A quick Thanks

Thanks all for keeping track of us. We are having a great time and learning a ton about where and how God wants to use us. I changed the website a bit, so now I have some prayer requests on the right. Please keep us in your prayers and email us.

Day 25– July 24, 2005, Sunday: Chris Hill

This is our pool. The kids favorite thing is launching as high as daddy (or anyone else) can throw them.

Last night I could not fall asleep. It was very hot and muggy. I took a nap in the afternoon as well, that probably did me in.

We skipped the ‘normal’ breakfast and had pastries. We bought the pastries yesterday from some people here that are raising money to go to Thailand. They were good. It seems that breakfast is the one meal here that is almost always the same. Oatmeal, special K, yogurt, fruit, boiled eggs and toast. It sounds good until you eat it everyday. There are only so many ways you can mix and match.

We then went to the van to go to church. The church has a van that comes to campus to pick people up every week. We are going to Solid Rock church http://www.srmkona.org/ Today we had Chris Hill from Dallas come speak http://www.chrishill.org/ . WOW. He’s got a passion. I could have listened to him all day long. If you ever have a chance to hear him, do it.

Now, it’s nap time. Later tonite all of us parents are getting together and leaving the kids behind to have a night on the town. I’m picturing a Kona Mudd Pie for me.

By the way, We do not yet know where we are going. Most likely it is Zimbabwe, but it is not guaranteed yet. I’ll post it as soon as I know for sure! Since your reading this, please pray about it for us. If you don't pray, think about it. If you don't think.....then you have other things to pray about :)

Day 24– July 23, 2005, Saturday: The Pain Magnet; like father like son

Here is a shot of Jessika playing soccer with Meg (from NZ). Jessie is a real power kicker. On the right is Jonny with his buddy Meeka (from Finland)

We started off with biscuits and gravy with sausage for breakfast. I enjoyed it. I had to laugh at our friends from down under. They didn’t know what to do with it. They saw the gravy and couldn’t tell what it was and they didn’t dare put it on their scones (biscuits).

After breakfast began the first of Jonny’s pain for the day. We went to the basketball court to shoot some hoops. After about a half hour and some close calls, Jonny finally got hit. The ball hit him hard enough in the head to knock him off his feet. He got really close to hitting his head on the concrete on the way down, but avoided it. After crying for a few minutes he was anxious to get back into the action. Only to receive one more blow to the head (that’s 2 for now). But, once again, he got up.

Jonny was kind of done in though, being tired and hungry and aching, so we went home and took a nap and had lunch. We then walked about 10 minutes to the closest movie theater. They have movies about a month old for $2.50 each. We saw Madagascar. It was nice to sit in air conditioning for a few hours. We actually got cold and looked forward to the heat when it was over.

Now for more pain for the boy. This time we went up to the soccer field to kick a ball around. We scraped up about 10 people and played a bit. Even before we started, Jonny took a hard hit straight to (you guessed it) his head. Again sending him off his feet. Mommy was there to tend to him this time, and he was back up ready for more action in no time. Less than a minute later, the ball came about 3 inches from his head. Close call. Then, the fourth hit. He is a glutton for pain. Just like his daddy. He loves to play, but sacrifices his body for the good of the game. Later I pulled my hamstring a little just to save a goal in a game where we weren’t even keeping score. I’d do it again though, and I imagine that Jonny would too.

Then we all cooled down in the pool. Ahhhhh. Did I mention that we had an awesome sunset?

Day 23– July 22, 2005, Friday: Pounding the info into the wee head

This is the spot where Ruth and I sit and watch the sunrise every morning. Usually one of us stays with the kids while the other goes here to read, pray, watch the new day come in. Below that is what the sunrise looks like.

I can’t believe we’ve been here 3 weeks

Man, it has flown by.

5 hours of worship/teaching/prayer, good but boy am I brain dead now.

About humility…very humbling. What am I compared to God? Yet, he loves me more than I can explain. How can I ever doubt him?

Late night pool,coffee with friends. Kids fell asleep as their heads hit the pillow.

Day 22– July 21, 2005, Thursday: A verse, a website, and a cat fight

Here is a picture of Jessie and Jonny with their teacher, Miss Mary. They love her. They beg us on weekends to go to class. They have a few other teachers as well, Miss Margaret, Mr Thor, Miss Sara.

This morning I came upon a verse in the Bible that I’ve heard many times before, but never really taken in. It goes like this:

(Philippians 3:8 MSG) Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ

Now, some of you know me and think that I picked this verse just because it says “dog dung”. You’re partly right, because who woulda thought the Bible actually says that. But being here in this little apartment with college cafeteria type food and a schedule so packed with lectures and lawn mowing and reading that I haven’t had time to surf has drawn me closer to Christ than I have ever been. I am amazed at how little I know about the God who is big enough to speak the universe into existence and yet loves me enough to be completely humiliated with the burden of my sin. I haven’t done God justice; given him the time he deserves. I got so used to just living my life that experiencing God didn’t fit in.

