Wednesday, October 21, 2009

hello blog.

I'm just relaxing in startbuck enjoying my night off with Jeanette and Signe. This week has been intense, but so wonderful. Our speakers are Vincent and Lisa from the YWAM- Maui base. The topic is living with "new hearts." We are looking at the sin or other weak areas in our lives and finding the source of those issues so that we can truly be free of them. Yesterday we dealt specifically with wounds from the past and how to go about truly forgiving the people or situations that you got them from.



As I sit here eating Jeanette's norwegian chocolate, drinking coffee, and enjoying the air conditioner, I realize how at home I feel here. The short little walk over to starbucks and the other other shops (grocery, mcdonalds, laundry mat, ect.) has started to feel so natural to me. I love the Honolulu base and living in community. I love at each meal I get to sit and talk with someone different. I love our humble shekinah house, it's crazy but wonderful living with 25 other girls. Here is a picture of my house.

Now don't get me wrong I miss my real home everyday. I miss my family and my bryce, but it's nice to realize everyone here has become my family for the next couple of months.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Team Philippines/ Thailand

So I want to start by informing you, I DID write in my blog the other day and I lost internet before I could post it. It’s been hard to motivate myself to write again since that happened!

I can’t believe I’ve been in Hawaii for almost a month now. It’s nice to have our daily routine down. Time has FLOWN by! Our day is packed with quiet times, worship, intersession, lectures, work duties, community outreach, team times, small group, and of course eating and socializing. It's wonderful, but by Friday I’m worn out and ready to spend the weekend at the beach.

I feel so blessed for my outreach team! They are all awesome! Here is a picture of us! (Left to Right: Mandy, Kimberly (leader), Grace, Chris, Lukas, Sarah, Sam (leader), Yela, Celeste, and Caleb). This was from our team time last week. We went to Pali Lookout and it poured. Our leaders have been talking to our contacts in the Philippines and Thailand, and they are working out the details of our trip. I will keep you informed as I find out.
As of right now, we will be going to the Philippines for the first month, then going to Thailand for the remaining time.


Last night we met our speakers for this week, they seem really great and I'm so excited for this week of lectures!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Thailand!

All week we were extremely anxious for Friday! It was the big day we would find out our outreach locations! In the morning session, they wrote the 4 choices on the board. The only information we received were the names of the places. Then, we had some time to go and pray, and ask God where we should go. We were not supposed to talk to any of the other students, just hear from God. Initial, I began to feel very overwhelmed. This was a big decision to make. I started to pray, but my emotions were getting in the way of hearing anything. I went and found my good friend Tatum to pray with me. (She’s staff so it was okay to talk to her about it). She began to pray with me, and within minutes I knew where I was supposed to go. I didn’t get the word Thailand, I didn’t get a picture of the country or anything like that, I just got excited about it. I got excited, and a peace that I could only get from God. The 4 places are:

1. Nepal and India
2. Thailand and Philippines
3. Samoa and Fiji
4. Vanuatu

I wrote my name and Thailand on a sheet of paper and turned it in. For the next 30 minutes I wait while everyone else finished up. It was a long 30 minutes! Then, everyone came back together and we found out our teams! As they call my team up to the front, I got more and more excited! I love love my leaders and everyone on my team! All the teams ended up having around the same number of people on them, it was so cool to see how the Lord worked that out, and knew the teams before we picked them!

So Friday was cool, then Saturday I went surfing!!! The first Saturday of every month one of the churches here does free surfing lessons and a barbecue! So, of course I signed up to go! The guy that was helping me is a professional surf instructor, but he was volunteering that day because he’s a member of the church. He asked me, have you ever surf? No. snowboarded? No. skateboarded? No. haha Well okay! He was such a good instructor, He told me exactly when to start paddling and would give me the initial push onto the wave. Then he would yell, “stand up!” I got up on the first try!!! It was so cool. I went 3 or 4 more times, riding the waves all the way to shore. Then it was someone else’s turn. I couldn’t have gone much longer anyway; it was such a workout paddle out against the waves!!! My arms are so sore today.

Thanks for staying involved in my life, please continue to pray and check my blog!