly awaiting the next arrival. Our final city was Hong Kong, and the tour was only for one day, leaving us an extra day to shop and meet up with friends. Dad had originally hoped to surprise the old Enoch Fellowship gang but someone had already told them of our upcoming trip. Instead, we arranged to have dinner with a bunch of them. We told a few people but left it up to them to get a group together. About 10 or 11 years ago, a group of foreign students entered our lives when they transferred to Sacramento for school from Hong Kong. They attended our church and the Enoch Fellowship for the Chinese-speaking college students, a group that my dad was the sponsor for. Each person varied in the time that they spent in Sac, but for those few months or for those few years, they became a part of our family. They would come over for dinner, for holiday family dinners, late in the night to talk, for home meetings. Basically, mi casa es su casa. Back then, I didn't really like it. Na and I would complain about how they were always over...how some of them were so loud, especially late at night. But my parents kept telling us it was because the didn't have any family here. And I began to understand that when I went away for school. Fortunately I was not as far away from my parents as they were, so I was able to return home for the holidays. But if I weren't, would I have had a place to go? This past Thanksgiving, L and R opened up their home for anyone who needed a place to go. That reminded me of my parents. It's such a small gesture, but to someone who really needs it, it's something they'll remember forever. Being back with this Enoch group was an eye opener to how much they appreciated my parents back then and even now. They all still keep in touch with my parents and continue to turn to them for parental advice. It was so touching to see them all joking around like the old days. One guy even called dad "Paul-sook," meaning Uncle Paul, like he did before, and it had been 10 years since he last saw our family. But it was like time hardly passed. The bonds were still there and continuing to grow stronger. I'm really thankful for the chance to get to know these people now that I'm older. I am about the same age, if not a little older, than they were when they first came to the States. We ended up having two dinners with them and they paid both times. They said that it made up for all the food they ate at our house. One guy joked that when he came over, before he even said hi to dad, he'd head straight to our cupboards or fridge because he knew they were always stocked with goodies. And it's true...I think my parents did that because they knew we'd have company a lot. And now that I've met up with them again, I wish I had taken advantage of getting to know them. I even wish they were around now so that we could have them visit our house frequently. But there will always be more foreign students and there will always be visitors in need of a home away from home...and hopefully I will have learned a lesson and will be the first one to invite them over for some goodies in our fridge. |
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