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Showing posts from January, 2021

This is a Clique

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If any of these kind of relationships started developing on the ship, you were supposed to go talk to the chaplain, Jack Hill about it. Laura had already been meeting with his wife, Myrna recently and had told her about Isaiah 62. Laura had been interpreting the verses spiritually, thinking it meant that she was going to grow closer to God. When she had told Myrna, she said,          “Sounds like you’re going to get a husband”. We told Jack and Myrna our story and they considered it plausible. He asked us about physical guidelines, recommending we not kiss until marriage. I affirmed that that was my intention and he said that we should just carry on and see what happens, if circumstances would bring confirmation. As Don Stephens and his family had left the ship, we were going to watch a movie with a group of friends in his cabin that night. The Good Samaritan was also coming to Jamaica that day and was going to dock alongside us. Laura and I were both looking fo...

You’re Going to Marry Laura Tuohy

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When I got back to the ship, Laura seemed a little frantic when she saw me. I had had no particular reason to tell her I was going on the trip so she didn’t know where I had been. She had been asking everyone where I was and when nobody knew she got worried. That made me feel kinda good. It seemed like she missed me or something. I said,          “You know who I was thinking about the whole trip?”  There was a pause,          “Who?”         “You.” Her face broke into a huge smile. As we were going on the beach trip the next day I said,          “I think we need to talk at the beach tomorrow”. Still beaming, she replied,          “Okay”.  All of a sudden my relationship theology resolve began to weaken. I started to wonder if maybe there was a place for boyfriends and girlfriends. The beach was called Frenchman’s Cove. It is a beautiful little inlet with brill...

I Really Did Like Her

There was a hotel with a pool at the top of one of the hills surrounding Port Antonio and the graduates were going to have their graduation party up there. Somehow, even though it wasn’t my graduation, I thought it was okay for me to invite Laura. She was friends with them all anyway. We were in the ship lobby when I asked her where the gangway enters the ship and everyone comes and goes. Laura was kind of hesitant about accepting my invitation, maybe because she wondered if I was even supposed to be inviting someone. So there, in the very public lobby, with everyone coming and going, I got down on one knee and implored her to come. She was very embarrassed and quickly agreed so that I would just get up. That night at the party, the other boys and I created a lot of commotion as we played a hard game of tag in the pool and I pretty much almost completely ignored Laura. It wasn’t on purpose. I was just having so much fun with the guys and she was mixing well with her other friends that ...

How the Other Half Lived

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The next night, as we were sailing to Jamaica, I was up on deck watching the ocean in the moonlight when someone else came up. I couldn’t see who it was in the dark but, lo and behold, discovered it was Laura. As I was alone, she wanted to make sure she wasn’t disturbing me.           “Do you want to be by yourself? Do you want me to leave?”          “No, you’re fine.” We watched the water for a while and talked. Once again, something that came out of my mouth astonished me. We were talking about travelling and she said,           “I’d love to travel to Europe.” I said,            “I have a lot of friends in Europe I haven’t seen in a while, maybe we could travel together.” Now obviously, a single Christian man and a single Christian woman should never travel alone together because the close intimate experience starts drawing you into an emotional bond that usually ...

I Can be your Boyfriend

21 – Florida, Georgia, Jamaica, California, London, North Carolina I turned 21 in Florida. It’s supposed to be a big birthday in the US when you can start drinking alcohol legally. I didn’t like alcohol and I wasn’t intending to start drinking now. So turning 21 was no big deal for me.  While I was in Florida, I got to go see the Good Samaritan again and was especially happy to see my good friend, Ted McKenzie. I also had some time before I had to get to the Anastasis in Brunswick, Georgia where it was preparing to sail to an outreach in Jamaica.  There was a guy I knew in Florida who was a friend of the Good Samaritan. He worked in the construction business. He let me stay with him and work for a few weeks to make a little money. Once again, I’m not so sure I was really helping him but somehow I kept finding these people who were so generous to me. Then I took the bus to Brunswick to board the Anastasis. As I was there for Heidi Stephens's graduation, I went into her cabin wh...

I'm Just Happy to be Here

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I got another deal on a different mode of transportation. This time I decided to try a bus/coach adventure. I found a good deal on Greyhound with which I could travel anywhere in their network for a certain period of time. I thought this would be a good way to see more of the country too. Once again I flew to New York and began my bus odyssey to Florida. I had some time and had never been to Washington D.C. so I decided to stop there first. YWAM had a basement flat in a not-so-nice part of town not too far from the Capitol Building. They used it to house people for outreaches but didn’t have anything going on at the time. They just left the key somewhere for me and I returned it to the same place when I left. I never did see anyone. I stayed a couple of nights and had a day to check out all the sights. I walked and walked and walked. I visited the Capitol Building where I got to watch both the Senate and the House in session. I walked down the Mall to the Washington Memorial where I we...

A Little Lonely

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Upon my return to London, since health care was “free” in England, I decided to look into seeing if I could get the strabismus in my eye fixed. I had heard of healthcare rationing and the nightmare waits for services but I thought I’d just give it a shot. It turned out that eye surgeries were not one of the services most in demand and I got a surgery date very quickly. I was told that what they had to do was shorten the muscle that was weak so that it wouldn’t let the eye wander. It wasn’t until after the surgery that I found out that they actually pulled the whole eyeball out to take care of it. If I had known that beforehand, I may not have done it. Although the surgery greatly improved the issue, the eye still has a slight wander. I was still working at Safeway but I wasn’t getting any modeling jobs. I realized that I was probably not going to get very far with the modeling “agency” I was with. I knew that I should just try to sign with an established one. But I was scared.  Hop...

