I’ve packed my bags and moved onto my new home for the next 4 months-Jaipur, India. My time in Hawaii was absolutely lovely. Home is where the heart is and my heart is definitely in Hawaii, so I guess therefore Hawaii has become my home. My weeks in Hawaii were slammed packed with prayer, Bible studying, feeding 500-700 families a week, teaching swim/surf lessons to kids from shelters in Waianae (the Hawaiian side of the island that is loaded with drug abuse and homelessness) and my favorite-cruzing with the street and park dwellers of Wahiawa. Hospitality and being in the neighborhood as much as possible has been really heavy on my mind the past month. I’ve been pushed to love more and become more a part of the community. One day we prayed for the community of Wahiawa-the prostitutes, transvestites, alcoholics and drug addicts. During our time of prayer I thought of the idea of going up California street (the street where all the action takes place) and handing out flowers to the women we came across. I wasn’t going to let this idea get away from me, so that week a group of 5 of us left our apartments at 11:00 at night (I generally am in bed by 10, so this was a stretch for me) and walked up the streets and were ready to love anyone that came in our path. Right as we began our walk I was plagued with thoughts rolling through my head. I was afraid that maybe it would be offensive, or belittling to the women, or we would be rejected. The enemy always tries to destroy something good through confusion. We carried on though and I began to pray that I would come in contact with the women that came to our Friday BBQs in the park. Most of the girls we saw out that night were ladies that came to our BBQ. It was so exciting to see them at night, some of them were working the street and others were just cruzing. We also chilled outside the Texas Strip Bar with some of the local guys till early in the morning. It was so good to meet these people in the time of day that they thrive. The people of Wahiawa are such night owls. I know that giving the flowers to the girls really meant a lot to them. It was an action of pure love with no personal agenda attached.
There are many sides to my time in Hawaii. Sometimes I wonder if God has me cruzing with the street and park dwellers for their sake or mine? He tends to teach me more lessons than I could possibly teach them. Other than the social aspect of being in Hawaii, it was a time for me to prepare to come to India spiritually. The environment of Surfing the Nations always amps me up and sets me on the right course.
Now I am in India. I’m across the world far from anyone I know and yet I don’t feel like I’m in a foreign uncomfortable place. I haven’t really had the opportunity to get out into the community yet as we have been in orientation for the last few days but that will change soon. I will meet my host family on Friday. My mom is a yoga master, I don’t know much about my father, I have a sister and grandmother. That’s about the extent of the information I have been given. I am looking forward to all that God will teach me in India. My anticipation is that God will open my eyes to new things I have not seen before and drive my passion for the poor even deeper. My biggest prayer this summer has been for God to provide an Indian woman to be a mentor, friend and someone who teaches me about following Christ in India. You can be praying for God to reveal the ways He wants to use me within my study abroad group and in my community. I really have no expectations or ideas of how God will use me, but I wait patiently and hope God will unfold that secret in the right time.
Until more adventures head my way, make sure you love all those around you.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
pressing, pushing and character building
Hitch-hiking, camping, surfing, swim lessons, figuring out how to cook, rice and chilli making, learning to play the guitar, investing time in my Surfing the Nations family, pushing myself to meet new people, wedding and Luau on the beach, eating poke and taco (raw fish and octopus), Acai bowls (delicious blended fruit mix from the amazon), prayer, fasting, bible studying and character building. These are just a few of the things I've taken part of in my last few weeks since the last blog.
Amidst the crammed pack daily schedule of living and being apart of Surfing the Nations is the cruz mellow mentality of Hawaii. Last night I fell alseep to the neighborhood guys jamming to the ukulele. Everywhere I walk in Wahiawa people are hanging out whether that is at 7-11, the park or parking lots, people are lounging and enjoying life. Sometimes I can get so carried away with doing and going and whats next on my schedule that it is really nice to realize I can just sit and enjoy the moment.
Pressing on my mind and heart is trying to build relationships with the community of Wahiawa that does not live in houses. There are so many homeless people that live in Wahiawa. Its not like the mainland where you rarely see a homeless person unless you are driving around downtown or are in a big city. Here living in the parks, parking lots and forests is just another way of life. Although it is another way of life, there is still the community of people that live in the comfort of their home and are bothered by people crowding "their" sidewalks and parks, and the sight of people living on nothing is a soar in their eye. As I was saying in my last blog, I know I have been allowed the gift of life so that I can love these people. This doesn't mean its always easy though. For a girl from the mainland it takes a lot of effort to give my all to building relationships. It takes an active mind that won't allow inferiority, insecurity or awkwardness get in the way of getting to know them. Loving and caring for people takes a lot of initiative, courage, and vulnerability. Its not always easy. It's good to have that push though.
I imagine the community thinks that I am one strange girl. On tuesday and friday afternoons I can be found either carrying a rice cooker, pot of chilli up a few blocks to the nearest park. Sometimes I can be found carrying a box of food bags up the street as well. Why use our trucks and vans to drive up the street two block when God gave me a perfectly healthy body that can carry things?? So I carry these things to two different groups of guys that hang out a few blocks away. There's a group of 4-6 guys that hang out next to the KFC parking lot and are drinking at all hours of the day. I think I'm about getting to the point where I am not that awkward girl that comes to hang out with them. Then there's the Center Street Park crew that sits back and drinks as well. Pray for me as I try to build relationships with these guys. Its such a bust that I will only be here for 2 months. Lets hope and trust that God will use me in this short amount of time!
What I love about being in this community is the push and shove that I am constantly feeling. Whether that comes from my room mates and friends, or from the Holy Spirit, I'm never allowed to slip into a complacent life. Its a continuous challenge to sharpen and shape my character. My apartment is full of appologies and forgiveness. Cindy's teachings are continuously challenging me to be a better person. I feel as though I'm doing the dishes non stop and picking up after myself non stop. I really don't enjoy doing these things but it is sharpening my character into becoming more responsible and caring more for my room mates. Doing the right things is definately not always easy, but it is such a fulfilling feeling when its past to know th at I was stretched and did what was right.
My parting words for anyone who reads this blog is to not sit on your couch and watch TV. Go do something. Love deeper, more painfully and sacrificially. When you feel that tension of being pressed to do something, you'll feel the rewarding feeling of knowing you've impacted the world.
Amidst the crammed pack daily schedule of living and being apart of Surfing the Nations is the cruz mellow mentality of Hawaii. Last night I fell alseep to the neighborhood guys jamming to the ukulele. Everywhere I walk in Wahiawa people are hanging out whether that is at 7-11, the park or parking lots, people are lounging and enjoying life. Sometimes I can get so carried away with doing and going and whats next on my schedule that it is really nice to realize I can just sit and enjoy the moment.
Pressing on my mind and heart is trying to build relationships with the community of Wahiawa that does not live in houses. There are so many homeless people that live in Wahiawa. Its not like the mainland where you rarely see a homeless person unless you are driving around downtown or are in a big city. Here living in the parks, parking lots and forests is just another way of life. Although it is another way of life, there is still the community of people that live in the comfort of their home and are bothered by people crowding "their" sidewalks and parks, and the sight of people living on nothing is a soar in their eye. As I was saying in my last blog, I know I have been allowed the gift of life so that I can love these people. This doesn't mean its always easy though. For a girl from the mainland it takes a lot of effort to give my all to building relationships. It takes an active mind that won't allow inferiority, insecurity or awkwardness get in the way of getting to know them. Loving and caring for people takes a lot of initiative, courage, and vulnerability. Its not always easy. It's good to have that push though.
