Day 60– Aug 28, 2005, Sunday: Church at the Beach

On the left she has one tooth left on the top of her mouth. on the right... nothing At least she's still smiling.

We were planning to go to our normal church (Solid Rock) this morning, but we missed the van. We had heard about a church within walking distance so we decided to head for it. It was right on the ocean! Waves crashing in the background as we worshipped and listened to the message. There were about 30 people in all. I really enjoyed it, mostly because of the location.

After that we meandered back to campus. It took a while because there was a farmers market and we got stuck in the rain. We bought some fresh fruit and had a nummy lunch at home. We then hung out at the house until it was time to bring mom and dad back to the airport. It was sad to see them go.

This evening Jessika finally popped out the last of the front teeth. We basically need to feed her through a straw now. She worked on this tooth for days so I think the tooth fairy might be a little extra generous. She looks awesome now with no front teeth.

We ended the night by playing a round of skip-bo with the Richards. It was relaxing.

Day 59– Aug 27, 2005, Saturday: Cruising the Island

Today we hopped in a borrowed car and cruised with the parents. What a fun day.

Here are our posing kidos in the painted church. Can't you just tell the mood they were in?

Below is the painted church. Really cool. kindof reminded me of the chapels in Europe with a Hawaiian touch.
Hmmm coffee tasting. hmmmmmmmmmmm
Coffee beans. They are cool looking plants. Jonny actually tasted a pea berry bean (roasted) and liked it. I prefer them with chocolate.
Then we drove to the Hawaiian place of refuge. This is a historical sight from old Hawaii. Apparently in the tribal days a native could escape danger by running to the place of refuge and no one could harm them once they entered. Kind of like when you are on base when playing tag. here is one of the huts with a native peeking out from under it.
The family playing a game of rocks. It seems a lot like checkers.

cute kids.
no, my mom is not crying. we're trying to compete with the mean faces. Grrrrrr!

Day 58– Aug 26, 2005, Friday: Reunited with my Parents

On the right is a photo from dad of the island before he landed. cool huh? Then below is us having a grand ol' time at the pool.

Dan and Garth talked this morning about their ‘vision’. They are starting a thing that they call Awaken. The idea is to talk to typical churches, schools, and bible studies and get them excited about God again. It sounds simple and it is. They were planning on doing it just themselves with 2 friends last August. They had flyers made, lots of appointments at churches…the whole thing was planned out. Then God stepped in and let them know that his plan was bigger. They put the whole thing on hold to come lead this DTS class. During this class they realized that God can use this entire class to be much more effective than just the four of them. If each person goes back home and tells their home church or bible study about the exciting ways that God is working in lives and the exciting things that God is doing, that miracles are happening…that the Bible is God’s Word…THE GOD…The God that made us. He wrote down an instruction book for us and most of us haven’t the faintest clue what it really says. I know for me, I haven’t even read the entire bible! How sad is that? So anyway, 100 people going home and telling one group is much more than the 4 of them could have done in a long time. People have forgotten how truly awesome it is to serve God and know Him. They plan to Wake up the church through this ministry they call Awaken.

After this I went to pick up my parents at the airport! They are visiting until Sunday. They came back and heard a little bit of the speaker (Don Gillman) and really enjoyed. They are staying on campus here as guests. As soon as they arrived and settled in we had them share some of their pictures from Uganda last year with our team. It was really fun to see the pictures and know that we are going to be there in less than a month. We also received our itinerary for our flight to Uganda. It goes like this. Kona to Seattle to Minneapolis to Amsterdam (spend the night) to Nairobi to Entebbe. Whew! We are traveling almost exactly ½ way around the world. Uganda’s time zone is 12 hours different from here.

Then at night we went down to town to get icecream. It was awesome because we had about 20 fellow classmates so we filled up the little icecream shop. It’s also nice hanging with mom and dad.

Matthew's gonna kill me for putting this one on here. This is Jessika and Matthew...She has claimed that he is her boyfriend and then laughed and said "just kidding". But then I get a photo like this. hmmmmm It's cute now, but in 10 years I'm not so sure it will be.

