Isaac (part 19)

The benefit of being a man is that you get to have a really bad memory. Isaac barely remembers conversations we had yesterday, while I remember every embarassing incident in my whole life in such minute detail that I get embarrassed all over again when I remember it.

Although, since having kids I can no longer remember what I went to the grocery store to buy, or why I opened the refrigerator door.

But it's a good bet that chocolate answers both those questions.

If I ask Isaac today why he broke up with me 10 years ago, he really doesn't remember. It had something to do with me graduating.

And really, that's about as much as I understood when he broke up with me.

It was sudden, and oh-so-unexpected. It was March or April of my senior year. I had agreed to be part of an intern program with my college pastor after graduating, and was starting a new Christian fellowship at a university in Orange County. I also decided to get my Master's Degree while I was there, since we really needed a student to participate in starting the group. Isaac had one more year of school, then had to go to Rhode Island for training, and after that we didn't know where he'd be.

And somehow in his mind this translated to us taking separate paths in life.

It was absolutely shocking to me. We had known since before we started dating that we wouldn't be getting married any time soon, and that he would be going into the Navy right after graduation. I was only moving 50 miles away from him. Granted, in Southern California traffic that is more like 200 miles, but still, I couldn't wrap my brain around the concept that the person I thought I was going to marry had changed his mind.

And until that day I never understood that a broken heart isn't a figurative description, that your chest can actually hurt, you can feel like you can't breathe, that you are drowning in a sea of pain and don't know how to get out. For months I would beg God to just let me get over Isaac, because no other guy I met or knew or who asked me out after that compared to him.

About four or five months after we had broken up, Isaac asked me to go to dinner with him so we could talk. We still attended the same church, so we'd seen each other fairly regularly.

He wanted to get back together.

And I told him no.

Cambodia (part 18)

Have you ever seen the movie The Saint with Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue? Near the end, she is running from the Russian Mafia, sprinting towards the American Embassy yelling, "I'm an American! I'm an American!" and falls into the strong arms of a tough Marine, safe behind the closed gates of the protective American Embassy.

Yeah.

For us?

Not so much.

P was able to reach the US Embassy. They told us that they were evacuating Cambodia and advised us to leave Cambodia if possible. However, they would not be able to help us.

Thank you and have a nice day.

With 40 people in one house things got pretty close. We had to ration food and drink, as we didn't know how long we'd be stuck. The biggest concern was whether we'd run out of fresh water. We all got sick, mostly the expected third-world travel-related stomach complaints, but when you put 40 people with travel-related stomach complaints into a house with two bathrooms, things can get, well, icky.

Sleeping space was also an issue. The first night a friend and I slept on a bare box spring. After that first night enough blankets were found for everyone. At some point after the first day a brave soul had taken a trip back to our house. One of the men on the team had heart medication that he couldn't do without, and I think they picked up some extra supplies then also.

I spent a lot of my time with P's daughters, playing with them and watching Veggie Tales. We were there for three or four days, and at one point we knew we had to get out of the country but there was no one to help us. There were so many of us that we were divided into smaller groups. We didn't really know how we were going to get out, but the plan was to get to Los Angeles however possible, and then we would contact my college pastor there to regroup.

And each one of P's little girls got to pick one of us to be her escort and protector. I had a little girl named Hannah, and the responsibility of that was enormous.

Finally, it turned out that the Red Cross sent in two planes to evacuate people to Thailand. There weren't going to be any others. The airport had been damaged so there were no commercial flights. No one got priority and we had to buy our tickets. Thankfully, we'd all come armed with cash for our food and utility expenses as well as money for gifts and souvenirs. Since we'd barely been there a week, and most of that was spent in hiding, we had plenty of money.

The Red Cross, or whoever handled the ticket sales, didn't allow us to purchase tickets as a group. Our team leader had to hand over one passport at a time, while we all stayed at P's house and prayed that no one would be left behind.

Miraculously, no one was. Out of the thousands of foreigners wanting to evacuate, our whole team was able to get on one plane.

We went to Bangkok, where P was able to reunite with her husband and girls. We were met by teams of people to debrief us and check us for signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

There, we were able to call our family and let them know we were safe. I called my parents, and then Isaac. He told me that he loved me for the first time. And didn't say it again for another three years.

