Raised in the Green Mountains of Vermont it is not unusual to see black and white Holsteins dotting the hillsides. In Maui the scenery is a bit different and to me it is a strange site to see the cattle lining the land overlooking the water. Birds frequently gather around the cattle.
The road to Hana is an experience in and of itself. After a 17-hour flight I will be taking this 2-hour plus amusement park ride down the road that encompasses 620 hairpin curves through tropical rainforest. In daylight the scenery is beautiful. At night the trip is nauseating! Though only 68-miles the curves and bridges that loop back on themselves at 90 degree angles, makes it seem like the longest journey of your life.
These candy-colored trees are among the many gorgeous spectacles along the Hana Road.
This is the cross overlooking Hana, a memorial to Paul Fagan who founded the Hana Maui Hotel. To those of us on the mission's trip, you can imagine it is a spectacular symbol of why we are there.
At the top of the hill in back of the Travaasa Resort, formerly the Hotel Hana, is a cross honoring Paul Fagan, founder of the Hotel Hana. Fagan played an important role in the growth of Hana, introducing cattle ranching as well as the hotel. The cross is a memorial to him and while we are in Hana we often have devotions at the cross. This is a view of Hana Bay taken from the cross. We typically hold services at Helene Hall down near the bay.
We work hard at community service while in Hana, but at least once a day we typically have the privilege of visiting Hamoa Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and enjoy the sun and the waves.
I will be gone for the next week to Hana Maui Hawaii. For the past five years I have taken a missions trip there. We hold services and do community projects. The meaning of the trip is very personal to me, but I attempt to share some of it below. During my time in Hana I will be out of email contact. I am hoping I may be able to schedule some blog posts to appear while I am gone, but I am not certain it will work. I will be back on August 6th and will blog all about the experience.
Go…
In the gospels, when someone encounters Christ and experiences a miracle there is a desire to go and tell about it. The Samaritan woman at the well in John (John 4: 1-42) goes away telling people “He told me everything I ever did.”
I understand this impulse. After the evangelist prayed for me, my eye was healed, the threat of a brain tumor or pseudo tumor removed, I wanted to do something, to tell and share. When you are changed, there is no desire to stand still. This was not a religious conversion for me. I had maintained a personal faith since I was a child, but like a domino once touched causes a chain reaction, so this experience propelled one in me.
Growing up in a small town that was smaller than small, I had never had the opportunity to travel much. My brother and I would visit the boy I cared about in Boston and after I met Joan, I finally began to see the country, taking a camping trip out west, visiting her land and condos, touring the states for dog shows, but even I was surprised when after attending a service with the same evangelist who had prayed for me, I found myself going forward and asking about the trip they take each year to Hana, Hawaii on the island of Maui. He had talked about it during his service – how they take a group of teens over each year, hold services, do community projects, spread the gospel through word and deed. I was not a teenager so I asked if they took older people and to my surprise they said they would.
I had no idea what I was in for, I simply knew I wanted to go and so, I did and while Hawaii is beautiful the work is not easy. I am older than the kids I’m with and sometimes that is not only physically challenging, but lonely as well, but I also felt that domino effect on my life. It has been life changing. The Hawaiians touched me and I hope I’ve touched them. Spiritual callings are inexplicable things. I’m not sure they make sense outside your heart. You simply go. And, so I do, and so I am again.
I first went to Hana six years ago. I had a tee-shirt made up at a local shop that read “Hana Bound,” in hopes that I would connect with others at Logan airport who were part of our group. A bit of a nerdy thing to do perhaps, since the people I was hoping to hook up with were a group of teens that no doubt didn’t find this cool. Before this, I had never flown by myself, never even left from an airport as big as Logan and for a person who likes to make sure all her t’s are crossed, her i’s dotted, the uncertainty of heading off for this unknown place with little information, loomed large for me. I didn’t quite fit in. I met up with a group from Maine who spent a great deal of the time trying to figure out my age. I never look nor act as old as I am, and in this case, being so insecure about travel, I certainly must have created a bit of a puzzle for them. Here, they were 16, 17 traveling to Hawaii and there I was 40 doing the same. This would be one of many experiences in their years to come; this type of experience was coming to me very late.