So today I was supposed to study the book of Titus a bit for homework. Garth recommended a website called www.e-sword.net . It’s really cool, it has lots of different language bibles and dictionaries and maps, all for free. I spent all of my free time downloading stuff. It’s a cool site, check it out.

Tonight for our all campus worship time we had Darlene Cunningham speak. She is the cofounder of YWAM (with her husband Loren). She is an amazing lady. She brought her 91 year old mom who is still traveling the world telling about Christ. It was fun to hear her and some stories about YWAM and how they’ve trusted God over the years.

The catfight; I know you’ve been waiting for me to get to it. I wish I had had my camera. These two cats were going crazy in the dark tonight as I was walking to get some fresh water. The big one was just going after the smaller one. Then the small one scampered ½ way up a palm tree. I’m thinking “stupid cat, now your stuck”. But not so. He backed down the tree for a bit and then somehow got side ways and sort of shimmied down the palm. As soon as he got within 5 feet of the ground the other cat screeched and jumped at him. You guessed it, up went the cat, ½ way again. This happened 3 or 4 times until they finally just had at it again and went chasing and screeching away. I guess I am easily amused.

But now I am tired. It’s been a fast and tiring week. I can’t believe week 3 is almost done. It’s flying by.

One more thing. I wore jeans for the first time tonight. I was actually cold and put on pants. I also brought a hooded sweatshirt, but didn’t don that one yet.

Day 21– July 20, 2005, Wednesday: WHERE are we going?

We had a time of praying for different countries this morning with the entire campus. Basically we all (about 200 people) split into groups of 4 or 5. We then decide as a group what country or countries we feel led to pray for. Ruth and I ended up with two people we hadn’t met before and together we all agreed to pray for Africa, namely the countries in and around southern Africa. So we did, it was good. (this ties in later)

Then we went and heard Matt Rawlins speak some more. I’m going to bring some money to buy a few books of his tomorrow because I totally enjoy the way he thinks things through and simplifies and explains.

After lunch (salad and peanut butter and jelly) we had a meeting about outreach teams. The leaders had compiled all of the countries that everyone prayed about last week. They gave us a list of about 30 of them and told us to pray for where God wants us to go. Ruth and I had the advantage of being a team, so we could bounce stuff off of each other a little bit. So we prayed, first with the kids. Jessika says “I think God wants us in Africa”. Whoa I think, Africa sounds expensive to get to, let alone how long it would take with two kids on an airplane. Oh well, she’s just a kid, she can’t count. Then I ask Jonny. He has no response. He threw a few countries out there, but only after we said them. So we sent the kids off to the park so we could pray together. I’d like to say we both received a vision or something cool like that, but we just prayed. After that I was thinking how hard it would be to narrow it down. I’m leaning towards Zimbabwe and Argentina for some reason. I have no idea why. They seem like polar opposites, I even felt too crazy to say them to Ruth. Then she says “I feel crazy, but for some reason I’m leaning towards Zimbabwe, and I like the idea of Argentina as well.” "Can this be?" I think to myself. I almost felt even more crazy now, telling her that I was thinking of those two. So we prayed some more and we agreed that the third option would be Uganda.

“this is nuts” I think. “We’re going to be flying half way around the world”. I don’t think I would have picked any of these countries as a place for us to go, but somehow we both picked them. Chances are pretty high that we will be going to one of these three. The leaders have the ball in their court now. It is there turn to pray over everyone’s decisions and group teams together. We should know for sure by the end of the week.

Day 20– July 19, 2005, Tuesday: Rugby and riding mowers

This is me, at my best, after Rugby today. It turns out that I've actually been playing 'footy', a minor variation of rugby.

More of Matt Rawlins today. Again, I wanted him just to keep talking. He talked a bit about how big God really is. Let me just say that God is big. It just boggles the mind. I just finished reading a book called “The Case for Creation” that talks a lot about how recent scientific discoveries (last 10 years) are basically proving that the universe is created and many scientists are actually turning to God as a result. I enjoyed reading it, but I’m an engineer so…

On a lighter note, I finally drove the riding lawn mower today. This is a good thing. So much easier. It was a nice break to not have to push the junky mower all afternoon. And it saved up a little energy for rugby. That’s right, every Tuesday night. Now I’m getting addicted. I’m kind of getting the hang of it. Mostly I just run as much as I possibly can in an hour so I get completely winded. I almost score a ‘tri’ today (that’s like a touchdown), but I got stopped in the end. But now my body is quite sore. I might just stick to one night a week. I also got kicked in the head (on accident) during the game. I was seeing stars for a few seconds, but it turned out to be ‘a minor flesh wound’

Another awesome sunset tonite.

