Samoa
Our next stop was Samoa. The Samoan islands were contested by three nations for a number of years – Germany, Britain and the United States. A treaty was finally agreed to where Germany took control of the western islands and the United States controlled the eastern ones. New Zealand later took over Western Samoa at Britain’s behest, during which time they were responsible for some pretty egregious incidents to the detriment of the Samoan people. Western Samoa achieved independence in 1962, while the United States still owns American Samoa. 4
Our first stop was Western Samoa. They were hosting the South Pacific Games that year, now called the Pacific Games. They are multi-sports competitions every four years for nations just from the South Pacific. YWAM was hosting an outreach to the Games and the ship ministry brought support.
By this time King’s Kids had been involved in sending teams around the world and they were represented at the Games. They had also recently put out a pretty slick promotional film for the time in which they were performing in various locations in Hawaii. It made them seem like semi-celebrities to us so we were excited to go see them.
There were a few people on the team I knew from when we lived in Hawaii. There was also a pretty 12-year-old girl whom I’ll call Leilani who seemed to be giving me very focused attention. She knew who I was and she looked familiar to me. After some discussion, I realized she was part of a family we had known in Hawaii. She had a brother who had been one of my friends but she had only been about seven when I left. She would feature in my story a little later but some of the King’s Kids also came to visit us on the ship as well. No doubt, we were probably a bit celebrity-like to them too, travelling around on a ship as we did.
Meanwhile, my brother, Samuel was having a unique adventure of his own. Someone from California had built and donated a sailboat to YWAM for the Small Boat Ministry. Unfortunately, the ministry was in hiatus and the boat had been sitting in Hawaii doing nothing. They decided to have it sailed down to Samoa where we were. My brother had never really liked living on the ship and lately he had been getting a little stir-crazy. He wanted to go help sail the boat down. My mom was a little anxious to let him go but Samuel told her that he was leaving a boy but would come back a man. My parents decided to let him go for it, along with a few other crew from the ship.
The problem was that Samuel got seasick very easily. Sailing on the larger ship was one thing but on a sailboat, you feel everything. You can usually take pills for seasickness but he was so bad that he actually had to have a shot.
They stopped half way between Hawaii and Samoa at the Palmyra Atoll, a small uninhabited territory once used by the U.S. navy who had built an airstrip. It is now used as a National Wildlife Refuge. It became infamous when a wealthy sailing couple from San Diego disappeared there in 1974 and another sailor was convicted of murder when the wife’s remains were found some years later.
The sailboat made it safely to Samoa and the crew rejoined us. Unfortunately, the sailboat ended up being unused in Samoa as well. It was later abandoned at anchor where it flooded with rain. When the person who originally donated it found out what had happened, he went to Samoa, took the boat and sailed it back to California.
I was always, as they say, second fiddle to Samuel. He was the more outgoing, social one. He used to have other kids over in our cabin to hang out and listen to music. If I had known what introversion was back then, I would have understood what I was going through. I would have understood that being around people tired me out and I needed time alone to recharge. But all I knew is that I could only take so much of people hanging out in our cabin and sometimes it drove me crazy. We finally decided to set up a schedule when Samuel could, and could not, have people over to our cabin.
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