The Role of Divine Providence in My Life: Why I Am a Christian

By Chia Alphonse Tasah

God is always looking over our lives, caring for us and providing us with guidance. And while this kind of divine providence can often be felt in our daily lives, it can also be seen in the people and in the events that shape our destinies.

In The Role of Divine Providence in My Life: Why I Am a Christian, author Chia Tasah shares the story of the incomprehensible love he has received from God, and he explores the Lords many interventions in his life from conception to adulthood. Born in poverty-stricken Cameroon, Tasahs fortune turns to blessings when as a young fourteen-year-old he meets a Peace Corps benefactor, Mr. Alan Lakomski, who sympathizes with Tasahs underprivileged background and sponsors his secondary education. With the help and love of other Peace Corps sponsors, Tasah furthers his education at the University of Buea in Cameroon, paving the way for his journey to the United Stateswhere he eventually becomes a citizen.

Not only a story of his journey across the globe, The Role of Divine Providence in My Life is also a story of faith and of hopeeven as Tasah is struck with illness and dies before being both literally and spiritually resurrected. Join his inspiring journey as he shares the remarkable divine intervention that was his death and rebirth, all of which testifies to the goodness of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532007385

Chia Alphonse Tasah

Chia Alphonse Tasah is a team-building and cultural-diversity consultant at All World Languages and Cultures Inc. in Kansas City, Missouri. He was educated by Peace Corps volunteers and later earned his master of education in human resource development at the University of Minnesota. He is a presenter in conferences, seminars, churches, and schools.

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Copyright © 2016 Chia Tasah.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-0737-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0738-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915533

iUniverse rev. date: 12/22/2016

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Bibliography

To my courageous kids, Kaemia Chia Tasah and Alan Tasah, who were upbeat and readily available to help

despite the traumatic impact of my illness on them.

They supported God’s interworking toward the miraculous recovery from my ailments.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to my immediate family and all the churches and social groups that prayed to help me earn the blessings that God has bestowed upon me.

I am also grateful for the encouragement and comfort of my wife, Pamela Tawa, and my children, Kaemia Chia Tasah and Alan Tasah, who fought tooth and nail during my illness to get me back to my normal self. I am grateful for the Cameroonian community in Minnesota, especially the Kom and Nkambe tribal meetings, for all their support through prayers.

All my appreciation goes to Mr. Alan Lakomski, Mr. Bill Strassberger, and Dr. Christine Swanson for accepting God into my life as my stepping-stone into a better version of myself

Finally I beg the forgiveness of all those who have been with me over the course of the years whose names I have failed to mention.

Preface

This book, The Role of Divine Providence in My Life: Why I Am a Christian, typifies God’s incomprehensible love toward me from conception to adulthood through his grace on my plans for all my tomorrow. God bestowed blessings upon me by stepping into my destiny through an orchestration of happenstances that transformed my life. I believe that my livelihood is inherent in divine providence, exemplified by my death and resurrection that I wish to share with you.

When I wrote The Life of an African Peace Corps Child, a text that recounts my childhood transition into adulthood, I reflected on my journey from early life into adulthood and discernibly believed that a supernatural force steered my fortune. I thought that divine providential interventions made me a better version of myself.

Cameroon is located in poverty-stricken sub-Saharan Africa, which to me was a divine blessing. Being a Cameroonian was fateful because I was poverty-stricken, and poverty revolved around my destiny in point and time. God fortuitously intervened to steer my fortune by masterminding fateful coincidences that directed motion favorably as I progressed in life. Each human has his or her choices and priorities that influences his or her destiny per God’s design.

God inserted himself into almost all my endeavors by transforming mishaps into celebratory achievements. If I missed one step, my story would never be mine. In this regard, a supernatural force constructed coincidences of events that moved me forward in a quest for a better life despite the pennilessness inherent in our family, showcased by my father’s reluctance to work.