Day 57– Aug 25, 2005, Thursday: The ball is rolling

This is Daniel Lehman and his son leading us in worship. His son just cracks me up.

Every other morning either Ruth or I wake up at 6:00 and start coffee and then go have some time with God while the other stays home and attempts to have a little time to read the Bible but is usually interrupted by kids waking up. This morning was my morning, and usually I have a horrible time waking up. Usually I am lucky to get the coffee made and be on my way by 6:30 and get a half hour with God. In fact when I was at home, the only things I could ‘pop’ out of bed for were surfing or golf. I have had to rush to airports several times because I couldn’t pull myself out of bed. My old car pool buddy in Santa Cruz used to knock on my door every now and then to wake me up because I missed my alarm. You get the idea…I sleep WELL. This morning I woke up at 5:55 (before my alarm) and was just awake. I had the distinct feeling that God was waiting for me to have my time with him and watch the sunset together. I popped out of bed, made the coffee and went out to my chair. This was the first morning that I have actually seen the mountain before the sun came up. The reason I am telling you all this is because I was actually excited to get up and spend time with God and read his Word. To me, this is very exciting. I have known for a long time that the more time I spend with God, the better I will know him, but it has always been difficult to get the ball rolling. Part of the reason Ruth and I wanted to come here and do this was to get the ball rolling. Well, the ball is rolling. The bible says “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13) What do you know? It works!

We had lecture with Don Gillman again. He is great. He spent a large amount of time talking about culture and how different we all are. He grew up in California and has lived in Taipei for the last 15 years. He speaks fluent Mandarin (Chinese), so he knows both cultures pretty well. He talked about little things like a handshake. In Western culture, a hearty handshake means you are happy or excited. In China they do the ‘dead fish’ handshake, and anything more than that means you are trying to overpower them and look down on them. In the West, we covet our space. We will not take a stranger into our bedroom, but we love to tell about our families. In the East, the family is private, but they will invite a stranger to sleep in their house without a second thought. In China, a good restaurant has excellent food, but you sit at a table with 10 strangers and could easily have rats and cockroaches on the floor because ‘you eat out of the bowls and they are clean’. In the US a good restaurant has ambiance and service and space. In Asia, people touch eachother as they walk by and crowd onto a bus because it is so crowded and you’ll end up standing on the bus if you don’t push your way in. It is totally acceptable. In the US people do not touch as they walk in a crowd and you wait in line at the bus and you apologize if you bump into someone. It was very interesting. I’ve experienced a few of these things, but just thought the people were rude, now I have a new understanding of them.

I mowed. It hasn’t rained in a while, so now when I mow my legs get dark with dust. I’ll have to take a picture for you. During dinner Ruth helped our neighbor make pineapple smoothies to sell because she is trying to earn money to stay in Cambodia for 6 months! I better stop typing and get to my book though, another book is due tomorrow and I still have 30 pages to read. Goodnight.

Me and my little girl

Day 56– Aug 24, 2005, Wednesday: Rita’s Key

Here is a picture of Jonny "Exercising". What can I say? Seriously, I have nothing to add.

We worshipped this morning with the kids. It was a little tough because my kids weren’t in the mood. Running here and there and talking and aghhh. A little frustrating. After that Don continued talking about how the world sees Truth. It was a really interesting talk. Most people define what truth is by either Rationalism (science), Emotion, Experience, Culture or Mysticism (there might have been one more, it’s late and dark and I can’t find my notes). We need to define truth by God’s Word rather than what the world tells us. Unfortunately many of us (me included ) don’t know the Bible well enough to really turn to it.

After class I had the joy of mowing (yes I still mow every day and LOVE it!) Then we had the evening off so we had coffee with Dave and Donna and watched the sunset. Later on Rita (our team leader) came by and asked us if we had seen her keys anywhere. She had lost them and been looking for the last hour. We expressed our sympathy but hadn’t seen them. She explained how she had even gone back to her room to look in the door to make sure they weren’t in some obvious place. Just as she said this she turned to leave and Donna and I both saw a shiny reflection from her back pocket. Donna spoke up first “what’s that in your pocket Rita?” She reached back and almost fell over when she realized her keys had been there the whole time. We laughed so hard I’m sure we woke someone up. Even now as I type I have to grin.