Day 19– July 18, 2005, Monday: Matt Rawlins and water balloons

Jonny and Dave passing marbles on spoons. Then Jonny trusting daddy not to fill the glass too full. (you know where this is going :)

Today we had an awesome new speaker for our classroom session. His name is Matt Rawlins. He is speaking on the character and nature of God. Wow, I did not want him to stop. The time just flew by for the 3 hour lecture. He talked about how God is both Big enough and Good enough. It sounds simple, but God’s bigness is his nature. He spoke the universe into existence; he spans the heavens (universe) with the palm of his hand. But he is also intimate. In the entire universe he cares enough to know and love each of us. He forgives us by giving his son for us. He longs to know us. Christianity is the only religion that has a God that is both of these things. Almost every cult is lacking either one or both of these attributes of God, which makes Him unattainable. If he is big, but not intimate, he doesn’t care. If he is good, but not big, than why should we care. It’s interesting culturally too. Most western cultures think of God of loving, but don’t have any reverence. Eastern cultures are reverent towards God, but can’t get that he also cares for them. Anyway, he was quite the speaker. Luckily we have him all week long.

In the afternoon we had family play day with the kids. We played lots of camp like games together. It was fun. The best part was just watching the kids have so much fun. We had a water balloon toss. We played water balloon volleyball where we had a group hold onto a bed sheet and then drop the balloon in it and try to fling it over the net to the other side. Good family time.

There were several of these turtles eating moss off the rocks where we were swimming and snorkeling. Apparently this'n got a bit winded and needed some time on the beach.

Burrying kids is a welcome tradition at the beach. from left to right Matthew (aussie), Jessie, Meg (NZ) and Jonny. It took Jonny at least 10 minutes to get out.

notice the lack of tooth in Jessie's mouth, I think there are 4 or 5 now missing...still smiling though.

Day 18– July 17, 2005: Church, Beach and Ice cream

We went to Solid Rock church again. They really have some good rockin’ music. The pastor their has the most mellow, Hawaiian, comedian, biblical messages (yes, somehow you can combine all of that into one). He also rides a Harley.

Next we scraped a few families together and went to the beach. It was nice. We snorkeled; we buried each other in the sand; we saw several big turtles. Jessika even lost another tooth today at the beach (daddy yanked it out, she’s been working on it for days now). Later on, after coming home, someone had the brilliant (another aussie word) idea (pronounced ide-er for ausies) of going for an ice cream run. Hmmmman did that hit the spot. That makes up for our lack of air conditioning. Then the kids, of course, hit the wall and it quickly became bedtime.

Snorkel Dave going to hang with the humuhumunukunukuapuaa

Day 17– July 16, 2005: Saturday off

The plan from the get go today was to surf. Unfortunately the ocean did not agree. Flatness is all there is out there. Bummer. Instead we did the tourist thing and went to town. We had a Scandinavian shaved ice. Sooo good. This thing was the size of Jonny’s head. We all split it. Inside it had frozen yogurt, outside was shaved ice with pineapple, coconut and guava flavors. We sat on the Kona sea wall and ate it. It was really cool; a good size turtle (probably 2 ½ feet long) was swimming around about 10 feet in front of us. No pictures of it though, maybe next time. We then hiked back and now everyone is napping.

I’ve compiled a list of Aussie/NZ terms that I found funny.

Aussie --------------------------------> American

• Tea----------------------------> Dinner
• Morning tea------------------> Breakfast
• Togs, swimmers, cozzies---> swimming suits
• Ice block----------------------> Popsicle
• Sunnies------------------------> sun glasses
• Singlet-------------------------> tank top
• tipper--------------------------> dump truck
• Jumper------------------------> sweater