I imagine the community thinks that I am one strange girl. On tuesday and friday afternoons I can be found either carrying a rice cooker, pot of chilli up a few blocks to the nearest park. Sometimes I can be found carrying a box of food bags up the street as well. Why use our trucks and vans to drive up the street two block when God gave me a perfectly healthy body that can carry things?? So I carry these things to two different groups of guys that hang out a few blocks away. There's a group of 4-6 guys that hang out next to the KFC parking lot and are drinking at all hours of the day. I think I'm about getting to the point where I am not that awkward girl that comes to hang out with them. Then there's the Center Street Park crew that sits back and drinks as well. Pray for me as I try to build relationships with these guys. Its such a bust that I will only be here for 2 months. Lets hope and trust that God will use me in this short amount of time!
What I love about being in this community is the push and shove that I am constantly feeling. Whether that comes from my room mates and friends, or from the Holy Spirit, I'm never allowed to slip into a complacent life. Its a continuous challenge to sharpen and shape my character. My apartment is full of appologies and forgiveness. Cindy's teachings are continuously challenging me to be a better person. I feel as though I'm doing the dishes non stop and picking up after myself non stop. I really don't enjoy doing these things but it is sharpening my character into becoming more responsible and caring more for my room mates. Doing the right things is definately not always easy, but it is such a fulfilling feeling when its past to know th at I was stretched and did what was right.
My parting words for anyone who reads this blog is to not sit on your couch and watch TV. Go do something. Love deeper, more painfully and sacrificially. When you feel that tension of being pressed to do something, you'll feel the rewarding feeling of knowing you've impacted the world.
"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
Mother Theresa
Sunday, June 28, 2009
first week back on oahu
After waiting on a plane at Denver International Airport for 3 hours due to a broken piece in the plane, wrong directions, losing too much gas during 30 minutes of taxiing and a tornado I arrived on the beautiful island of Oahu. I have been welcomed back to the Surfing the Nations community that now resides in Wahiawa (the middle of the island). I will be here for two months. We live on Ohai street which is known as the most dangerous street on this side of the island (known for its drug dealing). In fact one of my friends from the lagoon used to deal drugs on this street back in the day! The morning after my first night here I walked this “dangerous” street in prayer as a sign to Satan that I would not be afraid of any plans of my destruction through fear. The Holy Spirit was ever present during my walk and has been so thickly present throughout so much of my day.
I am apart of the “Summer Challenge” which is the summer team for STN as well as being in charge of picnics with people (who are or will become my friends) who live in cars, parks, forests and under bridges. Already I’ve met such wise and wonderful people living in these areas. On Thursday we had our weekly distribution of food from the Foodbank in Kalihi. Since I have been gone my friends from the Lagoon have stopped coming to our distribution, so Troy and I went down with a van full of food to give out. I first stopped by to see Uncle Tony in hopes that he could take us into the paintball field and lagoon so I could see all the rest of my friends. Uncle Tony lives under the bridge still. The entrance to his home is about one and a half feet tall, but once you get under the freeway his home is 4 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 15 feet long (I’m just guessing). But he also has an area under the bridge that isn’t inside his house. He was fixing up a bicycle but was so kind to walk around with us to meet people.
As we walked over a bridge to get to the field/lagoon that everyone lives in I immediately saw the development that had gone on while I was gone. The homes used to be restricted to the bushes and spots that are not so obvious, but now the houses are right out in the open. There is a plethora of home styles from tents and tree houses to houses on the water. The Filipino mastermind of it all lives in a house on the water, has a netted in area to keep fish that have been caught and a boat made of a BIG piece of Styrofoam (its just one block with a sheet of wood on top). Most houses are about the size of a typical room in the suburbs. Inside the homes are TV’s, sound systems, couches, beds, kitchens-everything. One home is set out on the water and to get to it you walk through the brush of the lagoon on a little bridge, walk through a little door with a welcoming circle in it onto the house. It is so impressive. As I walked into the home my boyfriend’s friend welcomed us with a big smile to what he proudly called a home, Swiss Family Robinson style.
My closest friend greeted me with a loud scream and big hug. She was so happy to see Troy and I (I was just as happy, if not more, to see her). Entering her home was not such a joy though. Her boyfriend lay on the bed out of his mind. He caught pneumonia while spending time for a warrant on a “traffic ticket”. It was so hard to see them like this. They’ve been my friends since the beginning of my journey with the bridge. If you think about it, pray for him, and pray for wisdom for me to know what I should do (if I can do anything).
That was the only sad part about being back at the lagoon. I’ve never been so welcomed in the community. As we walked through the tall grass Tony would call out to each home and say “Eh! Whitney’s here, you know from Surfing da Nations!” People would come out and greet me and welcome me into their homes. It gives me such joy and peace to know that these people trust me and love me. It’s been all the prayers prayed for them and 8 months of trying my hardest to get to know them and care for them individually, being consistent with them. Everyone was so excited to get some food. I saw the deep thankfulness in their faces. Although they all do meth, abuse each other, do lots of “bad” things and are a different community when I’m not there, my vision of them is not tainted at all. God has given me His eyes for them. When I look at them and think about them, I know it is the way he looks at the most “awful” (in earthly terms) of people. I believe in the spiritual world so much more after going down to the lagoon. I see the traps that Satan has each of them in and the stronghold he has on that area, but I see the light of Christ in Troy and I and I see what it does to that area. Some of my friends were strung out on drugs, but in conversing with Troy and I they were fighting for sobriety to maintain a conversation. It makes me so happy to know that in the moments I’m down there they are fighting to defeat Satan, even if all the other hours of the day they allow Satan to rule. I believe that even one hour with the light of Christ ruins so much of the evil that goes on in the Lagoon.
It is such a joy to me to love the people living in parks, lagoons, cars, forests and under bridges. I’m not “saving souls” or anything like that but I know this is EXACTLY where my God wants me. It’s hard sometimes living and working in community while eating food bank food but there is no place I’d rather be than hanging out with these friends. I was created to love the rebellious drug addicts and I am thoroughly glad to know my place in life.
Please pray for continual energy to love all these friends I have mentioned as well as my family I am living in community with. Pray against Satan’s grasp on my friends through drugs and violence. I am going to Bangladesh in August and would love your prayers in advance for this trip. I won’t mention much about it now, but in another letter I will give you more details. Be praying for the finances to come in so everything can go smoothly.
Thank you so much for your prayers, support and love
Whitney
I am apart of the “Summer Challenge” which is the summer team for STN as well as being in charge of picnics with people (who are or will become my friends) who live in cars, parks, forests and under bridges. Already I’ve met such wise and wonderful people living in these areas. On Thursday we had our weekly distribution of food from the Foodbank in Kalihi. Since I have been gone my friends from the Lagoon have stopped coming to our distribution, so Troy and I went down with a van full of food to give out. I first stopped by to see Uncle Tony in hopes that he could take us into the paintball field and lagoon so I could see all the rest of my friends. Uncle Tony lives under the bridge still. The entrance to his home is about one and a half feet tall, but once you get under the freeway his home is 4 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 15 feet long (I’m just guessing). But he also has an area under the bridge that isn’t inside his house. He was fixing up a bicycle but was so kind to walk around with us to meet people.
As we walked over a bridge to get to the field/lagoon that everyone lives in I immediately saw the development that had gone on while I was gone. The homes used to be restricted to the bushes and spots that are not so obvious, but now the houses are right out in the open. There is a plethora of home styles from tents and tree houses to houses on the water. The Filipino mastermind of it all lives in a house on the water, has a netted in area to keep fish that have been caught and a boat made of a BIG piece of Styrofoam (its just one block with a sheet of wood on top). Most houses are about the size of a typical room in the suburbs. Inside the homes are TV’s, sound systems, couches, beds, kitchens-everything. One home is set out on the water and to get to it you walk through the brush of the lagoon on a little bridge, walk through a little door with a welcoming circle in it onto the house. It is so impressive. As I walked into the home my boyfriend’s friend welcomed us with a big smile to what he proudly called a home, Swiss Family Robinson style.
