duane

Last Wednesday we arrived in St. Thomas. All I wanted to do was get to a beach and lay on it. I think God decided to take me on a detour into different people's lives along the way. First I got stuck waiting for a taxi to go to the beach because apparently a taxi wouldn't just take one person (I was by my self), I needed a whole group who wanted to go. In my waiting I ended up laughing and talking with the security people who were unloading boats. One of the guys, Ezra offered me his car to take to the beach! But I couldn't drive on the left side of the road. Then he went and found me a taxi. He also offered me a free tour of the island later.

After 2 hours I finally get to the beach! As soon as I layed down it started raining on me. I went under the shelter and waited out the storm. When it ended I threw my stuff down on the sand and was running into the ocean. I saw the life guard saying something to me, but I couldn't hear him so I ran up to him and said,"what?" He said, "oh I just said be careful out there, its dangerous today." We started talking and kept talking for 2 hours. We found out we are both Christians and began sharing our stories with eachother.

He talked so honestly and passionately about how he is learning that following Christ is about living a life of sacrifice, surrending your will to God and resting in Christ's atonement. It was like he spoke into my life, saying things I needed to be reminded of and hear in my preparation to move to Spain and to follow God with this next big step in my life. It was one of my most favorite conversations of my life! His name is Duane. After our conversation he said he wanted to give me a book that changed his life. He ran to his car, wrote a little note in the book and gave it to me! This is what I wrote later that day about this experience:

"And I’m standing here connecting with this man who is from St. Thomas about our lives, our initmacy with Christ and living a life of obedience to God...knowing it is hard yet worth it. When I dream of the Caribbean I dream of laying in the sun and looking at the water. Today I was there but I wasn’t laying or looking... I was standing, listening, connecting with another human being from a completely different place in the world. We stood on common ground, on the truth of Chirst and love for the Gospel. We looked forward to the day when we will see eachother again, when we are in true paradise."