A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE

(On vacation to the NW from Hawaii in early July.  Realizing how much I miss the foliage of the Northwest.)

A short stroll to the edge of the yard here at a friend's guest house becomes a walk down memory lane for this NW-raised girl.

First, there are the tall cedars, then the fringe of horsetail ferns across the lip of the yard. To the right are giant Foxgloves, their purple blossoms swaying in the breeze.  Dandelions dot between Alder saplings.  I head into the woods and catch  well-worn paths traversed by children not long ago.  There are huckleberry bushes next to old stumps, and baby maples for the under-story.

I am temporarily taken back to "the woods" by our Bellevue house, banana seats on Schwinn bikes, friend on the back, white knuckles gripping the upright bar, boater shoes pedaling like mad over hills and through dales, sun dappling on cedar boughs as we careen by, shouting and laughing, unzipped windbreakers flapping in the wind. We fly along well-worn paths carved by other kids on Schwinns, skirting large cedar trunks and shadowed by adolescent maples.

It was freedom and a patch of nature near our suburban cul de sac.  

Now 40 years later, I am transported to a different woods, skirting a different suburb and different economic bracket. I am comforted by the same sounds, the same smells, and the verdant memories. 

Seattle Sensory Scene

(July 2nd, staying in the guest house at Millie's)

God, thank you for the smell of cedar trees.  Thank you for the shape of hydrangea balls. Thank you for the sound of chickadees, flitting through the woods to my right.  Thank you for the gentle wind hitting my face from the left, where Mt. Baker lies to the north in the Snoqualmie Valley, which is stretched out before me.  Thank you for sun shining today in the Seattle area, long morning shadows on soft grass.  Thank you for bouncy deck chairs to sit in and giant pink Starbucks cups to sip from, and three guys upstairs who love me and patiently wait for a fancy breakfast that You have provided.  You are good.

A ROLL-BACK HEAVEN STORY: A HURTING LIFE, CHANGED

               

                            I wondered when this would happen.  We are a small town on a small island.  I help set up outreach with YWAM students in identified areas of our community. We place them in housing projects, various schools, senior centers, on the streets, and at Salvation Army.  I wondered if the people from these areas would ever overlap.  This last week they did.  Kona Town just got a little smaller.  I just got a God’s eye view of ways He is working in the life of one troubled young man.  I call this one of my “roll back heaven” stories.

Wednesday afternoon at Salvation Army, one young man I’ll call Rob decided to visit during our Kids’ Corps time. 

Some of the girls from Salvation Army Kids Corps

Rob used to go to Salvation Army about three years ago when he was still in high school.  He sang in the SOSA Boys Gospel Choir.

The Sons of Salvation Army (SOSA) Gospel Choir

Only, this was not the Rob that we remembered.  This young man wasn’t in his right mind.   It soon became apparent that he was on some major drugs.  He wasn’t drunk; he was strung out. Several teens caught my eye and shook their heads.  They knew what was going on.  It was a bit scary and quite sad. 

The lieutenants gave some grace to him, invited him to come in and get water, and offered to pray with him. I guess Rob had been in on Monday and had said he’d been kicked out of his house, lost his job, and asked for prayer.   He didn’t hurt any of the kids, but he was asking if anyone had any ice or meth.  I believe he was on meth.  Lieut. Richard was on high alert and was following Rob wherever he went.  

After he left, we had to debrief with the kids.  We had sensed confusion and chaos when he was there, and we prayed against that and for peace and order.  Something shifted after we prayed. The new lieutenants documented what happened that day, and called up their prior lieutenants to find out about Rob.  They were told that he was not a bad kid, but he often hung out with kids who were up to no good.

Today I had a conversation with a YWAM student and friend, Andrea (Teka) Lima.  She is Brazilian mom whom I am overseeing for outreach for 2-3 months.  She explained to me that this morning she was volunteering down at Mokuikaua Church. (This is the oldest church in Hawaii. Teka tells tourists about the missionaries who came here from Boston a over hundred years ago.)

She recounted the following to me:

“A young man was walking back and forth in front of the church.  He seemed disturbed.  One of the volunteers said that if anything goes wrong with him, I could tell the office and they’d deal with it.”  Teka found out nobody was in the office, so she went on prayer-mode, asking God for wisdom with this guy.  He marched into the church and went up to the pulpit and acted like he was preaching.  When she recalled this, I thought of Rob.  He had marched up to the Mormon temple and climbed up the outside stairs on his quest for drugs on Wednesday.  There seemed to be erratic behavior of a young man in both of these stories. 