My closest friend greeted me with a loud scream and big hug. She was so happy to see Troy and I (I was just as happy, if not more, to see her). Entering her home was not such a joy though. Her boyfriend lay on the bed out of his mind. He caught pneumonia while spending time for a warrant on a “traffic ticket”. It was so hard to see them like this. They’ve been my friends since the beginning of my journey with the bridge. If you think about it, pray for him, and pray for wisdom for me to know what I should do (if I can do anything).
That was the only sad part about being back at the lagoon. I’ve never been so welcomed in the community. As we walked through the tall grass Tony would call out to each home and say “Eh! Whitney’s here, you know from Surfing da Nations!” People would come out and greet me and welcome me into their homes. It gives me such joy and peace to know that these people trust me and love me. It’s been all the prayers prayed for them and 8 months of trying my hardest to get to know them and care for them individually, being consistent with them. Everyone was so excited to get some food. I saw the deep thankfulness in their faces. Although they all do meth, abuse each other, do lots of “bad” things and are a different community when I’m not there, my vision of them is not tainted at all. God has given me His eyes for them. When I look at them and think about them, I know it is the way he looks at the most “awful” (in earthly terms) of people. I believe in the spiritual world so much more after going down to the lagoon. I see the traps that Satan has each of them in and the stronghold he has on that area, but I see the light of Christ in Troy and I and I see what it does to that area. Some of my friends were strung out on drugs, but in conversing with Troy and I they were fighting for sobriety to maintain a conversation. It makes me so happy to know that in the moments I’m down there they are fighting to defeat Satan, even if all the other hours of the day they allow Satan to rule. I believe that even one hour with the light of Christ ruins so much of the evil that goes on in the Lagoon.
It is such a joy to me to love the people living in parks, lagoons, cars, forests and under bridges. I’m not “saving souls” or anything like that but I know this is EXACTLY where my God wants me. It’s hard sometimes living and working in community while eating food bank food but there is no place I’d rather be than hanging out with these friends. I was created to love the rebellious drug addicts and I am thoroughly glad to know my place in life.
Please pray for continual energy to love all these friends I have mentioned as well as my family I am living in community with. Pray against Satan’s grasp on my friends through drugs and violence. I am going to Bangladesh in August and would love your prayers in advance for this trip. I won’t mention much about it now, but in another letter I will give you more details. Be praying for the finances to come in so everything can go smoothly.
Thank you so much for your prayers, support and love
Whitney
Monday, November 17, 2008
Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh
My dear family in Christ,
I can not begin to express my gratitude for your faithfulness to Jesus Christ in supporting me. My journey in Bangladesh was more than amazing. It would take me an entire book to write about all the life lessons I learned in Bangladesh. It is natural to go on a missions trip and have the mentality that I have much to offer a community. God taught me so much through the people of Cox’s Bazar that they had more to offer me than I did for them. Here is a glimpse into my month in Bangladesh.
Surfing the Nations started a surf club in Bangladesh. God used this surf club to teach me about my relationship with Him. In Bangladesh, the surf club receives the most attention from us. They receive the most “blessings”; surf boards, skateboards, clothes, food, ect. Because of this they have a “give me” mentality. We had three surf club meetings during our month there. The meetings were a time when they were able to get out their frustrations and problems as long as they came up with solutions (the concept of giving solutions as well as problems
was a big topic we stressed). Most of the time the solution to the problems (such as not having enough surfboards or club house) was Surfing the Nations needs to provide it. Some times it seemed like they would only do things for us because they know that in the end they will get blessed. It really frustrated me. It frustrated me that a guy gave away his old t-shirt at the surf contest only because he knew he would be getting new ones when we left. That’s not how it should be, right? We’re supposed to give because we want to give. Then it hit me that this is exactly how I am with God. I give away fifty bucks because I know that God will give me a hundred. That same afternoon as I struggled with this thought I sat there thinking about my broken camera. I told God that I would give my camera away if He would miraculously fix it. I wasn’t thinking I was giving away my only camera and would not get a new one until I had the money to. I was thinking I would give the camera away and then when I got back to Hawaii I could almost depend on God giving me a new one. It was a humbling experience to see that I myself was the same as this boy who frustrated me. The lesson learned was to not judge people in their reasons for giving and to check myself when I give something away.
Before I start this section of my letter I must again thank you for getting me to Bangladesh to do what I know God had planned for my life. A week before I left for Bangladesh I asked God to not heal my broken heart for the poor, unloved, desperate people of the world. Little did I know how powerful of a prayer this was. My first week in Cox’s Bazar was awful. Every evening I walked into my air-conditioned hotel room and fell on my bed paralyzed by the pain my body felt for everything I had seen that day. I faced a hard question. Do I love these village children that wait outside our hotel’s gate at all hours of the day? I was worried of the possibility of the love that flowed out of me causing problems in their homes. What if the children love me more than their mothers because I can buy them nice new dresses and bouncy balls? Thankfully my leader Chris spoke into my life these words, “whatever you decide to do, you have to be committed to it”. So simple, but here lies one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. In that moment on the rickshaw, I decided I was committed to loving these children. These children that roamed the streets with their younger sibling sitting on their hip looking for trash for fires at home. Who were whacked with bamboo sticks for standing in front of a store for too long and getting in the way. Who while cruising with me would be told by strangers to leave me alone. People started calling me mother because I always cruised with the kids. I felt like God sent his lonely children my direction to love on them. Someone told me before I left for Bangladesh that I was like a river of love whose source is Jesus. I know that God’s love flowed through me to those who needed it the most. Thank you for allowing me to hold their hands and give them attention while the rest of their community pushes them away.
Lastly, this letter about Bangladesh would not be complete without sharing about Nur Mohammed. To make a long story short I met a street boy, who I now know as Nur
Mohammed. He left his family to live on the streets and live a life as a beggar. When I met him for the first time in an alley he had two seriously infected wounds on his leg from being hit by a car a few months ago. We took him to the doctor and got his wounds fixed and paid for his treatment. We hooked him up with a guy who would let him stay in his tea shop with him and his family and would feed him. We left Bangladesh with Aziz and Rahim as his “brothers” who would continue taking him to the doctor and look out for him and get him interacting with the surf club. With the advice from Aziz and Rahim, Nur Mohammed is going to school next month. Please keep him in your prayers as the life on the streets which is filled with drugs and hopelessness tries to keep creep back into his life.
These two pages of words I have written about my time in Bangladesh do not do it justice. God is working in Bangladesh, he is doing mighty things and I am so excited to be apart of what is going on. I am praying that God will put it in my life plans to move to Bangladesh. I don’t want this letter to be the last of me and Cox’s Bazar.
My time with Surfing the Nations for this period of my life is coming to an end in one month. Hopefully I will make time to write a closing letter to fill you in on all of my lessons learned. May Jesus be so real to you, may He not be a distant God but one who is right there with you. I pray for those who read this letter to draw closer to Him and that your heart is broken a little bit more for the lost of this world. May you be moved to do even more with your life. Keep dreamin ; )
Whitney
I can not begin to express my gratitude for your faithfulness to Jesus Christ in supporting me. My journey in Bangladesh was more than amazing. It would take me an entire book to write about all the life lessons I learned in Bangladesh. It is natural to go on a missions trip and have the mentality that I have much to offer a community. God taught me so much through the people of Cox’s Bazar that they had more to offer me than I did for them. Here is a glimpse into my month in Bangladesh.
