More on Stuff

This island is by nature against consumerism. There are so few things to buy compared to the States. There are more things that I expected but not a lot. In the States we are used to having everything all the time and if we can't get it online shipping takes little or no time for an item to arrive. Here there is one grocery store and the refrigeration unit on the in-bound plane wasn't working so this week's shipment of dairy and fruits was not on the plane. That means we won't see any new items in that category until next week. The word got out and Kim along with many others "stocked up" for the week.

That notion is freaky to some who are living off island. We think that we need to have what we want or what we need all the time, we are used to it. On the island we learn or are forced to "fast" or make do with what is here. We learn or are forced to practice the discipline of abstinence. There are several disciplines of abstinence that Christians can practice to grow in their reliance on God. A discipline of abstinence is simply giving up something that we normally have. The best known example is not eating for a period of time. This is fasting in a classic sense. We fast in order to learn to rely on the strength God alone gives. Jesus fasted forty days before he was tempted to have the strength for such an intense temptation.

When we fast we can give up TV, music, food, facebook, texting or a host of things we think we need. Fasting shows our dependace on these things and it also frees our time for the Lord. If we miss a meal we have more time for prayer or study. If we are not online we are free to be with people in person or to journal and refelct on our life with God.

We just don't have a lot of stuff here and I am learning that for some residents that is fine, they have learned to adjust to less and having a more simple lifetyle. Others spend a lot of time shopping online and when they are on vacation they shop tons. I am hoping that as we live here we will learn to live with less and to be more creative in how we can spend our time and money. There are many lessons to be learned living here and I hope I am open and available enough to learn them.

Here

We are here and doing well so far. It is always challenging to move to a new place and to meet new people and learn new things. I am finding it an intense process to learn both place and job at the same time. I am working in a new environment (the DoD) and living on a small tropical island. Doing this is a humbling experience and since humility is a virtue and something the bible commands us to be I am finding myself thankful for the opportunity to grow.

Life should be about growing spiritually and I find that if we are open to God's movement in our lives there are always opportunities to grow and change. I guess this is why journaling is so important or for me this blog.

I am also finding being here a humbling experience. This is such a unique place to be let alone live and call one's home. There are so many things that are truly different about this place. Let me list a few

My commute to work is 3-4 minutes on my bike.

The children all come home for lunch, they ride their bikes home by themselves because it is safe here to do that.

The sea life is rich an abundant. We have seen sea turtles, nurse sharks, land crabs, birds and fish without getting in a boat or snorkeling.

There is one grocery store.

The chapel is open air.

We had fresh coconut last night.

Everyone rides bikes everywhere.

It is 85 every day.

This is such a hard place to describe but being here and wondering what I did to be able to deserve this is humbling because I did nothing to deserve this, it is a gift like all in life. All that we receive is a gift from the Lord, even in what we would consider the mundane. That is is why is it so important to practice gratefulness in our daily lives.

In the midst of our newness we miss the familiar. We miss the people at home, our family and friends. We miss the people at MLC. I think about how wonderful the Christmas music worship will be on the 19th. We miss our relationships and the process of moving here has taught us in such a powerful way how important relationships are how we should always strive to be people who love others and invest in their lives.

I will try to write more but we are still working through Internet access and I am being trained daily about how life is here since starting Tuesday (Monday in the states) I am on my own (not really since Christ is always with me).

Lots of love and peace.

Stuff

It is weird having my stuff on a boat, in storage and at our parent's house (thanks). It has made me think about our need for stuff. We need to have things, we always have had and probably always will. It is not having things that I have thought about it is what things to have that I have been thinking about.

We were given a weight limit to Kwajalein (which is small and you can go over but it costs money) and the restrictions on storage. It was a good exercise to go through all that we own and ask the question do we need this to be successful for the next few years. We found out that we have a lot of stuff that we either don't need for want and we realized again that certain things don't need to be ours (we can use the Kwajalein's warehouse) and certain things need to be ours(pots, pans, clothes, beds, couches). We also talked about how different people need different things (our children need the most).

It reminded me that we need to use things and that we can treasure things but we should guard against being attached to strongly to things. The old adage "It's only stuff" has a lot of wisdom. One of the dangers in a materialistic society like ours is that we can become enslaved by our stuff. In a very real way our stuff can own us and not us own our stuff. I am thankful for the reminder of the proper place for stuff.