Funeral

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One of my dad’s brothers in New Zealand had built some living space in his basement where we all stayed during the time of the funeral. Samuel brought his wife, Carol and new-born baby, Amber with him. It was nice to meet her for the first time. We went to the funeral home where I saw my dad’s body. His was the first dead body I had ever seen and it was kind of freaky. I had this feeling that he was going to move, open his eyes, sit up or something. We each got to spend some time alone with him and I finally got up the courage to touch him, still half expecting him to freak me out by moving. Samuel said he actually kissed him goodbye. My dad had had angina. Growing up in England, he had eaten a lot of deep-fried foods, which may or may not have given him the disease. He had been getting more tired as of late so while he was in New Zealand he had been to see a doctor.  He had had great metabolism and for years he had kept a very disciplined exercise regimen. But the doctor told him ...

Bruce

One of the names used as a catch-all for a New Zealand guy is Bruce. It’s one of those uniquely New Zealand things that is hard to describe exactly but that another New Zealander would easily understand. It’s a name that depicts the prototypical hardy, geeky, salt-of-the-earth sheep farmer type. Our family made good use of the name.  After I landed in Auckland and got my luggage, I was exiting the baggage claim where the crowd of people waited to pick up passengers. All of a sudden I heard my mom and sister calling out, “Bruce, Bruce”. I thought it was kind of strange for them to be joking around like that under the circumstances but we always did enjoy a good laugh. I responded in like manner.  What I didn’t realize was that they hadn’t even seen me yet. They were actually calling out to a YWAM friend of ours from New Zealand who, unbeknownst to me, had been on the same plane and his name actually was Bruce. They had had some concern in how hard I might be taking all of this ...

A Death

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 Chapter Nine – Death and a New Beginning One cold March morning after working all night, I rode the bus back to the house. As usual, I was very tired. I caught the bus to the High Street in Palmers Green then took the 10-minute walk to the house. I was eating some breakfast before I went to bed when the phone rang.  There were two phones in the house, one in the entryway and one in my landlady’s room. I didn’t get calls so I didn’t answer. Trish was usually stirring by the time I got home in the morning, getting ready for the day. She answered the phone and called out to let me know that it was for me. I picked up the phone in the entryway.  “Hello”           “Hi, Stephen, it’s mum.” I was surprised to hear my mom’s voice. My parents were back in New Zealand at the time having a long-overdue vacation and afterwards my dad was speaking at some DTS’s.           “Oh, hi.” Why was my mom calling? If my parents eve...

Redford

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Trying to sleep during the day was a nightmare for me (or is that a daymare?). When I’m sleeping, I like it dark and quiet, neither of which was possible during the day. The house was on a quiet residential street but there was always some kind of traffic noise. I tried earplugs and even got a prescription for sleeping pills, all to no avail. I never did get used to it. At least my job didn’t involve much thinking because I was always tired. On my time off, to get out of the depressing house, I began to visit the local library. I discovered that I had a real interest in history. There was no internet in those days so I couldn’t Google stuff. You had to read about it in books. I became interested in my roots, particularly the Celts. The Celts were a people group in the British Isles when the Romans invaded. They originally came from central Europe themselves but were the dominant culture in the Isles by the time of the Roman invasion. While the Romans conquered most of present-day Engla...

Working Class

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I flew back to London to figure out what to do next. But first I had some unfinished business to attend to. I felt guilty every time I thought about what I had done in leaving my job at Baskin-Robbins before my shift had ended. Even though it wasn’t that much time, my boss had put her trust in me and I had taken advantage of it. As soon as I returned, I went back to her office, apologized, and even though it was such a small amount, I actually gave her back the money for the time that I had skipped out. She did tell me how surprised and disappointed she had been that I, of all people, had done what I did. She accepted my apology and then something amazing happened. In England, unlike in the US, when you work for a company, they do your taxes for you. If your company has taken too much tax out of your wages, they will return it to you after taxes have been filed. Little did I know, they had overpaid for me. So after I handed over my pittance for short-changing her, my boss handed me a p...

NYC

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Sleeping on planes is always a challenging proposition and I’ve tried various different ways on all the different plane rides over the years. I never sleep sitting up. Lowering the seatback tray and laying my arms and head on it is a little better. The best results come from lying flat but that is usually the greatest challenge. First is the two-seat-by-the-window option. I can usually fit into smaller spaces but with this option you have to constantly watch that your limbs are out of harms way from the carts going up and down the aisle. Every once in a while you get more than two seats in the middle. You can get relatively good sleep on those seats but you still have to contort your body to avoid the base of the buckles digging into you. The one other option I have tried is not the most sanitary – on the floor. If you have at least three empty seats you can get enough space to stretch out a little. You still have to contort because the base of the seats in front stick back to get you....

A Wedding

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 20 – Hawaii, California, New York, London, New Zealand, Washington D.C., Florida Some of my long-term friends back on the Anastasis were graduating High School and invited me to attend. Samuel had arrived now but the wedding was rescheduled for the following month. My return ticket to Los Angeles was also going to expire if I didn’t use it. I had a little money from doing yards so I could buy another round-trip ticket to come back for the wedding. The ship was in San Francisco by this time so I flew back to L.A. and someone drove me up. The graduation festivities were held on the ship while it was sailing up the coast to Oregon. The weather didn’t cooperate as the seas were a bit rough. The sail also posed a bit of a problem for me as my flight back to Hawaii was back out of San Francisco. Fortunately, the Stephens family was driving back to Sacramento where Don’s sister lived. I caught a ride with them, stayed with his sister and someone gave me a ride to San Francisco. Looking b...