Surfing the Nations started a surf club in Bangladesh. God used this surf club to teach me about my relationship with Him. In Bangladesh, the surf club receives the most attention from us. They receive the most “blessings”; surf boards, skateboards, clothes, food, ect. Because of this they have a “give me” mentality. We had three surf club meetings during our month there. The meetings were a time when they were able to get out their frustrations and problems as long as they came up with solutions (the concept of giving solutions as well as problems
was a big topic we stressed). Most of the time the solution to the problems (such as not having enough surfboards or club house) was Surfing the Nations needs to provide it. Some times it seemed like they would only do things for us because they know that in the end they will get blessed. It really frustrated me. It frustrated me that a guy gave away his old t-shirt at the surf contest only because he knew he would be getting new ones when we left. That’s not how it should be, right? We’re supposed to give because we want to give. Then it hit me that this is exactly how I am with God. I give away fifty bucks because I know that God will give me a hundred. That same afternoon as I struggled with this thought I sat there thinking about my broken camera. I told God that I would give my camera away if He would miraculously fix it. I wasn’t thinking I was giving away my only camera and would not get a new one until I had the money to. I was thinking I would give the camera away and then when I got back to Hawaii I could almost depend on God giving me a new one. It was a humbling experience to see that I myself was the same as this boy who frustrated me. The lesson learned was to not judge people in their reasons for giving and to check myself when I give something away. The surf contest was unbelievable. The contest was not about the surf, the meals provided or the goody bags given out. The annual contest we hold is about showing the youth of Cox’s Bazar that they ar
e loved and that someone cares about their life. It is their time to shine. The trophies that Shahadat, Aziz, Ramjan and others receive go in their locked cabinets; that’s how important they are. For Nasima, Amina, Jahanala, Tonya, Minu and Samira (the girls) it is two days for them to be out of their neighborhoods, in the water playing and showing off their body-boarding skills. It is a time for their lives to be validated. It’s a time when they are being told “Great job! You rock!” Rather than getting a smack on the side of the head and told to get behind the gate. In the United States we have plays, Christmas concerts, soccer games-the list goes on and on of all the opportunities children are given a chance to feel important and the lights are shining on them. This surf contest in Bangladesh is the same, it is a time for boys and girls to feel their importance.
e loved and that someone cares about their life. It is their time to shine. The trophies that Shahadat, Aziz, Ramjan and others receive go in their locked cabinets; that’s how important they are. For Nasima, Amina, Jahanala, Tonya, Minu and Samira (the girls) it is two days for them to be out of their neighborhoods, in the water playing and showing off their body-boarding skills. It is a time for their lives to be validated. It’s a time when they are being told “Great job! You rock!” Rather than getting a smack on the side of the head and told to get behind the gate. In the United States we have plays, Christmas concerts, soccer games-the list goes on and on of all the opportunities children are given a chance to feel important and the lights are shining on them. This surf contest in Bangladesh is the same, it is a time for boys and girls to feel their importance. 
Before I start this section of my letter I must again thank you for getting me to Bangladesh to do what I know God had planned for my life. A week before I left for Bangladesh I asked God to not heal my broken heart for the poor, unloved, desperate people of the world. Little did I know how powerful of a prayer this was. My first week in Cox’s Bazar was awful. Every evening I walked into my air-conditioned hotel room and fell on my bed paralyzed by the pain my body felt for everything I had seen that day. I faced a hard question. Do I love these village children that wait outside our hotel’s gate at all hours of the day? I was worried of the possibility of the love that flowed out of me causing problems in their homes. What if the children love me more than their mothers because I can buy them nice new dresses and bouncy balls? Thankfully my leader Chris spoke into my life these words, “whatever you decide to do, you have to be committed to it”. So simple, but here lies one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. In that moment on the rickshaw, I decided I was committed to loving these children. These children that roamed the streets with their younger sibling sitting on their hip looking for trash for fires at home. Who were whacked with bamboo sticks for standing in front of a store for too long and getting in the way. Who while cruising with me would be told by strangers to leave me alone. People started calling me mother because I always cruised with the kids. I felt like God sent his lonely children my direction to love on them. Someone told me before I left for Bangladesh that I was like a river of love whose source is Jesus. I know that God’s love flowed through me to those who needed it the most. Thank you for allowing me to hold their hands and give them attention while the rest of their community pushes them away.
Lastly, this letter about Bangladesh would not be complete without sharing about Nur Mohammed. To make a long story short I met a street boy, who I now know as Nur
Mohammed. He left his family to live on the streets and live a life as a beggar. When I met him for the first time in an alley he had two seriously infected wounds on his leg from being hit by a car a few months ago. We took him to the doctor and got his wounds fixed and paid for his treatment. We hooked him up with a guy who would let him stay in his tea shop with him and his family and would feed him. We left Bangladesh with Aziz and Rahim as his “brothers” who would continue taking him to the doctor and look out for him and get him interacting with the surf club. With the advice from Aziz and Rahim, Nur Mohammed is going to school next month. Please keep him in your prayers as the life on the streets which is filled with drugs and hopelessness tries to keep creep back into his life. These two pages of words I have written about my time in Bangladesh do not do it justice. God is working in Bangladesh, he is doing mighty things and I am so excited to be apart of what is going on. I am praying that God will put it in my life plans to move to Bangladesh. I don’t want this letter to be the last of me and Cox’s Bazar.
My time with Surfing the Nations for this period of my life is coming to an end in one month. Hopefully I will make time to write a closing letter to fill you in on all of my lessons learned. May Jesus be so real to you, may He not be a distant God but one who is right there with you. I pray for those who read this letter to draw closer to Him and that your heart is broken a little bit more for the lost of this world. May you be moved to do even more with your life. Keep dreamin ; )
Whitney
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Bali, Sri Lanka, Hawaii and hopefully Bangladesh
August 18, 2008
Dear Supporters,
I could not send this update with out saying thank you to all who have supported me financially and in prayer. It has been three months since I have written my last letter so there is much to be updated. There is not enough room on this paper to write down all I have experienced so I am going to give a story from each place I visited I hope that it will paint a picture of my time in Sri Lanka and Bali.
The girls of the Ali familySri Lanka: I want to tell you about the Ali family. Papa Ali is the Mullah of the mosque down the street from our property. This means that he is the number one man at the mosque. The whole village has their eyes on him and his family. His wife and he have 4 daughters, 2 sons and one granddaughter who was born out of wedlock, which is a big deal in the Muslim culture. Because the family is Muslim, the girls are not allowed to leave the property except to get water from the neighbors across the street’s well. Most days of the mont
h a few of us gir
ls would go over to their property. The minute we walked through the gate and one of the girls saw us, plastic chairs were brought out and water is on the fire place ready make tea for us. Conversation was hard because the girls only spoke a little bit of English and at first our Tamil did not go much past hello. We all know that verbal conversation is not the only way of communicating; thank goodness. We had many moments of laughter and more laughter in trying to understand what the other was trying to say. Surfing the Nations has been friends with the Ali’s for many years and each summer a group of Christians get to pour into this Muslim family’s lives. One night, after we had given their third daughter, Falilah, a rice cooker and some tea cups as her wedding gift, Papa explained to us (in very broken English) how much he appreciated our hanging out with his girls and all the things we do for them. I was almost in tears when I heard him speaking. Here I was, a Christian, in the Mullah’s house and he was thanking us for our friendship with his girls. The Ali family is like many other families in Arugam Bay; so welcoming, loving, hospitable, yet blinded by tradition, abuse and greed. Please be praying for the people of Arugam Bay that they would be freed from the restriction of tradition, Islam, and will one day dance a free dance in the Kingdom of Heaven.
My Bali team mixed with our local friendsBali: Fourteen young adults from all over the world, from different paths of life with different experiences and passions all brought together by their Father to be kni
t together and to work for the Kingdom of God. Some of these fourteen were lost and confused. Some had once known God, were raised in the church and knew the right Sunday School answers but were seeking to know the real answers, some were addi
cted to drugs, in bad relationships and mourning deaths. They were everyday Americans, Chileans, and one very blessed Bengali man. They came and learned to read the Bible and to love God’s children that live across the world from them. They asked hard questions like “How do I love God more than my boyfriend?” and “How do I grow in my faith?”. They also experienced the joy one receives when giving while at the same time every day fighting to restrain and tame their bitter tongues. The people of Bali were impacted by these fourteen. Cartoon Bibles of the whole story of Jesus were given out and read in two days. The locals were humans to these surfers; not just a means of transportation, dinner, or trinkets to bring home to girlfriends. With the help of my team we were able to help the locals build and fix up their community volleyball court. God created this team not only to impact the local community but to strongly work among the group. Some of these fourteen thought they were going to Bali to help the people of Bali, to teach them something, some thought they were going to ride the “sick waves”, to surf some of the most popular waves in the world, but in the end all of these fourteen walked away from Bali with transformed lives.
