What I am about to tell you has shaken me to my core. My hands are still shaking and I still have goosebumps all over me just thinking of what happened yesterday morning.
This is a story of God’s incredible miracles and that the Universe truly works in the most mysterious, magical and mind-blowing ways.
My family and I are on the last 3 months of our year long #rippysGoneWild world travels. My husband Roger is a master travel-planner. He found us the most perfect Agriturismo in all of Tuscany after researching hundreds of places all over the Internet. He finally decided on this charming place called La Selvella outside of Radicofani, Italy, where we have been staying for a week now.
I grabbed my freshly brewed Italian coffee and I headed over to the reception to say hi to our wonderful host whom I haven’t connected with yet.
She was checking out her Czech guests and we all started talking in perfect Russian surprised to find something in common. Our beautiful hosts told us that her name was Marina Kim and that she was half Russian and half Korean. Surprised, I replied “my mother’s name is also Marina Kim and she is, too, half Russian and half Korean. I was named after my Russian grandmother, Albina, and my Korean grandfather’s name was Emelyan Eliseyevich Kim. He was from Caucasus.”
As I am chatting with my new Czech friends, with a corner of my eye I see Marina Kim turn white and dialing someone on her mobile phone, hands shaking, lips trembling. She called her aunt in Caucasus asking if HER grandfather’s name was Emelyan Eliseyevich Kim and if he went to Kazakhstan after World War II.
As it turns out, my grandfather Emelyan, whom I have never met in my life (my grandparents died tragically when my mom was only 7 years old), was married to someone before he married my grandmother Albina. My grandfather’s first wife was Marina’s grandmother! And by the amazing Grace of God, I met Marina Kim, my cousin. We both have the SAME grandfather!!!
Out of all the places in the world, in a random place in Italy, I was divinely guided to meet a part of my family I have never knew before.
I am still processing what just happened. I don’t understand it all, but what I do know for sure is that God works in the most miraculous ways. I have always said that I live my life expecting a miracle. This, my friends, takes my miracle faith to a completely new level.
We all have access to this Divine Guidance. The Universe, God works in the most miraculous and magical ways. If I can be led to this particular place, in a foreign country, in spite the impossible odds to meet my cousin whose existence I was not even aware of, I have unshakeable faith that God’s plan for my life is so much better than anything I could ever imagine.