After a couple days in Bangkok, Thailand, we finally flew home. We all flew into Los Angeles. There we were greeted by friends, family...and the media. Being the only person on the team from California, the media there were looking for me.

I was reuniting with my family when suddenly a harsh light was glaring straight into my eyes. It didn't register with me what it was, and I put my hand up to shield my face. Without a word, Isaac walked over to the camera that was being shoved into my face, stepped into its path, and turned his back on it. He simply stood between me and it, arms folded and legs braced apart.

To this day that one action still represents to me all that a man should be.

Plus, it was really, really sexy.

And then about eight months later he broke up with me.

Cambodia (part 17)

We continued on with our tour for a few more minutes, until someone came up and spoke to our tour guide. He quickly left us, and P, an American who lived and worked in Cambodia full-time, told us that fighting had broken out in the city and we needed to leave immediately.

We all piled into the cars and headed to her house. Along the way we noticed the increase in soldiers on the streets. We even passed tanks on street corners, with obviously well-armed men on top.

We got to P's house and were waiting to hear what we would do next, when suddenly fighting broke out just down the block from us. We all had to run into her house to take cover.

We didn't leave again for days.

There were about 40 people in her one house. My team, a few Cambodian girls who had been hired to cook and help out, P, and her young daughters. Her husband was in the States, so she was handling everything by herself.

Now that I'm a mom, I can't imagine the fear she must have had, taking care of 30 college students and her daughters all by herself in the midst of war.

We soon learned that a faction of the government, a man named Hun Sen, had accused Prince Ranariddh of conspiring with the Khmer Rouge, a political group that had killed thousands in genocide. He was taking over and the Prince was out.

Oh, and across the street from us? Large radio/tv tower. For someone in the government. The fighting was so close because someone wanted that tower destroyed.

A few other girls and I tried to entertain P's daughters. They were the sweetest things, and easily distracted by the video camera we showed them. We played games with them, while around us people were panicking, praying or singing.

At one point the fighting came too close. The little girls and my friends R, N, and I were barricaded into a space underneath the stairs for their protection.

Can you imagine having to lock your children away, and not being able to be with them?

While you wondered if your house was about to be blown up with you in it?

Cambodia (part 16)

Our arrival in Cambodia was fairly shocking. It was 1997 (was that really 10 years ago?), so it was pre 9/11 and tight airport security.

Soldiers walking around the airport carrying large automatic weapons was a strange sight. I was told they were ak-47's. There were also soldiers posted on several streetcorners, and guarding a few compounds.

My fear was gone by this point, and the soldiers added to the feeling of adventure. We all crammed into a few tiny vans, and immediately thanked the person who had invented deodorant.

It was really hot, and we were really crammed. And a few people's deodorant had unfortunately failed them.

The streets were terrible, unpaved and potted so badly that we would bounce up and hit our heads on the top of the van. Plus, the drivers seemed a bit crazy. They relied more on their horns than on any laws we could figure out. And we all were shocked at the motorcycles and mopeds zipping around carrying entire families, loads of chickens, even baskets upon baskets of fresh bread.

And one of the American workers who lived in Cambodia zoomed by on the back of one that was used as a taxi.

And she was riding sidesaddle.

Holding onto nothing with her hands calmly folded in her lap.

Two years later, I would find myself in the same position, sitting two or three people on a moped, hoping the driver didn't hit a pothole and bounce me right off the back. But at that point we had so many people on the team that we traveled in vans and SUV's.

The first few days of our trip were set aside for sightseeing. We visited outdoor markets, where women squatted on tables and hacked the heads off chickens to give you fresh meat.

And they sold some sort of cockroach-looking bugs in large baskets as snacks.

About three or four days into the trip we took a tour of the Royal Palace. The wealth of it was staggering after the poverty outside the gates.

The rainy season was beginning, and being from California, I hadn't ever experienced the huge thunderstorms that could happen in Cambodia. Even inside the palace and the temples we could feel the thunder shaking the walls.

And then, one of the older men who was with the team turned to his wife and murmured in her ear, "I was in Vietnam. And that wasn't thunder." I looked around, but I was the only person who had heard them, and we all continued with the tour, until we were greeted by a strange sight.

A group of Japanese business men, all in their staid black suits were leaving the temple. But they didn't stop to put their shoes on.

They ran barefoot for the exit.