So there you have my two trips. I am now back in Hawaii and have just said goodbye to my parents who were visiting for the last five days. I flew away from Bali not sure if I was excited to come back to a crammed house full of more girls than beds, a hot house with no air-conditioning, a weekly schedule and expired food. Since being back I have realized that although this list is apart of my life, I was forgetting to look at all the blessings in my life; the beauty of the land and culture of Hawaii, all my homeless friends who missed me and were asking about me while I was gone and the love I have for the people who live under the bridges. Although it is tough living in community, it is one hundred percent worth it just to see the people living on the beach in Waikiki and to have our picnic on Friday with the community who was just moved out from under the freeway and are now living on the river bank in tents and make-shift homes infested with flies and mosquitoes. I love these people, they bring me so much joy I don’t know how to express it in words. I can have the worst week or past five minutes, but the minute I see one of my friends at that picnic, it all disappears because I know that I might be the only light they see amidst the darkness they live in. So please, continue to pray for our Feeding the Hungry Ministry. We are at the point where these people are starting to see how much we care for them, they aren’t stunned and afraid of us, they enjoy hanging out with us and sometimes come to our meals just to hang out. You can pray that my team and I will be bold in our faith and will not hold back what we know about our Father.
As of now I am praying and believing God will take me to Maui and Bangladesh for outreaches so that I can be a light and be Gods hands and feet in these places. Just to let you know a little bit about Bangladesh: It is a country you might not have even heard of, it’s not very popular and therefore surfers haven’t necessarily “found” it. STN has gone for the past 4 years to be the pioneer surfers, setting a good foundation and image for tourists and surfers. We want the people of Bangladesh to see surfers as people who give freely, love the community and are not all addicted to drugs and don’t only party all night long. There is a world out there that does not know God and I am continually saying “Here I am Lord, send me.”
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. I would not have had these summer experiences if it wouldn’t have been for you. You made this happen.
Sincerely,
Whitney
Dear Supporters,
I could not send this update with out saying thank you to all who have supported me financially and in prayer. It has been three months since I have written my last letter so there is much to be updated. There is not enough room on this paper to write down all I have experienced so I am going to give a story from each place I visited I hope that it will paint a picture of my time in Sri Lanka and Bali.
The girls of the Ali familySri Lanka: I want to tell you about the Ali family. Papa Ali is the Mullah of the mosque down the street from our property. This means that he is the number one man at the mosque. The whole village has their eyes on him and his family. His wife and he have 4 daughters, 2 sons and one granddaughter who was born out of wedlock, which is a big deal in the Muslim culture. Because the family is Muslim, the girls are not allowed to leave the property except to get water from the neighbors across the street’s well. Most days of the mont
h a few of us gir
ls would go over to their property. The minute we walked through the gate and one of the girls saw us, plastic chairs were brought out and water is on the fire place ready make tea for us. Conversation was hard because the girls only spoke a little bit of English and at first our Tamil did not go much past hello. We all know that verbal conversation is not the only way of communicating; thank goodness. We had many moments of laughter and more laughter in trying to understand what the other was trying to say. Surfing the Nations has been friends with the Ali’s for many years and each summer a group of Christians get to pour into this Muslim family’s lives. One night, after we had given their third daughter, Falilah, a rice cooker and some tea cups as her wedding gift, Papa explained to us (in very broken English) how much he appreciated our hanging out with his girls and all the things we do for them. I was almost in tears when I heard him speaking. Here I was, a Christian, in the Mullah’s house and he was thanking us for our friendship with his girls. The Ali family is like many other families in Arugam Bay; so welcoming, loving, hospitable, yet blinded by tradition, abuse and greed. Please be praying for the people of Arugam Bay that they would be freed from the restriction of tradition, Islam, and will one day dance a free dance in the Kingdom of Heaven.My Bali team mixed with our local friendsBali: Fourteen young adults from all over the world, from different paths of life with different experiences and passions all brought together by their Father to be kni
t together and to work for the Kingdom of God. Some of these fourteen were lost and confused. Some had once known God, were raised in the church and knew the right Sunday School answers but were seeking to know the real answers, some were addi
cted to drugs, in bad relationships and mourning deaths. They were everyday Americans, Chileans, and one very blessed Bengali man. They came and learned to read the Bible and to love God’s children that live across the world from them. They asked hard questions like “How do I love God more than my boyfriend?” and “How do I grow in my faith?”. They also experienced the joy one receives when giving while at the same time every day fighting to restrain and tame their bitter tongues. The people of Bali were impacted by these fourteen. Cartoon Bibles of the whole story of Jesus were given out and read in two days. The locals were humans to these surfers; not just a means of transportation, dinner, or trinkets to bring home to girlfriends. With the help of my team we were able to help the locals build and fix up their community volleyball court. God created this team not only to impact the local community but to strongly work among the group. Some of these fourteen thought they were going to Bali to help the people of Bali, to teach them something, some thought they were going to ride the “sick waves”, to surf some of the most popular waves in the world, but in the end all of these fourteen walked away from Bali with transformed lives.So there you have my two trips. I am now back in Hawaii and have just said goodbye to my parents who were visiting for the last five days. I flew away from Bali not sure if I was excited to come back to a crammed house full of more girls than beds, a hot house with no air-conditioning, a weekly schedule and expired food. Since being back I have realized that although this list is apart of my life, I was forgetting to look at all the blessings in my life; the beauty of the land and culture of Hawaii, all my homeless friends who missed me and were asking about me while I was gone and the love I have for the people who live under the bridges. Although it is tough living in community, it is one hundred percent worth it just to see the people living on the beach in Waikiki and to have our picnic on Friday with the community who was just moved out from under the freeway and are now living on the river bank in tents and make-shift homes infested with flies and mosquitoes. I love these people, they bring me so much joy I don’t know how to express it in words. I can have the worst week or past five minutes, but the minute I see one of my friends at that picnic, it all disappears because I know that I might be the only light they see amidst the darkness they live in. So please, continue to pray for our Feeding the Hungry Ministry. We are at the point where these people are starting to see how much we care for them, they aren’t stunned and afraid of us, they enjoy hanging out with us and sometimes come to our meals just to hang out. You can pray that my team and I will be bold in our faith and will not hold back what we know about our Father.
As of now I am praying and believing God will take me to Maui and Bangladesh for outreaches so that I can be a light and be Gods hands and feet in these places. Just to let you know a little bit about Bangladesh: It is a country you might not have even heard of, it’s not very popular and therefore surfers haven’t necessarily “found” it. STN has gone for the past 4 years to be the pioneer surfers, setting a good foundation and image for tourists and surfers. We want the people of Bangladesh to see surfers as people who give freely, love the community and are not all addicted to drugs and don’t only party all night long. There is a world out there that does not know God and I am continually saying “Here I am Lord, send me.”
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support. I would not have had these summer experiences if it wouldn’t have been for you. You made this happen.
Sincerely,
Whitney
*If you would like more information you can call me at 303-981-0334 or email me at whitneywillett86@yahoo.com. If you would like to contribute financially to what I am doing visit the contributions page at www.surfingthenations.com or send a check to
P.O. Box 29393, Honolulu, HI 96820 Tel. (808)-838-SURF
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Well hello friends. It has been a while since i have updated this thing. For those of you who do not know, I was just in Sri Lanka for a month, and now i am in Bali for another month-both with surfing the nations. So I feel really out of touch with everyone. I guess that happens when you are in a fishing village for a month and can't really use the internet. But I want you all to know what Ive been up to. I've decided that hopefully in the next few days I will write more on here and give you lots of details about Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka. So this first blog started out as an email to my parents but then i decided i would fill everyone in...it's written really sloppily, but thats how i always write so i hope you do not mind. This first one is just about Arugam Bay and the set up of it.