Are you getting sick of the sunset pictures yet?

Day 55– Aug 23, 2005, Tuesday: Bee sting

Here is Don Gillman on the right. Great guy! His bible barely holds itself together (which is usually a good sign)

We had a team meeting today to discuss the pros and cons of last week on outreach in Kohala. It was a good time to talk about ways that we worked well together and things that we need to work on. It’s great as a team to be able to look at our strengths and weaknesses honestly. I thought it was a really productive time. I had to leave early to go get a Hepatitis B shot. Fun fun. Soon we have to take the kids out for yellow fever shots as well.

Tonite we were planning to go to an optional meeting but the speaker (Don Gillman) came by our table at dinner and we just ended up talking and talking. He is a really interesting guy. He is American, but has lived in Taipei for the last 10 years or so. He spent about 8 years teaching a class called SBS (School of Biblical Studies). It’s a pretty intense class designed to really teach the bible. Apparently they read the bible 5 times through and study it in a period of 9 months. He has raised his three kids on the mission field and now they are more Chinese than American (not in looks, but in actions). He has a lot of fun stories.

Jessika got stung by a bee today (actually it was yesterday come to think of it). Anyway, her arm swelled up pretty good. It’s close to twice as big as the other one. We had Dr Peter take a look at it and he’s not worried about it as long as it stays localized. We’ve been feeding her benadryl and cortisone cream. Think of the loudest scream you’ve ever heard and then you know what it sounded like when it happened. She’s ok now though.

Tonight Dave, Rod and I all had another prayer time together. It was awesome. It’s just so great to share and connect with God. I can’t believe that we only have 4 weeks left here. We are really going to miss a lot of people here, and times like this. After the prayer time I came home and listened to music and just read the bible for a while. It’s funny because I used to have such a hard time reading/praying for a ½ hour and now I often feel like it isn’t enough!

Here is a picture of Popeye. Can you tell which arm got stung?

Day 54– Aug 22, 2005, Monday: New Speaker, Don Gilman

My mom took this picture (she actually took it on Saturday, but I figured it was a good way to start the week) She is quite the Flortographer (I made up that word, another good way to start a week) Below this is Jessika wearing a few of them. She's so cute.

Today started with some worship. (It’s Monday, that’s what we do here on Monday mornings). It was nice to be back and worship with a big group again.

We had the morning off to catch up since we got back from outreach yesterday. We went to Walmart and Jamba Juice. Since we still have the borrowed car for two more days we figured we’d use it. After lunch we had an hour and a half of sharing stories that happened while on outreach. It was fun to hear what some teams did. The Sudan team camped all week in this hippy area in the south. Lots of teams did projects like ours. Lots of teams worked with youth groups like ours. Lots of people had a tough time, but learned to cope, which is good, I think that is a lot of what this mini outreach is for. It was fun to hear from everyone.

Guess what I got to do next! I was not in the mood to mow. I so wanted to take a nap. The funny thing is that we actually mowed for only an hour. I was excited to run up to the room and nap, but then realized that I locked myself out and ruth and the kids were sleeping inside. Oh well, I went and shot some basketball for a half hour instead.

We had a little taste of Don Gilman tonite for lecture. We are in for a treat this week. He is a joy to listen to. He told us a little about how he and his sons went to the tsunami zone immediately after it happened. They help load the dead into cargo bins and I won’t give any more detail than that. He was holding back a lot of detail and it was quite gory. He seems like a guy with a lot of wisdom and life experience, so this week will be good.

Day 53– Aug 21, 2005, Sunday: Church and travel ‘Home’

Riding off into the sunset. I just love this picture.
Boy is driving...Girl is talking...

This is just a cool picture. More of the funky Hawaiian foliage.

Woke up, packed, cleaned house, went to church, hung out after, went to the house and waited. Drove home, ate McD’s, hit the pool, shared stories with friends here. Too tired to type. Sleeeeeeep.