Teka asked if he needed anything.  He said he didn’t.  Then she asked if he knew Jesus.  “Yes, I know of him,” he would no longer look at her.  She sensed she was in a spiritual battle.  She began to pray in Portuguese.  She asked if she could pray for him, and he said no.  She kept inquiring of the Lord what to do. Then, He showed her that this boy was not a bad kid, but had been hanging out with bad kids and made a few bad choices.  She gently told him that the Lord loved him, and she shared what God revealed to her. Rob began to weep.  “I want to pray with you.  I want to ask Jesus into my heart!”

Teka looked at him and realized that she knew him from the homeless survey she’d done the week before with Hope Services (yet another overlap). She said he was softer after that prayer.  He seemed more in his right mind. 

I hesitatingly asked Teka what the name was of this young man.  “Rob,” she said, confirming to me what I knew.  It was the same person who wandered in to Salvation Army!  I believe he is crying out for help.  He is Marshallese, where most of the life revolves around the family’s church.  Only, he’s been kicked out of his family's home.  Now he’s pacing back and forth and then entering Christian organizations. 

Teka was in the right place at the right time.  She asked God what to do, and she did it.  Though she was a bit afraid, she could see that this was a hurting young man who needed love. 

Teka and Kris at a special Valentines Dinner we enjoyed with our hubbies on campus

Together we marveled of how God brought all of these pieces together.   I can see God is rolling back heaven for him, revealing to us scenes in this story, a story that will one day see a young man come home. 

Please join me in praying for “Rob.”  I can see that God is so for this young man!! Though he has chosen to return to Christ, he has a long road ahead of him.

Kahalu'u Prayer Walk: Letting the Locals Lead Us

We were asked to come do a prayer walk last spring at Kahalu'u Housing Project.  My friend Lilo, a resident there who understands spiritual warfare, told me of three suicides that had happened with young people in the last six months at that very housing area.  She asked if I could gather people from the community and Univ. of Nations to come alongside them and to pray.  

That morning in prayer, I sensed I was to “let them speak.”  I was to start by asking the people of Kahalu’u what they had noticed was going on in their community.  What patterns had been happening, and what would they like to see change?  We were to ask them to lead us in the praying, and the children and their completed art projects (from the art therapy time on Monday) were to start us off.

So when we got there, we simply did this.  I walked forward in this simple, clear path the Lord had shown me.  And it worked!   This is what we found when we arrived: 

  People from town had arrived and were already calling out to the Lord for this place. 

I noticed that one gentleman from the community was on the other side of the stone wall, and the children were about 20 feet away, hunched down together on the sidewalk.   When I walked up, I called the man over.  His name is Ikaika, and he told me he was from Kosrae, another island in Micronesia.  He was happy to be there.  I told him we were glad to have him.   We called the children over, and asked that they sing one of the songs that Tonyson used to sing.  (Tonyson was the boy who had most recently died, right next to the property.) They did. The kids sang enthusiastically, and I joined in as I knew the song from one of the Salvation Army gospel songs that Tonyson used to be part of.

“I’ve got my mind made up, and there’s no turning back.  Cause I’m going to see my Jesus, one day!  I’ve got my mind made up, and there’s no turning back.  I’m going to see my Jesus one day.”

With Betty (Auntie Be) the art therapist assisting, we gathered the children and their butterfly-shaped paintings, and let them lead us up to the area where Tonyson had taken his life.  They staked their pictures in the ground, or tied them in the trees.  Our friend Kalani, a skilled canoe carver, found ways to set them into the rock wall and into the branches. 

I asked Kalani to pray over the keiki.  It was important to have a Hawaiian brother or sister—from this land—to bless these people. It was a long while before Kalani could speak.  This humble grandfather wept as he prayed over the children.  He prayed for hope in them, and then we all prayed against fear from this suicide.  Merlitha, the youngest sister of Tonyson, was there, receiving these prayers and blessings from this loving man.

Listening to the locals of Kahalu'u as to how to pray for their land

From the top of the property, we asked the people to tell us how to pray.  One lady shared of the need for order and wisdom for the parents.  She shared of how the kids run all over the parking lot and how they are in danger of being hit by cars pulling in.  The gentleman shared that he’d love to see better behavior in the families, of watching their children. 

Equipped with these prayers from the people of this place, we began to pray.  We walked around the project, and met one of the women who lost her husband to suicide a few months earlier.  Shyly, she let us pray for her and her children.  

Other people emerged from their apartments, and—with translation from our friend Lilo—asked us to pray for them as well.  A couple people began to pick up litter, prompted to beautify physically as they asked God for order spiritually.  

Later, Lilo told us that at the churches of this culture group, the regular people do not have a voice—just the pastors and deacons. The women are never asked for their opinions on how to pray.  So that nudge earlier in the day from the Lord to “let them speak” was powerful!  I remember as the time neared an end, Kapuna Fay Williams, long-term YWAM intercessor for this island telling me, “This was right.  You let these people lead you in this.  That’s just how it should be.”  I love it when I don’t know how to do something, but God shows us how to go!