Update from Kona, #1

The Island:

Though I haven’t had much opportunity to explore, there’s plenty to see and experience from our near beach-front campus, built on the side of a semi-active volcano. We’ve visited a couple of beaches. One is named “Magic Sands” (for apparent reasons). The tide literally steals away the sands from the beach for a few months a year. During my time at this beach I planned on finishing a project that I was assigned. That is, our class was supposed to pick a random stranger who catches our interest and write a short background story on them. On the Magic Sands beach, an old, bearded man caught my attention. Without even thinking of the project I planned on completing, I stereotyped him as a Priest—hens the story I wrote about him. It’s a simple story. It wasn’t meant to be an eloquent work of verbose prose. Nevertheless, here it is:

THE PRIEST

He’s swimming in the ocean, bodysurfing the small, shore-breaking waves just like the rest of the tourists and locals.

* * * * *

At nine years of age, John Calvin lost his father due to gang-wars in Mexico City where his family was stationed as missionaries. Originally, They came from Chicago. They were used to a rough city-life, but nothing like this.

* * * * *

Often, the Priest would stand erect, in the shallows of the water, peacefully accepting the blows from the small waves.

* * * * *

Due to his father’s sudden, violent death, John Calvin’s mother placed him in a monastery. She was always religious, and upon this unexpected, brutal loss of the father-figure, she decided her son would live a life of peace, far from violence.

* * * * *

He made his way out of the water, and up the beach, to the place where his clothes lie. He removes his black head-covering, then makes his way to the public showers where he rinses off the salt-water. He returns to his clothes as he rings out his long, grey beard.

* * * * *

They decided to move to a more peaceful area. Soon after their father’s memorial service, they caught a flight out to Paris, where Mrs. Anderson enlisted her son in the best, most strict, catholic boys-school. The boy eventually became an orthodox priest, and lived a life of solitude in a small monastery in the French mountains on the Mediterranean Sea.

* * * * *

The Priest wrapped his towel around his waist, Buttoned up his Hawaiian shirt, placed his baseball cap on his head, fixed his sunglasses on his ears, picked up his belongings and walked his way to the street.

* * * * *

After 50 years of isolation, John Calvin wanted to escape. He never fit in where he was. Even his name would cause heated discussions amongst his Brothers at the monastery. For this reason, he never went by his middle name. Just “John.” John finally had an opportunity to make his escape. His monastery was bought out from under them due to Beaurocracy amongst the higher elders in the Church. It was always John’s dream to visit Hawaii, so that’s what he did.

* * * * *

The Priest’s time was finished. He was returning to his hotel to pack his things and leave. Where to? God knows.

FIN

[The word traditionally used at the conclusion of an Italian film—Literally, “End”]

The Island: Continued

There’s another beach nearer to campus. It’s like Magic Sands, yet smaller an d less populated. Most beaches on this side of the Bid Island are volcanic rock, so running barefoot in the water can hurt.

Just a couple of days ago, I visited our local beach for some time with my Creator. I was quickly distracted (big surprise) by something in the water. Turned out to be a large sea turtle. In fact, there were several sea turtles moseying about in the shallow ocean tide. They were just lying there, inches from me.

Magnificent!

School:

My schedule looks something like this: Breakfast from 6:30am to 7:15am during the weekdays; 8:15am = Campus Worship (Mon.), Class Intercession/prayer (Tue.), Class Devotional (Wed.), Class Film Discussion (Thu.), Class Worship (Fri.); Weekdays classes = 9:15am to 10:30am, 10:45am to 12pm and 1pm ‘til whenever our projects are finished; dinner = typically 5pm; Mondays and Wednesdays are optional Ultimate Frisbee days, at 4:30pm =]; Thursday nights = campus general assembly where we have worship and a guest speaker, and sometimes other stuff. Weekends, most of my classmates and I work in the kitchen for our "work duty" (it's something everyone does, and varies between individuals and schools). I set up and serve breakfast from 6am-9:30am and dinner from 3:30pm-9:30pm.

More to come tomorrow when I have more internet access! (Internet cuts out at 11pm on campus... which is now.)