Day 52– Aug 20, 2005, Saturday: Camping

This morning we prayed about what God wanted us to do today. When have 10 people on the team that are a regular part of the prayer (3 of the kids are too young and impatient most times). Of the 10 of us, 5 felt that we should clean house a bit more and 5 felt that we should go walk through town and pray, prayer walking it’s called. So we split up. I actually wanted to stay and clean because there are a few cool projects that I wanted to do on the house, but when I prayed I felt that God wanted me to go pray for the town, so off I went. Ruth and the kids stayed and fixed up the house more. Megan, Amy and I went to town and started praying. It was pretty cool just walking through town and praying for whatever you saw. We ended up going to the Hospital. I was thinking of the name Margaret while we were outside the hospital. I figured maybe I would pray for someone by that name. We were all a bit skittish about going in, but we decided that if God wanted us in, he would open the doors. We went and asked if there was anyone there we could pray for. They showed us right in and told us where to go. There were about 20 old people doing exercises in a room. It was a sort of rest home. The exercises were mostly lifting hands and feet while sitting, mellow stuff. So we went in and started talking with a few people. I first sat down with Maggie. I sort of wondered if it was short for Margaret, but couldn’t get a straight answer. I talked with her a bit. She was so sweet. She has lived here in Kohala her whole life, and has one son. I asked if I could pray for her and she smiled so big and was so happy. It was really cool. We each had a good time there and then had to boogie home to make it in time for lunch.

At about 2:00 Jim and Debbie (our hosts) came and picked us up to go camping with them. We aren’t spending the night because we don’t have tents and it rains every night here. We stopped on the way at the Pololu valley lookout. It was really cool. Then we drove up the hill to a little 12 acre parcel that they lease. There is a little river next to the camp site that fills into Kamehameha Pond. We all jumped and swam and climbed the waterfall. It was great. We also cooked burgers over the fire and hung out until about 9:00 at night. We all really enjoyed it. Jessie found a stick bug there and played with it for hours. Jonny had a small stick bug too, but it quickly got it’s back leg smooshed, so we had him set it free. The Youth group was there as well, so Jonny hung out with all the big boys, gathering wood, playing in the tent. He loved it.

Here are some shots of us playing in Kamehameha Pond. lots of jumping, climbing waterfalls etc.

Below is the sunset. nice huh?

Day 51– Aug 19, 2005, Friday: Guess What We Did Today!

Here is Jessie and Jonny swinging at the park. loads of fun. below is a shot of the hilly lands around here. It is really beautiful.

Since we are still making our own food I have to include breakfast. We had French toast, one of my favorites. We also cut into a new pineapple, a fresh white one. It was so good. There is nothing like a fresh Hawaiian pineapple. For some reason though, Jonny doesn’t like them. Poor kid.

After breakfast we had a little devotional time as a team. Karen read about how we need to share the light (God’s Word (Jesus)), not ‘hide it under our beds’. It made me think, because there are lots of people I know really well, that even know I am a Christian, but I haven’t really shared with them what it is like to KNOW God, and have a relationship with him. Most people that see me think of it as just a religion. It’s not, it’s me knowing God, doing what he tells me to do. Anyway, it was good.

Next, you guessed it, we cleaned. I had the priveledge of cleaning the windows around the outside of the house. I actually enjoyed it because up here in Kohala there is always a nice breeze. I also didn’t have to smell the bleach and cleaners inside. Jessy and Jonny cruised around in their pink Barbie car for most of the morning. Most of us were extremely tired so we decided to cut out early and go to the pool after lunch. Ruth and some others stayed home and napped, but me and the kids couldn’t pass up an afternoon of swimming. The bummer was that when we arrived at the pool, it was CLOSED! Can you imagine the look of disbelief I got from my 4 and 6 year olds when I told them that? Luckily next door was a fun little park, so we stayed and played for a few hours.

We then walked the mile back home (we were actually driven there by a friend). We stopped for ice cream and drinks in town of course. I carried Jonny the whole way. He was so tired he fell asleep as I carried him. He slept for nearly two hours after we got home too.

Day 50– Aug 18, 2005, Thursday: Leading Youth Group at Kalhikiola Church

Today started off fantastically with pancakes and bacon. The pancakes even had bananas sliced up so they were kind of caramelized. After that we had a little quiet time where we each spent some time with God (a great start to the day as well). Then we realized that we would be leading youth group at church tonite so we scraped together a plan to do some games, a skit, and some talking.

