Today … nay, tonight, I am honored to be sitting next to and to be conversing with the great and wonderful Sterling the Stellar. This week alone, he has sung Japanese ballads with a voice that makes cherubim cry; he has bested Alex Bolaños in an epic duel spanning galaxies and placed him into an unbreakable headlock; he has made world news with exclusive photos of his studly biceps and finely-chiseled abs; and he has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword. Yes, I am indeed blessed to be breathing the same air as he.
This is Sterling now… yes I did do all those fantastic things. Yet still, I remain truly humble. In fact, I am the most humble person on the island. However, I must admit that I am also quite honored to be seated next to the great and much spoken of Alex. His fame requires no introduction. With eyes that can make a lion bow in submission and melt the heart of many young ladies, he stands as the paragon of manliness with arms as big as redwoods and vocabulary so wise and smooth he could make an alligator cry. Yes Alex is stupendous.
Introductions aside, hullo. I don’t know what to write, so I’ll let Sterling go.
We seem to babble on and on. So, to keep you from losing interest, I will now list the things that his blog will be about.
Scott arriving in his short shorts
High school Picnic
Elementary Sports day
Our yearbook
Our prison visits
Ok first off, our good friend Scott Wilson arrived about the second week back from break. He didn’t tell anyone what plane he was on so we just guessed when to go to the airport. It really wasn’t too hard because there’s only around two planes from the states a week. He was the very last person out of customs because he forgot to fill out his forms on the plane. The principal mistook him for a girl because of his long feminine hair. He was also wearing very, very short yellow shorts. Scott is very talented at making good first impressions. Alex and I brought our airsoft guns to the airport and welcomed him in true friendly fashion by giving him some welts that lasted for about three weeks. It’s awesome to have him here though. He’s teaching 8th grade and seems to be falling into it quite well. We asked him for a quote and he said, “I don’t know what’s cool to say. I’ve never been quoted before really.”
Oy. This is Alex now. Indeed, we were glad that Scott came. He arrived with first-impression short shorts; we met him with welcome welts.
Lately, I’ve been finding out more and more about my students. Or, more specifically, their home life conditions. Many of my students come from less-than-ideal backgrounds. They volunteer their stories to me without any prompting. I hear of multiple marriages, physical abuses, substance abuses, attempted murders, and most recently, suicide threats. Teaching eighteen students, most of which are educationally and developmentally behind, is hard enough without so many added negative factors. Please pray for my class, as many have trouble in the classroom as well as out of it.
On another, happier note, we’ve had a couple of successful school functions recently. Firstly, grades K-4 had an elementary sports day. One day, all day, we had games and activities for around sixty children. It was a taxing ordeal. Some of us ended the day both sunburned and ‘burnt out.’ However, despite the stresses, it was a fun day for both teachers and students. The second school activity (and the last one, as I can’t recall any others) was a high school picnic held yesterday (Sunday). I don’t feel like writing much about it, so I’ll just tell you that it was fun and nothing went wrong.
Also, Aila finally got her hands on a video of the Elementary Christmas program done in December. We were super stoked as we watched our kids sing (and misbehave) up front as we led them.
This is Sterling again. Over break, the board of trustees at La Sierra gave us a gift be used in whatever Alex and I thought would best help the students here. We decided to make a yearbook for the school which hasn’t had one in about 4 years. We’re not entirely sure how we’ll get it done yet but we’ve put together a team and have begun the process.
The last thing we want to talk about is our visits to the prison. Over these last months, Alex and I have been talking a lot about what it means to really take Jesus up on his offers of a new life and how to walk in his footsteps. Along with the other SMs, we began thinking about the ways that we handled ourselves after Kirsten’s death. Alex and I felt that when Jesus asked forgiveness for the men who crucified him, he also gave us a challenge to forgive those who have hurt us. Not really knowing how to go about these sorts of things, we borrowed a car and drove to the police station. There we kind of sheepishly asked to talk to whoever was in charge of the jail. We were led to a back room and then spoke with the boss’s secretary. We asked if it was possible for us to meet with Justin, the man arrested after Kirsten’s death. We were informed that not even family was allowed to see him. But I guess we were politely persistent enough that they eventually took down our phone number and said they’d call us. Two weeks passed and we didn’t hear anything from the jail. Finally we manned up and called them. They again took our number and said they’d call us back. However, this time they called the next day and told us we could come! I’ll let Alex finish the story.
On the following Sunday, Sterling and I headed over to the police station to finally visit Justin. After we arrived, they had us sit down in one of the roughshod visiting booths as they went to get Justin. Not surprisingly, Justin didn’t want to see us. We left him some cookies, soap, and a towel, which they said would be delivered to him. This was surprising, since earlier we were flatly denied both seeing him and leaving him anything. God really opened doors for us. On Thursday of that same week, we left him a pithy letter and some chocolate bread.
Yesterday (Sunday), we again went to the prison. This time, Justin agreed to meet us. We sat in the booth and watched as a young man, chained hand-and-foot, shuffled up to the other side of the glass. So started our first visit with Justin. I’ll let Sterling take the reins.
Justin looked young. His hair was trimmed as well as a his beard. I don’t know why I remember this but his shirt was inside out. His fingernails were long. When I saw him, I was struck with the feeling that there was no life left in his eyes. He talked quietly and rarely looked us in the eyes. We spoke through a glass window and it was pretty hard to hear him. I didn’t know what to say so I think I asked him twice how he was feeling. We talked for a bit about his childhood and then we talked about life at the prison. Over and over, he kept saying how sorry he was. We told him we forgave him and told him about a God who promises to forgive us. We prayed twice with him and asked if we could bring him a Bible. He told us that he had read our earlier letter and had said to himself that at least now he had two friends. I don’t really know what else to say. We’ll be trying to meet with him as regularly as possible. Alex wants say some stuff to end our post now.
Alex here. In the recent weeks after Kirsten was murdered, we heard many and mixed reports about Justin and some awful things happening to him. [Edit: Some content removed.] Even in the face of tragedy, even if we are affected by terrible acts, even when the most despicable sins fall at our feet, we need to keep our heads. This is only easy to say, of course. However, what I hear disgusts me. Don’t fight fire with fire. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Pick your cliché. God calls us to be above the rest. As believers and supposed followers of Him, we need to ask ourselves:
In the face of this blatant, inhumane mistreatment, who is the real criminal?
Sterling and I saw a man who may be feeling more pain and emotion than anything I could imagine. What saddened me during our visit was not the fact that a man murdered Kirsten, but the fact that a man is seen and treated as less than human.