Day 16– July 15, 2005: The best dinner yet

Today Dan (one of our leaders) told us a story about his favorite encounter with God. I can’t tell the whole story here as it took him two hours to tell it, but I’ll sum it up. He was leading a team to Cambodia a few years ago. They prayed about where to go and God told several in their team that Cambodia was it. Then they prayed about where and what to do while there. God told them to teach the leaders of the Khmer Rouge about Jesus. No one on their team had heard of the Khmer Rouge before so they looked them up on the internet. They are basically sort of equivalent to the Nazis, but in Cambodia. They were in power from the late 70’s to about 1997. Since then, most of them have been in hiding so they don’t get thrown in jail for the awful things they have done and the millions they have killed. Back to the story. The team is pretty dumbfounded at what they are feeling called to do. They decided to go and see if God opened the doors. When they got to Cambodia they first had to find out where the Khmer Rouge were, let alone find the leaders. They asked many locals (thru a translator) and they basically laughed at them. “No one speaks to the Khmer Rouge, especially not a westerner” they said. They did find out though that most of the Khmer Rouge were hiding in a town in southwest Cambodia, close to the border of Thailand just in case they needed to escape. They prayed if they should go there, and God said “go”. They decided to just take half of their team of 8 as it seemed pretty sketchy and no one really goes there. When they got to this town (sorry I forgot it’s name) they asked around again for the Khmer Rouge and preferably the leaders. Again they were laughed at. They decided to pray for guidance, and one of the team members pictured a red cross during the prayer. So they looked for this cross. It turns out that it was at the church in town and they talked with the pastor their who said they could sleep there. He said he also knew of one member of the Khmer Rouge and he might be able to set up a meeting. They met with this guy who was the secretary of the Khmer Rouge. They actually ended up going out to dinner with him. This guy liked them. They told him about Jesus and that was kind of it.

The next day they left. A few of them really felt that God had more to do there because they knew God meant for them to speak with the leaders of the Khmer Rouge. So they went back, again with 4 of them, hoping to at least meet with the secretary again. They went to the Secretary’s house and he mentioned sort of accidentally that some of the leaders were meeting the next day at 8 am. This is it they thought. They asked (almost begged) the secretary to let them come to the meeting. The secretary said “no” many times and told them that he could be killed if the leaders even found out that he told them about the meeting. They showed up at the secretary’s house at 7:30am the next day and again begged him to let them go. He said “no”. They were troubled. They knew God wanted them at that meeting. So they hung out and talked with the secretary’s helper (I guess that might be the secretary’s secretary). 8:30 rolls around and the secretary comes flying up on his moped. “The leader wants to speak with you… come to the meeting”. They about dropped their jaws. Thinking in their heads “Oh crap, now I have to figure out what to say to these guys!”

Dan was the first of the four to walk in the meeting. He was picturing 10-20 Cambodians. There were about 250 people in this secret meeting. He could barely move. The main leader told them that the only reason they were there is because they were young and therefore not a threat. Dan and the others were close to speechless. Eventually they started talking and were there for over 4 hours talking with these people who have basically been in charge of killing millions over the years and are now in hiding. They told the Khmer Rouge leaders how God specifically put them in their minds because He wanted to let them know that even they can be forgiven for what they have done. Christ’s blood on the cross forgives even the harshest most sinful man. The Khmer Rouge were stunned. They have never felt anything but coldness from anyone but there own. Eventually Dan and the team had to go, but the leaders told them they were welcome back. Since then many churches have been started in this town and many of the leaders have committed their lives to serving God. All because Dan and his team heard God tell them where to go and kept at it.

WOW. I didn’t mean to ramble on, but I left a lot of exciting parts out and it still was lengthy. After hearing this we all started praying about where God wants to send us for the second half of this journey. I know God has a plan, but I don’t know where yet.

Oh yeah, and tonites dinner… Pizza and coke. Then we all jumped in the pool to cool off. It’s great having Jonny’s stitches out so we can all swim again.

Some of our Buddies from left to right... Dave and Donna (Aussies), Wendy (Canada eh), me, Karen and Rodney (NZ)

Day 15– July 14, 2005: Darlin’ marlin

We ended up not using the riding mower today. I can sense how upset you all are about this. I cried a little. We just mowed a bunch of small areas where the rider didn’t really fit. Yesterday I had fixed up my mower a bit with the main mow guy (Greg from NZ). We had it all tuned up, but today I couldn’t mow anything with it. I could barely push it (I know, your thinking…”Dave, I’ve seen your brawn…I doubt there is much you could barely push”). Well it turns out that we had put the blade of the mower on upside down after we sharpened it. It’s amazing what a difference that makes.

Then came the dinner. Apparently some deep sea fisherman donated a marlin because I saw it’s carcass all stripped down in the back of the kitchen. It was huge, at least 7 feet long. It cooked up real nice. I love fish. I don’t even remember what we had with it except for more fish. Hmmmmmmarlin.

That night we had an all campus worship thing. It was really good. We had three of our main DTS leaders speak, Jaimie, Dan and Garth. These three are all 25 or under, have been involved with YWAM for 5 or more years, been to dozens of countries, and are great speakers and leaders. They are really amazing.

After that, Peter the doctor came and took out Jonny’s stitches. Jonny was a very big boy and just let him do it. Peter came to YWAM straight from finishing medical school. He is loving it here as well.

