At 6 p.m. on a pitch-black Tuesday night, I sat alone at a large round table in Barefoots Coffee — a sheet of paper, a pen and my phone open to the voice recorder app spread out before me. I was excited to meet Jeremiah Murila. Like me, he had been an international student at Union, hailing from his beautiful home of Kenya.
A gym duffle bag slung over his back, Jeremiah walked through the double doors in a red hoodie and comfortable exercise pants. Getting up, I walked toward him and was quickly greeted with a jovial smile and handshake. Karis Murila, Director of Barefoots Coffee and Venue and Modero Coffee, strode over from her desk at the back of the shop to greet her husband. He looped the strap of his bag across his forehead and let it hang there as he greeted her, in what I thought was an act of amazing head strength. Eventually, Jeremiah had to remove the strap off of his head to have pictures taken with his wife. Then the three of us sat down for our interview.
Jeremiah told me he had attended Rift Valley Academy (RVA), an international boarding school with an American curriculum in Kenya, before he had come to Union to study Electrical Engineering in 2012, having graduated in 2016. Currently, he works at H&M Construction in Jackson, Tennessee. In fact, his job was the reason he had attended Union University’s Career Fair on January 30-31 this year, and the reason he ran into a pivotal figure from his childhood in Kenya: his fifth-eighth grade band teacher.
Jeremiah chuckled as he told me this extraordinary story, all the while gesturing in an effort to recreate the scene:
“I come to the career fair and I’m in the restroom to wash my hands, and I see a guy walk in, and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way.’ And it’s been 12 years since I’ve last seen him. And I look over and I’m just staring at him, and then I say, ‘Mr. Taylor?’ And he looks over at me and says, ‘What are you doing in Jackson?’ Then I say, ‘What are you doing in Jackson? I live here!’”
What is even more amazing is Taylor wasn’t even supposed to be at the fair and had planned to return to Kenya instead, but by unexpected occurrences, he ended up at the fair representing African Inland Mission, the organization which runs RVA. He had come for students here at Union, not expecting to meet his very own former student.
“RVA is primarily a boarding school,” Karis said, “and so it’s not only your normal teacher-student connection, but — ” She looked at Jeremiah to elaborate.
Jeremiah continued her sentence, “ — but your teacher can also be your dorm parent you see every morning . . . and so it’s not like I leave class and I’m like, ‘Bye!’ and I don’t see you until next class, but I see you at the cafeteria during lunch, during supper, and you might be the one driving our bus to a game or something, so a lot of our conversations were not just about the academic aspects but also about, ‘How are your kids doing?’ and, ‘Oh, how are you recovering from the flu you had?’ — things like that, just day-to-day interactions that are much closer.”
“[Mr. Taylor and I] both enjoyed mountain biking,” Jeremiah told me, “That connection allowed us to have a mutual hobby, and that opens us to have conversations about faith . . . and thinking about aspirations and goals.”
Jeremiah has always shared a bond with not just Taylor, but also others in his teacher’s family:
“One of his sons was in ninth grade and the other was in seventh grade, or something like that,” Jeremiah said, “and with that age difference, it was kind of like a big brother connection. I even bequeathed one of my jerseys to one of his sons. It was so good to hear what his sons are doing now.”
Amazed by his and Taylor’s sweet surprise reunion, I asked Jeremiah what it was like to suddenly encounter a remnant of home in his new home. He told me two things in particular made it especially disorienting for him.
“In my mind, Mr. Taylor was still in Kenya at this moment,” Jeremiah said. “So I was like, ‘What are you doing in this country?’ And he had a hat on, and he had never won a hat before. And his attire: he was wearing jeans, and I had always seen him in his band attire. [He was] not in the right outfit!”
Jeremiah, Karis and my laughter filled the near-empty coffee shop. Amidst the cheerful mood, I sensed a deeper joy emanating from Jeremiah, a joy I closely understood. Chinese New Year had just taken place the past weekend, and even though I haven’t celebrated it with my Malaysian-Chinese family for the past five years, it hit me particularly hard this time. I could not imagine just how deep of a joy I would feel if I met someone from my home after all these years here in Jackson by what seemed to be pure chance.
After taking Taylor to lunch, Jeremiah had introduced him to his wife, Karis.
“All out of the blue,” Karis laughed, “he brings this guy up to my desk, and I was like, ‘I don’t know who this person is!’ And he says, ‘This is Mr. Taylor!’ And Steve says, ‘You can call me Steve,’ but Jeremiah says, ‘No I cannot!’”
“Yes, I will always call him Mr. Taylor!” Jeremiah said insistently.
Karis grew up as a missionary kid in Burma and Thailand since the age of seven until she came to Union in 2014. Without a doubt, her and Jeremiah’s intercultural backgrounds was integral to connecting them.
“I always said it would be very difficult to date someone who was American and had never left the country, and Jeremiah also had gone to a school with missionary kids and Americans. So he also got some of that intercultural [background],” Karis said.
After trying to explain to me the intricate web of people and coincidences that led them to each other, Karis sighed and said with a smile, “I feel our story is one of those where you need to know the names of more than seven people to understand how we ended up together.”
I felt the urge to pull out a yarn of red string, print out a bunch of photographs and begin mapping out all the complex connections throughout their story.
“If you had told me [in 2014], ‘Okay, so ten years from now, you are going to be married to a Kenyan, working at Barefoots and he is going to introduce you to his middle-school band teacher,’ I would’ve said, ‘There’s no chance! There’s no way!’” Karis said.
As our interview came to an end, I realized that what Jeremiah and Taylor’s story and Jeremiah and Karis’ story shared was not a theme of coincidental connections, but one of miraculous connections. Similarly, I never would have guessed that I would meet my boyfriend who is from Hong Kong on the other side of the world at Union in Jackson, Tennessee. And yet, it all made perfect sense — everything does.
Because what we witness in Jeremiah and Karis’ story, the story about his band teacher, and in every single one of our own stories is the power of God connecting us to one another. In a great demonstration of God’s grace, He weaves us together to form bright, beautiful patterns we could never foretell or even envision clearly in our finite human eye. Together, these patterns interlace to tell a greater story — God’s story, a story that is still being written this very moment.
One day, I hope we can see that wondrous tapestry and kneel in awe of God’s loving wisdom. But until then, let us continue to cry out, like Karis did: “What are the odds? The Lord!”
