I have never believed in the existence of god, or any other form of higher power, but I became to believe in one thing after the summer of 2015: The people god placed in your life are not there by accident. God put you with them for a purpose. Don’t take them for granted.

Seeing two black bears on the Deschutes River was an extraordinary occasion, but meeting Charlie Seets (I’ll call him Seets from now on) was even better. On July 2nd, we were two teenagers sitting on a bus to the middle of nowhere in Oregon. We were both staring out through the window, unaware of how identical we are. It all started as Seets talked to me about my shoes. Yes, we are both sneaker-heads. We could talk about shoes for hours, and we did later in our course. We were already bros at that point. Soon enough, I learned he’s from Atlanta, my hometown. And some 16 years ago, we were born in the same hospital as well.

Two sneaker-heads born in the same hospital meeting at Oregon was just the beginning. Born in Atlanta supposedly as a Braves fan, we both idolized Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, the two Yankees stars, as kids. We also share the love for all sports, and to a certain degree, we both commit a lot of our time to athletics. Another routine began with it. Whenever we had the time and space to do so in our campsites, we would do pushups, situps, planks, and all that stuff. Seets and I also had a weird quirk; we never slept under a tarp. We always slept outside under the stars. This allowed us to talk about a lot of stuff; College football, Jordan 29s, Airmax 95s, Kobe X elites, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and all that stuff.

Our “coincidences” didn’t stop there. At Smith Rock, we were walking to the fountain to fill up the water jugs. And out of nowhere, someone called “Seets!” It was his Young Life group leader from back home. Yeah, Seets met a guy from Atlanta in the middle of Oregon, out of pure chance. As if that wasn’t enough, Ken, the Young Life group leader, was with his Korean wife and her family.

You could call it pure luck and chance, but I truly believe the whole experience of meeting Seets and spending a month with him in the wilderness was no coincidence for me. After all, we were two sneaker-heads who met in Oregon who happened to be born in the same hospital in Atlanta, venerated Jeter, loved sports, and hated sleeping under tarps.