So. Arugam Bay. It's a little fishing village. I really didn't realize that it was so small until we left. Arugam bay is on the east side of the island. we arrived in colombo and took a 10 hour ormore bus ride to the opposite side of the island, all on semi bumpy roads. Pottovil is a bigger town next to Arugam bay. We drive through Pottovil which is one main strip that has tailer stores-i don't know. where they make your clothes, little convenient stores that have laundry soap, crackers, water and fruit, fruit stands and restaurants. nothing is nice and new with air conditioning, everything is hole in the wall style stores. at the end of pottuvil is a new big bridge that was at the end of being built. It is the nicest thing we saw pretty much our whole drive..pretty much in all of sri lanka maybe haha. but arugam bay is on the other side. obviously arugam bay is a bay and the whole little town is shaped around the bay. we lived towards the middle/beginning of the bay (Surfing the nations has property there). the street is lined with lots of rotti stands, which is like sao bing yo tiou (for people from taiwan)-the outside bread type stuff...and i pretty much ate that for breakfast lunch and dinner. for breakfast it was two plain ones for 20 cents, lunch was maybe a vegetable or egg and vegetable rotti, and dinner was koti rotti which is rotti cut up with some veggies mixed in. so i really got my fill of carbs! so the street has lots of these little greasy hole in the wall rotti shops, probably at least 20 hotel/bungalos that have no people staying in them and little stores. i guess oprah has a hotel out there-Tri star, but no one was even staying in it. when we got there there were only a handful of tourists and 25 of us...ahha. but by the time we left the tourist season had picked up. At the end of the street (or where arugam bay kinda ends) is a buddha in a glass box that renee likes to call the buddha information center...take a left there and a 1 minute walk down a broken road and it opens up to the ocean. boats are lined everwhere with men who act as though they have never seen elbows and calves (It's a strict muslim community so we women were dressed in skirts below the knee and loose t-shirts the whole time...we were really longing for some freedom from frumpy clothes!)...then a little walk around the bay and you are at the point! there is only one surfing point in arugam bay so pretty much the five tourists that were there for a nice surf vacation were quite shocked the first morning we were there and 20 people crowded the point. so yeah...oh yeah. i can give you more details about the property (this would be so much easier if i could show you pictures right now, but i obviously can't!) the property. it is the first property off the street and then there is one property right behind us and then the beach. we have a front entrance that is a gate (kind of i guess) and then a side door..we only use the side door and the alley that it is off of has a nice view out to the ocean. so our property is half lined in bricks and then half fenced in by palm frawns.i think that is what they are called. its palm branches woven together to make pieces to make fences, roofs, shade, walls, everything. and the property is one piece of land. i'm not exactly sure how big it is. it's not big, but its not small. on the property is palm trees, a house- a cement house with two bedrooms, a (i don't even know what itis called) but its like a shadey area...a cement slab with a roof on top...so that is where all our meetings were and if anyone was on the property this is where they were sitting because it was too hot in the sun. then we have a well, which was my favorite part because i loved pulling the bucket up with the dirty water to flush our toilet or to water the plants. I could pretend that i had left this modernized world and was living the origional way..the property also has .a bathroom and a shower. the shower is super sick, its got the palm frawn wall setting and has trees in it and then a cement slab for where you can stand and shower. but we didn't shower there becasue the water is brown and dirty-something was wrong with the well...so they either gotta dig another well or wait for 3 months till the whole town gets clean water. our first two days there we used thed irty water but we decided it would probably be better to use our neighbors-aloha cabanas showers instead. then we had 7 tents set up around the property where we all slept. My bags were covered in sand by the time I left.
so that is the set up of A Bay. As for daily life. A regular day was wake up between 6:30 and 8 (my tent always woke up early because we were right next to the door and all the boys were always at dawn patrol-morning surf-and would wake up right when the sun came out) the first week i was there i ate at aloha cabanas every morning, milk tea and a jaffle (like a bananna panini) but then that became too expensive($3.00) . so i would have my quiet time with some milk tea, and then we would usually have a meeting around 9 or 10-have worship, testimony and a little bible study. the last week or so we were studying galations so we would read a chapter as a group and dig into it, and then by this time it is about noonish and the surfers would surf and us non surfers would hit the ocean and do a little body surfing or just getting refreshed by the water...then we started work on the property. i was on the alley team (we cleaned the alley and the name just stuck) and so we pretty much had no jobs because we werent painters or good with construction..so we would just go and chill with people in the community. One day a bunch of us girls bought ice cream for the Why Not family (i'll tell you more about them later). we got close with two families that lived right next door to eachother. the Ali family and the Why Not family. (the why not family had a restaurant that we ate at everynight called why not. cuz why wouldn't you eat there-great local prices and good food) the Ali family is the family that made me fall in love with Arugam Bay the most. there are 4 older girls, two boys and a 3 year old girl. By the time we left the three oldest girls were married and pregnant, and rodja is 18 and probably soon getting married. we'd go over and they would make us tea and we would just sit. not really talk because there's a big language barrier, but we would just kinda talk and laugh. they always fed us strange snacks...like berries that made our mouths extremely dry. they tasted like unripe bananas. the Ali family's dad, who we called papa is something big with at the mosque. A Moula (sp?) i think is what it is called. I don't really know what that means, but he was something important at the mosque. So his family was run by strict Muslim rules. This means that the women of the house were never allowed to leave the house except to cross the street to get water from their neighbor's well. This means they were really happy to have us over at any time of the day. The people of Arugam bay were so so welcoming and friendly (sometimes its hard to tell if its genuine or whether they just are wanting to be friends with stn so they can get money...) but the Alis are genuine friends, people with STN have known them for years. We couldn't really communicate that well with the girls. Rodja spoke a bit of english so it was always a challenge to know what was going on. On the day before we left we were supposed to go berry picking with the family in their garden but we told them we couldn't get there until 10:30 instead of 9:00..when we arrived the berry pickers were gone..the time change was lost in translation (this was one of our favorite phrases)...it was kinda okay though because it was going to be an hour walk in the blistering sun. While we were there Falilah, the 3rd daughter got married out of no where. she had a "boyfriend" that she married. we're not sure exactly how the ceremony was supposed to go or what exactly was going on but i was just so happy to be able to be apart of a muslim/sri lankan wedding. And then there was the Why Not family. We met them one day while we were sitting at the Ali's place and we saw some little kids peeping through a crack in the fence. Renee went over to talk with them...an hour or so later we were all sitting around like..where is renee?! we weren't sure if maybe she had left to go home because of a bad case of diahrea (this happens a lot here..people will just dissapear to the bathroom) or where she could have been...but we found out that she had been trapped next door by the 15 kids that live there. So since then we became friends with the little girls (they're about 15 and younger) and spent a lot of time at their place. One day Renee and i got to do laundry with them-not in a washing machine, but by hand...it made me happy.
So i've had enough of typing for today. I will continue tomorrow or some other day to tell you more about life in A Bay.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. We really felt them!