Then we cleaned. On the left is a shot of the wall before and after. The photo doesn't do it justice. Scrubbing walls. Scrubbing ceilings. Scrubbing floors. We are quite sick of cleaning, but we turned on some music and made the best of it. This house is actually getting clean. The house has really old double hung windows, the kind with ballast weights. I was trying to fix one of those and slipped with a razor blade and sliced my pinky quite deep. (right now my brother just fainted by reading this). The two nurses immediately jumped into action. They bandaged it up with all kinds of fancy medicine. They were appalled when I told them that I would have remedied it with toilet paper and duct tape. But now, I am trying to type with this massive bandage on my pinky. It really disrupts the rhythm.

Well, later in the day we got together again and finalized our plans for youth group, and then we walked off to the church. It was a beautiful walk. About a mile. Jonny especially enjoyed it because Rod and I carried him the whole way. We got to the church about ½ hour early and just walked around admiring it and praying for the area. This church is really old, and back in the 1800’s there were over 5000 people that met here weekly. Now there are less than 100 and about 10 in the youth group. Then about 7:00 the kids and pizza showed up. We all had a great time. The skit went well. Rod and Megan did a great job sharing about how we find our identity in God rather than others. They also talked about how God picked each of us for a specific job, and even brought our team together from all across the world to minister to people in Uganda.

After that we played. We had a lot of balloons; the best part was just dumping them all out and popping them all. Then we played broom ball. Jonny thought it was the funnest thing in the world. He is really loving competition these days. Overall, it was a great night, now we are back here playing phase 10 and going to bed.

Here is a shot of Jessika's favorite surprise...a filly came by (with a few riders on horses). This was the friendliest young horse ever. Jessika was giving her loves.


Here is the broom ball game with the youth group. Lots of fun.

Day 49– Aug 17, 2005, Wednesday: Tour of Mac farm; Cleanin’ House

We started the day with eggs and bacon and Costco muffins. It is such a joy to cook our own food and more of a joy to eat it. After breakfast our local host, Jim, stopped by and said that he wanted to take me and Rodney up to his macadamia nut farm (shown at left) so we could scout out the place where we have an option to camp this Saturday night. So we headed off into the wild blue yonder while the ladies and kids stayed to start cleaning our house.

We had a great time cruising around. Jim drove us through all sorts of tiny backroads leading to mac nut orchards. We stopped in one spot and hiked down to Kamehameha Pond. It’s an awesome little waterfall with a pool by the bottom. There are actually petroglyphs on the walls around the pool. It was pretty cool. We plan to take the rest of the team there for sure this week. The rest of our trip was just 4 wheelin’ through the trees, stopping to look at mac trees every now and then.

On our return, the ladies were hard at work cleaning the house. They had all of the walls scrubbed in one of the main rooms. Rod and I got to scrub down the ceilings. I tried to explain to them that generally it’s a better idea to clean from top to bottom but they just handed me a mop. We cleaned until lunch. The kids played. It is a huge blessing that we are combined with the Richards family (thankyou God). Their girls help entertain our kids a LOT. Also, yesterday Jess and Jonny found a Barbie car (one of the electric ones that kids can drive) underneath the house. We plugged that baby in, hoping for a full charge today. Let’s just say they drove it all over this yard and it’s already needing another charge.

After lunch we had a quick nap. The kids were beat, so they crashed. Then a nice guy from the church who had a 14 passenger van came and brought us all to a beach. It was a pretty poor excuse for a beach (no sand, just dirt), but it was beautiful. Up here on the north tip of the island the waves are much bigger and the ocean is choppy like crazy. I guess the tradewinds hit more up here. The beach was basically dirt, with a little protected lagoonish area where we could get wet. No sand at all. But it was nice. We met some locals there who, as it turns out, work for Jim (our mac nut farmer host). So we played there for a few hours.

