Week One in Samoa

It has been a little over one week and by this time, I'd usually be heading home on most of the mission trips I've previously been on. Quite the opposite, though, I just officially got started. Our first VBS started yesterday afternoon after the last two missionaries arrived Sunday night.

I was fortunate enough, though, to get to fly in early. This week for me has just been a chance to acclimate and explore the island of American Samoa and begin to build relationships with those around me.


Here is a bit of what happened and what I've learned in Week 1:

----------------------------- 1 -----------------------------

The people are BIG here. And some of them are solid muscle. Note this dude's bicep which is the size of my head!?!

----------------------------- 2 -----------------------------

Their hearts are big too - especially the kids who are SO loving!!!

These pics were taken during their last week of school; I just got to observe and hang out and play with them which was sooooooooo wonderful!

----------------------------- 3 -----------------------------

They have great sportsmanship. I watched their softball games. It was the sweetest thing: everyone cheers on everyone, regardless of your team. The players would high five the other team's players for good moves or say "Good try" when they missed a catch or struck out or whatever. It isn't as competitive and mean like in the states where you are made fun of or put on the bench if you're not the best... too bad I didn't play sports in Samoa growing up  ;)

----------------------------- 4 -----------------------------

My leg has been healing; not a lot of infection, praise the Lord!

 

It mostly just bruised, even where his paw got me on my upper calf. 

----------------------------- 5 -----------------------------

I played dodge ball which is pretty much their favorite game!

----------------------------- 6 -----------------------------

I went to two graduations which were beautiful. There were lots of people and even more excitement :) Here are a couple things that are different from the states:

• They give out candy leis - a whole lot of them
• They wear the balloons instead of holding them; normally they tie it to the lei
• Guys will cry; everyone was emotional, even the men
• They run very long with several speakers, often lasting most of the day

----------------------------- 7 -----------------------------

I helped out with their school's field day with games like the balloon toss, over under and tug of war. Larry even got in on the tug of war!

----------------------------- 8 -----------------------------

We went to the market Friday night for their "First Fridays" event. There were craft booths, live music, local food and I tasted my first fresh coconut. The guys literally pulled it out of the box and sliced a hole and then popped in a straw. It wasn't super sweet but it was pretty refreshing :)

That is just a taste but we did lots of other stuff, including buy supplies, paint and decorate for VBS.

I'll try to write a post again soon to update on VBS.

If you pray, I'd appreciate your prayers as we begin our ministry. Even though it has been raining and we haven't been able to go out to the villages as much to invite people, we still had about 80 kids tonight. Pray that they return, there isn't a language barrier, we all have fun, stay safe and share Christ and his love. Thanks!!!

A Dump, a Dog Bite, Broken Shoes and a Shipwreck: my first 24 hours in Samoa

After being up for 26 hours I had traveled through 3 time zones, leaving SC for Savannah, GA and then Dallas, TX and lastly San Francisco, CA before landing in Honolulu, HI for the night. That was my pit stop before a 5+ hour plane ride that finally got me to Samoa late Sunday night. Lucky for me, I had the next day to rest... or so I thought!

Monday was Memorial Day and everyone had the day off from work since I'm in American Samoa, a U.S. territory. For the holiday, 5 of the people I'm working with and I decided to go explore the nearby island of Aunu'u (the tiny blob farthest to the right):

It proved to be quite an eventful trip...

The Dump

We drove along the coast winding around several coves before taking a ferry across to the island of Aunu'u. It was GAWWW-gussssss!!!!

We had a fairly easy hike... only we hiked to the wrong part.

They don't mark things in Samoa so we were just going down a random path that actually led to their dump or landfill or something like that. We were going to try to cut through but - then I saw rats, and decided to turn around. Plus, it smelled pretty bad :/

Fortunately, the next path we took led us to where we were trying to get to in the first place: the cliffs.

It was so VERY beautiful. We sat and watched the giant swells crash into the cave and spray up over the shore:

Unfortunately, we could not sit and watch the waves for hours, though I wanted to. We had to start back down the trail to get back to the shore so we wouldn't miss the ferry back to our car.