So. Arugam Bay. It's a little fishing village. I really didn't realize that it was so small until we left. Arugam bay is on the east side of the island. we arrived in colombo and took a 10 hour ormore bus ride to the opposite side of the island, all on semi bumpy roads. Pottovil is a bigger town next to Arugam bay. We drive through Pottovil which is one main strip that has tailer stores-i don't know. where they make your clothes, little convenient stores that have laundry soap, crackers, water and fruit, fruit stands and restaurants. nothing is nice and new with air conditioning, everything is hole in the wall style stores. at the end of pottuvil is a new big bridge that was at the end of being built. It is the nicest thing we saw pretty much our whole drive..pretty much in all of sri lanka maybe haha. but arugam bay is on the other side. obviously arugam bay is a bay and the whole little town is shaped around the bay. we lived towards the middle/beginning of the bay (Surfing the nations has property there). the street is lined with lots of rotti stands, which is like sao bing yo tiou (for people from taiwan)-the outside bread type stuff...and i pretty much ate that for breakfast lunch and dinner. for breakfast it was two plain ones for 20 cents, lunch was maybe a vegetable or egg and vegetable rotti, and dinner was koti rotti which is rotti cut up with some veggies mixed in. so i really got my fill of carbs! so the street has lots of these little greasy hole in the wall rotti shops, probably at least 20 hotel/bungalos that have no people staying in them and little stores. i guess oprah has a hotel out there-Tri star, but no one was even staying in it. when we got there there were only a handful of tourists and 25 of us...ahha. but by the time we left the tourist season had picked up. At the end of the street (or where arugam bay kinda ends) is a buddha in a glass box that renee likes to call the buddha information center...take a left there and a 1 minute walk down a broken road and it opens up to the ocean. boats are lined everwhere with men who act as though they have never seen elbows and calves (It's a strict muslim community so we women were dressed in skirts below the knee and loose t-shirts the whole time...we were really longing for some freedom from frumpy clothes!)...then a little walk around the bay and you are at the point! there is only one surfing point in arugam bay so pretty much the five tourists that were there for a nice surf vacation were quite shocked the first morning we were there and 20 people crowded the point. so yeah...oh yeah. i can give you more details about the property (this would be so much easier if i could show you pictures right now, but i obviously can't!) the property. it is the first property off the street and then there is one property right behind us and then the beach. we have a front entrance that is a gate (kind of i guess) and then a side door..we only use the side door and the alley that it is off of has a nice view out to the ocean. so our property is half lined in bricks and then half fenced in by palm frawns.i think that is what they are called. its palm branches woven together to make pieces to make fences, roofs, shade, walls, everything. and the property is one piece of land. i'm not exactly sure how big it is. it's not big, but its not small. on the property is palm trees, a house- a cement house with two bedrooms, a (i don't even know what itis called) but its like a shadey area...a cement slab with a roof on top...so that is where all our meetings were and if anyone was on the property this is where they were sitting because it was too hot in the sun. then we have a well, which was my favorite part because i loved pulling the bucket up with the dirty water to flush our toilet or to water the plants. I could pretend that i had left this modernized world and was living the origional way..the property also has .a bathroom and a shower. the shower is super sick, its got the palm frawn wall setting and has trees in it and then a cement slab for where you can stand and shower. but we didn't shower there becasue the water is brown and dirty-something was wrong with the well...so they either gotta dig another well or wait for 3 months till the whole town gets clean water. our first two days there we used thed irty water but we decided it would probably be better to use our neighbors-aloha cabanas showers instead. then we had 7 tents set up around the property where we all slept. My bags were covered in sand by the time I left.
so that is the set up of A Bay. As for daily life. A regular day was wake up between 6:30 and 8 (my tent always woke up early because we were right next to the door and all the boys were always at dawn patrol-morning surf-and would wake up right when the sun came out) the first week i was there i ate at aloha cabanas every morning, milk tea and a jaffle (like a bananna panini) but then that became too expensive($3.00) . so i would have my quiet time with some milk tea, and then we would usually have a meeting around 9 or 10-have worship, testimony and a little bible study. the last week or so we were studying galations so we would read a chapter as a group and dig into it, and then by this time it is about noonish and the surfers would surf and us non surfers would hit the ocean and do a little body surfing or just getting refreshed by the water...then we started work on the property. i was on the alley team (we cleaned the alley and the name just stuck) and so we pretty much had no jobs because we werent painters or good with construction..so we would just go and chill with people in the community. One day a bunch of us girls bought ice cream for the Why Not family (i'll tell you more about them later). we got close with two families that lived right next door to eachother. the Ali family and the Why Not family. (the why not family had a restaurant that we ate at everynight called why not. cuz why wouldn't you eat there-great local prices and good food) the Ali family is the family that made me fall in love with Arugam Bay the most. there are 4 older girls, two boys and a 3 year old girl. By the time we left the three oldest girls were married and pregnant, and rodja is 18 and probably soon getting married. we'd go over and they would make us tea and we would just sit. not really talk because there's a big language barrier, but we would just kinda talk and laugh. they always fed us strange snacks...like berries that made our mouths extremely dry. they tasted like unripe bananas. the Ali family's dad, who we called papa is something big with at the mosque. A Moula (sp?) i think is what it is called. I don't really know what that means, but he was something important at the mosque. So his family was run by strict Muslim rules. This means that the women of the house were never allowed to leave the house except to cross the street to get water from their neighbor's well. This means they were really happy to have us over at any time of the day. The people of Arugam bay were so so welcoming and friendly (sometimes its hard to tell if its genuine or whether they just are wanting to be friends with stn so they can get money...) but the Alis are genuine friends, people with STN have known them for years. We couldn't really communicate that well with the girls. Rodja spoke a bit of english so it was always a challenge to know what was going on. On the day before we left we were supposed to go berry picking with the family in their garden but we told them we couldn't get there until 10:30 instead of 9:00..when we arrived the berry pickers were gone..the time change was lost in translation (this was one of our favorite phrases)...it was kinda okay though because it was going to be an hour walk in the blistering sun. While we were there Falilah, the 3rd daughter got married out of no where. she had a "boyfriend" that she married. we're not sure exactly how the ceremony was supposed to go or what exactly was going on but i was just so happy to be able to be apart of a muslim/sri lankan wedding. And then there was the Why Not family. We met them one day while we were sitting at the Ali's place and we saw some little kids peeping through a crack in the fence. Renee went over to talk with them...an hour or so later we were all sitting around like..where is renee?! we weren't sure if maybe she had left to go home because of a bad case of diahrea (this happens a lot here..people will just dissapear to the bathroom) or where she could have been...but we found out that she had been trapped next door by the 15 kids that live there. So since then we became friends with the little girls (they're about 15 and younger) and spent a lot of time at their place. One day Renee and i got to do laundry with them-not in a washing machine, but by hand...it made me happy.
So i've had enough of typing for today. I will continue tomorrow or some other day to tell you more about life in A Bay.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. We really felt them!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Hello friends that check out my blog. Sorry I am not very good at updating this thing. I feel like everything I do is the same everyweek. I don't know what to write about. I'm brainstorming of what I should write to tell you. I don't have it yet. But for now I do have my support letter that I am just going to put on here that does give you a little more information about what I am doing. It doesn't really have the juicy details of everything though. sorry! Hope all is well with you!
Aloha friends and family,
For those of you who don’t know, I have moved to Hawaii and am planning on being here until December. I am working for an organization named Surfing the Nations. STN is a humanitarian/missions non-profit 501(c)(3) committed to impacting local and international communities by meeting needs and changing lives of those around us. Here are some of the ways we impact our local community in Honolulu, Oahu as well as the international community:
o Feeding the Hungry Programs
o Weekly Surfers Leadership Training
o Island Youth Program/At-Risk Youth
o Surf Contests
o Surf Camps
o Local & International humanitarian/outreach trips
I would like to share with you two things that are on my heart; the Feeding the Hungry Team and going to Sri Lanka. I would also like to share with you how you can be involved in what I am doing here in Oahu as well as what I will be doing in Sri Lanka.
