The First Week (and a recipe for hot chocolate that goes straight to your head )

Barnabas primps for the Luau

I have been in Isla Vista for one week and if I don’t stop to sketch out the scene for you, I’m afraid I’ll never get back to it. These days have been full of peace and delight by the grace of God.

I’ve been moving into my room in installments because I didn’t want my first few days to be sucked up by organization when I should be busy building relationships. But it’s also because I don’t like chaos and we don’t have all the furniture in our room that we hope to have and there’s simply no room for everything. My only goal for the first day was to get everything out of the car-topper and get it off my car which, if you saw the contents of that car-topper you know, was still pretty ambitious. However, when I told Ken my goal he proceeded to load himself down like a burro and almost single handedly carried the entire contents upstairs in one trip. No I’m serious, one trip. Anyone who saw that thing knows that’s impossible. Nevertheless. I was quickly finished unpacking and free to attend the first house meeting at 5:30.

First the girls in my apartment met upstairs to discuss logistics and then we went downstairs to join the guys and we had a time of prayer and sharing about what the Lord had been doing the past week. Afterwards the brothers, spearheaded by Brandon (who is from Delaware by way of North Carolina) made dinner for us while I organized myself upstairs. Abby and I did dishes and talked and then I realized I needed to think about sleeping arrangements. Two brothers had just finished building bunk beds for Tiffany and I but the job wasn’t quite finished so at midnight Keegan was wielding a drill and carrying mattresses upstairs, trying to get my princess-and-the-pea bunk bed sea-worthy. We tried a box spring but that raised the bed to the level where a deep breath knocked off ceiling crumbs and turning over was impossible, so we settled for plywood instead. Now, the question of how the girl was supposed to actually get into the bed???? After a few stunts involving desks and window ledges we settled on a 5 ft metal stepladder.

The next few days are kind of a blur. I had a few significant job interviews. They all seemed to go well but so far nothing has come of them so am still sending out resumes.

Thursday night I came home from a prayer meeting and there was a pie in the oven, and no one awake in the house.

Friday there was ash falling from the sky, covering cars and balconies and a brown smoky cloud covering the area due to the Zaka fire in the Santa Ynez valley that has burned something like 30,000 acres over the past couple months. Homes and businesses were even being evacuated.

I went rock wall climbing at UCSB with Jon and then we played soccer in the street. I came upstairs to get water and walked in on Leslie and Lisi dancing on the tops of furniture and laughing, laughing, laughing. Leslie bakes mystery foods full of natural ingredients she gets for free from the food coop and organic garden where she works and pieces together extravagant bouquets from flowers she collects “along the street,” but which I suspect come at least in part from other people’s yards. Last year she lived in a tent with her cat in the middle of a bamboo forest and on hot, sunny, California days she makes hot chocolate to satisfy my cravings.

Leslie’s Hot Chocolate Recipe

Raw Cacao powder
Raw Goji Cacao Agave Nectar (the cactus tequila comes from)
Chili Powder (you could use black or cayenne pepper)
Vanilla
Milk
Cinnamon
Ginger

WARNING: It goes straight to the head.

On Saturday a rat ate my cantaloupe. On Sunday we baited him with an apple core and this morning he lies dead in our electric rat-trap waiting for some brave soul to take him to the dumpster.

I went to the Fiesta downtown and saw Spanish dancers. I buzzed a boy’s head for the first time. I went to a luau and danced. I walked home barefoot from the beach because my feet were covered with tar and ended up with feet covered with tar and blisters. I dove into some of the nastiest ocean water I’ve ever seen, got tangled in kelp and covered with dirt, but somehow came up refreshed and invigorated. I was violated by a neighbor who felt the need to change clothes in front of an open window. There have been no less than seven community meals in the last 8 days, apart from the normal ins and outs of people all day long and many of them take place in our apartment, or at least on the property. I spend a lot of time doing dishes lately.

Many people are out of town or not here yet so the houses are comparatively peaceful and the neighborhood is pretty quiet, except when there are parties going until 2 or 3 am, which is about three nights a week. In the morning things are oddly abandoned feeling, very quiet, but at night you can hear three different stereos blasting at once, drunken girls squealing, guys guffawing and playing beer pong, people arguing. On Saturday night the Lord called Leslie and I to go walk Del Playa. The street itself smelled like beer and sweat. I met a guy named Isaiah who was so drunk he could not stand or open his eyes. We also met a young man named Forrest who’d lost his friends, didn’t know anyone and was clearly bored with the scene. He invited us to come up to his apartment for a beer. Instead we invited him to walk with us and we got to know him and invited him over for community dinner Monday night. Unfortunately, he didn’t come. We also learned that our neighbor was having his twenty-first birthday party so we took him leftover cake from the luau and spent some time over there meeting them and their girlfriends. They’ve been invited to dinner a number of times but also have not come.

There is such a false sense of fullness in this place and on the other hand impatient carnality rules the day. There is a kind of spiritual sedative in the air which constantly whispers “It can wait . . . It can wait . . . You have time . . . ” At the same time young people here have been given permission, indeed encouragement, to actively pursue the immediate gratification of every physical, fleshly whim. And many do. Everywhere I look, I see people walking around as prey or predators whose only thought is how to become the most desirable prey around or what they can fill themselves with today. The deceit and shamelessness that result are painful to witness.

Sunday’s meeting was about being the eyes, the hands, and the feet of Jesus. I am asking the Lord to give me his eyes for my neighbors, to see them as He sees them. I am asking for wisdom and boldness to take the gospel of peace everywhere I go, the ability to discern spirits and pray effectively. I am asking for the Lord to bring His Kingdom, to reign in me, to move through me.

The houses in general are full of excitement and faith for the year and what the Lord will do among and through us. There is a strong desire for unity in the body, both in this fellowship and with other fellowships in the area. We are a pretty motley crew, many newly saved out of broken lives and homes, some battling addiction or sexual sin, or religious pride. Nevertheless, each one has determined to give themselves over to the loving hand and discipline of the Lord Jesus. And He is able to save to the uttermost.

Sunday night Jon returns from a wedding up north. Even though he enjoyed being with his friends, he says all day he’d just been looking forward to coming home. He settles into the white cushions of our couch and plays us to the edge of sleep, then falls asleep himself while Leslie and I do dishes and discuss what it means to “be a woman.” I cover him with a blanket, turn out a light, and head to my room. About an hour later I hear the front door close as he heads downstairs to bed.