The new and improved Jonny! (no stitches) now we can all swim again! Thanks to Dr Peter here in DTS who took them out for us :)

Day 14– July 13, 2005:A day with a great dinner

I finished the first book we were to read. It was an excellent book. Titled “Is That Really You God?” by Loren Cunningham (the founder of YWAM). It is all about the trials they went through in starting this ministry. It is amazing how they learned to trust God for things. They often would not do something big unless everyone in leadership received the same word from God saying what they should do. Loren also ‘tested’ God many times when he had a vision of something to build or of starting the school. He told God that he would wait and see if anyone else had the same vision. The next day someone would call or write or tell him of this vision they had! It’s quite unbelievable actually. Sometimes the person would not even be someone that he knew! He had a professor show up on his doorstep in Hawaii saying “God told me to come here to start a University”. This was right after they bought property here in Kona to start the university. It’s a really cool book. It just shows how amazing God is and how he still moves today (if we stop to listen).

Later we had the best dinner yet. Roast with potatoes and veggies…hmmm it was good. I also convinced the main mow man to let us use the riding mowers. I think that will help. Then we hung out and watched what had to be the best sunset yet. The sunsets here are just plain unbelievable.

Once again... just take it in. (sigh)

Day 13– July 12, 2005:A day of Rugby

Mowed hard…it hit 90 today with about 90% humidity.

After mowing I was drenched in sweat and grass. I heard there was a group going to play rugby so I figured now that I had watched one game, and since I was already dirty and smelly, go for it. We had a great time. It took me a bit to get the hang of the rules. It was touch rugby (no tackling). Let me tell you, I ran more than I’ve run in a while. It felt good. I actually got the hang of it. The most difficult part is to remember that all passes have to be backwards, so once you pass to someone you have to back up just in case they need to pass to you. Anyway, I hope to play next Tuesday again.

It also turns out that we have a doctor here taking the class with us. He actually brought a kit for stitches along with him, so we won’t have to spend $100 to get Jonny’s stitches removed.

We had a great lesson today that was basically a method on how to study the bible. It was very interesting for me as I’ve never really been taught that way. The basic idea is to help keep people from grabbing verses out of context and misusing them. It’s sort of like if you were to watch 30 seconds of a movie and try to figure out what the movie was about based on that. Misuse of the Bible is how most cults get started.

This is Craig. He's not one of us, he's a kiwi (from New Zealand) He has a family of four kids here in the DTS class with his wife Esther (she's dutch, which obviously makes her great)

Day 12– July 11, 2005:A day of dancing

On Mondays we have worship in the morning with the entire staff/student body hear at University of the Nations. It was led by a guy named Daniel who really loves to rock. He had all of the DTS class (the largest class, about ½ the school maybe) come to the front and we were sort of the mosh pit, singing and jumping. The kids loved it. I did too. It got kind of hard to jump and dance after a while because Ruth and I were holding the kids. The extra 40 pounds weighs us down after a while. It was also fun because there was a group of about 50 Korean pastors there for a conference. Lets just say they were a little older and on the conservative side. I think that made all of us younglings dance and sing even harder. It was quite a new way to start the week. I think I liked it.

Later on I had the privilege of firing up the old lawn mower. The good side of it is that I’m getting really good exercise everyday. I can almost hear my dad saying right now “a little hard work is good for ya”. He probably called them and asked that I be put on the lawns. The best part about mowing today was when the rain started….it poured. We kept mowing for a little bit until our ‘boss’ came to relieve us. 1 hour less of mowing sounded good to me.

I almost forgot this one. Monday night we had an aborigine come and play his funky instrument. it made awesome monkey sounds and a low rumble and other jungle-ish sounds. Oh, and he also painted his entire body.

These sunsets are unbelievable.

Day 10 & 11– July 9 &10, 2005:A day at the Beach, A day of Rest

The plan today was to rent a car with the Ausies and cruise to the beach and surf and play. Enterprise rental had other ideas though as their cars weren’t available. So they took the shuttle to Wal-Mart and we ended up hitching a ride with Kimberly (from Wisconsin) to Queens Bath beach. We all lathered up with sunscreen and played for a few hours at this awesome beach that is protected from the waves by lava rock. There were a few little fish in there too. It was basically a swimming pool with a sand bottom. I didn’t get a chance to surf though. I met a girl their from YWAM who is a civil engineer. She works with a program that designs clean water projects for different villages or towns in 3^rd world countries. It sounded pretty cool to me.

Of course half way through the beach activities Jonny gouged a bit out of his toe. That boy seems to have a bit too much testosterone at this point. Two injuries this week! So, pray for safety and healing for him if you can.

