Friday I talked to my good friend I mention before. The one I hadn't connected with for about 3 years and then emailed me out of the blue. It was so neat. We talked for almost an hour and a half, just catching up on the last few years and at times laughing our butts off. Not surprising. I am over the moon excited to have this friendship rekindled and revived. I freakin' love this gal and the fact that we can be peeing our pants laughing one minute and talking about something totally serious and crucial in our lives the next. That's a gift. Friends like that aren't a dime a dozen. They're precious and I'm so thankful.
Saturday. It was a tired day at STN. We all seemed to be a little drowsy. I think it was really hot that day. It was quite an incredible day though because a gal in our room, Mersedes from Sweden, shared her testimony. All of us interns are learning how incredibly valuable and important it is to share your testimony with people. She'd had some gnarly experiences and done some heavy things in her past but the real wild part was the healing she received from opening up about it. We'd just learned in our teaching earlier that day, or maybe the day before, that freedom is putting of the old, RENEWING OUR MINDS (asking God to set us right, , and putting on the new. Innocent, forgiven, precious and put right in God's sight. Freedom from our past, from things we've done, from things done to us, all of it. Our teacher, Pastor Alex, also taught us that (and this is a BIG one) "YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE OF WHAT YOU WILL NOT CONFRONT." How true is that? Is that SO spot on? Yes. Soak it IN! I'm so excited about how true and SOLID that is. Sometimes I feel like I looks around and all I see is people who need to confront something that they so obviously need freedom from. Strangers around town, friends, family, myself. Why is this person so dang angry? They probably have something going on or something they're carrying that they need freedom from, but haven't confronted. Why am I depressed? I want freedom from this crap! What do I need to confront? God - what do I need to confront? Anxiety, sadness, absence of emotion, rage, guilt, insecurity, crimes and sins committed against us - we can find freedom from all of these things if we're willing to confront what's causing them and ask God for his help. Maybe we need to seek forgiveness - for ourselves or for others. If we're suffering from something that was done to us, we may never get an apology or closure, but if we're truly seeking healing - we can't become locked in demanding rectification. We may never get anywhere. God doesn't need rectification to heal you, he just needs you. Anyway - to end that tangent - Mersedes truly, truly needed freedom from her past and that's exactly what she received. It was insane. If you don't believe God can heal or that he doesn't offer freedom, come to intern testimonies and it will knock you right out. Also, the way God created relationships is just whack. The fact that almost none of us knew each other a month or so ago and now we're closer than most blood relatives, sharing things we've never shared with our friends or family, coming around each other in support and love... Beautiful. It makes me think of the churches in Acts. Truly hippie days for the church. I wish I lived then.
Later that night we had Surfers Church. It started off great. Dinner, community and on into worship and speaking, with a little tsunami warning for good measure. WHAT. I nearly peed my pants. The last time I heard an evacuation siren was when I was in Bellingham, visiting my friend Brittany at Western. 3am we wake from our peaceful slumber to that horrid, cores shaking sound echoing through campus. Nothing happened and we never figured out why it went off. This time there was a threat of real danger, or so we thought. Truth is, the locals weren't too worried. This apparently usually happens once or twice a year and nothing real bad ever happens. I was sure that was true, but it was still hard to believe it. Beyond their assurance, we were in the safest place on the island anyway. Wahiawa is in pretty much the center of the island and one of the highest points, so we had nothing to worry about. My nerves wouldn't hear it.
After getting some more news on the situation and talking to my mom, I felt alright. The sirens still rattled me, but I almost wanted to keep hearing them. Scary, but exciting. A little while after church, some folks decided that we had just spend time listening, worshiping and getting filled with the Holy Spirit, so lets go share it with the people around who don't know this God who saves. Straight up evangelizin'. I haven't done that since TCL 5 years ago. Not really at least, and it was petrifying then. They invited me to come and at first I though, "Nahhh, I gotta write my paper (- ON evangelism)." Maybe God was trying to speak to me through irony. Whether he was or not, I decided to use my adrenoline and nervous energy as boldness and I joined the party. I didn't make it far down the street before my friend, Ashley, and I stopped to talk to our neighbors sitting outside. These are the folks living directly across from us. We see the mom and her grandson sitting outside almost everyday. Her name is Aunta and her grandson is Jeffrey. Turns out she's a believer and she's been at the church we attend every Sunday since it started. Her oldest son is a missionary in Brazil and the other two live here. The two that live here are scary. I'm pretty sure they're gangsters. They weren't home. Our friend KatSu joined us and told us about the people that had flocked to the McDonald's and Walgreens parking lots, unable to stay at their homes on the North Shore, where the wave was supposed to hit. He headed over there to see if we could help anyone in need and to pray for people. We went car to car. We talked to folks, prayed for some and got rejected by one or two. We met some very sweet Jehovah's Witnesses. Funny folks they are. It was wild. I'd told Ashley that I'd probably sit back and watch things for a bit, I'm not very bold. False. I was a chatterbox and it was totally fun. Thank ya, Lord. Later we went home and I wrote my essay with Matt standing over my shoulder, keeping me on task. If I had a dime for every time I lost focus.
I'm tired and rambley.
Sunday morning we had Once A Month Church in Haleiwa. I was on stage duty again and it was good fun. Working with and under great people, meeting new people, being outside and eating good food. It's a long day, but it's so good.
