The rainbow after the rain

In September 2013, I signed up for the Salsa Dance Club not knowing what I was getting myself into. I had no idea what I was even doing there; I didn't know anybody, and just decided to go along with what was about to come. Then I auditioned to be a part of the UW Salsa Dance Team.

The night I found out I passed the audition, and was going to be part of the team, I freaked out big time, and smiled so widely that my cheeks hurt.

I thanked God profusely.

The night I found out I was elected to be a dance instructor for the coming school year, I felt so overwhelmed that I couldn't stop crying from joy.

I thanked God profusely.

Because of dance I have been able to meet some of the most amazing people who share the same passion as I do, and I cannot thank God enough for that. He has blessed me beyond measures, and has given me more than what I asked for. My dance family makes me happy; they make my days a lot brighter, and give me strength to continue pursuing my lifelong dream and passion.

I continue to thank God profusely.

Smiling in the rain

Bad times do not last forever.

You were created for a reason, and God has been cooking up something amazing ever since He brought you into the world. He is leading you toward something beautiful.

Even though you might not understand at times, it's best to let Him take the lead and follow along. He knows the way.

You will find happiness in the end.

Remember that you are loved.

Those are the things that my family and best friends have been telling me consistently. It's taken me a while to fully understand and accept things the way they are, but I'm at a much better place now. I feel happy, at peace, and most importantly blessed beyond all else :) I thank God for the people I have in my life because I honestly don't know where I would be or what I would do without them.

Living alone in a foreign country away from everything and anything familiar is in itself a feat that is quite difficult to handle at first, and adding to that the hurdles of growing up and becoming your own person can be stressful sometimes. I've had my ups and downs in the eight months that I've been living in Seattle; some of the goods sent me soaring in the sky, and some of the lows really beat me down.

Even though my family and best friends aren't physically here with me, I thank God for technology because hearing their voice helps a ton. Just having my family and best friends tell me that they will always be there for me, no matter how far apart we are, brings the utmost joy to my heart. I feel tremendously blessed that God loves me enough to let me have these amazing people in my life ♥

Some people come into your life to teach you a lesson, but some others are meant to stay forever.

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 ♥

The Fear of Falling: What's holding you back?

You have to get over the fear of falling before you can succeed :)

Doing all sorts of stunts at Pilates yesterday definitely gave me a lot of things to think about—of course, after my body had had time to recuperate, and my brain a chance to rest and get all those gears running again. Yesterday, I was faced with numerous physical challenges that I had never really encountered before for the sake of the shoot. I was familiar with most of the stunts, but there were a couple of things that were new to me, which I had to do on the spot; I spent a good amount of time, when not assuming the poses, worrying about a lot of things.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I had never once attempted to do this particular stunt whatsoever, and was only challenged on the spot by the senior Pilates instructor. I declined at first because I was so darn scared, but the next thing I knew, my world was turned upside down. Once I was in that position, I remember thinking, "Oh my goodness, what was I so afraid of? This is actually pretty fun!" and that was before I came back down and got a horrible head rush.

Anyway, I kept thinking of that particular stunt, and somehow managed to relate it to my every day life—I know it sounds silly, but stay with me here. Before I got into that pose, I was so afraid of falling and failing that I didn't even want to try; my mind was so clouded over with the terror of slipping and cracking my head open that I almost gave up and pleaded the instructors to just let me move on with the shoot. I then began to realize that that mindset of "This is impossible; I know I'm gonna fail, so why should I even try in the first place?" is what usually keeps a lot of us human beings, including me, from succeeding in life.

Case in point: I've been in a few situations after I graduated from high school where I had to make certain changes in my life because I knew that they just had to be done in order for me to be happy. For the longest time, I had felt like God was telling me that He had a different path for me to take from what my peers were taking; I knew that He had something in store for me. However, for a person like me who thrives on consistency and familiarity, even though I knew it was for the better, I still couldn't shake off the fear of failure. I'm really not joking. I was resolute in my decision, but the first year afterward was sort of tough for me; I felt really insecure a lot of the time and a lot of people in my life were doubting me, but I always prayed for patience, wisdom, and strength to go through those changes in my life because I was not used to them.

Flash forward to the present, I feel so silly whenever I think back to those times of uncertainty, because I'm so glad that I listened to God's voice, followed His plans, took a leap of faith and actually changed my life instead of sticking to my routine because I was afraid. I am very happy now, and I sometimes do say to myself, "What were you so afraid of, Jenn?" I still have insecurities, and I still get nervous sometimes—I'm not perfect, I'm just like any other human being—but I'm training myself to embrace change, and get over the fear of falling, because I realize now that once I dive right in, things don't seem as bad as they did in the first place.

I still have a long way to go, and there are so many more things to do with my life—university, career, marriage, family. I don't always know where I'll end up in, or what I'll do, but I have faith that God is working in me and He has a plan for me. I'll just have to see where He takes me :)

Have faith that God will not forsake you or let you fall, so just let yourself go :)

Love,
Jennifer W.