After the beach we had a mellow afternoon at home and went out to dinner with an anniversary gift from Ruth’s parents. An Ausie girl (Elizabeth) watched the sunburned kids for us. Then we hung out with more Ausie and New Zealanders for mud pie at Bubba Gump restaurant. It was Rodney’s (from NZ, not my brother) 40^th birthday. Lots of fun. It was nice to have a day off.

Sunday we went to a church that was a lot like our home church. It is called Solid Rock. They were rockin’ out. Believe it or not, I think the music was louder than at The Movement (home church). We all took big naps and had a fairly mellow day. Now we can’t wait to start up another week!

The family at Queens Bath beach.

Awesome tidal pool beach, Jonny cut his foot here, but other than that we had a great day.

Day 9– July 8, 2005:A day we often call Friday

Today we heard Paul Childers again. He has such a way with words you just want him to keep talking. He opened it up to questions afterward and said he would answer any question, or any doubt that people brought to him. He was hit with some very tough questions. He knows the bible so well that every time he had a brilliant answer that wasn’t his own, but was found in the bible (just like it says!). He challenged each of us to read the New Testament straight through. I plan to.

After Paul was finished speaking he brought up his wife, Susie, to the front of the room to be introduced, along with their 3-month-old baby “Levi”. She is from Germany and is a photographer. She has a passion for the “voiceless” – oppressed women from other nations. She has put together several calendars – one of which is of women from Afghanistan. She also told us a story about how she went on a trip to photograph a distant people group in the Himalayas. Once there she asked them if they knew who Jesus was. They said “no”. Then she asked them if they had heard of “Coca Cola” and their eyes got big and they said “yes! Did you bring some?” She explained how saddened she was by this and how passionate they are about reaching those who haven’t heard the name of Jesus. These two have been completely around the world numerous times and to many remote areas. Amazing people!

Then we broke into small groups, mine (Dave’s) had Craig (NZ), Ken (US), John (US), Jon (US) and me. We all told each other a bit about our lives, and how and why we are here. Ruth is in a group made up of 6 women (a mix of single and married) in which she is sad to say she is the oldest of the group (there are many people here straight out of high school and college).

I had the rare privilege tonight of hanging out with a bunch of guys from down under watching a rugby game. They are INTO it. It was fun. I learned all about the game (it was the first I’d ever watched it). This particular game was New Zealand against the best of Europe (like a dream team). NZ killed them, so the game was a little boring, but we had a good time.

Day 8– July 7, 2005:A day of revelation

Our speaker today was Paul Childers. He is from New Zealand. He has the book of Revelations (from the bible) memorized (which is a LOT to memorize). This guy is so fiery and entertaining as a speaker. He was a total joy to listen to. He is quite opposite of the previous speaker, but they were both great. He spoke about the Bible and why it is valid and why it is inspired by God and what makes it different from other holy books like the Koran and such. He suggested reading the book “The Case for Christ” by Lee Stroble. It’s about Lee’s life and how he used to be an atheist and he set out to prove that Christianity was full of bologna and ended up becoming a Christian by trying to disprove it. He digs into all kinds of arguments against Christianity. Very interesting (to me at least).

Day 7– July 6, 2005: A day of mowing grass

Today was a little cooler (either that or I am getting used to the heat/humidity). We started off praying for each nation that has a YWAM team in it. There are a lot of them. Ruth & I were in the group praying for Italy. Then we had a phenomenal speaker, John Dawson. He is the current president of YWAM. He first came across as a little slow and boring to listen to. But wow, does he know people and God and life. He was very interesting to listen to and has a few books out there. He also told us a little more about how YWAM actually works. There are over 20,000 missionaries that are affiliated with YWAM. There is no budget to help them or keep them on track. Every missionary is funded purely by his or her home churches and friends and by those that believe in the cause they are fighting for. Even the president of YWAM has no budget and gets no paycheck. They simply believe that God will provide (and obviously he does). I just found that amazing.

After class and lunch it was time to mow. Conveniently the time to mow is from 3:00 to 5:00. In the heat. The best part is that they have all push mowers. When I realized this I almost jumped in the car and drove to Wal-Mart to buy a rider. There is a LOT of grass here. I am going to go to Wal-Mart and buy a little music player for mow time. I am sure that my arms and legs are going to be in great shape after mowing 2 hours a day for the summer. Now I don’t have to try to make time to exercise either. I am trying to stay on the bright side here. Maybe God wants to send me to Mow-zambique. (wow that was a bad line, I’m leaving it there just for all you folks that like corny jokes)

After dinner we had coffee with a bunch of our new friends from down under. I can tell we are going to have some great friendships from this whole thing. God is good.