The Dog Bite

Hmmm, where do I start.

1) I am a dog lover.  Times a thousand. I've owned one my whole life and we spoil our dogs. Rotten. 
2) It breaks my heart when people are mean to their dogs. Michael Vick level or even just leaving them on a chain outside, etc. I hate to see dogs being hurt.
3) Samoan dogs are mangy and mean. They are not well-fed or groomed or attended. They fight each other and are aggressive towards people. (I learned this the hard way, obviously.)
4) Also, Samoan dogs are everywhere. Outside stores, along the streets, at people's homes. Everywhere. Including the island of Aunu'u...

We were walking back to the shore when the girls ahead of me stopped to pick up rocks because there were about 5 growling and barking dogs running towards us. I followed their lead and picked up rocks too, though I was sure we weren't really going to use them.

Well, I was wrong.

The dogs were coming at us but their owner was trying to call them back. He even threw a machete to try to scare them off. We thought it had worked and, despite the continued barking and growling, the dogs were staying in the man's yard so we started walking past his house. I was second to the last out of the six of us.

All of a sudden, a brown and black dog darted straight towards me and lunged at my left leg.

Rocks in my hand, I froze.

The dog lover in me just couldn't throw a rock at a dog. (And let's be real, I'm sure my aim would not have been accurate anyways!) Plus, he came so quickly.

I felt him get me and the force of his jump knocked my feet out from under me.

I fell. And screamed. And bled.

I freaked out because once I was on the ground, I was like, "Great! Now he's gonna rip my face off." I'm happy to say, that was not the case! I kept from crying but it scared me pretty bad.

The part that scared me most, however, was when the owner rushed off to get me something (which I assumed was some local plant with magical healing powers) and brought back hair from the dog that bit me. Seriously. He just plucked it right out of the dog's side because they believe that has healing powers.

All I could think was "Heck no! Infection!" because the dogs here are so dirty.

Fortunately, a sweet girl I was with diffused the situation by saying that she would take it and give it to me later if I needed it.

I hobbled away and a few minutes later (once we had put enough distance between us and the dogs), I washed it off in the ocean. It kept oozing for most of the day but, lucky for me, I live with an RN. Convenient, right? She cleaned it up good and put fabulous Avengers band-aids on it before I went to bed. I woke up with bruising this morning and it is sore but I think I should be good :)

Broken Shoes

As if that wasn't enough, while hiking in the washed out muddy part of the trails (which at times were like small ponds) I broke first one shoe and then the other. I wish I could say it happened in some grand adventure or while rushing away from the dog or by saving a screaming baby or something, but no. In reality, the mud just suctioned the soles right off of the shoes!?!

But, they still functioned so I made it off the island :)

Shipwreck

K, maybe I took a little too much artistic license on this last one ;)

I did not get in a shipwreck - Praise the Lord - but I did visit one.

After we finished our hike at Aunu'u, this was on the ride home so we stopped to check it out.

______________________________________

That that was Day 1.

Who knows what other adventure lies ahead...

I'll keep y'all posted on future adventures/attacks! Let's pray there aren't any more attacks!

Serving in Samoa - My adventure for the month of June

Where I'm Headed

Samoa.

Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't.

Not until I decided to serve there this summer. It's a tiny Pacific island (only 14 miles long) that is closer to New Zealand than it is to Hawaii.

The teeny orange dot that is Pago Pago is where I'll fly into after about 15 hours in the air. Eww.

BUT, I can't complain too much.

The tiny island has beaches, waterfalls, mountains and caves!?!  Many people go on mission and end up sleeping on dirt floors and pooping in squatty potties but I'll be serving under a palm tree on a sandy white beach like this:

I mean, hey, everyone needs to be reached... even in paradise ;) 

What I'm Doing

BUT, in all seriousness, even in paradise I will be working and I will have stressful moments, I'm sure.

It isn't just a fabulous vacation. It's actually a mission trip.

I will be serving alongside Larry Leming who I worked with last summer in my hometown. I will be doing similar things only in Samoa instead of South Carolina. This includes primarily leading Vacation Bible Schools but also assisting with kids sports camps, community outreach, helping the local church, loving on the locals and possibly more...