My youthful appearance worked for me with the Hawaiian children and teens that upon learning my age took me around like a show-and-tell project asking everyone they knew to guess how old I was. Although a bit strange it broke the ice.
I could write, revise, and write again and never be able to capture the feeling standing in Hana Bay the night of a service. The sun sliding down the horizon, the sky turning gray then blue, the waves lapping and crashing the shores and the kids standing, heads raised toward the horizon praying. You cannot hear their words, just the music from inside and you are swallowed in the beauty and holiness of the moment. Enveloped in such color and water and sound, you feel part of the sacred and it is hard not to praise a God for all of it.
Last year, I did not go, although I have been four times before. Last year, I was too busy with work, changes at my school, the launch of my blog, the Writer’s Group I had joined. I thought I would not go this year, certain that my mom’s knee surgery would make it impossible. But her surgery was postponed and so I thought it worth a chance to contact the evangelist and ask, and once again I was surprised when the answer was “yes.” I had waited until they were almost going to ask. And, so I go.
And, it is not about religion. It never was in the gospels. It is about something that happened and it changed me and when that happens, you cannot keep still. Because I was going blind, but now I see….Such miracles demand action. It’s a chain effect.
Go…
My baby brother is home from bootcamp and I am leaving home on a Mission's Trip to Hana Hawaii. It is my fifth year going, this time for only a week, but life seems to be happening so fast there is hardly a chance to catch a breath. We come and go, our homes, revolving doors as we move forward in an attempt to define and discover ourselves.
I couldn’t help but burst with pride as I watched my brother graduate from bootcamp the other day. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel fear as the drill sergeants and company leaders spoke about how courageous these men were to enlist at a time of war. I worry for my brother and for his son, my nephew Christian, who seems to want to follow in his footsteps. As much as I admire and honor their choices, they are not the ones I would make for them. They wear war paint, tattoos heralding a battle cry. I wear a peace symbol on my ankle. I argued against my brother enlisting, up until the very moment he signed up and then I proudly attended his graduation, tapping the Colonel sitting next to me on the shoulder and declaring “That’s my brother” as he came out of the smoke caused by the pyrotechnic show, moving across the field gun in hand. I am thankful for our soldiers, for people who serve their country. My heart swelled with pride when I first saw Paul in his uniform, but I would have preferred he never put himself in harm’s way. We cannot choose how another lives. We can offer our opinions, our advice, but in the end it is our support and love that is most welcome. Each of us needs a safe haven as we soldier through life and I choose to be a part of theirs.
On the week his father graduated from boo camp, my nephew Christian got his first tattoo. My brother Mark, his wife Gretchin and I designed it: Psalm 144:1 “Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”
We designed the P to be both a sword and a cross in keeping with the scripture and its meaning. But, this tattoo has meaning that can’t be captured by a simple design. It is a rite of passage, a link between father and son. It expresses both my nephew’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and to step out on his own. He wanted to surprise him with it, like a passing nod to say, “Look what we share, look at who I am.”
It was a family affair, this rite of passage. We aided in its design; Christian’s cousin, mother and his mother’s boyfriend all got tattooed on the same day. Texts flew with pictures and updates. As we all shared in the raising of this boy, we also shared in this milestone. None of this, of course, was shared in words, unless you count the one marking his flesh, and in the end, I guess that one sums it all up. He will wear it and people will inquire about it and he will tell its story, but to me it is the behind the scenes story that counts. Mark, Gretchin and I scurrying to bring this desire to fruition, his mom and family lending their unwavering support; the exchange between father and son. There will be some who think this tattoo is about battle. To me it will forever be about service and love.