After OAMC, we headed home to get dressed. As pirates. One of our staff, Mark, was having his pirate birthday party on the beach in Waikiki. We obviously had a blast gettin' decked out as scalawags, and even more fun ensued once we got there. Most of STN ended up at Waikiki Beach Park that night. There wasn't a whole lot going on, just people hanging out on blankets, some hula hoops going and some circus folk nearby with tight ropes hung between trees and some other funny things, but I have not laughed that much and that hard in a long time. I love these people and we don't need much to have a good time.
Some highlights of night:
- Standing on Jason's shoulders.
- Meeting a new friend named Chris, from Alberta, Canada.
- A perfectly timed fart, not from me. The laughter lasted through the night.
- Romping around the streets of Waikiki dressed as pirates.
- Watching Aziz run around in his white bottom sheet, making strange, squealy, LOUD noises.
- All the laughter. So much laughing.
Yesterday was Monday and I was desperate for rest. Sounds like a beach day, and indeed it was. First we hit Chuns and we tanned/read while some surfed. Later, we headed to Waimea, where I dared play in the waves. I've been timid since my drowned rat incident at Sunset. Getting beat into the sand can be a scar experience. This time I had a rash guard and people out there with me. Plus the waves weren't as gnarly. I went out there and got the hang of ducking to ground under the waves when they'd come. It's so simple, why didn't I do that last time? I was out there for a while, scared out of my mind, but SO excited I didn't know what to do with myself. It was so fun ducking under waves! But also sometimes so scary when big ones would come. And big ones did come. I got tossed again and almost pounded, but not quite. I would open my eyes under water and look up so I could see when the wave was passed and make sure I knew which way was up. It didn't help when I giant wave break came at me when I was already in pretty shallow water. I had nowhere to go! I ducked down as low as I could, but I got sucked and twisted around. The sand kicked up and I couldn't see the light to know which way was up. It only last a split second, but it scares ya. I'm telling it in detail not to dramatize it, but because I've never experienced anything like it. Waves are NUTS and we don't have them in the Puget Sound. After that I climbed a rock with Aziz. I'm still stoked on that, I didn't think I'd make it.
We came home, toasted and ready for movies.
Onto today. It was a bomb diggity day. It's fasting Tuesday. I was in a weird mood this morning and I couldn't wake up, even though I'd gotten a good amount of sleep. I sat next to my friend, Lovisa, during teaching. I never sit by Lovisa. In fact, we've barely hung out this whole time and we're almost halfway through our internship (Eeep). I totally didn't feel like being social, but I was pleasant anyway. We had dynamite teaching today from Kaweika. I don't know how to spell his name, but it's pronounce "kuh veeka." He studied at Bethel in Redding, California for like 5 years and he's awesome. He looks like any regular ole surfer punk, but then he gets going on talking about the Holy Spirit until he's so excited he almost starts crying. He's got a rad testimony and a real ability to tune into God's Spirit.
A couple golden nuggets from his teaching:
- "Our battle is never against another person (flesh and blood)."
- "The art of Christianity is receiving the Holy Spirit."
- "Scripture is our ultimate alignment."
- Gifts = divine enablements.
- Miracles = radical demonstrations of God's love.
After teaching, we had a testimony and then worship and prayer for a few hours. Holy moly catoli, it was good. I was cranky earlier, right? And actually, I was so tired I was struggling like mad to keep my eyes open during teaching. I kept jolting before almost dozing off, even though I was totally interested and paying attention. All that melted away when we started our Sabbath time. Emily and Anna, our Community Outreach Department gals lead it today and it was fantastic. They'd set up the Artis building like a big living room, with a bunch of different little coffee table areas throughout the room. They had us get into groups of four - guys and guys, gals and gals. Each group sat at a coffee table. First they had us go around and tell a family tradition we had. I mentioned our family turkey naps every Thanksgiving. Then we came up with a family name. We were the kärlek's. It means love in Swedish. We worshiped some, we went around and prayed for each other one by one and we affirmed each other. They're big on affirmation here, which I don't mind one bit. For worship they had a whole setup in the back. They had two mannequins where you could pray for/declare healing for yourself or someone and pin it on the mannequin as a representation. They had a whiteboard where you could write praises of thanksgiving, a board where you could paint, a post where you could nail old ways up, a bulletin board where you could pin up your fears, a mirror where you could ask God what he thinks of you, all kinds of things. All these stations are just tools and representations to help you materialize, visualize and realize your thoughts, prayers, struggles, whatever and the creativity hear is just awesome. It was a powerful day and I'm so thankful for the gals in my ohana group. I had Lovisa, who I love and I'm so glad she's been with me throughout my day, Madeleine and Lila. Each one of the truly amazing in such different, yet such insane ways. Thank the Lord for dynamite people, creativity, friendships and bonds, joy and opportunities like this.
Later on/earlier this evening, the Swedes made dinner. To top of a challengingly wonderful day, I got to eat real Swedish meatballs with potatoes and gravy, followed by some chocolatey, rice crispy desert. Day made.
Some random highlights:
- I've learned so much Swedish, including the phrase, "You smelled like a dog tittie."
- I haven't brushed my hair in over two weeks, I think. It's a rat's nest, dreadlocky wad.
- One of my friends here has the same tattoo as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. I love it.
- The Ohai kids remember my name and I get hugs, even from the bratty boys.
- I'm slowly learning to write in Bengali.
- There are people here who love Wes Anderson films. Bomb diggity.
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