Where God leads, He will provide

It's been a long time since I last posted—8 months to be exact. A lot of things have happened since I moved from Jakarta to Seattle. I've definitely gone through the ups and downs of living away from home in another continent with nothing familiar to me, but I'm not going to go into that too much. Overall, I've had such a tremendous experience living here, and I cannot thank God enough for that.

One of the things that has helped me cope and adapt to life in Seattle is dance. I know it sounds cheesy and clichéd, but I honestly don't know what I would have done or where I would have gone had I not found the UW Salsa Dance Club. It started out with me walking around campus, trying to find a club activity or an organization that sounds fun enough to join, and I just chanced upon seeing the Salsa club. I didn't think much about it at first because I wasn't into Latin dance that much at that point, but I thought that I'd pick it up again since I had learned multiple styles of Latin and ballroom dances back in Indonesia.

Little did I know that my joining the club would eventually snowball to a myriad of amazing opportunities and blessings.

To keep things short and simple, I joined the club, auditioned for the UW Salsa Team and got in, and I am now to be a dance instructor for the UW Salsa Dance Club starting in the Fall 2014 quarter. I'm not kidding when I say that I felt like the most blessed human being on earth when I found out I got into the team, and when the current batch of instructors unanimously voted for me to be one of them! The president of the club said she'd had me in mind! I cried tears of joy that night.

With my fellow dancers at the UW Salsa Dance Team, I feel like I can truly be myself. They can always make me laugh at a drop of a hat until I'm literally on the ground laughing with tears in my eyes! I practice, go to socials, and perform with them—while it's supposed to sound like I have a professional connection with my team, I feel like I finally belong in a community after months of trying to find myself, and who I truly connect with, in this country. I love my team, and I'm super duper grateful that God has blessed me so abundantly ♥

Last day in my home away from home

September 2012 was the beginning of one of the best years of my life; I had felt like I hit a dead end for the better half of the senior year of high school—I was horribly stressed out, uninspired, and just felt crappy in general. I didn't have any problems with my friends or teachers, but it was the pressure of academics that got the best of me, plus I didn't even have time to dance back then so relaxing was a no-no for me. 

It wasn't until I graduated from high school that I felt like I could pull myself together again after being stuck in a rut for 2 years. After a few months of wondering what I should do next, God eventually told me that He had a plan for me, and although it meant that I would be taking a different path that all my other friends were on, it would still be awesome; He was right. One night while I was out with friends, trying to have fun before all of us separated ways, I received a text from my mom that she got from my former dance instructor. In that message, I was told that there was an opening for a dance instructor training program, and I immediately jumped at the chance—little did I know that it was going to be the start of something great.

Once I got an "OK" from my mom, I contacted my former instructor, and told her that I was interested in the program; flash forward to a month later, I was officially the youngest trainee dance instructor at the studio. The training period went great for the most part, but there were still some days when I thought to myself "Why in the world am I doing this again?" because I was nervous that things weren't going to work out. The doubt that had plagued me in high school had mostly gone away, but it still came back to haunt me at certain times in my trainee days; back then, I was honestly just taking things one day at a time, and thanking God and leaning on Him each step of the way because everything felt so unreal. 

I eventually graduated from the program with a "Highly Commendable Pass" and I remember feeling so out-of-this-world when I received my certificate—I kept thinking "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I'm a certified dance instructor! ME! I'M A DANCE INSTRUCTOR!" since it had always been my dream to be a dance instructor and own a dance company/studio ever since I was 4 years old; it was such a great day, and I still thank God for blessing me abundantly. After I graduated, I moved on to teach a few classes, hold a couple of workshops, substitute for my dance instructor's classes, dance for a university advertisement project, train a group of dancers for a dance competition, and I even started a Youtube channel to share my passion with an even bigger audience! Granted, there were a ton of ups and downs, but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

September 2013: now a year has flashed by before my eyes, and it's time for me to move on with my life. 2 September 2013 was my last day in the dance studio, and it just felt so weird knowing that yesterday's class was the last one I was going to attend. I felt wistful throughout class, but I didn't cry or even shed a single tear, because I knew that I'll always be a part of the studio, as my instructor once told me. I feel eternally grateful that God led me to that place a year ago, and thankful for reconnecting me with my instructor, who has helped me so much in more ways than one! There's an end to everything, but I will never forget the place that got everything started for me, and the people God has introduced to my life who has helped me get to where I am today. I'll definitely look back fondly on the year I spent working with and in the studio, but here's to an even more fantastic future :')

Lots of love,
Jennifer W.