July 3, 2026

Wow! It’s Day 3, and I’m beginning to ask myself, who sent me? Well, I sent myself. The thing about challenges like this is how you find the pockets of time that you would have wasted doing something unproductive. Look at me waiting for my class to start and using this time to write this blog post. Today’s post is about gratitude. It’s the last day of lecture for what was supposed to be my last semester, and I’m just in awe of what God can do. I’m technically done; I only have my master’s thesis to write. I have until the end of December to submit my thesis. At the moment, I have a love-hate relationship with my thesis. I am writing my thesis with a teaching hospital, helping them update their heat action plans. So while it means real experience converted into scientific writing, it also means that there’s technically no break for me. I have to show up once a week at the teaching hospital until the end of December. Enough about my grumbling, because in the midst of this journey is a trail of God’s faithfulness. When God said Germany was my destination after the war, one reason it was easier, despite not knowing how it would turn out, was the chance to do my master’s. After finishing medical school, I knew I didn’t want to practice clinical medicine. I had always envisioned myself working at WHO, and doing a master’s in public health seemed like the next best plan. It hadn’t worked out the way I had planned, so when God said Germany, I was like, “Even though I don’t know anyone, at least I will get to do my master’s. What no one prepared me for was how incredibly challenging it would be to settle in Germany. For those who have relocated or migrated to a new country, either for work, school, or to be reunited with a family member, you can already imagine what the transition looks like. Nothing prepared me for the sudden transition to a new country because of the war. Add another layer of not knowing a lot of people, but also suddenly finding yourself in a remote area. It was grim; God literally threw me into a wilderness. I got into Germany in May of 2022, and I spent 6 to 8-plus months oscillating between crying my eyes out and wondering if I actually heard God. At that point, obeying God was costing me more than I was ready for. Or so I thought. In February of 2023, I finally got enrolled in the integrative class to learn German. It was a mandatory requirement from the government, and since they were paying, I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity. But I also felt stagnant, and since a master’s was one of the allurements that came with following God to Germany, I decided to get on with it. I started researching, and I finally found a university that I was going to start in September of that year. The only obstacle was that the B1 level German that I had been enrolled in would end in November, and I would have to move to a different state. For me, it was a no-brainer. I made a mental triage of what was more important, and I chose my master’s. Until God said no. What do you mean, no? But I heard him very clearly. In fact, He said, I wasn’t only going to see it through until the end of B1; I was going to do it to the level the government was willing to pay for, and that was either the B2 or C1 level. I would need another 6-12 months of learning German depending on what level the government was willing to sponsor me to. I still remember how devastated I was; in my mind, I was asking myself why God did not want me to pursue what He knew was very important to my career. If I wasn’t going to practice medicine, I needed to have a different qualification that allowed me to do what I wanted. Wasn’t God seeing this?  Oh, but He does; He truly sees beyond what we could have imagined. Obedience to God prunes us. That’s the end goal. Beyond whatever earthly reward may come from it, it’s who we become that matters most to God. Looking at my life’s journey, I’ve learned to say yes even when it’s hard. So I braced myself, finished my B1, applied for a B2 grant, and I got it. I finished my B2 in July of 2024, and the government was like, “That’s where we can sponsor you up to.” You are at the upper intermediate level. I did my part of the bargain that God required. But by the time I was done, I felt like too much time had passed and I needed to get back to work. I didn’t even want to do my master’s again, but I was looking at a distance learning program that would let me work and study at the same time. I spent 6 months trying to apply for jobs, but I didn’t get any. To be honest, God must have been looking down and saying, “What is wrong with this girl?” Was that the plan we had? Anyway, in His mercy, in January 2025, at the very start of a new year, I heard clearly, it’s time to start your master’s. I already had a few universities I was looking at. I ended up applying to 3 of them.  The uni I finally chose had a second-stage process, which was an interview with the dean of the faculty, and what happened in that interview would leave me in awe of God forever. The conversation went smoothly; in fact, he was very impressed until he said, “I would very much like to give you admission, but though the master’s is going to be in English, German is