Why I'm Going

It all started back in January at the Passion conference. As any of my regular readers know, that conference had quite an impact on me. This particular conviction came in this song:

If you watch the whole video (so worth it!) you'll see that Chris Tomlin invited friends of his from all over the world to sing verses of the song. It was one of the most powerful moments of worship I have ever been a part of.

Though I didn't understand what those people were singing, I knew they were praising our God and that He understood them. It was such a beautiful picture of the church as it should be, all our brothers and sisters of different backgrounds coming together from several nations, just like it talks about in Revelation 7:

(9) After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

The moment of conviction came for me not during the singing but when Louie Giglio came out on stage before the final verse.

He started talking about how we in the audience were probably all moved by these people and their countries represented on the stage and if not them, then the people and country we had a heart for - the place we had gone on a mission trip or the nation we sent support to or the people group we prayed for, etc. As he was asking us to pray for that particular place or group of people on our heart, I was thinking this:

"Hmmm. No Louie. I don't have a particular country/people group in mind. Dear God... Is it bad or unbiblical that I just like America so much??? It's not that I don't care about these other countries, there just isn't a particular one that I always think of or desire to visit. And not just like a visit for you Jesus... I don't even have a long-time dream of like visiting  Paris or Australia or anywhere for that matter for a vacation. Oh my gracious. Am I that awful, isolated American who only cares about Ah-murica?"

No. I don't think I'm awful. BUT I did realize in that moment that I didn't have a cross-cultural experience as a Christian. And largely because I had never really left America (unless you count a cruise or two and our vacation last year just across the border to Nova Scotia).

I began to realize that I should visit another country for Jesus. Um, hello, the Great Commission? ALL THE NATIONS.

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

                                                                                                 - Matthew 28:19-20

So, then what?

 

Even though I realized I should "go," I had no idea where to go.

I began to pray that God would give me a people or a place to go to this summer. Especially after I found out I wasn't working for my other job during the summer (there is a lot less to do for a collegiate ministry when college is out of session!).

I couldn't go on the Baptist Collegiate Ministry summer mission trips because I was no longer a student. My parents weren't thrilled with the idea of me (a little white girl inexperienced with travel abroad) taking off to India to fight human trafficking first hand which is what I was leaning towards.

BUT then, I ran into my good friend Larry at our state BCM conference where he was recruiting people for Samoa. Since this was not an official BCM trip, I could go. Plus, my parents were much more comfortable with me being halfway around the world with someone we had known for years and in a less hostile place than high-human-trafficking-locations.

All I needed then was my plane ticket, though that cost a pretty penny (or two, or like 200,000).

Although, I have heard that for mission trips if it is God's will, it's God's bill.

And what do ya know. In my case it was true:

I went to close down an old bank account that I thought was nearly empty but it had had money direct deposited into it. How much money? Oh, just within about 100 dollars of what I needed to buy my plane ticket. Yes, my accountant mother was horrified that I had not kept better track of my money BUT I had been operating without it in my budget so it was available for a plane ticket.

Boom. Done.

With the financial backing, I had nothing blocking me. After some prayer and a bit of planning, I committed to this mission trip.

And, now what? 

I leave in about a week!?!

I have to figure out how to pack for an entire month. Never had such a long trip.

I probably should hit our beach here to attempt to tan so I don't look like Casper among the Samoans ;)

I'll be praying and I ask for your prayers, especially for
   - Safe travels
   - Connection with my co-workers and the locals there
   - To be in tune with the Holy Spirit as I prepare and while I'm there
   - I'll probably have more specifics once I get there...

I'll try to send a post of life for the Southern Belle Feminist  in the deep deep south of the Pacific in the culture of Samoa :)

What is beauty?

Beauty.

What is it?

I found this cheap necklace at Claires when I was about twelve and even though it leaves a green ring around my neck every time I wear it, I cannot toss it out because I fell in love with its definition of beauty:

"The quality present in a person or thing that gives intense pleasure to the mind."

Intense pleasure to the mind. Not the eye. I love that.

Because beauty cannot be put into a box. It is embodied... not just a body. 