The bartender job I worked in the backdrop of poverty fatefully earned a Peace Corps benefactor, Mr. Alan Lakomski, who sympathized with my neediness and sponsored my secondary education when I was fifteen. Alan was an epitome of hope who set precedence on benevolent gestures and allowed destiny to take its course. When he left unexpectedly, another heaven-sent Peace Corps volunteer, Bobe Bill Strassberger, reentered my life when I faced the ordeal of dropping out of school, an occurrence I detested without any alternative on the horizon for obvious reasons. He inculcated self-reliant skills, and I was able to support my education without any stand-alone sponsor.

When I struggled through insurmountable difficulties at the University of Buea, I luckily connected with the most solicitous and hospitable Peace Corps benefactor, Dr. Christine Swanson, who supervised my end-of-course project. Divine providence randomly placed me under her supervision of my end-of-course project, one of the five she oversaw. We became close friends in Buea, Cameroon, and as returned Peace Corps workers living in Minnesota.

Upon request, she encouraged me to apply to the University of Minnesota and supported my visa process until I got it. Upon my arrival to the United States, she provided negotiated lodging in her neighbor’s condo when all my relatives and friends from Cameroon declined to take responsibility. As a temporary dweller under her supervision, : I was lucky to reconnect with my original Peace Corps sponsors, Mr. Alan Lakomski and Bobe Bill Strassberger who were helpful in Cameroon. They forestalled the ordeal of homelessness and/or deportation because I was desperate financially with no feeding and lodging needs. Both readily accepted and supported me, as they had done for twenty-three years from 1980 in Cameroon.

Bobe Bill Strassberger educated me on American culture, and Alan Lakomski forestalled the threat of homelessness by providing me with financial support. I now hold a master of education degree in human resource development (MEd) and am married with two kids.

In 2006 I got a job as a parking services specialist at Fairview South Dale Hospital in Edina, Minnesota, and worked passionately and ethically but was wrongfully discharged on June 7, 2013, for flimsy reasons. Depression caused by the trauma from wrongful termination kicked in. I encountered a traumatic illness from memory lapses that almost took my life. An immune system disorder and eventual breakdown of my nervous system compounded my ailments. The immune system disorder ravaged almost all my white blood cells, reducing them to just one. A medical student indicated I was lucky because immunosuppression might also be deliberately induced with drugs, as in preparation for bone marrow or other organ transplantation, to prevent the rejection of a transplant, but mine just occurred.

What happened to me is incomprehensible and unexplainable because God is the most talented doctor. I reportedly died for a few minutes and was restored back to life. I believe it was God’s intervention to resurrect me in order to testify his goodness in my entire life to the world.

The minute I descended into death, like Jesus, God loved me, took hold, and held me back up. I now drive after a two-year restriction and a rigorous driving assessment and testing. I published a book, The Life of an African Peace Corps Child¹ and am now working on The Role of Divine Providence in My Life: Why I Am a Christian. I’m most proud of the blessings that God has bestowed upon me in my life. He’s given me the vision to truly see that you can fall down but still get back up by God’s grace. I thank God every day of my life through prayers to renew my strength and courage to move forward.

Introduction

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, divine providence is the foreseeing care and guidance of God or nature over the creatures of the earth. It is also conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. Traditional theism holds that God is the creator of heaven and earth and all that occurs in the universe takes place under divine providence, that is, under God’s sovereign guidance and control. According to believers, God governs creation as a loving father, working all things for good.

This book depicts God’s interworking in my life via his extraordinary intervention in my existence. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11 ESV).

Ocular Proof of Divine Providence

A clear case of divine providence overriding sin is the story of Judas Iscariot, whom God allowed to lie, deceive, cheat, steal, and finally betray the Lord Jesus into the hands of his enemies. All of this was a great wickedness, and God was displeased. Yet at the same time, all of Judas’s plotting and scheming led to a greater good, humankind’s salvation. Jesus had to die at the Romans’ hands to become the sacrifice for sin. If Jesus had not been crucified, we would still be in our sins.

But how did God get Christ to the cross? He providentially allowed Judas the freedom to perform a series of wicked acts. Jesus plainly states in Luke 22:22 (NIV), The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!

Imagine something happening exactly when needed without any foreplan and creates a positive impact in your life. God knows and sees everything, and he knows you know better than you know yourself. He can do everything and loves you. Things have happened