My Papaya Mini-Adventure

As I write, I am looking into the distance and the setting sun is casting a kind and warm glow and touching everything in sight. Not only is the view stunningly beautiful, but I hear these words resounding from the Ohana (family) court where a few hundred people are having a spontaneous time of worshiping the King of Kings...

"I'll give you what you paid for, Here I am, Here I am."

It is as if the Father is saying:
'I'll let you enjoy me! Listen to my song over you, listen to the melody that I sing.'

The weight of the responsibility of one of the hardest weeks I will have while I am here academically had just finished and I am feeling so happy about it. :) The book of Genesis truly packed a punch of not only learning about the history of the nation of Israel, but it was a good time to reflect on the true definition of redemption. There were times of nitty gritty details I felt I'd be lost in, but there were also times of digging in and discovering life giving message of God's love.

My days here are mostly filled with studying and carrying out my responsibilities in class and work duties, but today was a lovely refresher. It was a time for catching up, and preparation for the next assignment ahead, I even scheduled in an adventure.

The adventure I had planned for didn't work out for today, but will in the future, I will assure you....Tonight's adventure hinged at the end of my sweet time with my friend Crystal who meets with me to check in and be a support once a week.

I suggested we could go try to get a papaya down from a tree I had passed on campus previous in the day...so we did. It was a challenge to reach with an awkwardly shaped stub of a plumeria branch. We ended up finding a real fruit cutter and got not just one but two!! Which inspired us to continue looking in the surrounding trees throughout the campus. Success...we came away with five beauties, one of which we had to eat right away like we were in the wilderness wandering or something and hadn't eaten in days. The taste was perfectly sweet and was sufficient to cover up the horrid taste of the aloe vera plant gel we had just eaten. Oh man! that was such a bitter taste, but the papaya was wonderful. I did eat a few seeds though, I hope I will be ok.

Now the sun has gone down fully and the music continues with loud clapping, laughter, joy, and singing to the rhythm. This place is alive and thriving, bursting and bubbling over with life in every way. Time to rest my eyeballs so I may wake with gusto for a new week of learning about the Exodus, among many other things.

Thanks for reading! It was nice to share some time.