Bearing Fruit Part 1

     As Christians we are called to bear good fruit for the Lord. We are inundated with horror stories of unprolific branches; pruned and left to wither and be burned along with the chaff (a fate as bleak as Shaun White's without his hair). Being forsaken for one season without fruiting seems harsh, dare i say, evil? Maybe that year just wasn't advantageous for your type of produce. How can we serve a God who is so eager to dispose of us the instant we become barren? We can't.


     i love coconuts and analogies, so when i concocted this coconut correlation, i was beyond thrilled. Recently i've struggled with the concept of "falling out of God's favor". i understand grace, forgiveness, and second (third, fourth, fifth, sixth, etc.) chances, but none of that aids my comprehension of the concept of how easily we can become a Christmas gift on the 26th with one slip.

     The outward appearance of this tree is striking. It's nearly twice as tall as the surrounding trees, is overproducing plump clumps of fruit, and the subtle arch is reminiscent of the coconut trees leaning over a sandy beach on your July calendar photo. Every part of this tree screams GOOD FRUIT, yet the tree goes unharvested. This coconut tree stands tall and winding at the end of our basketball court. It's a beautiful, moss covered tree prominently rising above the outskirts of the taro plantation. As i sat under a smaller palm's shade, chewing on sugar cane and watching the students play an uninteresting and highly defensive game of capture the flag, my eyes meandered to the majestic monstrosity of the matriarchal tree. It was heavy laden with bunches of perfectly aged nu. My coconut craving kicked in, and without hesitation i headed to the tree. Before i could stand up, teacher Ben stopped me, "no good no good." (okay, this is a direct quote. For some reason Ben likes saying "no good no good" as if he doesn't know how to speak proper English even though he IS fluent). Why was this tree no good?

To be continued....... tomorrow




Updates: Many updates, many changes. we have new people, new buildings, new appliances, and new anxieties. Sam Robinson and his wife are here for 3 months to remodel and redesign our campus. They brought a contractor and his wife and a kid from Guam to help. River's dad is also here for the week. Sam has built a new "mechanics shop"/barn/store house in the back lot (he also made the back lot. 50+ dump truck loads at $130/load).  He is about to begin raising a second building for classrooms while remodeling the old building as apartments, library, and main office. Thousands of dollars of materials are sitting outside; unlocked, making me paranoid. My personal revised schedule: school 8-2, work 2-4, play hard (surf, swim, hike, etc.) 4-dark, dinner ?-?. We are re-exploring the island with Lawrence (kid from Guam) and River's dad; its fun.Vegetables do wonders for the digestive system (more expensive to eat, but so worth it). Speaking of, my kids are enamored with the digestive system, especially the bladder (apparently its a weird that you have a balloon filled with water in your body, but its perfectly normal to have a big tube filled with poop?). Thanks to Matt Aitken for the external drives filled with goodies :)


Check back tomorrow-ish for the final part of the story,

Tyler