Day 6– July 5, 2005: A day of firsts

Breakfast ended at 7:15 this morning, which seemed to early for our kids to even be hungry. But we shoved some food down them before bringing them to their first full day of Foundation School. Their school is basically the equivalent of the class we are taking, which teaches them to know God better along with lots of other things like geography and history. They also will go on some field trips to see dolphins and go swimming and bless others with gifts. We were excited to let go of the kids for a bit, and they were excited to have class and play.

The adults went to the main room to worship God for a while with singing and then we had some time to pray and truly commit these next 5 months to God to allow him to work in our lives and lead us where he wants us to go. It was great.

We also found out the work we each need to do to help out around here. Every student does 2 hours of work each day, 5 days a week. Because we have kids, only one of us has to do it. At first I signed up to clean up around the building (seemed easy enough). Then they changed me to construction, which I was excited about because they are doing a lot of building around here, and it sounds perfect for me to help out and learn. But, as things go they changed me again and I am now in the business of mowing the lawn 10 hours a week. I know. I start tomorrow. The cool part is that Junichi (the guy I first met here, on the van ride, from Japan) is also on my team. He has never mowed grass before. I enjoy getting to know him and his culture. Also several other new friends are on the mow team as well, Rodney from New Zealand and Toby from Switzerland.

I also hiked the 15-minute hike to go check out the surf today. There is a nice little reef here that has nice waves. I’ve got to get out there.

Day 5– July 4, 2005:A day of fireworks (literally and figuratively)

WOW, what a day. Yesterday I actually wondered if today would have anything worthy of writing down. On the walk home this evening I found myself trying to piece together the day and remember everything to throw into this….

It started out quite simple. We had a late brunch at 9:00 so we all slept in a bit and had some time to read. The brunch was great, some kind of veggie omelet/quiche thing with bacon and fruit and toast with sugar and cinnamon. Then we talked about how we were both actually cold last night so I stopped at the boutique to pick up a light comforter. The boutique is a store where everything is free, but used, kind of like goodwill, but the stuff is from previous DTS’ers. After brunch we had a ‘get to know each other meeting’. I thought this would be lame. I was wrong. There were 80 of us in a room (with another ~20 staffers) and first we all gave our name and where we came from. Then it got interesting. They opened up the microphone to whoever had a story to tell about how they got here, what God did in their lives to make this class happen. There were so many cool stories that I swore I would remember them all. Of course I didn’t. This one kid (18 years old) talked about how we should cherish our young kids because he was once here with his parents when he was younger and then his family went to China to be missionaries. He mentioned how they were there during the SARS epidemic and were actually locked down in a college campus. Out of boredom they started singing songs over the intercom and he was able to sing “Jesus Loves Me” in three different languages. A member of the communist party heard him sing and wanted to throw him in jail, but they did not because he was so young. After that many students from the college came to talk with them about who this ‘Jesus’ is and ‘why does he love me?’. Many became Christians through this simple act of this young kid.

After the meeting we split up into smaller groups. We were with John from Santa Cruz and a family of 6 from New Zealand and Toby from Switzerland. During our mini-meeting we each told our stories of how we got here and the guy from NZ had an amazing story of how God provided both financially and physically. It turns out that he won a $2000 travel voucher (which helps a little when your flying 6 from NZ). He also fell 30 feet while rock climbing and was ok, but then 4 days later (the day he had to pack his house) he wrenched his back so bad he couldn’t get off the floor. He thought it would be impossible to make it here. Then two friends came to his house and prayed for him on the floor and he got up and hasn’t had an ounce of pain since then.

Suddenly Jonny and Jessie came running towards us (they were playing in the ark park). Jonny was covered with blood and dirt all over his chin. Ruth ran to tend to the boy and I ran for the first aid kit. It turns out that he fell from about 6 feet and landed on his chin in the pebbles/rocks. He had a gash in his chin all the way across about an inch long and a quarter inch deep. It was nasty. We cleaned it up as best we could and went off to the emergency room. Luckily, Craig (from NZ) has a minivan and he drove us there. Jonny ended up with 5 stitches and a new pet lion (stuffed) from the ER folks. Daddy couldn’t help but wonder how much that lion was going to cost him.

Upon our return, Jonny was famous. Everyone was asking if he was ok and Jonny was proudly displaying his battle wounds. He quickly started playing again as if he now knew that a doctor could fix anything that could happen.

Then we had a BBQ with everyone and headed to town for the parade. We saw some authentic Hawaiian garb on natives with drums drive by on flatbed trucks. It was fun until the rain started. It didn’t stop for well over an hour (luckily, this is the dry side of the island). We ended up hiking the ½ mile back up the hill to our little home in the rain. Luckily we found a broken umbrella in the trash that shielded us a bit. We got home drenched and just in time for the rain to stop and the fireworks to start. Luckily we were able to see them great from our room…. Happy 4^th of July!

