Blooming in Bloomington
I moved to Bloomington just over three years ago to start a graduate program in Germanic Studies. I want to say I was excited and optimistic, but in reality, I was mostly terrified. Though I had a break for a church mission in Germany, I’d spent five truly wonderful years in Provo, Utah, going to school and then working. My time in Provo had not always been easy, but it was where I felt I became a real adult. It was the first place where I’d felt deep loneliness, where I sought God behind apartment complexes when I felt too socially awkward to make new friends. It was also the first place I’d learned what it felt like to be part of a community, to understand what it meant that we all belonged to the family of God. It was where my faith faltered and then grew and continued to change in unexpected ways. It was where I encountered people and ideas that challenged my previous perceptions of the world. Provo had become a social, emotional, and spiritual home for me. A place that made me fe