The Weaving

I’ve been thinking lately about baskets. In Hawaii there are many kinds of baskets. The ones I notice most-frequently are the loosely woven baskets by craftsmen on the Kona wall or at the market. They’re made of palm branches and start off green and loose, and over time become brown and brittle. When a piece runs out, the artist pulls out another frawn and overlaps it, so you cannot see where one piece ends and another begins. It’s just a circular, beautiful basket.
The people in our lives are like layers of those branches. They stay for a while, and mesh themselves in comfortably to the walls of our lives. Then, they leave. They may return again later for a season, or they may not. As building managers of a residential dorm at YWAM’s University of the Nations, we have stayed for the last 15 months while families have come and gone from Building 1. Some families we become closer to, while others we miss out on sharing a friendship. They change each quarter. Every now and then, there’ll be a family that stays longer for some reason.
Such was the case with our Norwegian neighbors, with whom we shared our lives for six months. Jarle (pronounced Yarle’) and Ashild (O’sold) won our hearts quickly with their five month old baby, Julia and her equally adorable toe-headed big sister, Live’ (Leeva). When Julia had a fever over 104 degrees for several days, we suggested a doctor who offered discounts to YWAM missionaries. I came in and prayed for their baby one night when she continued, again, her weak cry. Soaking wash cloths in tepid water with vinegar, I showed Ashild how to wrap the baby’s legs and pull the fever down and away from her vital organs. This technique was taught to me by a Swiss neighbor friend when our son Josiah was with high fever a few months earlier. Love and trust was woven in to the basket late that night.
At Easter time, I did what has become a tradition: I invited all the children from around the world who live in our building and the surrounding ones to join us for the American tradition of Easter egg dying. With my sons, I taught them how to color them, and then we pulled out the Resurrection Eggs and recalled the very first Easter story. Live’ joined us at that time in April, coloring an egg with her mama.
When Jarle needed advice about a car, Randy told him where to go in town to get it to pass the emissions quality test, and what types of things they check in the American system.
In June, I went to the end of year celebration of Foundation School to join the families-now-friends from our building as their children performed at the event. Jarle’ led worship first on his guitar, singing out with his soft Norwegian accent. Ashild, who taught the preschool class, handed out darling “Armor of God” pieces to her daughter as well as other friends like Rachel, our friend Gavin’s little sister. Eventually, the older kids like Gavin and David performed a hip-hop dance. I cheered with their proud parents.
We congratulated kiddos and prepared to hug the parents, again, as they packed up for outreach. And then, those families left. In a flurry of early-morning airport runs after days of packing, and room inspections and hugs and tears and prayers all around, they left. I felt as if my basket was unraveling.
Except for Jarle and Ashild. On a different schedule, they were leaving in a week. They got to see us clean up and pack up to move off campus. Semi-settled into our new condo, we invited our Norwegian neighbors for dinner. I delighted in having a full kitchen again, and prepared one of our favorite back-home dinners: grilled rosemary chicken, Trader Joe’s cornbread and the slow-cooked baked beans, a family recipe. The dads and some of the kids swam in our pool, while the moms and some of the kids (like our son Josiah in a cast) visited on the pool deck. They blessed us with marshmallows for roasting and chocolate macadamian nuts for savoring.
But the best part of the evening? It was when they looked at us over dinner on our lanai and said, “You have done what you said you would do. You have been like parents to us.” Randy and I glanced at each other, a bit surprised. “When we first came, you told us all that you wanted to be like a mother or a father to the young families in this building. You have done that! You did it when you prayed for our daughter, when you loaned us childrens’ Tylenol, or in so many encouragements along the way.”
What an eye-opener. These guys had been with us longer than the other families, and had seen us greet and hug goodbye two whole groups of families. They had heard us when we weren’t doing well as parents or when we grew weary of our 400 square foot apartment, and they’d seen us when we were building jigsaws and reading stories to our boys. Ashild told me, “You are an awesome mom. You are to your boys and you have been like that to me. Thank you!” We hadn’t really thought about it, we just kept doing what we felt to do as building managers who have a heart for families.
Though I knew these sweet friends would soon be climbing on an airplane, there was something that came full-circle that night. Maybe it took their leaving to do it, or maybe our all being off campus for some larger perspective, but there was a mutual blessing, a giving and receiving, and a completing of a basket. It was good and beautiful. We were grateful.
Since that evening, I have been in Ohana Court worshipping on a Monday morning, noticing hundreds of new faces. We now live off campus so we are not as closely-connected to the new families. As much as we love our new condo, we miss that camaraderie, of hearing everybody’s business whether you want to or not, and of being there for each other. I remember recognizing the back of Dave’s head or seeing whom I thought was Farrell in the distance, but it was not. They were in Japan and Cambodia, and these were new faces. Friends to come for a weaving yet to be.