Basalt cliffs and trees on the North Shore of Oahu
When we tell others that we are serving a mission in Hawaii, the immediate response is, “Oh, that sounds fun, more like a vacation”. In truth, even to ourselves at times, it almost seems too good to be true. Throughout my life Hawaii was always the preeminent vacation destination: white sandy beaches, palm trees blowing in a gentle breeze, the smell of tropical flowers, and the taste of fresh pineapple. I remember writing a report in grade school about Hawaii. It was the first time I had studied the island nation. I had romantic visions of the volcanic origins and its native inhabitants. It was a land so far away and different than anything I could imagine at the time. I visited Hawaii as a teenager. We went there on a family vacation and stayed for almost two weeks. We did all the things a traveler would do back in the 1970’s. I even had a surfing lesson, although I never succeeded in standing upright on my surfboard. Later in life, I returned to Oahu and spent a summer working at the Polynesian Cultural Center as a lighting designer in the Pacific Theatre. I was hired to light the show, Horizons. It was 1995, and I spent almost an entire summer on the island.
I would guess that most people who travel to Hawaii only spend one or two weeks before returning to the mainland, the sole purpose of the trip being to “vacation”. I think it is built into our psyche to accept that the purpose of those islands is to vacation, much like a visit to Disneyland, or to any other resort. When I spent my summer there and I broke the two-week threshold, I began falling into routines that patterned my everyday life at home. Some of the newness wore away and I stopped feeling like I was on holiday. I had work to do, and sometimes my work seemed as difficult or even harder than at home. And I was no longer on “vacation”.
We will be living in Laie Hawaii for 23 months. It will become our home. When we submitted our application to serve a mission, it was never with the intent to go on vacation. We would have gone anywhere in the world and committed to any number of mission duties. It just so happened that the Polynesian Cultural Center was looking for a Theatre and Lighting Specialist, something I had done throughout my life as a career. I am grateful to once again apply the skills I practiced for nearly 45 years of my life. The show currently running has years of life left in it. I am not going to help create a new production. I suspect my time in Hawaii will be spent in some sort of mentoring capacity, helping the employees and students who work at the Center better understand the art and craft of theatre. More importantly I will be a missionary. As such, I hope my roll will involve much more of an intimate relationship with those whom I cross paths. I will be commissioned to bear witness of Jesus Christ in all my daily tasks of life. I think I will take upon me the admonition of Isaiah, to “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees” (Isaiah 35:3). In my case, I’ll be looking for opportunities to serve within my circle of influence within the theatre world. I may find those who need a friendly smile and a kind word among the cast and crew backstage, or it could be a visiting patron. No doubt the Lord may place someone in my path at any given moment of the day, from attending church on Sundays to shopping for groceries on our preparation day. The opportunities could be infinite. It’s the mindset that I have to adopt.
Lastly, it has been my experience that being in the service of God has never been easy. Every venture time when I have applied my talents and skillset to churchwork has been met with the greatest trials of my life. It’s almost as if God expects I make an appropriate sacrifice to complete the work and receive His blessings. There is a sanctification process I must pass through when engaged in the work of the Lord. So often in life I have found these times the hardest and most painful passages I’ve ever walked. They were the times I felt my soul about to tear within me. I am brought to tears, and I see my flaws and weaknesses. But along with that comes the growth and the increase of knowledge and wisdom. I’ve said a thousand times after passing through such a trial, “though I would never choose to go through that again, I would never trade the experience away for anything in the world.” I expect our mission to be hard. I hope it to be hard because I want to grow. I think I would be sad if I came home in two years refreshed from the “vacation”, but essentially the same person I was before I left. I want to be a better person. I want my Heavenly Father to teach me in a personal manner, which only comes through service in His workforce. I want to strengthen someone whose hands might be weak, or who stumbles because of feeble knees. I want the soles of my shoes worn out in His service.
For all who think we are on vacation, consider what we leave behind: leisure time with friends and family, daily activities at our choosing, the comforts of our own home, and the gentle life of retirement. We trade that all away to serve a mission at our own expense on a distant island in the South Pacific. What do we get out of it? We’ll know in two years. When I served my first mission in 1977-79, a member of my home congregation wrote to me soon after I arrived in Italy. She said, “Don’t go out seeking blessings for Michael Handley; go out solely for the purpose of serving someone else and you will be richly blessed”. Thank you LeVey Call for that reminder. It is our intention to lose ourselves in the work, whatever that may be and with whomever we find ourselves with.