Day 78– Sep 15, 2005, Thursday: How God has changed us

The pictures for today are as follows:

first is the altar we made as a class to signify an encounter with the living God.

2nd is a shot of what the Ohana court looks like for our all campus gatherings..lots of people.

3rdshows a girl that graduated today. They do offer degrees here. I think the goal is to suffocate her with leis and silly string.

4th is coffee at the end of the day. hanging with the friends.

Today was the last day of meeting. We went around and told how God has changed each of us. It was a great time of hearing what God has done in so many lives here. There were so many that I thought “yep, me too”. For me, the top two things that come to mind are:

1:Foundation: the bible…God gave us his word, and I haven’t even read it through once, let alone studied it. I’ve got some work to do :). It’s such an amazing story from front to back about God’s love for us and how he longs for us to be Holy so we can be with Him.

2: Intimacy with God is such a huge need in my life. How can I know God’s will for my life if I don’t know him? How can I know him if I don’t spend time with him?

After the sharing time we had some worship to God and we made an altar like in the Old Testament to signify an encounter with God. It was really cool. We each took a piece of lava rock and painted it and stacked them all together. Some people painted a picture, some a word or phrase. Here is a picture.

After lunch I went to get my last shot. I’ve had enough of immunizations for now (5 total, plus malaria pills). I guess the good news is that most of them I won’t need again. Then I came back and it was raining so we skipped mowing. Jessie and Jonny begged us to jump in the pool, so off we went. We are going to miss the pool a lot.

Just before our big meeting tonite we called home and talked with our bible study…it was great to hear their voices. WE MISS YOU GUYS. It’s so great to know that you are all at home keeping us in your prayers. Please keep praying, especially as we go to Africa!

Once we put the kids in bed we hung out and had coffee for an hour and a half. What an awesome time with our friends here. It’s going to be tough to leave next Wednesday and watch some of the others leave before then. (Every team leaves at different times, ranging from Monday to Friday next week.) It’s a very strange time here because we are all very excited to go out, but we are sad to leave each other and this great time of learning and growing together.