Burned (3 page)

“How beautiful,” Bethany whispered to Malia and her mom. Then she felt someone gently touch her shoulder.

It was the little dark-haired girl who had run out of the church. She was clearly embarrassed, and her hand shook a little as she held out the old copy of
People
magazine. It was dog-eared and creased. The magazine was turned to a page that showed a picture of a slightly younger Bethany and a large shark being held up by a backhoe.

The girl pointed at the picture, and then pointed at Bethany.

Bethany smiled and nodded yes.

The girl beamed in delight and quickly burst in a rapid-fire conversation with some younger children behind her.

“She must've recognized you and then ran home to find the magazine article,” Malia said, sounding as touched as Bethany felt.

The children listened to the older girl and looked at Bethany with shy smiles.

“Big shark?” The girl said slowly. Bethany nodded and a thought suddenly came to her. She pointed toward the ceiling.

“Bigger God.”

The girl looked at Bethany for a long moment, considering this. Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and she beamed a brilliant smile at Bethany before turning to walk away with her little pack of followers.

Without warning, a small Casio keyboard started up and the congregation rose to their feet. The keyboard player stopped playing but the congregation took up the song and kept it flowing in a rich texture of harmonies.

I've never heard singing so beautiful,
Bethany thought and glanced to Malia and the rest of her family. They were clearly touched as well.

They tried to follow along but after a few feeble attempts at the Samoan language, they all were content to listen.

The Samoan church echoed with song after song of worship, each sung with gusto, the voices rising and falling like perfectly trained instruments.

After the singing, the pastor rose from a large velvet-covered chair that sat next to one of the pulpits. He was a large man with a coffee-bean color and a thick, heavyset body. By looking at him it was easy to imagine that in his youth he would have made a wonderful football lineman or rugby player — the sport favored in Samoa over American football.

He seemed to have a large heart as well.

Mounting the pulpit, he spoke to the congregation in Samoan and then, looking at the Hamilton family, he also spoke in accented but understandable English.

“And I want to say a welcome to our guests this morning,” he said. “I will try to explain in English the things I am speaking about in our language.”

The Hamiltons felt both honored and humbled by his generosity. They had merely intended on joining with other believers in a different land to see how they worshiped.

The pastor smiled and began his sermon, first in Samoan and then English. When he turned toward their group, Bethany felt as if he were preaching directly to her.

“We know that in all things God works together for the good of those who love him,” he began in a deep, rich voice. Bethany's eyes widened in surprise. The same Scripture she had thought of when she was praying! She leaned forward as he continued. “‘. . . who have been called according to his purpose.' Paul speaks this truth in the book of Romans. But what I would like you to ask yourself today and each day to come is, what is his purpose? I would like you to ask this even through the bad times. I say this because I have seen his great purpose revealed more in my struggles than in my triumphs.”

Bethany sat back in her seat as the pastor continued his sermon, thinking about his words. How many times since the shark attack had people — including her own parents — told her that God had saved her for a reason? From the moment the pastor spoke those words, she felt like everything screamed into sharp focus around her. She glanced at her parents and Malia, all intent on the sermon. Then she glanced around the room. She felt as if God were trying to tell her something —but she wasn't sure where to look for the answer.

What is your purpose for my life, God
? she silently asked.

The message came to a close, and the keyboard launched into the opening chords of a song that the congregation soared into with beauty.

The worship service ended, and Bethany's dad signaled for them to follow him out so they could acknowledge the kindness of the pastor.

At the door, the pastor greeted the Hamilton family and Malia warmly, introducing himself as Samuel.

“I would be honored to have you to my home for dinner while you are here in Salani,” Pastor Samuel announced with a beaming smile. Bethany grinned as he shook her dad's hand with almost as much gusto as Tagiilima.

“We
would be honored,” Tom said earnestly.

“Wonderful! I will send someone to the camp to guide you to my house tomorrow evening!”

