In 2012, I accepted a job as legal counsel for the judiciary in Palau, a small island nation in the equatorial Pacific. I had graduated from law school the year before and the legal job market was still in the toilet after the 2008 financial crisis. So, even though I had never even heard of Palau, let alone set foot in that part of the world, I was ecstatic to have a (very low-paying) job in the tropics.
The entire population of Palau is fewer than 20,000 people, and they are spread over eight islands. The island where my apartment sat was about 1 square mile in size. It was connected by a long causeway to the island where my office was — the most populated island, barely larger than the one where I lived.
On my first Sunday in Palau, I discovered there was a small congregation, called a branch, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the country. This period of my life was near the end of my church activity, but I was still a Bible-thumper, so I was thrilled to find out there were fellow members in town, and I dutifully showed up in my Sunday best for the 11 a.m. service.
Minutes after I walked into the small plain building where we would have sacrament meeting, an 8-year-old Palauan boy asked if I was a lawyer. I said yes and asked how he guessed. He looked down at my feet and said, “because you’re wearing shoes.” I would spend the next 12 months exclusively wearing sandals like everyone else, doing my best to blend in.
A week later, I was asked to serve as Young Men president for the seven teenage boys who came to church. Before my arrival, the exhausted branch president had been filling this spot as well as several others. I was 28 years old and felt unequipped, but I agreed to do it.
Palau is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. The hundreds of thick jungled islands are surrounded by miles of vibrant coral reef and water the temperature of a comfortable bath. Every morning, I’d step onto the balcony of my apartment and look over a bay below and wonder how this place could possibly be real. And, yet, this was a hard year for me.
(Eli McCann) Photo of Palau from Eli McCann's apartment balcony.
The isolation of small-town living on a relatively inaccessible island with spotty and expensive internet access and almost no air conditioning was new to me. I was also a terrified closeted gay man and struggling with what I now realize was a painful faith crisis, thousands of miles away from family and friends, who were all living their lives on the opposite side of the world. To put it mildly, I was severely depressed.
Answering the call
Considering some of that, it might surprise people to hear that serving as Young Men president was perhaps the most grounding and comforting aspect of my life at that time. Because the branch was small and many callings were not filled, we usually combined the Young Women and Young Men groups for activities and classes. I would spend hours every week with these teens, who were hilarious and kind and entertaining in all the ways teens all over the world can be.
I referred to them as “the church kids” to my non-Latter-day-Saint co-workers and friends, who found it charming that I often couldn’t drive my white beat-up Suzuki anywhere on the islands without being flagged down by one of them for a ride, or just to tag along on my errand. They would come to my apartment for help with their homework or mission papers or, in some sad cases, to talk about their struggles at home.
(Eli McCann) Eli McCann with some of his "church kids" in Palau.
My job was on a 12-month contract, so, after a year, I packed up my apartment and began my farewell tour. I cried saying goodbye to the friends I had made, but none of the goodbyes was as hard to deliver as those I said to the church kids. Not long before I left the islands, the church kids gave me a Palauan nickname, “Skobetang,” which I was told means “shotgun.” I have no idea why this was the name they picked, but I chose not to ask too many questions and to instead just be touched.
I think of that experience serving as Young Men leader as my Mormonism grand finale — my great send-off into my life of hooliganism and, you know, buckets full of sin and wickedness. And I feel really lucky that’s the way I got to go out.
It’s funny to look back on, now. I wasn’t living many of the church rules and standards while serving as Young Men president. I mean, I fully had a live-in boyfriend and even drank wine on at least one occasion. And yet, there I was every Sunday morning in a shirt, tie and sandals, talking to a church youth group about Jesus, and helping those who were interested prepare to serve missions. (I sent two missionaries off during that year.)
(Eli McCann) Armed with a machete, Eli McCann flips a burger at a church youth activity in Palau.
Some people might call that duplicitous or hypocritical or some other word that describes incongruent living. I have no appetite or reason to argue against any of that. Cognitive dissonance and faith exoduses are a hell of a thing, and I’m not sure anyone who hasn’t gone through the latter can really understand what that feels like.
Still, there’s no part of me that regrets any of it. My life may have been messy, but I was there for those kids and they were there for me, and that will always be one of my great life joys and proudest achievements.
A joyous reunion
I married six years later, in 2019, and my husband, Skylar, and I decided to honeymoon in Palau. This was my first time returning to the islands, which were even more beautiful and vibrant than I had remembered.
I hadn’t been to church in more than half a decade and had no intention of ever going back, but I couldn’t resist bringing Skylar to visit that little Palauan branch.
There was a small part of me that felt nervous to parade in my gay husband and introduce him to these Latter-day Saint congregants who had entrusted their children’s spiritual well-being with me years earlier. Yet, somehow I knew if ever there was a Latter-day Saint congregation that would be cool about this, this was the one.
We were welcomed with open arms. The church kids, most of them adults by then, updated me on their studies and, in some cases, showed off their spouses. The branch president, the same one who asked me to lead the Young Men, invited me to tell everyone what I was now doing in my life. I introduced Skylar and explained this was our honeymoon, and the branch embraced him every bit as much as those members embraced me.
After the service, I stood at the corner of the room with one of the church kids, Skarlee, who was then 24.
“I hope it wasn’t too big of a surprise for everyone,” I said, “to find out I’m gay and married to a man now.”
Skarlee laughed. “Everyone always knew you were gay,” he responded.
“Really,” I asked, as if I had been caught.
“Oh, Skobetang,” he said. “We were all just hoping you would one day be happy.”
Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann.
Eli McCann is an attorney, writer and podcaster in Salt Lake City, where he lives with his husband, new child and their two naughty (yet worshipped) dogs. You can find Eli on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @EliMcCann or at his personal website, www.itjustgetsstranger.com, where he tries to keep the swearing to a minimum so as not to upset his mother.
