We had just finished a major event, and the boat was loaded with all ICEJ and Simul staff. I don’t know if I missed the boat (which was a fire nation boat from Avatar), or if I chose to swim along behind, but it was a long, exhausting swim across the ocean to the island of Nauru, where we were scheduled to have lunch with the king.

I arrived a bit after the boat, and was the last in line for lunch. By the time I made it up to the table, there wasn’t much food left. Ray was in charge of food distribution, and he stopped me when I got to the table. I was starving from my long swim, and impatient to eat, but it soon became apparent to me that he wasn’t going to let me eat until he was sure that everyone else had had their fill. I was angry to be treated that way, but there was enough for me in the end.

We sat for lunch at a large square of tables on a balcony overlooking the sea. The king was a skinny red headed young man with glasses. While we ate, he had us go around the room introducing ourselves and telling him where we were from. He pretended to know something about our home states and nations, but it was obvious that he’d never been off the island.

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Mom, Franklin and me, and Tom and Lisa were on vacation together. Tom was going from room to room looking for a VCR to borrow. Mom was in her bathroom, but started yelling at Tom when he went to use her VCR. They got in a huge fight.

Sinora and the kids came to town to visit. We were playing games that required us to dress up in costumes. Mostly, we were using Sinora’s wardrobe for the costumes. Sinora had recently had braces put on her teeth. They were the most massive, obvious braces I had ever seen.

Franklin and I had to go to the doctors office.  The nurse told me that I had to get a vaccine, and she made it sound like the most painful awful vaccine ever. She wouldn’t answer direct questions, but it seemed like it was going to be painful to get, and that it was going to make us feel sick. Boo hiss.

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I went to visit my friend who works at the American Embassy. It was a holiday, so none of her coworkers were around. For some reason I was barefoot, and had stepped in some blueberries before we went in. I tracked blue footprints all over the Embassy. The cleaning lady found us and yelled at us and made us help her clean it up. I was horribly embarrassed, but my friend was mad at the cleaning lady, and said that we shouldn’t have to do her job for her. Later, after we left the Embassy, the cleaning lady tracked us down to apologize.

I was on an escalator and came up to a traffic intersection. The traffic lights were out, and policemen were directing traffic. The policemen let every escalator lane go but ours. This happened for several cycles. I finally got mad and started yelling at one of the policemen, who yelled right back at me. Suddenly, the escalators and traffic lights started back up again, but now my escalator was moving the wrong way - away from the intersection. The policeman laughed at me, and I was furious.

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Franklin and I were swapping apartments with Adam and Bethany. Their apartment was on the edge of town, near the university (UNCC). I told Franklin that that would be good, because I’d see more of my dad, but that he needed to tell the Embassy that I’d be in the office a lot less. When we got to the apartment, we could see that it used to be an office. It was a quirky place, but we liked it.

There was a man who held a very low level job with a car manufacturer. The manufacturer made cars in Britain and America. This man noticed that some people had imported a British model (which wasn’t available in America). He thought that it would be a good idea for the manufacturer to make an American version of the British model, and he pitched the idea to his superiors. They loved it, put it into production, and it became a huge success. The man became very wealthy.

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We borrowed Lisa Rudiger’s Settlers of Catan game and decided that a good place to play it would be in the middle of the road.  We set up the board and played our game.  Then we had to go somewhere, so we decided to just leave the game out - we’d put it up when we got back.

In the car on the way back it began to snow heavily.  It was beautiful and we were all very excited.  Then we remembered that we’d left Lisa’s game out in the middle of the road - oh no!  Well, it was certainly ruined by now.  We made plans to order a new game online for Lisa, and have my mother bring it when she comes in a week or so.  In the mean time, we could let Lisa have our game.

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I was at Coresco alone late one night when a van pulled up outside, a couple of kids got out and began taking two small dead bodies out of the van and putting them in a ditch. As I called 911, one of the kids looked up and saw me. I completed the call, but too late remembered that the door was unlocked. A few of the kids came in. The leader was 10, and way tougher than any 10 year old should be. Turns out they were all brothers and sisters - 14 originally, now 12 with the death of 2 of the younger ones. We were at Coresco a long time before I realized that the cops weren’t coming. The 10 year old basically kidnapped me, and took me back to their house.

At first I was scared, but back at the house I was overwhelmed with sorrow and pity for these kids. Never in the history of man has there been a more disfunctional family. Dad (who was actually around) was the most useless, pathetic, weak person I’d ever met, and Mom (who wasn’t around anymore) had made no bones of the fact that she didn’t love any of her kids. Each kid had a wildly different problem. They seemed to be raising eachother. I saw one kid feed the baby with raw egg and a syringe, then throw her down on a bed for the night. It was explained to me that the baby never slept anyway. I went to the baby, changed her diaper, held and rocked her to sleep, and put her in a proper crib. Then I spent time with the oldest child, he was 16 or 17 and a disaster. He didn’t talk anymore. But when I sat down next to him, he actually told me what was bothering him. We had a great talk.

It was like that with all the kids, even the scary 10 year old - it was like they were actually dying for someone’s attention and love. All I had to do was care, and they completely fell apart. In the dream it was very clear that the Holy Spirit was helping them to open up, and helping me to know what to say.

I actually only got to spend time with the oldest few of the group before it was time for me to go home, but I had made plans to return and spend more time with them soon.

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