Cambodia (part 15)

The summer after our junior year of college was busy for Isaac and I. He spent four weeks on a ship with the Navy, and shortly after he returned I was heading to Cambodia to teach English with a team of 30 college students and a few adults.

I had met everyone on the team at an orientation. Most of them were from Oklahoma, and I think there were only two of us who didn't know anyone else on the team. I was the youngest person on the team at 19.

I had some strange dreams before leaving. In one, I was hiding behind a broken wall of some sort with some children. War raged all around us, and I was trying to protect the kids and get them away from the fighting.

Despite the dream, I wasn't scared. I was so excited.

Until I got to the airport.

A bunch of people came out to the airport to see me off, but the trip that I had been excited about for months was suddenly terrifying to me.

If someone had pulled me aside and said, "You know, you don't have to go if you don't want to," I probably would have gotten in my car and gone home, despite the two thousand dollars I had raised to go.

Instead my BSU director pulled me aside and said that he thought that God was allowing me to feel the fear at that time for a reason. That later, I would be able to be calm and clear-headed when it was necessary.

It wasn't all that reassuring at the time, but he let me cry on his shoulder, which helped some.

But he turned out to be right.

Isaac (part 14)

With the ballroom dancing class, BSU activities, and just hanging out, something had to change between Isaac and I by the spring semester of my junior year.

It was time to fish or cut bait, as romantic as that sounds.

Believe it or not, we decided to stop spending so much time together.

Neither one of us ended up liking that option very much, though. We liked each other too much by that time.

Actually, we had gone way beyond liking, so we took the idea of dating very seriously. We knew that we were headed for marriage. Since Isaac was ROTC, I had to really consider whether I could marry someone who was in the Navy and had to deploy.

I decided he was worth it.

We also realized that the earliest we could get married was about two years. He was on a five-year program, thanks to a few changes of his major and an unfortunate semester of rebellion that resulted in a few failed classes.

So we laid out some ground rules to guard both our hearts and our bodies.

One of those rules was that we wouldn't tell each other that we loved each other.

And we didn't say it.

At least not until I almost died.

Isaac (part 13)

My junior year, I used to have friends from BSU over every Thursday night to watch Friends and ER.

Back when ER was still good.

But Isaac and I went to the Navy Ball with his roommate Dude, and Dude's girlfriend Joy. And we had fun.

And JT reacted to that.

He was still my next-door-neighbor and he caused me so many problems that my friends and I started going to Isaac's apartment every Thursday night. And Isaac and I found ourselves spending time together.

We went to the grocery store to buy ice cream and soda for all the people who came over on Thursdays.

He drove with me through LA to find a guitar shop that sold a certain kind of string.

And one day when Dude and Joy mentioned that they were taking a ballroom dance class the next semester, I said that it sounded like so much fun, and I wished that I could take it, too.

And everyone turned and looked at Isaac expectantly.

And I was completely embarassed in front of him for a second time.

But he still said he'd take it with me.

Isaac (part 12)

When I first met Isaac, I thought he had no personality.

I did think he was cute, though.

Over the next two years I discovered that he did, indeed have a personality, although he was quite shy.

But get some caffeine and sugar into that boy, and he was pretty fun.

My junior year of college I was committed to learning about God and developing my relationship with Him. I was dealing with the fallout of ending my two-year relationship with JT and was determined not to get involved with another guy.

I was in a Bible study about missions, having become interested in possibly being a summer missionary. I was also on a ministry team, which were teams of students who led Bible studies and worked with other students.

And Isaac was in both with me. He had been to an Eastern European country the summer before. And being around him made me realize that he was pretty good guy. He cared less for appearances and more for the truth, which said a lot to me at the time. And his mom had recently moved into the state, and he was working on trying to build a relationship with her, since she had been an alcoholic most of his life, which also said a lot about his character.

And one night at dinner with a friend, I casually mentioned that I thought he was a pretty good guy.

The Navy Ball is in November every year, and Isaac was ROTC in college. He needed a date, and decided he'd ask a friend from BSU.

Out of the girls he knew there, he had been spending the most time with me since we were both in some of the same activities. Plus, I was also friends with one of his roommates and had spent some time at their apartment in my effort to stay far, far away from mine.

So he asked me.

And that night was the first night I was afraid that JT would actually physically hurt me.