Being beautiful is all about playing up and becoming more of what YOU already are...

It is something altogether different from being "pretty."

Pretty is all about playing up and becoming more of what they tell you that you should be, what is trendy. "They" being the magazines, music videos, celebs, etc. in society who tell you how to look.

 

But often that image they present is unattainable and distorted.  

They. Limit. Beauty.

But, I believe, every single person is beautiful. Truly.

I realized this last year at a retreat where we sang "You're Beautiful" by Phil Wickham over and over again.

The lyrics talk about how nature like the stars and sunrise all proclaim to God: "you're beautiful." And then it hit me that all of God's creation declares that He is beautiful, including people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:

Colossians 1:16 says

for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

Genesis 1:27 talks about how people are made in God's image... How incredibly offensive that must be for us to call His creation, in particular one of his people that carry His image, anything less than beautiful.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.

Granted, there are times like now when I have a mountain range of zits on my face, I'm in need of a haircut and my finger nail polish is chipped that I feel like today may not be my "own time" ;) BUTTTTTTT, all in all, God made each and every one of us beautiful.

And we should rest in that. On good days... and bad days.

He does.

Even when we/others don't. 

Beauty is so much bigger and fuller and deeper than being "merely pretty:"

I hope instead of trying to fulfill society's limited scope of "pretty," that you aim to own what God gave you - and embrace it because...

So today - and everyday - I hope you know that you are

Leaving My Mark - an awkward way to start my day

I was raised not to air my dirty laundry in public BUT this story was just too funny not to share. However, I feel the need to provide fair warning that this blogpost involves a story about my underwear so if you find that offensive or over-sharing then don't read any further.

For the rest of you who are hooked, here is an awkward little life update on how I started my day ;)
 
(First, a little background info)


I recently bought several new pairs of panties because there was an irresistible deal the last time I went to the mall. That seems innocent enough BUT the problem is I don't own a washer or dryer. As a result, my laundry is done infrequently and in large loads.

I was not about to waste one of my rare opportunities to do laundry by just washing panties. So, instead, I washed them with warm water and soap in the sink in my bathroom to avoid them bleeding their color all over the rest of my clothes and staining them whenever I did do laundry next.

(K, enter the awkwardness of this morning)

NOTE TO SELF/ALL OF YOU: Apparently, washing new panties in the sink does NOT prevent their color from bleeding.

They can still stain your clothes. And also your toilet seat. And even you.

Yes.

I came back from a run this morning and went to the bathroom before I hopped in the shower. Although, I wasn't so quick to hop in the shower because when I finished peeing, I noticed that my toilet seat was black.

And that black spot was in the shape of my rear-end.

Yes, I left my mark in the form of a black butt print on my toilet seat. Real Life.

I was so confused and then I realized that my underwear had stained ME!?! Literally, my body. My entire rear-end looked like a giant bruise from where the black dye of my new panties had left its remnants in my skin... all I can guess is that maybe sweating while running made that happen...?

BUT (butt?), how unfortunate.

My roomies and any visitors to our house would see the mark which revealed more than I cared to share with the world about how big my booty was. [One of my roomies asked if I would take a picture for this post. Haha, funny joke. No.]

Even though I was already behind schedule from my run, I thought I had to clean this up... erase this embarrassing mark before my roomies woke up. With my black butt print staring up from our white toilet seat, I set into my cleaning mode.

I tried to wipe it off with warm soap and water. That was a fail.

Then I thought, oh maybe face wash would do the trick. Nope.

Toner? I'm afraid not.

At this point, I'm getting a little alarmed.

I figured I would just go for the big guns and ran to the cleaning cabinet to get our Clorox spray assuming that surely that would clear it right up.

Even. That. Did. Not. Work.

Flustered, but now 20 minutes behind schedule, I just left it saying a prayer that the steam from my hot shower might help...

Then, in the shower, I had to tend to my rear-end.

I scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed.

I used a washrag and a loofah.... even a pumice stone meant for your feet.

I tried shampoo, facewash, exfoliating body wash, bar soap.

Alllllllllllllll to no avail.

With my rear-end rubbed raw, I finally gave up and got out of the shower to tackle the toilet seat.

