I asked myself that question when I was 17, walking the halls of my high school—blind to both my presumptuousness and the irony I was falling headlong into.

The fuzzy voice of an office secretary echoed through our hallways of metal lockers and concrete walls, announcing an interest meeting for Mandarin classes. "A waste of time," I thought to myself. "I could barely stand one year of German. Who on Earth would study Chinese?" Just two years later, I was laughing at that 17-year-old me. And I knew exactly who would study Chinese.

I started Mandarin classes my first semester in college. It seemed like a good idea, since I’d be traveling to Hong Kong in a few months. A man from my church had persistently urged me to join his annual mission trip there. A few years back, it had looked like a dangerous—even crazy—job, one reserved for "super" Christians. Then came a sudden longing to explore the world, and it bested me. I was going to China!