But I said yes because, really, I didn't need an excuse to go shopping and buy a new dress and do my make-up and have some fun.

I still love that aspect of the Navy Ball, 10 years later.

But the gossip started flying around us.

Did he like me? Was that why he'd asked me? Did I like him? Was it a date? Was it just friends?

The friend to whom I'd mentioned that Isaac was pretty cool, mentioned to one other girl that she thought maybe I liked Isaac. And it got around.

And one night I got a call from Isaac. He wanted to clarify that we were just friends. There was nothing more on his part. And I said that while I did think he was a great guy, I had no interest in dating anyone, so that was fine by me.

And I tried to play it off like I wasn't completely, utterly embarassed.

*Thanks to Leah for asking me about my husband in my Q&A!

The End (part 11)

The biggest factor that led to the final break-up with JT was other girls.

But not all those other girls that he broke up with me for, or compared me to.

No, it was the Christian girls that I finally got to know. My sophomore year I asserted some independence (finally!) and stopped going to church in Hollywood, and continued going with some of the girls I had become friends with over the summer.

Really getting to know other Christian girls was instrumental in changing me and helping me to see that there was more to being a Christian than believing that there was a God, or just wanting to go to heaven.

They actually had a relationship with God. They read their Bibles and prayed regularly, and looked for ways to apply what they read to their lives. And they included me in their lives, whether it was going out to dinner or taking a roadtrip to a Christian conference.

And there were some things that they believed the Bible said were wrong. Things that JT had told me weren't wrong.

But I learned. And I read. And I believed.

And in the summer after my sophomore year I was at a conference and I realized.

My relationship with JT was not godly. And I wanted to be a godly person.

And so, for the first time, I broke up with him.

But me breaking up with him wasn't quite the end of things.

I thought it was great that we could remain friends, especially since I had been stupid enough to allow my roommate and her boyfriend to talk me into living next door to him.

We still spent quite a bit of time together, and what I didn't realize was that he just expected us to get back together. He really thought that we were going to get married after we graduated, and just thought of all those other girls as little adventures along the way. He had never noticed that while he had talked about marriage over the years, I hadn't.

And when he finally realized that it wasn't happening, then things got ugly.

His moods swung wildly. There were rages where he would curse and yell and slam doors and I'd be afraid he would actually hurt me. There were times he'd become suicidally depressed and be on his knees sobbing in front of me.

He even asked me to go to couples therapy with him.

Even though we were no longer a couple.

I lost weight because I would avoid my apartment, skipping meals and staying away for as long as I could.

And the thing that made him realize that we were really over wasn't me breaking up with him or kicking him out of my apartment, or any of those inconsequential things.

It was Isaac.

*This is part 11 in a series. Wow, I never meant it to get that long! It was about how I became a Christian. Now it has morphed into how I met my husband. I guess this could be part two of how I met him. Read my first impression of him here.

The realization (part 10)

My freshman year wasn't just the year I started dating JT, got broken up with by him, and then got back together with him.

It was also the year I became a Christian.

I just didn't know it at the time.

You might remember that I mentioned about 837 posts ago that I was a very literal child and prayed every night because my mommy told me to?

Well, sometime during spring that year I had a realization-

You only ask Jesus to be your Savior one time. You don't need to ask him every night.

And I thought God would probably enjoy it if I prayed something different, that really related to my life, and if I actually talked to Him, and didn't just recite the same words I had prayed over and over for at least 15 years.

I didn't really tell anyone about my realization because I was kind of embarassed that I hadn't really understood prayer for all those years. Plus since JT always wanted to leave the Baptist Student Union (BSU) meetings right after they were done, I wasn't really close to any other Chrstians but him.

But he went home for the summer. And since I lived fairly close to USC, I got to spend some time with people in BSU other than JT. It turned out that they went to church near my parents' house, and I started going with them. I had been going to church with JT during the school year.

We went to church in Hollywood.

Have I mentioned that he may have been a bit concerned with appearances?

And that maybe the appearance of being a good Christian boy was more important than actually being a good Christian boy?

The break-up(s) (part 9)

I don't remember what came first, the break-ups or the helpful comments on my appearance.

But I do know the first break-up was sometime during the spring semester of my freshman year.

It was my first broken heart, but I can't really remember why JT broke up with me. I remember there were lots of assurances that he really did love me.