Bethany and Malia decided to lag behind and explore the village while the rest of the Hamilton crew headed back for camp. As they followed the little winding road through town, the girls quickly picked up a small following of children and a couple of scruffy dogs. The children eventually led them to a small stand where they could buy ice cream.

“Thanks for the tip on the ice cream!” Bethany called out to the kids as she and Malia chomped into the cool ice-cream bars. Bethany and Malia continued their journey through town without the children.

The girls could see inside many of the homes, and they marveled at the simple lifestyle of these people. It was apparent that they had little in the way of material possessions, but the homes were neat and clean, and their occupants happily greeted them as they walked by.

Bethany spotted one of Pastor Samuel's children and waved to the girl as she was going into her home.

“Must be where Pastor Samuel lives.”

“Yeah,” Malia took a bite of ice cream and leaned forward and squinted her eyes. “What do you think that is in the middle of his fale?”

Bethany peered through the holes in the decorative concrete blocks that made up the small wall around the fale. She could just make out a large woven mat in its center, decorated with red and pink feathers around the edges.

And, of course, it was hard not to miss the
body
under the mat.

All they could see were the large hands and feet sticking out . . . and that one of the feet was missing a big toe. Whoever it was remained still as a stone. There was nobody else in sight.

“You think that's Pastor Samuel under there?” Bethany whispered.

“I don't know,” Malia whispered back.

Bethany took another bite of ice cream, trying to decide what they should do — if anything. For a moment, she'd felt like she was either going to break into hysterical laughter or faint. Until she noticed the person was breathing. The mat rose and fell slightly each time the hidden man took a breath. She and Malia had seen a lot of unusual things, but nothing as strange as this.

Bethany looked at her friend. “The girls back home are never going to believe this, you know.”

“Yeah,” Malia nodded distractedly as she bit into her ice cream.

Bethany grinned and held up her cell phone. “Unless we have a picture!”

“I don't know.” Malia frowned. “It seems kind of private.”

“True,” Bethany said, momentarily contrite, then she grinned mischievously. “How about just the missing big toe?”

“No!” Malia laughed. “You're as bad as Tim.”

“Oh, really?” Bethany said, moving in on Malia with her cell phone. “Well then, how about a picture of you? I bet everyone would love to see that chocolate all over your face!”

Laughing and chasing each other, the girls finally wound their way back to the surf camp where they found Tim sitting at the bar, his mouth around a huge sandwich while he watched a surf movie. Clint looked up from the T-shirts he'd been folding.

“Hi, girls,” he said with a smile, then he glanced sideways at Tim. “There's still some lunch to be had if you can get to it before Tim does.”

Lunch was a salad bar with a do-it-yourself sandwich station. Bethany loaded up on salad while Malia made herself a giant sandwich that was only outdone by the monster Tim had created for himself.

“Have a nice walkabout?” Clint asked as they settled back at the bar.

“Yeah, it was fun for us to hang out together,” Bethany said. “Except we saw something really weird.”

“Way weird,” Malia added.

“That being?”

“Some guy — or at least I think it was a guy —was on the ground with a big woven mat over his body on the fale at Pastor Samuel's house. But nobody was around.”

“Ah,” Clint said knowingly, “you just witnessed something really unique.”

“What?” Bethany said, leaning forward.

“It's a repentance mat,” Clint said, glancing between the two girls.

“What's that?” Malia asked.

“Well, here in Samoa if someone does something wrong, they haven't just hurt themselves or the person they wronged — they've hurt the whole village. When this happens, the person gets a chance to turn things around. If the person won't repent, he or she is kicked out of the village and can't come back. And because the villages are so interconnected, this person won't be taken in by any of them. He or she truly becomes a homeless person.”

“What happens if he does say he's sorry?” Bethany asked, feeling a wave of guilt for making fun of something she had no idea about.