Sadly, it was still as dark as the second I saw it.

And then, I just had to laugh. I mean, really, what else could I do?

By this time, my roomies were up so I shared the story with them and we all laughed.

Sarah Grace had struck again. I don't know how I get into these situations but I do.

We determined that I now have the cleanest butt in town. As for our toilet seat... that is another story.

Liberation Week - Shining light on the injustice of human trafficking

This is next week. It all kicks off tomorrow, in fact!?!

This is also the reason I haven't posted in forever.

I have been consumed by planning this and learning more about the issue of human trafficking and praying for this and the people trapped in modern day slavery. All 27 million of them.

Y'all may have seen my post about Passion Conference and how it affected me back in January. At that conference and afterward, I could not erase the link between spiritual freedom and physical freedom. Over and over again since then, I've seen scripture focusing on freedom. And, then, of course, there was this public declaration from Jesus himself:

¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he [Jesus] found the place where it is written:    

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to set the oppressed free"

                                   - Luke 4:17-18

Passion and scripture like this also affected my boss, some BCMers and another group of students I later connected with called the Justice Team.

Over the last month or two, we planned and prayed to put together the following for the College of Charleston campus and greater Charleston community to shine light on the injustice of human trafficking:

LIBERATION WEEK

• Monday - interactive art on campus
• Tuesday - "Sex & Money" documentary at 7pm in the Education Center, room 116
• Wednesday - Nubawi Nute, a speaker from Myanmar sharing a Christian perspective of her work at the border of Burma to fight human trafficking and also telling of the children's home she has started; 7pm in the Education building (corner of Wentworth and St. Phillip) in the Alumni room
• Thursday - PORNversation, a conversation on porn, the objectification of women and the tie to human traffficking, 8pm in the Alumni Room
• Friday - table-ing in Cougar Mall from 10-3
• Saturday - FREEDOM DAY, 2-5pm in Physicians Auditorium 

Freedom Day is our main event and it includes the following:

• What is it? - Not For Sale representative to discuss the global issue of human trafficking
• Where is it? Even Here - A21 Carolinas representative to discuss how this affects our own area
• How it Affects You - Slavery Footprint activity 
• What YOU Can Do to Stop It - "How to Take Action" panel of students and an ICE agent 
• Closing and donation 

In addition, we'll have survivors' stories being read and items created by survivors for sale (provided by The Jubilee Market and The Butterfly Project) as well as information on organizations where you can volunteer or donate to help bring an end to human trafficking.

As they said at Passion,

Indifference is NOT an option. 

You can see why after reading these statistics from A21 Carolinas: 

We need to shrink these numbers until not a single person is being SOLD in our world today. 

People are NOT property. 

Spread the word about Liberation Week. 

Come out. Donate. Liberate. 

A Little Ring is a Little Thing... with BIG Social Assumptions: My fake fiance and facebook's reaction

Here it is, the picture that started this:

You see, a little ring is a little thing but it has very big social assumptions. And that bit of bling absolutely BLEW up my facebook, which led to this blogpost.

Last weekend I was with my redneck family in Arkansas and that always makes for fun and interesting times, like this...

So we were at a bar - which probably doesn't surprise you - but it wasn't a redneck, rowdy place like you might picture. We were keepin' it classy at a wine bar called 

And after one too many glasses, my redneck family came up with an idea - aka my fake fiance.

You see, "what had happened was".... quite innocent at first.

My aunt recently had her 25th wedding anniversary and upgraded her engagement ring to this:

2.5 carats of pure sparkly goodness.

Naturally, all the ladies wanted to try it on. But it was kinda like Cinderella and the glass slipper: it didn't fit until...

I tried it on. And, voila, it fit just perfectly. Unfortunately,  unlike Cinderella, I wasn't able to keep it and it didn't come with a prince :/

Not a real one anyways. 

Since the ring fit, my redneck family took a picture. Then, my uncle suggested/peer pressured me to put the picture up on facebook.

My response: "Do you know the uproar that would cause!?!"

BUT THEN... the wheels started turning...

What would happen?

They thought it would be funny.

