A lot has happened since my last post.  I celebrated Christmas, New Year, did my Thirty Day retreat, celebrated Lunar New Year (many times over), and now am resettling back to my normal life at the Novitiate once again.  But I wonder for how long until another exciting passage in my life will take place, and I’ll be knocked out of the normal rhythm of things.  So much has happened, I don’t really know where to begin.  Many would likely want to know about my Thirty Day retreat, but that would be too long of a story to tell, so I’ll save that for another day!  Rather, I will tell you about how I spent the last few holidays and celebrations away from home!

This year is the second time in my life to spend Christmas away from my family.  The first time, I spent Christmas and the whole New Year package in Japan.  I don’t remember missing home too much, nor did I feel dreadful reminiscing all the past Christmas memories.  Rather, I simply accepted the fact that I was thousands of miles away from my family, and that they were thinking of me, and that was enough.  And I learned to enjoy Christmas and New Year in a whole new culture, with different customs and traditions.

However, the feelings I experienced this year around Christmas and New Year, were very different.  Being in the novitiate, I am canonically obligated to stay for the whole year.  Even though the experience of being away from home for the holidays should not be new to me anymore, I still felt emptiness and missed home quite a bit.  Unlike Japan, I am about nine hours drive away from home, two hours by flight; both are relatively closer compared to Japan.  So the idea of being so close, yet so far, was tough to digest for me.

But it passed by, not as painfully as I had thought!  I realized that by not being with my family, I was opened up to many opportunities to celebrate with others.  I didn’t see it was being ministerial at all, but it turned out so.  I ended up sharing my Christmas and New Year celebrations with many groups of people: in my own novitiate community, in the larger SVD community at Techny, with the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters’ community, with Vietnamese families and friends, and as I traveled to Bay St. Louis, again with other small SVD communities.  In all these celebrations, I shared myself, and received from others, and we joined together to celebrate Christ, and Christian fellowship with one another.  All this would not have happened if I was home with my family.

I realized that God works in our lives in mysterious ways, ways which seems at first difficult and hard to comprehend.  Yet if we open ourselves and allow ourselves to move with the flow of God, we can end up experiencing a whole new dimension to life which we may be accustomed to, yet it is so beautiful at the same time.  I cannot fathom the warmth and generosity shown to me during the last few months as I joined others in their celebrations.  I was a mere stranger in many of these celebrations, yet I always felt warmly welcomed and treated no less than family member!  What a great gift God has bestowed on me, even when I didn’t ask for it, or realized it at the moment, and I grumbled at the experience.

But now that a few months have passed, and I look back on my experience, I can’t believe how wonderful it has all been.  God has been loving and generous to me, especially in times where I felt homesick.  God has reached out his hands through others, to warmly hug me, greeted me, and created a home for me wherever I go.  I now further trust that God will continue to care for me in all my endeavors.

I hope you too, in whatever difficulties you’re in, especially in times when you feel you have no control over the situations, that you come to realize that God is always there for you.  God is reaching out to you in many ways, through the touch of others, through the smiling faces of people walking by, through a simple yet sincere greeting!  God is always there for you, as I have seen him being there for me.  Just when you begin to think you’re all alone in this dark dark world, you should turn around, look closely at all the ways God is reaching out to you, and realize, you’re are NEVER alone!

- Nathaniel Nguyen-