On our return, we quickly finished cleaning ceilings and then had an awesome dinner of spaghetti with garlic toast, finished off by chocolate icecream. Hmmmm. Then we all hung out and had some time of praising God. We had fun, the kids led us in a few worship songs. We sang quite a few songs actually. Then afterward we looked up verses in the bible that talk about praising God, and actually did what the verses said. “Shout to the Lord”, “Kneel before the Lord”. We didn’t do too well at the shouting part, we need to work on that one. Now, we sleep…

Day 48– Aug 16, 2005, Tuesday: To Kohala!

Here is a funky plant I saw. Hawaii has the most beautiful, strange plants. On the right is the church we are serving this week.

First day of (mini) outreach. Loaded up the truck. We had a team of 13 people and 2 drivers and 11 seats! Rod and I jumped in the back of the truck. We drove about 1 ½ hours north to Kohala. It’s a nice little town on the very north side of the island. The climate is quite different. It’s cooler and there are more pine trees. We are staying in a house here in town that is empty. Our job this week is to clean the house (which is a big job because this place is way dirty). It is an awesome old house “like Anne of Green Gables” says Ruth. The pastor from the church here is going on a mission trip for 2 years to Brazil. They lived in this house as of last week, and now the church is trying to fix it up. We are planning on doing some things with the youth group at the church here as well.

When we got here we had to clean a bunch just to get to the point of feeling comfortable cooking. We got out buckets and wiped down the walls and stove and got just tons of dirt off the walls. I don’t usually worry to much about being clean, but this place was nasty. We spent the afternoon cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen. Then we celebrated with pizza that we bought from Costco. Hmmm pizza. Right now we are playing Phase 10 while I type. It’s 8:30pm and I am exhausted. Ruth and the kids are already asleep in bed.

Karen said “Rod is a tin bum” some sort of New Zealander way of saying “I love you” I’m guessing. Now she is laughing at me. Apparently “tinny” means you are lucky. So I guess he wins all of the time.

The kitchen was nasty even by my standards. We set off to work as soon as we got there.


Finally! the kitchen was clean enough to cook food in. Here is the team dinner. We were amazed that the house had a table large enough to fit all of us!

Day 47– Aug 15, 2005, Monday: Introduction to our team

Below is our Team! from left to right: Wendy, Rodney, Meagan, Karen, Aime, Meg, Rita, Laura, Jonny, Emily, Jessika, Ruth and Dave. Can you believe God pulled us all together from all across the world to tell about Him in Uganda? Who'd a thought?

Let me introduce you to our team. Obviously there is Ruth, Jess, Jon and me. You should know us by now. The Richards family has a total of 5. Rodney is the father, he is an ex-civil engineer who now does computer networking type stuff for a school in New Zealand. Karen is his wife who home schools their three girls and keeps him in line. The girls are Aime, an awesome ‘Straight Edge’ 16 year old, Laura, the teacher/entertainer of our kids, 13 year old (she gets angry when I beat her at cards), and Meg, the playful, sensitive, always in a conversation 9 year old. They are a great family, they just talk funny (NZ accents are actually really cool sounding). Then there is Rita, our leader. She’s been to Uganda before, keeps us on track, and helps us have fun; she really is a great leader from Oregon. Every now and then she just Explodes with enthusiasm, so look out :)! Wendy is from Vancouver eh. She is a pediatric nurse with a huge heart and a sore neck. Pray that her neck gets healed and stays that way. Megan is from Virginia, 23 years old. She is bubbly and outgoing and fun to laugh with. She teaches elementary school (at least before this life changing experience). Emily is from Florida, right near Bradenton. I think she’s 18. Jonny has fallen in love with her. She is a lot of fun.

Today was mostly prep for our island outreach. We had some good worship this morning. We also had a Hawaiian guy (I missed his name) come and talk about the culture here and give us some cool history of the islands. One of the students in our class made up a skit and acted it out to music with 5 or 6 friends. It was sort of a mime type thing (with no words), but it was really powerful. Showing people give their lives in faith and struggle and know God better. I enjoyed it. Then ofcourse we mowed one last time. I can’t wait to have a week off of that! Tomorrow we are off to Kohala! Can’t wait.

You'll have to forgive me. I know that I owe you a week's worth of pictures and what God has done in our lives, but I'm beat. I've got bunches of pictures and cool stuff to tell you, so look for it later today....good night.