Todays Helping ofChicken Soup for the Soul

[Guest guest]

Outside the Circle of Possibility

By Lorenz

" Hey Mom! I'm going to apply to this student exchange program to study

art

in a foreign country this summer. "

I nearly dropped the plates I was carrying to the dining-room table.

" Oh

sure, " I quipped, " and I think I'll apply to be a belly dancer in Nepal for

the

summer. "

" Mom, this is serious. My friend went to Germany last summer.

Think of the experience! "

" Jeanne, you're sixteen years old. Besides, foreign exchange programs

are

for rich kids. They cost thousands of dollars. Have you forgotten that I'm

a

single parent with three other children to worry about besides you, and that

I'm

already working three part-time jobs? Please, Honey, be reasonable. "

The next day Jeanne sent in her application to Open Door Student

Exchange

in New York. An enthusiastic art student at the Milwaukee High School of

the

Arts, she let nothing - not even a negative mother - dampen her spirits.

I just shook my head and whispered a prayer that she would not be too

disappointed when she discovered we really couldn't afford to let her go to

Europe for the summer.

A few weeks later when the Open Door people sent her another, longer

application to fill out, I read the paragraph that said, " Comprehensive fee

of

$2,750 covers international airfare, orientation, room and board, insurance,

activities, materials, excursions, counseling, and administrative support

for

the six-week summer program. "

Three thousand dollars, including airfare to New York and back.

Impossible! I thought. How can she be so bold as to even think that I could

consider this? I tossed the application on the counter and went back to the

kitchen sink to peel potatoes.

A few days later Jeanne told me she'd filled out the second application

and

mailed it.

My heart ached for her and I started to hate my single-parent status

even

more.

" Jeanne, you know we can't afford it. Besides, you don't know anything

about traveling in a foreign country. You don't even speak a foreign

language.

At least wait until you're in college to dream something this big. "

" Mom, I have to apply. I'll never know if I can go if I don't try. "

Something rang true in her words. Was it the unfaltering optimism I'd

always had myself until single parenthood shook me into a sense of gloom and

doom?

A few weeks later I received a phone call from Open Door in New York.

" Mrs. Lorenz, we received Jeanne's application for the summer program

abroad,

but she didn't send the application fee. "

I politely told the young woman that I couldn't afford the application

fee

and that spending the summer in a foreign country was out of the question

financially for my daughter. I explained that I had recently become a

single

parent and that paying my bills and getting by day to day was my main

concern.

" Even with a thousand-dollar scholarship, I still couldn't afford to let her

go, " I told the woman.

Two months later the vice-president of the student exchange program

called

me at work. " Mrs. Lorenz, we were so impressed with Jeanne's application

that

we've called some of her teachers to find out more about her. She would

certainly benefit from our fine art workshop in Cologne, West Germany, this

summer. The deadline for final applications is past, and we have some

scholarship money left. Can you tell me exactly what you could afford? "

I sighed, wondering if these people would ever get off my back. Almost

facetiously I mentioned a paltry sum that I'd saved for emergencies,

something

in the neighborhood of three hundred dollars.

" We'll make up the difference with scholarship and grant money, " Mr.

Lurie

responded. " Start the preparations for getting Jeanne a passport. "

Was it possible? I wondered in a daze. I worried. I prayed. How

could

such a dream come true? I remembered a Bible quote: For if you had faith

even

as small as a tiny mustard seed you could say to this mountain, " Move! " and

it

would go far away. Nothing would be impossible ( 17:20).

I wondered where my daughter had acquired such a sense of bulldozing

faith.

I called Jeanne's art teachers and asked what they thought about

sending

her to Cologne for the summer.

" What an opportunity! " one shouted into the phone. " Cologne is one of

the

art centers of the world! Let her go! "

That afternoon I made a huge sign that said " Bon Voyage, Jeanne " and

taped

it to the front door. When she arrived home from school she screamed,

danced

around the kitchen, smeared away her happy tears, then hugged me hard.

When I met my daughter at the airport at the end of the summer after

her

adventure abroad, I saw a young woman who was different from the daughter

I'd

kissed good-bye six weeks earlier.

She'd had the most incredible experience of her life. The first three

weeks, during the intensive art history/sketching course, she'd lived in a

youth

hostel. Then she stayed with an architect, his wife and their two children.

Mr. Schweizer loved art passionately and was delighted to have a house guest

who

shared his enthusiasm.

The Schweizers showered Jeanne with trips to museums, cathedrals and

travels to other German cities to see examples of Gothic, Romanesque and

Baroque

art and architecture. She soaked up the culture of Germany, the homeland of

our

Kobbeman and Lorenz ancestors. She returned to America with a new sense of

pride in her own country with its diverse cultures. Most of all, she

returned

with a sense of confidence in dreaming big dreams.

After she came home Jeanne spent the next few months applying to

various

colleges and universities. Even though she received an art scholarship to

the

University of Wisconsin, she also applied to spend a year in Yugoslavia

through

the Open Door Student Exchange. She was accepted for the program after

learning

that the U.S. Information Agency was giving each of the fifteen American

students going to Yugoslavia a two-thousand-dollar grant - which again

brought

the program into our reach financially. Without hesitation Jeanne decided

to

postpone college for a year.

So once again, an incredible foreign experience opened up for the child

of

a single parent, a parent who never in a million years believed that

overseas

education opportunities were within her child's reach.

Today, as I look at my daughter - who has since graduated from college

and

is a successful artist and teacher - I remember her faith in the impossible

when, as a sixteen-year-old high school student, she wanted more than

anything

to visit a foreign country. I see how much she matured and learned from her

experiences in Germany and Yugoslavia, and I know that for the rest of her

life,

the same faith will pull her through.

That Bible verse about moving mountains, taped over my kitchen sink, is

a

daily reminder to keep my heart open and to believe that, no matter how many

obstacles there are, I can still reach for a star. Because when I do

there's a

very good chance that I'll receive a whole galaxy in the process.