And I don't remember why or when we got back together, but we did.

It was the start of a pattern. The outside world could never tell if we were broken up or together, and really, I don't think anyone knew how often he broke up with me. Off the top of my head I can remember four times over the course of my freshman and sophomore year. I know one time it was because he was going up north for an away game, and well, there was this other girl going to be there and he just needed to be free for nature to take its course.

Only nature didn't take its course, and we got back together at some point.

When we weren't broken up he liked to talk about getting married after we graduated. And he thought I was totally beautiful. Except, was I gaining the freshman 15? I wouldn't do that, would I? And there's this girl in one of his classes, she got all tanned over the weekend and was wearing a shirt that showed her stomach...maybe I was a little too pale, and I should start tanning? And this other girl in his class, she was really aggressive in the way she flirted with him, and maybe I should be more aggressive.

Yeah, can someone tell me why I didn't run screaming in the opposite direction? Because looking back, I don't know how I put up with it for so long, or why I let it make me insecure.

But I did.

The beginning of change (part 8)

By Christmas my freshman year, JT and I were an O-fficial couple.

I figured he hadn't really cheated on me at Thanksgiving, because we hadn't ever decided that we were an exclusive item or anything.

He bought me a Bible for my Christmas present. And I actually read it sometimes.

And we went to BSU (Baptist Student Union) meetings every week during Spring semester. He always wanted to leave right after, so I didn't get to know the other people there very well, but over time I did meet a lot of them.

I remember one night as we were headed out the door, someone stopped me and said, "Hey, Christy. Have you met Isaac?"

There was a guy leaning against the wall, his hat pulled low over his face.

He didn't really say anything. He kind of smiled a little at me.

I thought, "He's cute. Too bad he has no personality."

And then JT and I walked out the door together.


*Read parts one through seven here.

Divine Intervention (part seven)

When I went to college, I was ready for a little partying. My parents were very cruel strict wise and didn't allow us to go to parties in high school.

So once I was beyond their control, I went to Tijuana with a cousin and went bar-hopping. JT had become my standard for morality, having a Bible and knowing how to use it and all.

And he thought it sounded like fun.

I also started checking out the Greek system. I knew my parents couldn't afford for me to join a sorority, but a friend in my dorm did, and once she was in, we started making plans for me to go to a huge party with her.

But as I was walking down the hall to have her check out my wardrobe choice for the party that night, another friend was coming the opposite direction.

Pale, wrapped in a blanket, shivering, and so out of it that she didn't even notice me as she passed by and I called her name.

We ended up having to call emergency services and she and I rode in the back of a police car to the closest emergency room in the middle of the night somewhere in South Central Los Angeles.

You know, where the Rodney King Riots were.

Still, I think I was safer there than I would have been at that party.

And I have no doubt that God intervened to stop me from going down that bright, happy party path.


*This is part seven in a series. The rest is here.

And so it begins (part six)

I went to Sunday School when I was young. Sometime around fifth or sixth grade I stopped.

There was a little fat boy who had a crush on me.

His parents taught the class, and they thought it was cute.

I however, did not. He always sat by me, which is like, so totally the end of the world. So I stopped going to church.

Obviously I had all my priorities straight.

But when JT invited me to go to a welcome party for the Baptist Student Union, I said yes. I considered myself a Christian. I had been to Sunday School.

And after that mall experience with JC, a good Christian boy (read: non-criminal) seemed like just the guy I needed.

Plus, he was the guy every girl in the dorm wanted, so I wasn't about to turn down time with him.

Soon we were unofficially together. We did everything together. He was the son of missionaries, and I thought he was so spiritual. I mean, he owned a Bible and even knew how to read it.

And when he came back from Thanksgiving break, he told me he had made out with an old friend of his.

But it made him realize that I was the only girl he wanted in his life, and he was in love with me.

And I believed him.


*This is part six. Read the rest here.

The worst date. Ever. (part 5)

I'm pretty sure the phone woke me up.

It was probably only 11am or so, what else would a good college student be doing at that time of day?

I still can't believe I didn't flunk out of my entire freshman year. There were seriously classes that I ditched for months at a time.

To this day I have nightmares about going to class only to realize that the final is that day and I've skipped every single class and have no idea how to answer any of the questions.

It was JC on the phone, and he was going to the mall and wanted me to come.

