It's Been Awhile

1 Cor.2:4-5

".... and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

Time has flown by so quickly here!  It is hard to believe that we have been here for 7 weeks now!  The weeks have been filled with class, journals, book reports, workshops, small groups, seminars and so much more!  We have been stretched, challenged and pressed to know, believe and experience God in ways we have never considered before.  We sometimes forget we're in Hawaii because we're so busy.  But we thank God for the weekends.   We've had the chance to rent a car a few times and explore the  Big Island and blow off some steam.

This is at Pololu Beach

At Waipio Lookout

Hudson shredding it up!

Our speakers have been amazing!  So far they have spoken on the presence of God, the character of God, hearing God's voice, healing from the past through confession and prayer, deliverance ministry,  spiritual warfare, the power of the Holy Spirit, and evangelism.  This school has prepared us well to have a fruitful ministy.  It has exceeded our expectations and we can't wait to practice what we have learned on outreach.

Speaking of outreach.  We have an official destination.....Malaysia!  The process of choosing your outreach location is really fun.  They gave us a choice of 3 countries:  Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia.  Then they asked us to pray about which one we feel led to go to.  This was during the section on hearing God's voice, so we got a chance to practice.  Originally, Cambodia was first on my (Rich's)  list and Malaysia was last.  After praying about it we felt like the Lord wanted us to go to Malaysia.  We were still struggling with it because we didn't really want to go to Malaysia.  We prayed and asked God to show us if we really should go there.  While I was still praying I got a text from my Mom saying that we just got a letter from Malaysia.  How often does that happen? That's the first letter I've ever gotten from there.  Also, Katie had been praying and she told us that she felt like we were supposed to go to Malaysia.  This was really cool because I hadn't told her anything about my experience at that point.  We will be working in Kuala Lumpur with a local church in the community.  KL is a big city and there are numerous opportunities for us there.  Malaysia is a very ethnically diverse country.  It has large populations of Indians and Chinese along the with the native Malay people.  So you can find almost any religion under the sun there, but the majority are Muslim.  One of the positive things we keep hearing is that Malaysia has some of the best food in the world.  We'll let you know if that's accurate after we sample it.  But, it probably can't be too bad with all the Indians and Chinese that live there.  Here is a link to a video about how to pray for Malaysia:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEH0emoe1t8

We are thankful for all of your prayers while we have been here.  Your prayers are vital to us during this time of preparation to return to the mission field.  Here are some ways you can continue to pray:

* time management 

* Preparation for our outreach to Malaysia

* Unity for our outreach team

* For endurance for us as we come into the final 5 weeks in Hawaii

* Katie, Hudson and Charlee - to continue to soak up all that they are learning about our Great God and King here on campus

* We are in a spirritual battle and it has become very apparent that the enemy doesn't like what we are doing- please pray for protection and discernment for us!

* For alone time and also time for reflection- it is busy here and sometimes it can be hard to find this kind of time!

We hope to be updating a lot more often now that we have our computer back!  Thanks for being patient with us! 

2 Tim. 4:22 " The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you."

Love in Him,

The Caudles

What A Week!

So this is my first attempt at blogging!  I hope this will be a good way to connect with all of you about what our family is doing here in Kona and also when we go on outreach!

ALOHA

We arrived in Honolulu on Sept. 26th and spent a few days there recovering from jet lag before heading to Kona.  We hit the ground running as soon as the plane landed!  We are officially in love with YWAM!  We had 4 people escort us off of the shuttle from the airport to our room and then pray over our family.  Everything is bathed in prayer here.  From meals to work duties, our instruction has been to seek the Lord and direction from the Holy Spirit.  It has been a dependency on the Lord that is refreshing and renewing!  The campus is filled with a huge diversity of people from all over the world!  Our particular school (CDTS) has 58 students from Norway, Pakistan, Switzerland, Korea, Canada, Germany and the US.  Some of the topics we will be covering this semester are the presence of God, the character of God, hearing God's voice, spiritual warfare, the presence of the Holy Spirit, Evangelism, The Raw Gospel and Biblical wordview.  We have different speakers coming in every week.  Bob and Carolyn Hopkins are our school's leaders.  They are an amazing couple who have been doing this for over 40 semesters!

This is a picture of Katie standing where we watch the sunsets at night.  This is to the right of our building.

Our days have been starting around 5:30.  Rich and I have been taking turns getting up and running with different groups of people.  Breakfast is served at 6:30 in the outdoor cafeteria.  Everyday starts with worship at 8:00.  On Mondays the entire campus of over 500 gather together for worship and then on Wednesday morning we have a special time of worship with the kids.  After worship the kids are off to their school and Rich and I leave for lecture until 2:30 in the afternoon.  Charlee is with Brittany while we are in class (we love Brittany and so does Charlee).  The afternoon has been set aside for outreach preparation, small groups and lecture application.  From 3-5 everyone on campus has a work duty.  Since we have kids my duty has been to take care of them.  Rich, on the other hand, has grounds duty.  If you know Rich well, you know this is the type of work he has been avoiding for years:)!  Most evenings are free but we have A LOT of homework to do during that time!  This week has been really hectic due to extra meetings to get things started. We also had the opportunity to volunteer for the Ironman triatholon this week doing security!  It was an amazing experience that I will never forget.  My throat has been sore and raspy after yelling for the athletes for 6 hours! Watching these men and women compete put a different picture in my head of 1 Cor. 9:24, "Do you not know that in a race all the runner's run, but only one recieves the prize? So run that you may obtain it."  Jesus is our prize and He is worth our training and the endurance to run!  Praise God He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us finish!!

  

This is the winner of Ironman being interviewed right after his finish!

Rich and I before we started our duty.

There is so much more to say but I will save it for next week's blog!  I just wanted to share with you how God answered your prayers for us!!

* The 8 hour flight was so smooth and the kids did great!  Charlee had a good 20 minutes of crying but we were surrounded by understanding people!

* We love Brittany!  She is such an amazing woman who loves the Lord!  I cannot imagine doing this without her!

*The kids found friends the first day here!  Our next door neighbors have a 1,4 and 7 year old also! Our God is so faithful to take care of all of the details!

*We are surrounded by a group of people hungry for the Lord!  We have found a fast community and we are excited about how we will grow with these people over the next few months

Prayer requests for this week:

* Rich and I have a huge load of homework to do every night and really can't get started until after the kids go to bed.  Between the heat exhaustion and the long hours during the day we have really struggled to get everything done before passing out at night!  We need just an extra dose of endurance for this time.

* Continue to pray for our marriage- between school, homework, and time with the kids it is hard to find time to connect with one another.

* We want to be overwhelmed with the power of the Lord. Pray that our hearts would be open to what God has for us here.

* Pray that we would learn to balance our time between class, work, social activities and family.  We need wisdom here!

We are overwhelmed by your support and cannot express our gratitude as you approach the throne of the Father on our behalf!  Mahalo!

I'll leave you with a Hawaiian sunset!

God Bless You