“If a person says he's sorry, he is expected to show it by going to the home of the chief or pastor to ask for the repentance mat,” Clint continued. “The wrongdoer is put in the middle of the fale and the mat is spread over him. At that point, while he is covered up, anyone who has a grievance with that person can come into the fale and confront the person under the mat.”

“What do you mean?” Malia said, exchanging a wide-eyed stare with Bethany.

“I mean they can yell at the person, give him a swift kick, or smack him with their hands . . . without that person knowing who is doing it.”

“Whoa!” Tim piped in and then turned back to his movie.

“Now, here's the clincher,” Clint explained, leaning over the bar toward the girls. “The wrongdoer has to stay under that mat until the chief decides that he or she has shown repentance. It could be hours, or it could be
days.
But when the time comes and the chief finally lifts the repentance mat off the person, well, that's it! It's all over and done with. Nobody can give that person a hard time or hold a grudge. The person is forgiven, restored, and can return to the village like a new man or woman.”

“That's so wild,” Bethany said, taking a bite of salad.

“I can think of two people that need to go under that mat,” Tim said suddenly, tearing his eyes away from the TV long enough to tease Bethany and Malia.

“Yeah? Well, you should be first in line,” Bethany shot back with a grin. “Malia and I wouldn't have to worry after that; we'd be old and gray before the mat got lifted off of you!”

After lunch, Bethany and Malia headed back to their fale to prepare their surfboards for the days to come. Since traveling surfers remove the fins from their boards before putting them into the board bag, they needed to screw them back on, attach their leashes, and make sure there had been no damage to them during shipping.

The familiar crunch of gravel caused Bethany to look up from her board. “Tagiilima!” she yelled as she pulled Malia along to greet her new friend.

The Samoan stopped the van and leaned out the window as the girls approached. “Good morning, Miss Bethany and Miss Malia!” he said with genuine warmth.

“We went to church in Salani today,” Bethany said. “It was really cool — I looked for you there — ”

“I don't go today,” Tagiilima said with a tight look around his eyes as he tried to smile. He patted Bethany's hand. “I must go now. Drop van to Mr. Clint.”

“I wonder what's wrong,” Bethany said worriedly as she watched Tagiilima swing the van in next to the dining area and step out, his huge shoulders hunched over like he was carrying the world on them.

“He seemed okay to me,” Malia shrugged. “Just kind of quiet.”

“I don't know, Malia. His eyes looked so . . . sad. And he is such a nice person.” Bethany frowned. “I hope that Liam guy didn't give him any trouble after we left.”

The girls glanced to the center of camp where Noah and Tim were engrossed in a game of volleyball with Liam's cousins Del and Hank. Tim had told them that the older boys' uncle offered to pay for half of their trip, if they brought Liam with them. They liked Liam but they were getting tired of babysitting him. And really tired of his outbursts.

Liam, by the way, was nowhere to be found.

three

Dawn bubbled up from behind the velvet green mountains as Bethany slid from her bed and stood over Malia's sleeping form. The air was still, hot, and muggy. The little wobbly fan had been working overtime to keep them cool all night long. Not that Malia seemed to notice, Bethany thought with a grin. She swatted her friend with a pillow.

“Wake up! Let's get something to eat and get going!”

Malia groaned in response and rolled over.

“Suit yourself,” Bethany grinned again. “I'll just go surfing without you.”

“Okay, okay,” Malia said from under the pillow. “Give me a minute.”

Bethany chuckled as she went out to the porch of the fale and started to stretch. She knew that taking the time to condition her muscles would help her stamina and looseness in the water.

As she stretched, she watched the sun spread across the sky like a watercolor, faint at first and then with a concentrated brilliance. A psalm she had read came to mind. She could only remember bits of it . . . something like “God, my God how great you are! Beautifully, gloriously robed, dressed up in sunshine.”

She paused in her stretching. Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming sense of God's majesty as awe for all he created washed over her. She drank in the towering mountains and lush green landscape. Sometimes she was amazed beyond words when she looked around at all he created.