Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.

This week was a Papua New Guinea week for me.  My family and I lived there from 1991-1994 as missionaries for the Lutheran Church.  It was “the best of times and the worst of times.”  That experience was a significant factor in shaping my life, and I’ve spent a great deal of time processing and putting it into some type of perspective.  This past week God helped the process in two ways.

The first was by taking part in an interview with two seminarians who are writing a paper on mission work.  They had been put in touch with me by a former colleague.  The focus was on my time spent there, the culture, and the work that I did.  Isn’t it true that talking out loud about things in your life is therapeutic?  I found that to be true for me.

The second was through a personal encounter with Sumila Bauer.

Sumila is from Balimo, Papua New Guinea (PNG).  I met her in 1993.  She was engaged to my friend Andy.  Andy and I had gone together to serve as missionaries in PNG.  He was a doctor.  We met at the missionary training institute in Michigan.  He had severe type one diabetes, which made it difficult living in an isolated place like PNG.  I don’t recall how, but Andy and Sumila met, fell in love and were married.  I attended their wedding not long before I left PNG.  Eventually they moved back to Pennsylvania in the U.S.  We tried to keep in touch, but our phone calls became less and less frequent.  Andy died ten years ago due to complications with his diabetes.

This past week Tuesday night I was scheduled to teach an Alzheimer’s class entitled “Effective Communications” at an assisted living facility here in Colorado.  Generally, I try to avoid evening classes, but in this case I made an exception due to the fact that this specific care community contributes a significant amount of money as a sponsor for the WALK to end Alzheimer’s.  I was especially reticent to teach this class as Tuesday I usually have dinner with my daughter and grandchildren.  Nonetheless I reluctantly made my way to the location, regretting my decision to do so.

As I made my way into the room where I would give the presentation, I noticed a woman who was helping one of the residents.  She had a mask on so I couldn’t see her face, but she seemed kindly attentive to the person whom she was assisting.   I made the necessary preparations for the class, connecting my computer to their AV system, placing various materials on a counter.  Slowly the participants began to filter in.  Some of them were employees at the care community and had name tags.  I made it a point to look at their name tags as I greeted them and introduced myself.  One of the people who entered the room was the woman I had previously seen caring for the resident.  As I approached her, I noticed that her name tag read “Sumila” in large letters.  Underneath, in smaller letters, was the last name “Bauer”. 

“What a coincidence” I said, oblivious to the obvious, “I knew a Sumila Bauer from Papua New Guinea who was married to my friend Andy.”

“That’s me,” she replied, “I was married to Andy.”

Stunned, shocked, astounded.  My response was all of this and more.  I was trying to make sense out of what was unfolding before me.  “How could this be Sumila?  Why was she here in Colorado?  What was she doing working in this care community?  I asked her all of these questions and more as we had our unplanned and unexpected reunion there in the midst of the others.  To say that I was overwhelmed would be an understatement.  This delightfully disorienting reintroduction to Sumila made it quite difficult to focus on the task at hand of teaching about Alzheimer’s disease. I was distracted by the wonder of what had just happened, and the question of “how?”

This occasion of grace has been with me all week.  What are the odds of this happening?  How many little pieces of life had to fit just perfectly in order for this seemingly coincidental experience to occur?  What is it the message behind and within this that God is sending, other than the obvious that God is always at work behind the scenes, whether we recognize it or not.

Have you experienced such a serendipitous occasion? 

Are you aware of God’s presence, even when it’s not obvious?

What significant or trying life occasion have you encountered that have shaped you, your faith, and have helped you to become the person you are today?