I thought it would be interesting - just what kinda reaction would I get?

So there began the experiment.

-------------------------------------------------------

 Within a minute, I had my first response: "Excuse me what!?!"

And then, the FIRST PERSON to like it - I am not kidding - was my pastor at my homechurch.

He gets on facebook like all of once-a-month. Mind you, my daddy was not on this trip and it was Saturday night. Therefore, the next morning I feared my daddy would hear "congratulations" at church and not have the slightest clue about what I had gotten into... While my relatives thought this was just hilarious, a bit of fear overtook the funniness for me at that point as I was thinking my whole church and then hometown would hear of my "engagement" because news travels fast in small-town-South-Carolina :/

And it seems news travels even faster on facebook.

 -------------------------------------------------------

Within an hour I had about 25 "likes" and 20 or so comments. When all was said and done, it got up to 35 "likes" and almost 30 comments.


Because of one little ring... and a big social assumption.


Some of my favorite comments were:

"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do!!!!!! ;)"

"Danggg somebody put a ring on you haha"

And this one from my uncle who was adding fuel to the facebook fire:

"Sarah, I'm so happy for you two... Congrats!"

People were:

• congratulating me
• offering to plan my wedding
• feeling left out because I had not told them about "the guy" sooner
• a little suspicious/doubtful and wanted some details

Once I got over the itty bitty sting of people's disbelief at my having "found a man", some of my favorites from the suspicious people were:

"gasp! for real? :D Congratulations!"

"whaaat is going on?! obviously we haven't hung out in a long time!"

"omg i almost just fainted."

 And my personal favorite:

"Color me cynical, but I somehow don't believe this fish decided it needs a bicycle yet."

-------------------------------------------------------  

But, I myself was shocked that everyone fell for the photo. 

So many of my friends accepted one facebook photo as truth. 

One minute's worth of minimal facebook stalking would uncover that:

1. I was not even listed as "in a relationship" much less "engaged to" anyone
2. I didn't have oodles of couple pictures for my profile picture... not even one
3. My other photos didn't document me with the same guy over and over... I guess my friends thought I fell in love-at-first-sight instead of dating someone for an extended amount of time???
4. And then there was this, a picture posted shortly after the ring pic... I'm nowhere near a man, and there isn't one my age in the picture. NOTE for friends/facebook stalkers in the future: I will show off the man more than the ring ;)

I guess my friends are just not as adept at facebook stalking as I thought they would be...? 

Anyways, the next morning I came clean and commented on the picture, admitting that it was not announcing a new engagement:

"Hahahaha! Thanks for all the comments; didnt mean to make yall feel outta the loop.

"But what happens in Arkansas stays in Arkansas ;) JUST KIDDING!!!

"I did not get engaged but I did just do a lil experiment. Blogpost coming soon - and hopefully a 2.5 carat ring like that too ;)"

But that has not been the end of it.

------------------------------------------------------- 

I cannot tell you the amount of people who have asked me or my close friends "Is there something you forgot to tell me?" or "Is Sarah really engaged?"

And it wasn't just my friends or facebook friends.

No. That one picture - that social assumption - that facebook fire - spread to co-workers, former professors, old Sunday school teachers, distant relatives, loose acquaintances.... even this random encounter:

I was at home for a few days over spring break and in a local store. I saw a lady staring  me down as I passed her in the aisle and when she followed me into the next aisle, she asked: "You're that girl from facebook, the one with the ring picture, right?"

No lie.

Blushing a bit, I owned up to it and said, "Yep, that's me." Turns out she is my facebook friend but I cannot even remember why; she owns another store in town and I think I liked her facebook page to try and win a giveaway or something like that. I definitely do not know her well at all. BUT that bling was bright enough to catch her eye and even she took note of it long enough to recognize me days later in passing. Wow.

One. Little. Ring.

Who knew it could make that big of an impact.

They always say a picture is worth a thousand words... but they never said if those words were fact or fiction ;)

They also say, never to assume because when you do, you make an a$$ out of me and you.

Seems that is quite the case. My facebook friends fell for my photo of a fake engagement but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to deal with explaining it for quite some time ;)