SURPRISE! by Diane Findlay
SURPRISE! Submitted by Diane Findlay, May 20, 2022
Bob and I hosted several international high school exchange students while our kids were growing up and I worked for a few years for Cultural Homestay International as an area administrator. During my last years in that job the possibility opened up for the first time to host students from the former Soviet Union. These were not always the easiest placements, as our cultures knew little besides propaganda about each other and functioned quite differently. But that was the point, right? We’d learn about each other in up-close-and-personal ways. We decided we wanted to host one of those young people from what we referred to then as the Newly Independent States. I asked my boss to send me a couple of files on students to choose from for the 1996-97 school year. She sent two.
Both files read well; both students sounded great. But one felt like a better fit for our family. We chose her and completed the placement. I contacted her by email right away to introduce us as her host family. I explained, as I always did, that we were Baha’is and what that meant for us and would and would not have to mean for her. I clicked “send” and off the message went. Within a couple of hours I had a reply. I nearly fell off my chair in surprise when Helen’s response began with “Allah’u’Abha!” What? Was I seeing things? Sure enough, Helen was a new Baha’i from Kazakstan! I’m not much of a believer in coincidences anyway, but this was simply too unlikely to write off. Felt like providence from the start.
Helen (Lena) arrived and settled into our family and our Baha’i community. Sometimes there were challenges for all of us, because of cultural differences that had to be navigated. But Helen was (and is) a great young woman. We all learned, had a lot of fun, and came to love each other. We were delighted to share our Faith life with her and nurture her as a new believer. She made friends, in addition to us, that she still keeps up with. She returned to visit us a few years after her stay. Helen lives in Germany now with her husband and son and I hope we’ll have a chance to see her again and to meet her family. You know that saying about how “God works in mysterious ways?” Yes, indeed!
Photo is Amelia Nurangiz Dowhower with Helen, Bob & Diane Findlay at the House of Worship, spring of 1997