Memories Repeated

 Hello from Hawaii,

 

I was planning to continue a series of interesting facts about Baptist's in Hawaii, but today I need to “interrupt this program with an important news bulletin".

 

A few days ago, I started getting notes from friends sharing their concerns about the terrible fires here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, since we’ve only just arrived, we were lacking both the time and the opportunity to look at the news.

 

Imagine our horror when we turned on the tv and saw whole towns in flames. Fortunately for us, this was happening on two other islands, not the one we’re living on, but seeing the news was reminiscent of the terrible bush fires in Australia not long ago, and the images called up memories best forgotten.

 

Then tonight I listened as a lady spoke to a group at church with tears in her eyes.  Her best friend had just escaped with her life and then watched her house and all she owned burn to the ground in just minutes.  It was a trifecta of bad events where hurricane force winds blew a transformer down, setting off sparks that lit the dry grass. The wind then acted like a forge, driving the flames at phenomenal speeds up the many canyons in the area, where the homes were. It was the middle of the night, so by the time residents were warned, for many it was too late to do anything but shelter in place. At last count, over 80 lost their lives in a matter of minutes, and I fear that the number will rise.

 

My heart went out to that lady, and I was transported back 12 years to the great earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan back in 2011. If you’re new to knowing me, let me say that Tony and I spent our last five years before retirement working with disaster relief teams in the tsunami zone.  Those days most of my blogs were sad stories of lives and possessions lost, of people trying to find a 'new normal' and basically just getting thru such a hard time. Thankfully many found Christ in this terrible time.  

 

I was reminded of one poignant moment we had with a young man from the south of Japan.  He was a friend of a friend's kid, and it turned out also that he was a pastor's child who had somehow landed on our doorstep. On top of that, he was almost completely non conversant, and we were 'stuck' with him all day, having been tasked to 'show him around' while we went about our normal business.

 

I had pretty much chalked him off by the first couple of hours.  He just looked out of the windows of the van and took little secret notes down in a notebook.  Fortunately, we had other volunteers with us so I could just ignore him.

 

Then we visited one of our 'regular' stops, the head of the community where the destruction was some of the worst we'd worked with.  We drank tea and tried to be 'salt and light' as we chattered away.  When we got up to leave, the hostess was seeing us out, typically Japanese with all the requisite smiles and nods. 

 

As we got our shoes on and turned to leave, the weird one touched my arm and whispered, "Just go ahead, I'll be along in a minute."

 

Dumbfounded to have the 'student' telling the 'leader' what to do, I walked slack jawed to the car.  He didn't come along for a few minutes and so I decided that weird was weird enough and I would be putting a stop to this!  I barrelled back across the yard and swung around to the front door.

 

I met him at the door, just leaving to join us, but I noticed the hostess was on her knees and softly sobbing.  I nodded to her and grabbed him by the elbow.  As soon as we were out of sight, I practically shouted, "What did you do?"  

 

He politely refused me and we got into the van.  I positioned myself next to him and kept at him. "This woman is my friend.  We've been working out here for months and I DEMAND to know what you said!

 

Finally he said softly, "Don't be mad at me.  I just couldn't help myself when I heard her mention that God (of whom she had little idea of) was probably punishing her by sending the tsunami". His head hung lower.

 

"So when you left, I just told her the tsunami wasn't her fault and that God was a God who loved her so much that he gave His only Son to die for her.  God didn't send the tsunami and not only did she not deserve it, He only loves her.  That's when she started crying.  I told her that you all cared for her and wanted only the best."

 

I've often heard the phrase "Angels unaware".

 

After he realised, I wasn't mad at him for sharing the Gospel, the ride home went a little better and he turned out to be a rather nice kid. We went on visiting this community leader and I'm sure she now knows of the real God and a handful of people who call themselves Christians who  are real and there for you when life happens.

 

So put your arms and prayers around all these people in the islands of Maui and Hawaii, as well as the hurricane victims in Guam.  They need our prayers, and they need to remember, just as the Japanese, that God is a God Who waits with open arms.

 

See you next week!  Aloha (which also is the word for 'goodbye', but you already know that!)

 

Marsha