Good Morning

I've posted a video here.  Hope you guys enjoy it (sorry that it's sideways for a while).  :)

Today's a little slower, and I should have semi-regular internet access for a while, so I got the chance to write a little:

Walking the two older girls in the family to school, it really hit me.  I’m in Fiji.  Men and women and children pass by wearing colorful cotton shirts and sulus (the breezy cotton skirts sported by men and women alike), greeting me with big, sincere smiles.  The sky is brilliant blue overhead and the water at the edge of our backyard is a similar color.  Flowers are bursting open in bushes along the roadside - bright pinks, yellows, blues.  A bright purple bus, no windows, rattles along the road ahead of me with only one passenger, going fast to get a little breeze going.  It’s only 8:40, but it’s already getting hot.  The sun is much more intense so near the equator, but it lights up everything and makes it that much more bright and beautiful.  Good morning.

The mosquitoes are also already buzzing, as at all hours.  “They’ll bite you less the longer you’re in Fiji,” Eden, the older girl, told me yesterday with an encouraging smile. 

  We arrive at the school, a plastered building that used to be a home.  Now, there are a few Fijian teachers who teach a home-school curriculum and let the kids work at their own pace.  The school’s chapel starts at 9:00, and kids run around, smiling, laughing, making mischief, tattling on one another.  Kids line up on benches for chapel underneath the school’s porch roof.  The sun in already beating down on the land, but in the shade the breeze is gentle.  

One of the teachers approaches the front of the little group.  She is Fijian, her bright flower-printed dress contrasting beautifully with her dark skin.  She is short, with curly hair close to her scalp and a light shawl gracing her shoulders.  She asks the children to bow their heads in prayer.  Heads drop and eyes close in unison.  

“Dear Lord, thank You for this day.  Thank You for the lives of the children, and the lives of the teachers, and the lives of the parents.  Thank You that we can come here for one more day and learn.  Please help us to do the tasks You set before us.  Please give us diligent hearts and let Your Spirit be on us as we work for You.”     

  Good morning.  

Bula!

Bula! ("hello and welcome" in Fijian)

     So, for those of you who may not know, yesterday morning at 5:30 AM, after 2 days of traveling, I arrived in the Fiji islands.  I'll be staying here for the next month with a really great family.  They work mostly in a rural area, building a community center, a sustainable community farm, and sharing in the love of God.  So, through some unexpected turns of events, I get the privilege of being their "intern" for part of the summer.
     This means I'll just be floating around helping out wherever help is needed.  For the past two days, this has meant being a nanny.  :)  The family has three beautiful daughters, and right now the youngest is sick.  So the two older girls and I have gotten to spend some quality time together while busy mom helps a sick baby get healthy again.  Today, we went with the short-term summer team to an island for a day of fun and then sent the summer team off for their return flight back to the US.  The island was beautiful, exactly like a postcard.  There were fish and reefs that looked like they belonged in Finding Nemo; the ocean was warm, maybe 70 degrees; and palm trees were everywhere.  I've posted some photos of our adventures today.
     While Fiji is a very beautiful place, it also has an underbelly with many problems.  Because tourism is the main economic activity (followed by sugarcane farming), the economy hasn't really diversified.  This means there's little room for a middle class to spring up.  So, there are the very rich in Fiji, which is what one usually thinks of - high class resorts, lounging on the beach, celebrity vacations.  But there are also the very poor.  Soon, I'll know a lot more about all this.

Love you all, and I hope to be in touch soon. :)
     

"Be not like dumb, driven cattle!"

I stayed up until 3 last night reading poetry, and I thought I should share some of the really good ones.  




Holy Sonnet V:  I Am a Little World Made Cunningly
John Donne 


I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements, and an angelic sprite;
But black sin hath betrayed to endless night
My worlds both parts, and (oh!) both parts must die.
You which beyond that heaven which was most high
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write,
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it if it must be drowned no more
But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler: Let their flames retire,
And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of Thee and Thy house, which doth in eating heal. 


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Holy Sonnet XV:  Wilt Thou Love God
John Donne


Wilt thou love God, as He thee? Then digest,
My Soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by Angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His Temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting, (for he ne'r begone)
Hath deigned to choose thee by adoption,
Co heir to His glory, and Sabbath's endless rest;
And as a robbed man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy it again;
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he had made, and Satan stol'n, to unbind.
'Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more. 


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A Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 


Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.