Peace

Last week I had attended a peace benefit with dear family and friends. At a single adult conference on May 1 I had been moved by Ema Billings's work for peace with Israeli and Palestinian children. I felt I wanted to do something to help, so I volunteered to sell 11 tickets for a peace benefit she was helping to organize.

Eleven was the number of tickets she had on hand. I had excitedly thought, "Sure, no problem! Everyone will want to buy at least one ticket and support world peace!" (I totally felt like Miss America) LOLOL I was sadly mistaken. LOLOL She gave me the tickets on May 1, and by mid-May I had only sold four. Three for my sister and me and one for my cousin Lil. It was not that people did not want to help, but there was just too much going on in their lives at that time.

The benefit was on May 21 so I thought to myself, "Who can I turn to for support and understanding. Who would be interested in purchasing tickets for a peace benefit out in town?" I stopped by my good friend and sister's house Debbie (Crash Test Dummy Diaries) and told her about it. She said it sounded good and would get back to me. I thought, cool, hopefully she wants one :) Later she bought two just to support me because she would not be able to make the concert. I was so touched and thankful. I called my brother Eteru and told him about it. He bought two, one for him and one for his wife. Again I felt so thankful. I called my dear friend and sister Lisa and she bought one, and a good friend from work, Juliana, bought one. By the time I was done I had sold a total of 10! :D Yes I was beaming and bursting with gratitude!

We decided to make it an evening together. After the benefit, we would go to MAC 24-7 for dinner. The benefit was good fun. One of my most favorite if not the most favorite auntie in my life was performing with the Nani Laie Serenaders, my Auntie Tino.


Auntie Tino / Nani Laie Serenaders! :)

Other performances were very nice and a local man, Terry Moea'i, was the best emcee! An Israeli peace practitioner, Elad Vazana, spoke about peace. Basically, we all have walls and wear masks. When we strip these away and our true souls meet, we realize we can be friends and live in peace. I really enjoyed those thoughts.



What made the benefit even more fun is that we won like half of the door prizes :) Okay not half, more like one third :) Each of us got to take something home. It was pretty funny and cool. The emcee was like.... no more prizes for the first row! :) Oh yeah, we had good seats too! :) What was really funny was that the emcee was the one drawing the numbers. He is from Laie and everyone he was drawing seemed to be from Laie too :) It was hillarious!

After the benefit, we went to eat at MAC 24-7. I just have two words to say, "Never Again!" The food was mediocre, but the service was what clinched the "Never Again!" pledge. Very very poor poor service! The company on the other hand was superb! Despite the poor food and very bad service I enjoyed the time I got to spend with my dear family. We hadn't seen each other since November 2007 before Eteru went out to Iraq. At that time we had all met to have a farewell dinner for him, so it was really very nice to all meet up and share an evening together.



The ride home was long. We got home at 1:30 am and we had to get up and ready for work at 5:30 am. Phew! That was hard to do, but so worth it! I look forward to more opportunities in my life to promote Peace! For Everyone! :)