An Ordinary Life, An Extraordinary Life

 18 – Switzerland, Paris, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Florida, Honduras, Haiti I turned eighteen and now I could drive in Switzerland. Most vehicles in Europe were manual and it was time to put my Florida overpass stick shift starting skills to the test. The Lausanne hill was a whole different experience but after some eventful practice, I eventually got somewhat competent. After six months as duplicator, I was offered the opportunity to go on a video production trip. In those days, there were no in-camera recorders for portable professional video equipment. One person held the camera and a second person (sometimes called the grunt) carried the recorder and microphone attached to the camera with a thick wire. The person carrying the recorder had to anticipate the cameraman’s moves and move with him so that he didn’t get jerked back as he was trying to shoot. You carried the recorder with a strap over your shoulder but the equipme...

Inevitably, there was a girl at the base I liked. She was another Dutch Canadian like my friend Heather from King’s Kids. This girl was one of the students in one of the schools. Technically, now that I was 17, I was old enough for a relationship that could potentially lead to marriage. But that wasn’t my intention. I just liked her and like all relationships with girls I had had up to that point, I just intended to keep it as a friendship unless something else developed down the road. However, when I mentioned it to one of the guys on the non-Russ side, he advised me to go ahead and let her know about my feelings. The advice didn’t feel right but I took it anyway. I’m always better at writing rather than talking so I wrote her a note. She sent me a note back that embarrassed me and made me wish I had not taken the advice. She wrote me the very same relationship philosophy that I had been living out for the past several years! She wanted to stay focused on the school and just be friend...

Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I moved to Lausanne, headquarters to the International Olympic Committee, on the north shore of Lake Geneva. The country is divided into four parts, each with a different language - German, French, Italian and Romansh. Lausanne is in the French part. The YWAM base is up toward the top of town, centered in a large, 5-story former hotel called the Chalet. I shared a room on the top floor with several other guys. The view from our window was incredible. It took in part of the lake and beyond was an amazing panorama of the French Alps. As usual in YWAM, life was communal with a large dining room and common areas for hanging out. Procla-Media shot video and produced programs for YWAM bases around the world. There were about 8-10 of us on the team. Russ Martin was one of the senior guys. He was from California but had been in Switzerland for some time and had learned to speak French. Russ was also a bus driver and had been one ...

Remember Kostas in Greece whose mom thought we were trying to take her son away? Well, in the ensuing years, she decided to bring a lawsuit against us for what had happened. In the lawsuit, she named my dad as the outreach director, Don Stephens as the ship leader and Costas Macris as the church pastor who had given Kostas a Bible.  Costas Macris was the one who let us know about the lawsuit. When we heard about it, we just laughed. It seemed so ridiculous. They weren’t even going to inform my dad and Don. They were just going to try them in absentia. But Costas appealed to them to please consider returning for the trial. He believed the Greek Orthodox Church was using Kostas’s mom to bring the lawsuit in an effort to shut down the Protestant churches in Greece. If the lawsuit was won, Costas Macris would have been sent to prison and Don, my dad and potentially even YWAM in general would have never been allowed back into Greece. After praying about it, Don and my dad decided to go....

 Chapter Six – Procla-Media                                                                  Their language it was new to me,                                                                  But Christianeze got through to me,                                                                  Now I can speak it fluently.                      ...

Back in Honolulu, I finished my schoolwork and prepared for my graduation. I was to be the valedictorian. Of course, I was the only graduate so that was an easy get. My parents flew in from Los Angeles to participate and the Outreach Team and I decided to give them a memorable welcome. We all dressed up in crazy outfits to meet them at the airport. I went punk with tight shorts, suspenders and a colored mohawk. Post 9/11, we probably would have been arrested but this was 1984. My parents were surprised and amused but a bystander, not so much. I’m guessing he didn’t like punks. He said,  “If I had a gun, I’d shoot him”. My mom tried to assure the man that it was just a joke but he said,  “I don’t care. I’d shoot him anyway.” I’m glad he didn’t have a gun. My dad combined the trip to my graduation with a speaking engagement in Hawaii, which paid for the flights. The place he was speaking also put him up in a condo where we stayed together for a few days. On one of those days, my...

