Disappointment can change your life

Bologna, Italy 2012

You might be wondering why start your entire blog with these beautiful colors but depressing title? Because this is where it begins, friends. My story begins in the colorful city of Bologna, Italy as an American exchange student at the Università di Bologna. Before you begin to think that I was off to Italy as just a college student looking for a good time and easy semester abroad, you should know of my dearest love of everything Italian...it's food, people, atmosphere, the language. I love it all. My greatest desire was to become fluent in Italian and wanted the complete immersive experience - Italian university classes, living with other Italians, and hopefully making some life-long Italian friends. I had traveled extensively in Italy in 2009 with my grandmother, and that is when Italy truly captured my heart.

Before embarking on this journey to study abroad for one semester, I had set some high expectations in my heart of how I thought the study abroad experience should play out. I wanted to find an apartment with other Italians to practice the language. I wanted to make friends in my classes at the University. I wanted my language skills to be almost fluent by the time I finished the semester. None of these dreams played out. Instead of being dreams, they turned into nightmares. The apartment I initially rented with another American turned out to be a disaster where Italians did live but smoked pot all day long and left messes in the kitchen that they expected "the Americans" to clean up. This place ended up being an unsafe situation for the two of us. We left in the middle of the night, forgoing our safety deposits, for a dormitory outside the city walls. In the Italian university classes, the weirdo Americans sat in the front for the lectures, especially since we were trying to figure out what our professor was saying. He had an accent from the the NW regions of Italy. It was like the foreign students were invisible to the Italian students. And one of the most frustrating parts of living in Italy was everyone and their mother wanted to practice their English with you! I wanted to practice Italian! It was the main reason for my studies! My language skills definitely improved while I was there, but I never became truly fluent.

Photo: signs posted all over the city of Bologna requesting apartment roommates

BUT....there is one experience I will never forget, which became the catalyst for where I am now in life. I was helping another American student look for an apartment. We had become good friends, and she needed someone to go with her to meet roommates and take a look at the available space. After we had met these two nice Italian students, they invited us back to their apartment the next night for dinner. The dinner was fantastic. I have no adequate words to describe what I felt while I was around a table of people and felt a sense of belonging. It was the only act of hospitality I received while studying in another country.

Did you know 80% of international students studying in America are never invited into an American home? After this experience, what felt like some of the loneliest months of my life, I vowed to myself that I would never let this happen to any international students in my sphere of influence. And to this day, my life has revolved around this passion. Opening my home and heart and sharing my knowledge with international students, and now foreign residents, has been the greatest joy of my life. Because I've experienced a small taste of what they feel.

And we all know that disappointment can hurt. We wonder why things had to play out that particular way. We wonder if any good can come of it. Friend, can I remind you of what God says about your circumstances?

Romans 8:28 "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

If it's not good yet, then He's not finished.