Diverging from Europe for the Moment

I heard yesterday that the huge oil refinery on St. Croix in the U. S. Virgin Islands was going to close within a month. My husband and I have had what I call, "a cosmic connection" with St. Croix for our entire marriage. It all began more than thirty-three years ago when we honeymooned on the island. My husband had been a paper boy for many years and worked some summer jobs and had saved most of his money and he chose to blow most of it on a very special honeymoon for us. We stayed at a hotel called Hotel on the Cay which was a very nice hotel on a tiny island sitting in the small harbor area of St. Croix. It had pools and little streams and beautiful landscaping with bridges to carry us across the water features. It was a very beautiful place.

You can see a small part of the huge refinery

 from this hill behind our house.

About four years later when Jon was working for Hercules, a chemical company that was an off-shoot of DuPont, he applied for and got the chance to work on St. Croix. Hercules was in a partnership with Hovensa, the name of the company that runs the refinery. Hercules built a small plant within the refinery to take a waste product of the refining process and use it to make useful items like polyester. Hercules employed two people to work at the plant, a plant manager and a finance guy, the rest were Hovensa employees. Jon was the finance manager. We moved down there with a four year old and a little baby. We moved into the company housing which was double wide trailers winding up a small hill with nice landscaping. We settled in and loved it.

Water Babies

We never would have considered this move if we had not honeymooned there and had some acquaintance with the island.











We purchased a small inflatable boat, a Zodiac, or as that baby, Benjamin, would call it when he got older, a "Modiac". We would take it out on most Saturdays and head to Buck Island, a small island about three miles off the coast of St. Croix, which was a tiny National Park. We would take hot dogs and baked beans, deviled eggs and brownies, charcoal and a hammock. Jon would pump the boat up with a foot pump and the two of us would drag it into the water, stow our gear and the children and head out. This is the place we called "our" beach because we would have it to ourselves. It had a long sandy beach, lots of trees for shade, picnic facilities and most importantly, a place to hang the hammock. You can just see, between the tree limbs, our zodiac anchored a little way out.

Jon enjoyed the beach and in a fantasy world I would have been a mermaid, so I spent the majority of the day snorkeling in the water. After a couple of years I was able to fulfill a long-time dream and get Scuba certified. Jon joined me so I'd have a diving partner and we added scuba diving to the pleasurable activities of our island life.

After being there less than a year we got a letter from a couple that had been Jon's youth leaders a few years previously. They were moving down to work in the refinery. We were happy to show them around and take them on our boat and to get to know them.







They introduced us to another young family they got to know and we became a trio of sorts. We socialized together, our kids played and grew up together and we discovered and joined an infant church together.








One of the first activities I joined when we arrived was a Bible study taught by three, then four wonderful missionary ladies. They ran a book ministry all up and down the islands from a home that was a converted chicken coop on an estate owned by a Christian family. We became good friends with them and I was happy to introduce the rest of the trio to them as well.



These were all small things at the time, but they would have a tremendous impact on our lives.

Jon's term on the island for Hercules ended and we were transferred back to the continent, as the islanders would say. We moved to cold Wisconsin, introduced that baby, now a kindergartner to snow, which he loved, and added another boy to our family. Jon went to school, got an MBA, got a new job, got another new job which meant a move to Indiana. So like the gypsies we are, we packed up, moved, and settled in again to a new community. I hated it there, had a breakdown, found the Lord in a completely new and deeper way, found healing, and loved it there.

 In all this time we maintained contact with our friends on St. Croix and one day we got a letter inviting us to join them in their ministry. We never would have even considered going if we had not lived there while Jon worked for Hercules. We never would have met these missionary friends nor known of their ministry. We prayed and wrestled and then knew that the Lord would have us go.

My world fell apart.

Nevertheless we packed a few things, left the house and things I loved and moved into the chicken coop. Within days the island was hit by a hurricane and I turned 40. It was incredibly hot in our little house with the corrugated tin roof. There were termites in the roof rafters and fire ants and stinging nettle in  the yard. The bed was uncomfortable and my back hurt. I hated it.

After many months spent in anger and unhappiness I found the Lord in a yet deeper level as he worked to grow me up some more. I learned to be grateful for things I didn't like and wouldn't choose. I learned to let go and surrender a lot of stuff that wasn't important. Then I was free to love it there and I did!

After three years the ministry closed rather suddenly. The board and the missionaries were aging. The youngest was just shy of 65 and the eldest was well into their 80's. The board decided to close the ministry and it was devastating all around. So we once again packed up our things, mailed them home in boxes, sold the rest and headed back to our house, which had been rented but which was now unoccupied. After a few months Jon found another job and we settled back into "normal" life.  But I left my heart on that dry, hot island.

The boys working on their hiking merit badge. Eventually
 they would hike all the way around the island.

This was the place where we had had some of the closest friendships we had ever experienced. That infant church we had attended years before had become a vibrant and mature church. It was here that I learned to really worship the Lord. It was here that other gifts emerged. It was here that so much happened for me spiritually. It was here that I met two women who would be intimate prayer partners with me. We would go through many trials together and be forged by that heat. It is a deep bond that continues to this day. It was here that Jon started a boy scout troop which produced the first Eagle Scout on the island in more than twenty years. That troop continues to this day and it is still producing young men of character and faith. They were incredibly rich years. That hot dry island has unbelievably rich spiritual soil.

Most of the people we know are employed directly or indirectly by the oil refinery. The private school our kids attended are funded by the tuition that Hovensa employees pay for their kids to attend. The refinery paid 60 million dollars in taxes each year and the employees, most of whom were locals, fueled the economy of the island. Hovensa built a hospital and helped draw doctors to it. Many of the people in our beloved church there were employed by Hovensa. The ripples from its closing will go on and on. We wonder what will happen to our friends and our church and our island.

My heart is very heavy.