Written by Marian Mayupleh Adams
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ, which marks the beginning of his journey on earth which ended on the cross for the sins of you and me. Christmas in my world also marks a celebration of the time I found and married my soul mate. Here’s my story:
I first met Daniel during our first year in Secondary School right before the first civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989. We became very good friends and did everything together. At that time, however, my only interest in Daniel was as nothing more than a very good friend. He wanted more. Despite my repeated rejections of his advances, he never gave up. I came to look forward to the times we spent together. When we weren’t in class, we would take long walks around the school campus and talk endlessly about life, our hopes and our dreams, about how we couldn’t wait for the war to end so we could feel safe again.
We managed to make it through the first four years in school, as the intensity of the war increased and the number of dead and wounded piled up at a very fast rate. Then came that moment in December 1994, I will never forget. It was four days before Christmas and Daniel had promised to come visit me at my home. I waited and waited and waited and there was no sign of him. As minutes turned into hours and hours into endless hours, I became frightened because this was the first time Daniel would have ever broken a promise to me. I began to assume the worse. Then at about 1 am the next morning, I heard tapping at my bedroom window and went to see. It was Daniel. He had been badly beaten and was near death. I hurried outside and dragged him into my room where I cleaned his wounds. It was at this moment that I realized that he was more than a friend and that my fear was not just of losing my friend, but also of losing the one person in the world I really loved and cared about and wanted to be around all the time.
The following week, Daniel announced that his father had finally been able to secure travel arrangements for him by way of one of the neighboring countries and that he would be leaving to go to Ghana in a couple of days, from where he would fly to Canada to join his father. My world was slowly crumbling around me. He was the one who helped me keep my sanity. He was the one I leaned on when I was too afraid for the safety of myself and my family – and now he was leaving. I was angry with him because I thought it was selfish of him to leave me by myself, especially under the circumstances. I felt betrayed by the man who was supposed to look out for me.
Before he left, Daniel promised that he would never forget me, that he would pray for my safety everyday, and that he would come for me one day. I was too angry and hurt to even listen to a word he said. To cut a long story short, the war dragged on for another two years, there was a brief break and then it resumed again in 1997. My family and I safely relocated to a refugee camp in Ghana where we would spend the next three years. Because of the war and the constant move from one place to another, Daniel and I lost touch with each other, but I carried him in my heart everywhere I went. I also carried around a picture we took during our second year in secondary school during one of our many walks.
In 1999, my family safely arrived in the United States as part of the rescue program in which the US granted visas and permanent stays to Liberians. I enrolled at the University of Georgia for my undergraduate studies and graduated in 2004. In 2005, I went back to earn my masters. Daniel and I had always talked about how important it was to get a good education and I wanted him to be proud of what I had accomplished if ever we should ever meet again. I dated a few men, but they all couldn’t quite measure up to my one true love, Daniel. I was still angry at him and kept telling myself that if I would ever see him again I would tell him my piece of mind and be on my merry way. But, whenever the thought that he might be married and living a good life crossed my mind, I would panic. I begun to believe that my life was never going to make meaning and that I would never find love again.
Then one sunny day in May 2006 I visited a cousin of mine at Emory University and he decided to take me for a walk across campus. As we walked past the college of medicine, I man stepped right in front of us with a group of others. I felt a knot in my stomach that I couldn’t quite explain. I brushed it off and my cousin and I continued with our conversation. The man, after walking a couple of feet in front of us, suddenly broke away from the group, stopped and slowly turned around. With a look on his face that I couldn’t quite explain he asked my cousin if we were from Liberia and he said “yes.” Then he turned to me and said my name. It was almost a whisper! It took a minute for the confusion to clear as the reality sank in. “Daniel!” I yelped. All the anger and the hurt and the feelings of rejection and the years of fear that I would never see him again came flooding down, as the tears run down my face. He held me in his arms for what seemed like an eternity and I cried like a baby. My cousin at this time had figured out who this man was and had stepped aside to watch as tears run down his own face.
In the summer of 2007, Daniel graduated from medical school. That winter, I graduated from the University of Georgia with a master’s degree in Epidemiology. We were married in a beautiful beachside ceremony in the Cayman Islands on December 24, 2007, just as the sun set. It was beautiful. This Christmas marks our 1 year anniversary and we are headed back to the Cayman Islands to celebrate.
I still cannot believe that I found and married my soul mate. We survived a civil war, traveled miles across the ocean to foreign countries, and yet, we somehow ended up in the same country, in the same state, and happened to be in the same city, on the same campus, walked to the same location at the same hour of the day… You may believe in coincidences and chance encounters, but Daniel and I believe that our lives, our future and our destinies are designed according to God’s plan. With Jesus in your world, you will smile at the storm!
About the Author
(Mayupleh Adams is an epidemiologist and works as a research associate who specializes in cancer research for the World Health Organization. She also serves as a part-time research associate at Emory University Hospital in Georgia. She loves to travel and has visited almost every continent, except Asia - but plans to very soon. Mayupleh loves to write in her spare time and enjoys singing in her church choir. She is married to her sweetheart and soulmate Daniel. They recently celebrated their one year wedding anniversary in the Cayman Islands. Congratulations to the both of you - from Afrikan Goddess. May God continue to bless your union.)