Walkmans were the deal. We were still in the days of cassette tapes and Walkman’s were portable cassette players with headphones – the precursor to Ipods. I wanted to sell my boombox to get one. The boombox was still technically both mine and Samuel’s so I had to get his permission to sell it. He agreed. I also wanted to fly over to Kona to see Heather from King’s Kids and my other friends so I needed some money. So I also decided to sell some nice binoculars my dad had given me.  The Stephens family has a special needs son with severe disabilities. His name is John Paul. He was probably about seven around this time. A lady who had been one of his caregivers was living in Kona and Deyon asked if I would take JP with me. All I had to do was take him on the plane and his friend would meet us at the airport and take it from there. It was a simple task and after all the Stephens had been to and done for me, I was only too happy to agree. John Paul couldn’t talk but that didn’t keep him...

I had to start thinking about my future and what I was going to do after I graduated high school. YWAM had a video production team called Procla-Media, located in Switzerland. We decided that that would be a good place for me to start in getting some production experience. It was also going to count towards my High School credits as an internship.  I would finish up my classes, graduate in December, then join Procla-Media for a year. They decided that I would stay on the ship while I finished up, where I got to stay in a cabin by myself. I had never done that before since Samuel had always been my roommate.  Home computers were fairly new at the time and very basic but the ship had a few. One of guys on the ship was going to teach me how to start programming as part of my schooling. For Physical Education I did biking. I didn’t have my own bike so I borrowed one from a friend. This is the time when I got to know the guys on the Outreach Team. The people on the team had been lo...

The King’s Kids teams all began together in one location at a private Korean school on summer break. That was where we had our orientation and rehearsals. There were several of us from the ship including Teresa and Heidi.  I slept on the floor of a large room with a bunch of other guys. There were a lot of attractive girls, especially from Kona, including Leilani, whom I had been pining for when we had left Kona. True to my dad’s theory, my passion for her had waned after a few months, although she was still very attractive and attentive. But I was also enjoying being around all the other girls. In fact, I was enjoying it so much that, shamefully, I virtually ignored my friends from the ship. Then, not too long into training, the leaders called a group of us into a big meeting.  We were told that the leaders had noticed that those of us in the room were not participating in the training with our whole hearts. They saw that various things were distracting us and if things didn’...

The families had to move camps from Waianai on the west coast to the other side of the island to a YWCA camp. This time we weren’t so remote. We were just outside the town of Kaneohe, on Kaneohe Bay. Even though the camp is right on the water, Kaneohe Bay is very protected with no beach and no waves. Once again, there were cabins for the families to live in and, once again, I was in a tent. I graduated to a much bigger tent but had to share it with another teenage boy. We did have our own separate “rooms” within the tent, with a common area by the entrance. Since we were near a town, it was easier to attend a church if we could get transportation. The leaders of the youth group at the Kaneohe Hope Chapel took an interest in us and would pick us up for church on Sunday and for youth group. At one youth group night, we had the opportunity to tell the group about the ship ministry and our life. Once again, we did school in the kitchen/dining room building. At this time, most of my schoolw...

 17 – Hawaii, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Switzerland It’s about an hour car drive from Waianai to the center of Honolulu. I didn’t have a car…or a license. I rode the bus. The bus takes considerably longer, including a transfer to a second bus. I would go on a Saturday by myself and sit in the back row by the window. I thought I was very cool. Our hairdresser friend was cutting my hair in a hip, New Wave fashion with a swoop in the front. I had spied out and saved up for a navy blue fedora with a white band which I wore on my bus rides. By this time, I had also grown a caterpillar on my upper lip. Much to my mom’s displeasure, a guy on the ship had let me use his electric razor when I was 13, which only increased my natural hairiness.  There is always a choice to make when you’re in a different culture - to keep yourself aloof from it or to embrace it. This is particularly true of speech. If you’re educated, do you keep your English corre...

As the Stephens were kind of watching out for me they would sometimes take me places. The ship had been given a speedboat and every now and then they would take me out water skiing. It was a little difficult for me to accept their generosity without any way of paying them back. As I thought I might become a successful filmmaker, I used to tell them that one day I would pay them back. But after one particular incident, they may have had second thoughts about taking me anywhere.  They had taken me out to eat which was a treat for me, even to McDonalds where we went that day. As we were finishing up, I was playing with one of the packets of ketchup. For some reason, I was squeezing one end of it. Don’s wife, Deyon was sitting across from me. All of a sudden a small hole opened on the other end of the pack and ketchup squirted across the table and splattered all over Deyon’s new dress.  I was mortified. Their kids were no help. They thought it was hilarious and were laughing their...