My mom has always said that people come into our lives for a reason, that each person who we come into contact with has touched us with a specific purpose. At first, we may not clearly see why this person was destined to meet us, but eventually it will all make sense. The trip Caitlin and I took to Cambodia provided the ignition for one such "aha!" moment for my mom, when it suddenly became clear to her why she had met her friend Armin.
I was speaking with my mother over Skype in the weeks preceding my visit to Cambodia. Giddy and excited as she always is when Caitlin or I call her from a computer that is half way around the world, she told me the story of a conversation she had recently had at her work. She had been talking with a friend about how her two daughters were planning on visiting Cambodia in the near future. When the conversation was over, Armin (a member at the gym where she works) approached her and told her that he couldn’t help but overhear. He was quite familiar with Cambodia, he informed her, and had spent the better part of a few years there helping to build a rural school near Siem Reap (the very city which Caitlin and I were intending to base our visit to Cambodia.) We had to go see the school, he told my mother, because it will be such a good experience for us! As my mom relayed this story to me, she explained how excited she was for my sister and I. This would be a great opportunity for us, she felt. She also felt that this Cambodian connection was one of the reasons that Armin had come into her life.
And so, through Armin, my mom sent us the necessary information about how to get into contact with the organization the supported the school which Armin helped to build. As it turns out, my mom was right. It was no mere coincidence that her and Armin had crossed paths. Without Armin’s connections to this school, and the organization which supported it, Caitlin and I would have missed out on a deeply meaningful experience in Cambodia.
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