Thank God for power outages

This past weekend I got to go to the Northeastern (Brazil, that is) Women’s Conference.  Now I must start off with a confession.  The site was a bit more rustic than I was thinking it was going to be.  The hotel was called Agua Viva Beach Resort.  Let’s just say that their name was misleading to say the least.  What I should have been thinking was Camp.  It was very nice for Camp (indoor plumbing, showers, on the beach).  It was not very nice for “beach resort” (no hot water, big ol’ spiders, had to bring our own towels, didn’t get tops sheets until the second night).

It was a truly beautiful place, right on the water, plenty of gorgeous trees and plants around.  It did rain the whole time we were there, but for me this was fine.  I actually like the rain more than I like the sun.  I know, why do I live in Salvador, Brazil when I could live somewhere like Seattle.

But overall this conference was what all retreats should be—time to breathe deep.  I had time to step away from child care and husband care and church care and breathe deep.  I read, I worshipped, I laughed, I napped, I watched the rain and napped some more.

One of the more special moments came on the second evening as we were waiting for the doors to open and dinner to start being served.  The meal times where never very fast.  The kitchen wasn’t really set up to serve quickly the 287 women who were in attendance.  So usually we stood in line an hour or so before we could eat or wait til the line was gone and see what food was left.  Well on the second night we were very hungry and just as they opened the doors to the dining room the electricity in the whole place went out.  There we are standing in the complete dark.  After a moment or two someone started a song and then another and another.  All the women, instead of being frustrated, used their time in the darkness to praise God. 

This was cool enough in itself but then as the darkness continued I began to see something in the darkness.  At first I thought something was wrong with my eyes.  Because I suffer from migraines I often see flashes of light that aren’t there.  I called my intern over, “Do you see that, the little flashes.”  “Yes, I see them…I think it’s fireflies!”  Fireflies!  I grew up in California.  We don’t have fireflies there.  They are something I see in movies or hear about in other’s childhood memories.  But here at my “beach resort” with the electricity out I am watching fireflies dance in the moonlight.  I don’t think the other women noticed them, there weren’t very many of the little creatures.  But I stood there with bated breath waiting for the next little flash.  It was wonderful.  It was beautiful.  It was such a serendipitous moment, one of those “more than you could ask or imagine” moments.

Thank you God for power outages and thank that the very next night, right before dinner it happened again.