I have had three angels cross my path.
Remembering back...
I had just been hired to go to South Korea for the first time in my life. I answered an ad about a job teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in Seoul, South Korea. My unemployment had just run out and there were no more extensions. There were no jobs in Redding at the time that I could find anyway or anyone that would hire me.
I was living in a bachelor apartment and had no way to pay the rent or any other bills. I was fired from Home Base for missing a signature on a check in 1994. I had worked for Home Base since September 5, 1991 around the same time I started the DCP Program at Simpson College to work on my BA degree by working part time and going to school full time.
Two nights a week for 4 hours a night Monday and Wednesday 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. or Tuesday and Thursday 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for five weeks. Two and half weeks were a mid-term and a final at the end of the 5th week. For a total of 13 classes one at a time back to back with an exception there were a few weeks in-between and the regular school holidays off for 18 months. I started in August of 1991 and graduated in April of 1993. While working at Home Base in the lumber department and weekends for K-FXS 102.7 FM. Where on the weekends I would do some of my homework and on my days off from work were the days I went to school.
I answered an ad that I thought was bogus at the time and made arrangements to meet with a person who interviewed me at McDonalds on Lake Blvd in Redding, California. Down the street from the apartment where I lived at the time at 420 Lake Blvd Apartment #2. I was hired and began the process of acquiring my pass-port and visa for South Korea. I knew nothing about South Korea except from watching Mash on TV.
Employer’s would pay for a one-way airline ticket to Seoul, South Korea and after the completion of one year would pay for the return trip back to the USA. Employers of (private schools) Hog won in South Korea would also provide housing, minus utilities split between other teachers living in the house or apartment.
I began the process of putting my 19 boxes of stuff at my Moms’ house in Central Valley, California at the time and my 1974 Chevy Van. I gave the 1974 Chevy Van to my friend Jill and had it towed to her house to use as storage for my library books and few other things I had left after cleaning out the apartment and painting the apartment for the landlord, since I still owed back rent.
Jill and I rented a car for the trip to San Francisco, California to head there to get my emergency passport and Korean Visa from the Korean consulate. We left the night before and rented a motel room that way we did not have to get up so early the next day. We arrived at the motel checked in and then went to find the immigration building. We found the immigration building so we knew exactly where we were going after we woke up in the morning refreshed without trying to get up early and drive to San Francisco, a four-hour drive from Redding, California one-way. The plan was after we took care of my business, we would drive to Sacramento, California and Jill could visit her sister and her nieces.
That evening after we found the immigration building we went to a park where they have a memorial about the holocaust and as it was beginning to get dark, so we headed to fisherman’s wharf and ate clam chowder soup with bread. I remember we got into a disagreement over paying for parking. Jill wanted to find a free parking space and I didn’t care if we had to pay for parking. I had put all my money in her purse and asked that she not count it. That every time we would reach in for money it would be there for us and we were going to have a good time and to have faith. And I really believed it and it could happen that is how much faith I had at the time.
Jill couldn’t do that she had to count it to see how much was there. When she did, what was there was there, but if she had kept her faith the money would have kept flowing out. That is what I had thought would happen and I truly believe it would have, if she had not got greedy and counted it, instead. I told her that at the time, but to this day I still believe she did not believe me.
We will never know now if it would have continued to flow with manna or not. We cannot go back and do it again. My faith was very strong during that time (part of mania thinking and the state of mind of being bi-polar manic/ depressive) as I recall it being. After we ate dinner we headed back to the motel room to get some sleep so we could get up early and start the day. The only problem is we woke up late and don’t ask me how we did it, but we did and we did not stay up late that I can recall, either. For some reason we just over slept. Well good thing we knew where we were going at least that would save us some time for running late and behind schedule now.
We got up, each took showers and then had breakfast then jumped in the car as Jill had been driving all this time after all I paid for the rental of the car, but Jill was the one driving it because we rented the car in her name, so she was responsible for it. We arrived at immigration building only to discover we had gone to wrong immigration building. We went to the one for non-USA citizens to go to. Now we were really running later and behind more than we already had been. We needed to get directions on how to get to the US passport office.
Once we did, we found it and entered the building and looked at all the people in line. I thought, “Oh my god I am never going to get my emergency passport today and still be able to get to the Koran Consulate for a vacation visa, before they closed today. Impossible, it is not going to happen at least not today with all these people in line ahead of us”. That’s what I was thinking at the time.
We were just getting ready to take a number when this long blonde hair woman with a baby in a stroller walked up to us and asked if this was the right place where non-USA citizens apply for citizen ship or US visa’s. We both told her, “No!”. This was not the right place for applying for visa’s for non-US citizen status aliens. She asked us if we knew where the non-US citizen immigration building was and if we could give her directions? We said sure, and then proceeded to give her directions. She thanked us for the directions and then stopped and gave us her number that she had got when she first arrived ahead of us. We thanked her for giving us her number, the number she had given to us.
She left after giving us the number and heading down the hallway towards the elevators. The number she had given jumped us ahead 40 people of where we would have been, if not for the number she gave to us. Like 40 days and 40 nights. An Angel had been sent to stand in our place knowing we were running late and way behind. I still do not recall seeing a baby in the stroller, as I never took the time to look inside as it was covered up at the time.
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