What a great day!

Today was by far the best Easter that I’ve had in years. I work with a lot of military folks and one of the Air Force guys is originally from the Fiji islands. On his deployment here he made friends with all of the local Fijian contract truck drivers, a great bunch of guys.

The first church I attended when I moved to the U.S. at 19 was a congregation made up of 80% Polynesians, and I will say again and again that there is not a nicer bunch of people on the planet as the “people on the sea”.

My Fijian friend here mentioned to his boss that they were looking for a pig to have a Luau with before they all parted ways. It just so happened that the Air Force was putting the finishing touches on their new “Port Palace” recreation shack here on the airfield and they were looking for a cool way to break it in. One thing lead to another and the Air Force ended up flying a 120 lb pig into Balad from Ramstein strapped down on a gurney. After an eventful night of roasting the pig, with a convenient 0300 interruption by the local fire department putting out the fire and half of the barbecue team with a fire hose because of a big misunderstanding, our Easter bash was off!

Being a healthy adult male, I love good food, and this food was absolutely amazing. The best part however was just being around islanders again; so friendly and full of fun, 40 or 50 year old men without a hint of childishness but with the innocence of children. The Air Force chaplain came and blessed the food and then the Fijian guys sang a couple of songs in their language. Islanders have this weird innate ability to sing in the most beautiful harmony that I’ve ever heard. It’s not the exaggerated harmony of barbershop or the smooth harmony of R&B, it’s completely natural sounding and to me at least, the most beautiful form of a capella there is. It was pretty amazing to see a pretty random mix of gnarly convoy truck drivers just get to together and sing so beautifully that it brought tears to a lot of the round-eyes in attendance.

Afterwards their bus was late to take them back to their own camp so I got one of the Air Force girls to give us all a ride in her van. Upon arriving they treated her to her own song right outside the walls to their camp. As they started singing people started to gather and watch, mostly Pakistani subcontractors. They were all quite moved by hearing them as well.

It didn’t strike me until afterwards what made me like being around these guys so much, but it was that they were so unabashedly yet naturally spiritual. Not the in-your-face brother be healed kind of spiritual, but to them, it was just as natural as breathing to give praise and thanks to the Lord for what they have. One of my Macedonian guys used to ride on convoys with them and he told me that before every trip outside the wire, the Fijians would gather together and say a prayer and sing a beautiful song together. I asked one of them about it and he told me that they have to do something to take their minds off of the danger that they’re about to face and what better way to do it than to ask for protection and give thanks. If we had more people like these guys in the world, what a place it would be...

Pics and maybe a video tomorrow.