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