The Feeding the Hungry team feeds more than 300 people a week with food we get from the Food Bank. I have been on the Feeding the Hungry team for the last two months and have just recently taken over the homeless out reach side of the team. This means I plan our Friday outreaches to the people who live under the freeway. Let me tell you a little bit about this community and how we are involved in it. There are many reasons someone would move under a freeway to live. Frank lives under the freeway because he was in a relationship and his girlfriend’s mom paid him to leave. After bouncing from one place to the next he found himself making a home under the freeway. Tiari, an 18 year old who is living with a 30 year old man just delivered a baby and is in the process of giving the baby to her brother. Bella is a 60 year old Nicaraguan prostitute who has made her home into a little girl’s dream home with decorations all over the trees. Skip has had two cars, two divorces and a golfing career but somehow now finds himself living in a broken van. Although they were once accepted by society and the world, they now live in what they call “the underworld”, a place where the only people that come, come to fix the broken fences, tell them they are dirty and leave. There are churches that deliver food, fix up their wounds and leave, but no one who comes to hang out, talk story and love on them. When we first started visiting the community, we handed out food bags to whoever we came in contact with, talked story for a little bit and then left. We want to do more than hand out food and ditch so now we have a picnic where people can eat fresh food. We have activities for them to do so they feel more comfortable hanging out and there is more of an inviting setting. Last week we brought beads and made rings and bracelets with some of the ladies. I am hoping that my team and I will come up with more ideas as to how we can show the people under the freeway that Christ loves them. I am praying for money to come in so we can buy more fun things to do with them like painting and tie dieing. The reason I go down there is to show them that God has not forgotten about them and that there are people in the world who care about them. By donating money or supplies you can also be apart of sharing Christ’s love with these people.
This summer I am going to Sri Lanka with Surfing the Nations. Sri Lanka is a war and tsunami torn island to the south west of India. (Although it is war torn, we will be in the south east part of the island which is not touched by war) It’s four main religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. We will be there June 7-July 2. The main place we will be is Arugam Bay which is a small fisherman town. You can watch movies on www.youtube.com documenting STN’s past trips to learn more about our involvement in Arugam Bay. The cost will be $2,200 which will cover airfare, ground fees, food and spending money. While there we will do post tsunami relief, build relationships, continue to pioneer/build & establish STN’s Surf Center, teach English and evangelism.
Here is how you can help me. I came to Hawaii with the intentions of staying with STN for only 3 months to do an internship, but God had other plans for me; I am now staying 7 months longer than I had intended. My work out here is purely volunteer and therefore have no means of supporting myself. Staying here is a step of faith into God’s world by relying on Him to provide for my needs. There are three ways you can help me live by faith. You can support me financially, prayerfully and with your network.
Here are some ways you can support me financially:
o Write a check/money order to me.
o Write a check/money order to Surfing the Nations or Surfers Church ATTN: Whitney Willett (Tax deductible).
o Donate online @ www.surfingthenations.com (Tax deductible)
Ø Click Contributions -> Click Make a Donation online -> Fill out required information-> Purpose of gift: Whitney Willett
(The "deadline" for me to get my ticket is May 10-but hopefully they won't stick to it that closely seeing that that is only a few weeks away!)
Here is what you can pray for:
-That the characters of a leader would be growing in me (especially patience).
-That I would be learning to hear God’s voice so I follow Him and not my own desires.
-Sri Lanka trip: For safety and that I wouldn’t get frustrated by working in a big group
I need you to help network with me. Please pass the word or this actual letter on to others who might be interested in supporting me. Money is important, but your prayers are even more important. My being here is the result of praying parents and friends. Inside I have enclosed a return envelope if you desire to financially support me.
Thank you in advance for your support.
In Him,
Whitney Willett
Aloha friends and family,
For those of you who don’t know, I have moved to Hawaii and am planning on being here until December. I am working for an organization named Surfing the Nations. STN is a humanitarian/missions non-profit 501(c)(3) committed to impacting local and international communities by meeting needs and changing lives of those around us. Here are some of the ways we impact our local community in Honolulu, Oahu as well as the international community:
o Feeding the Hungry Programs
o Weekly Surfers Leadership Training
o Island Youth Program/At-Risk Youth
o Surf Contests
o Surf Camps
o Local & International humanitarian/outreach trips
I would like to share with you two things that are on my heart; the Feeding the Hungry Team and going to Sri Lanka. I would also like to share with you how you can be involved in what I am doing here in Oahu as well as what I will be doing in Sri Lanka.
The Feeding the Hungry team feeds more than 300 people a week with food we get from the Food Bank. I have been on the Feeding the Hungry team for the last two months and have just recently taken over the homeless out reach side of the team. This means I plan our Friday outreaches to the people who live under the freeway. Let me tell you a little bit about this community and how we are involved in it. There are many reasons someone would move under a freeway to live. Frank lives under the freeway because he was in a relationship and his girlfriend’s mom paid him to leave. After bouncing from one place to the next he found himself making a home under the freeway. Tiari, an 18 year old who is living with a 30 year old man just delivered a baby and is in the process of giving the baby to her brother. Bella is a 60 year old Nicaraguan prostitute who has made her home into a little girl’s dream home with decorations all over the trees. Skip has had two cars, two divorces and a golfing career but somehow now finds himself living in a broken van. Although they were once accepted by society and the world, they now live in what they call “the underworld”, a place where the only people that come, come to fix the broken fences, tell them they are dirty and leave. There are churches that deliver food, fix up their wounds and leave, but no one who comes to hang out, talk story and love on them. When we first started visiting the community, we handed out food bags to whoever we came in contact with, talked story for a little bit and then left. We want to do more than hand out food and ditch so now we have a picnic where people can eat fresh food. We have activities for them to do so they feel more comfortable hanging out and there is more of an inviting setting. Last week we brought beads and made rings and bracelets with some of the ladies. I am hoping that my team and I will come up with more ideas as to how we can show the people under the freeway that Christ loves them. I am praying for money to come in so we can buy more fun things to do with them like painting and tie dieing. The reason I go down there is to show them that God has not forgotten about them and that there are people in the world who care about them. By donating money or supplies you can also be apart of sharing Christ’s love with these people.
This summer I am going to Sri Lanka with Surfing the Nations. Sri Lanka is a war and tsunami torn island to the south west of India. (Although it is war torn, we will be in the south east part of the island which is not touched by war) It’s four main religions are Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. We will be there June 7-July 2. The main place we will be is Arugam Bay which is a small fisherman town. You can watch movies on www.youtube.com documenting STN’s past trips to learn more about our involvement in Arugam Bay. The cost will be $2,200 which will cover airfare, ground fees, food and spending money. While there we will do post tsunami relief, build relationships, continue to pioneer/build & establish STN’s Surf Center, teach English and evangelism.
Here is how you can help me. I came to Hawaii with the intentions of staying with STN for only 3 months to do an internship, but God had other plans for me; I am now staying 7 months longer than I had intended. My work out here is purely volunteer and therefore have no means of supporting myself. Staying here is a step of faith into God’s world by relying on Him to provide for my needs. There are three ways you can help me live by faith. You can support me financially, prayerfully and with your network.
Here are some ways you can support me financially:
o Write a check/money order to me.
o Write a check/money order to Surfing the Nations or Surfers Church ATTN: Whitney Willett (Tax deductible).
o Donate online @ www.surfingthenations.com (Tax deductible)
Ø Click Contributions -> Click Make a Donation online -> Fill out required information-> Purpose of gift: Whitney Willett
(The "deadline" for me to get my ticket is May 10-but hopefully they won't stick to it that closely seeing that that is only a few weeks away!)
Here is what you can pray for:
-That the characters of a leader would be growing in me (especially patience).
-That I would be learning to hear God’s voice so I follow Him and not my own desires.
-Sri Lanka trip: For safety and that I wouldn’t get frustrated by working in a big group
I need you to help network with me. Please pass the word or this actual letter on to others who might be interested in supporting me. Money is important, but your prayers are even more important. My being here is the result of praying parents and friends. Inside I have enclosed a return envelope if you desire to financially support me.
Thank you in advance for your support.
In Him,
Whitney Willett
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