He had a car, and I had been forced by my parents to leave my car at home for my freshman year.

Ah, the cruelty of parents.

I should probably thank them.

So we went to the mall and when I mentioned wanting to buy something (probably a pair of jeans since I have been on a lifelong quest to find the perfet pair) he made a comment about him not having enough time to shop if I needed to get something too.

And it got worse.

Heading towards checkout, he asked me to hold something for him.

Something that he had not paid for.

His great plan was to pay for a backpack and have me sneak out some clothes for him.

I waited outside instead, and needless to say, that was the last time I went anywhere with him.

But there was still JT.

And, oh, if I had known then how the whims of that boy would rule the next two and a half years of my life, I would not have sat next to him in class.


*This is part 5. To read parts one through four, click here.

All the right reasons (part four)

People in my high school were aghast at the idea of me skipping my senior year.


But really, I had been to three proms already, and what fun are ditch day and other assorted activities when you don't like your friends?


I headed off to college without a single doubt.


Until I got there.


And then I was terrified.


I didn't know a single person, I couldn't find my way across campus, and what the heck was I doing going away to college when I was only 16 years old???


But I went to the dorm meet and greet and got invited to play volleyball. And there I met a boy that we'll call JC. And a boy that we'll call JT. Apparently I had met them both at the orientation during summer, but in the fog of terror and overwhelmedness in which I had gone through that weekend, I had only vague memories of cute college boys.


But now I was actually at college, and living in a dorm with cute college boys, and suddenly college was fun and not scary.


And obviously, I was there for all the right reasons.


You know, boys and fun.


But soon I turned 17 and I matured and added another reason to be at college.


Football.


*For parts one through three, click here.

Mommy, may I? (part three)

In one of the boxes full of college recruiting materials, I found the flier for the USC Resident Honors Program.

Complete your senior year of high school and your freshman year of college at the same time!

Your classes earn you double credit!

Scholarships automatically awarded for those accepted!

And I had missed the application deadline.

Being the mature, ready for college 16-year-old that I was, I had my mommy call the head of the program to ask if they accepted late applications.

"What are her SAT scores?" "Why yes, we will be happy to accept her late application."

And so it was that I was accepted to USC, and I decided to leave all my friends and high school behind.

That summer my mom and I went off to the new student orientation weekend, and before long I was 16, living in a dorm, 50 miles away from my parents.

Which in LA is really like 200 miles.

Hmmm.

*This is part three of how I became a Christian. Read parts one and two.

An unexpected direction (part two)

My junior year of high school found me 16 and unhappy.

I had a boyfriend I didn't really want, but who was madly in love with me.

I had friends I didn't really like, but didn't know how to change the situation without causing the kind of back-stabbing, rumor-mongering war that only adolescent girls are capable of.

Well, adolescent girls and some of my grown relatives, but that's a post that will never get written. Because this web, it is world wide.

I had scored well on my PSAT's and the early SAT that I had taken for practice, and so I had two full boxes of fliers and recruitment info from various colleges in the garage.

And one day, it occured to me, "Didn't USC have some sort of early entry program..."

I figured I had thrown that flier away. I mean, who in their right mind would skip their senior year of high school? Isn't that the year that we all work toward and dream about? Senior prom? Ditch day? Getting to park in the school parking lot instead of fighting for a space on the road?

Could I really give that all up and start college at 16 years old?

Should I?

Would it matter if I couldn't find that stinking flier among the rest of the junk that I shoved into the boxes?


*This is part two of how I became a Christian. Read part 1 here.

Literally Speaking (Q&A 1)

My mom tells me that I was a very literal child.

In preschool we were told that we weren't allowed to go play until we had finished our lunch. I can remember sitting there watching the other kids run and play while I tried to finish my food.

When I asked my mom to please not give me so much food she rushed down to the school to complain about their rule only to be told that I didn't have to eat all my food, I just had to be done eating.

Obviously, not only was I literal, I was also naturally obedient.

At some point when I was very little my mom taught me to pray every night before bed.

She told me that I should ask Jesus to come into my heart and forgive me for my sins and be my Savior.

And thank him for our food.

And so I did.

In those exact words, every night of my life up until my freshman year of college...


*thanks to Leah for asking me how I became a Christian in my recent Q&A post. I'll be back soon to add another part to the story!