There's Nothing Soft About Hard Times (by Jimmy Buffett)

Well, the last couple of weeks have been interesting, to say the least. I’ve visited remote islands and villages, seen God at work, been attacked spiritually, felt inspired to write a book, battled depression, revisited the question of who I am, gotten sick, had some experiences on the high seas that I will count as some of my greater life adventures, visited an uninhabited tropical island paradise, and randomly stumbled across another boat I used to live on. Like I said, it’s been interesting.
Let’s start with the bad stuff. I don’t want to get too into this because I want to keep this somewhat manageable to read and I just simply don’t want to get too caught up in the negativity. For those who don’t know me well, I struggled with depression throughout my adolescence (like everyone else, I’m sure) and into my early adulthood. Some of those old feelings revisited me when I was blasted with feelings of inadequacies regarding my time and responsibilities here, the realization that the woman I loved and expected to spend the rest of my life with got married while I was doing my island stays, and having to face the fact that some of my character flaws were causing me to ware on the nerves of the people I was with. I have to be honest, I questioned my purpose here. Like when I was living in Guatemala, I struggle with feeling like I’m getting in the way more than helping out. I’m facing the realities that some of these things are spiritual attacks, some are realizations of changes that need to be made in my life, and some are a combination of the two. Prayer would be a wonderful gift from anyone willing to give it regarding these things!
During my attempt to escape my depression and to give the rest of the group a break from me, I finally finished one of the books I’ve been reading. Let me just say that this book did wonders for boosting my morale here. So much so that I couldn’t stop reading it and now, unfortunately, I’m done with it … I’m kinda sad about that. Being bummed about not being able to obtain my temporary escape through this book, I got the inspiration to write my own. I don’t know, this is probably just some dumb little passing phase, but the thought of writing a novel or something has always lingered in the back of my mind. I have no idea what I’m doing and, in all likelihood, this will never come to fruition, but it’s a new dream that seems to be stronger now then it’s ever been for some reason. We’ll see what happens with that.
Alright, so I had the ride of my life through the open sea. To be honest, I sincerely feared for my life. It was awesome!!! There were five of us in this little fiberglass dinghy that we took through these two meter high waves on an hour or two long ride to a remote island. Within the first minute of the ride we were all soaking wet from the waves crashing up over the bow, flooding our boat and drenching us. Our driver had to wear a dive mask so he could see where we were going. There were times when we got at least a couple feet of air, both the boat off the waves and us out of the boat. A couple of times we almost got tossed out the side of the boat when the currents shifted. As long as we hit the waves head on we were fine, but there were a couple of times when the waves hit us from the side and almost capsized us. Had that happened, who knows what would have happened to us. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! And to top it all off, our destination was this GORGEOUS remote island. We walked around the whole island and up onto a couple of the hills that are on the middle of it. From the hills you could see a 360 degree panorama of the island, the sea, and the islands that dotted the horizon surrounding us. The rocks, palm trees, grass, sand, and water on this island were simply amazing. This island has some serious potential. How amazing would it be to own this little piece of land in the middle of the sea? Hopefully we’ll find out someday soon. Check my picture link … I’ll try to show you some pictures of the island to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
Between the two island stays I was on over the past couple of weeks, we had a break at a small resort between the two islands. For all intents and purposes, we were in the middle of nowhere. I have the story of my experience at this resort all written up in my journal, but to save some time and energy here and to make this easier for you to read, I’ll cut to the chase. Upon our arrival there, I saw my old home … the AGAPE. Again, check out the pictures to see what I’m talking about. This is a boat that I lived on, along with the Lady O and the Lee Way (now the Picante), for nearly two and a half months back in 1999. In my mind, I KNEW I would NEVER see the Agape again. When I realized that I was actually looking at her again, my mind couldn’t get a grip on the reality of what was going on. I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. I just kept grabbing random group members I was with and dragging them to the boat, saying “I used to live there! I used to live there!” When I was here in ’99, I took 13 rolls of film that, due to a sticky shutter I didn’t know about until I got home, never turned out. For six and a half years I’ve had no way to share my experience of a lifetime with anyone other than through my words … until now! I finally have more pictures then I know what to do with. I hope you enjoy them, because they’re worth more than gold to me!!!
Finally, what God is doing here. It’s both exciting and frustrating at the same time. I heard one person describe it this way:

God is doing some amazing work here. He’s at work in these people’s lives long before we ever come along and He’ll continue to do His work long after we leave. Some of these people have such a longing to know TRUTH. God will not deny Himself to these people who so vehemently seek Him, even if they don’t even fully realize that it’s Him they’re seeking. The greatest blessing we can experience is when God sends down an invitation to us to be used by Him to show the Truth to these people. When we allow Him to use us, it can be almost embarrassing how easy it is to show the Truth. The thing to remember is that it’s not us that’s showing It to them, but rather God who’s revealing Himself to them through us. We get no credit and no glory because we don’t deserve it, He does. But what we get is the greatest feeling man can experience: Being so fully blessed by God that it simply uncontrollably overflows.

Okay, I admit, the idea of what I just wrote came from someone else, but that’s totally my adlibbed paraphrasing there. You get the idea of what’s going on here though. The only thing that’s been so frustrating for me, though, has been that I haven’t really gotten that invitation yet … only the opportunity to see others so anxiously accept their invitations and to see how God uses those opportunities. I’ll tell you what though, it may not be as amazing as being directly used by God, but it’s still pretty cool to be indirectly connected to it and to get to hear the stories told first hand! I guess I’ll just have to stick around a little longer to see if I ever get that invitation. In the meantime, pray with me that I’ll be able to get just as excited by being used indirectly.
Finally (for now), many of you have been trying to find out how I’m being impacted by these recent earthquakes and talks of soon-to-come volcanic eruptions. To be honest, most of these events are first hitting my awareness when I get emails from people asking me if I’m still alive. I’m kind of shut out (somewhat intentionally) from the news of the rest of the world … including different parts of this part of the world. In regards to natural disasters, riots, terrorism, etc., the most life threatening experiences I’ve come across to date include such things as some small swells out in the ocean, a little rain, and the never ending threat of skin cancer via sunburn (I’ve managed to establish a halfway decent base tan though. I don’t look quite so Scandinavian any more … at least not by Minnesota standards. The locals still think I’m pretty white!). So, hopefully that puts your worried minds to rest. I appreciate the concern, but I’m in good hands over here!