A taste of the Kona 4th of July Parade. lots of fun until...

Don't rain on our parade! (I had to say it) It poured!

Jessika, cute as can be

sigh, Jonny's first 5 stitches, hopefully no more of this kind of excitement. Luckily the ER was totally empty so it took about 1 hour to get him fixed up. kind of a spooky picture of my boy.

I think this picture speaks for itself

Day 3-4– July 2-3, 2005:A day for fun, a day to catch up

Today is Saturday and in general these are days off. Today we met up with Tessa and Shelby, friends from home. We played hard at the pool, and barbequed and walked around town. The sunset was awesome.

Day 4 – July 3, 2005:A day to catch up

Today we decided to hang out and rest. Dave and Jess went to Calvary church this morning with Bernard (from Switzerland, he was kind enough to give a ride). Then we went to the pool a bit and rested.

Day 2 – July 1, 2005:Where am I again?

Last night I was reading the literature that was passed out in orientation, and I thought it was awesome that the leaders had decided to make Psalm 27:4 the theme verse for the summer. The awesome part is that just in the last week I came across this same verse and decided to make it my theme for the summer…coincidence? The verse is “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

We woke up this morning and realized that today is our 10^th anniversary! We shared a cup of coffee at our duct taped together table with a nice view of the ocean. I think we will both remember this one. Then we went off to breakfast for some hardboiled eggs, toast, oatmeal and papaya (papaya comes in both regular and strawberry style, neither of which really has any flavor). We then had a sort of introductory meeting in which we praised God with singing (which was awesome) for a bit and then found out that there are 81 people in this DTS class from 20 different countries. So far I had met 4 different countries: Japan, US, Australia and Algeria. In the registration line the Ausie, Algerian and I had a friendly argument over who had the accent. The Algerian has an awesome English type accent. The kids also had an hour introduction to their class. Jess and Jonny are in the same class. Jonny afterward said, “I did not like my class”. Apparently he wanted to play and run and jump and they wanted to introduce and learn names (things which he has no time for).

The remainder of the day we were shown a bit of the campus, played at the Ark Park and walked around town a bit. We met a girl named Jessica who has been doing missions work in Las Vegas. She helps girls get off of the street and get their lives back together. Now she is here to get a little more training and see what God has planned next for her (sounds familiar). She found out it was our 10^th anniversary and offered to watch the kids tonight (what, would you say ‘no’?).

At night we had another praise session with great music and a bit of Samoan war dance (at least it looked war like). It was very cool. Then they introduced every country with a representative carrying their flag. I’ll name those I remember, US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Algeria…a few more. After that, we bathed the kids and Jessica watched them while we walked to town. We had dessert at an Italian place overlooking the ocean it was nice. We both agreed we are definitely where God wants us.

The Ark Park. Less than 100 feet from our front door. obviously the kids love it (and that makes the parents love it)

Lunch time with everyone. The food is fairly good. If you don't like it they always have peanut butter and jelly as a backup

Worship in the Ohana center.

This is our room. we've decorated a bit since then. the kids sleep upstairs

This is the kids room...luckily they are less than 4 feet tall.

WE ACTUALLY MADE IT HERE!

Day 1 – June 30, 2005:Welcome to Hawaii!!

After a 5-½ hour plane ride (on which we were all served warm cookies), we exited the plane to feel the rush of warm humid air around us (ahhhh). Several warm faces and a video camera immediately greeted us. Apparently they have some videography classes as well. We gathered up our luggage and headed off to campus in a van. On the way I met a 25-year-old man named Junichi. He is a Japanese English teacher from Tokyo, here for the Discipleship Training School (DTS) along with us. During this conversation would be the first of many times I thought to myself “were it not for this mission school, I would probably never have said hi to this person”.

On arriving at campus we went thru some registration and were escorted to our room for the next 2 ½ months. Ruth was very nervous as to what she would be calling home. We were blessed with an upstairs room. The beauty of this is two fold; first we have a loft for the kids to sleep, second we have a beautiful view of the ocean. I sensed a great sigh of relief in Ruth as we were led upstairs. The furnishings are very simple (and old). It is about 2000 square feet smaller than the house we just left, but we have a make shift kitchen, a bed, couch table and a place we can call our own for the next few months.

We spent the rest of the day doing more registration and playing at the ark park. The ark park is a great little park for the kids right outside of our front door. Already I’ve had several opportunities to sit out there and read while the kids play. Later that night we met an Australian couple, Dave (pronounced dive) and Donna and their 12-year-old boy Matthew. They live about an hour south of Sidney. Talking with them made me want to see Australia. Extremely nice couple. I hope to get to know them more.