Big Apple Adventure on the Big Island

Sorry that I have not been posting lately! We have been getting in late and I am with lots of other people. This week I am on the Big Island teaching 1^st and 2^nd grade VBS at Hawaiian Paradise Baptist Church. It is going really well so far and all the kids are really cute and sweet. Hawaiian Paradise has been identified as the fastest growing neighborhood in the state of Hawaii and there are only 2 or 3 evangelical churches in the area. After VBS today, we prayer drove around the neighborhood (it is too big to prayer walk. ) God is really showing me the importance of coming to Him in prayer about all things and how much I really on my own ability instead of seeking His  supernatural power.

After prayerdriving, we went to the Akaka Falls. It is beautiful!! There are no words to describe its beauty. What a creative God we serve!! Well lots of love to all! I will be home in less than a week!

 Crime scene? Nope… just a desperate girl trying to recover  precious commodity.

Cost of Living has not been as expensive as I thought it probably would be here in Hawaii; however, my dumb mistakes have MORE than made up for the expected added expense. First, my cell phone ticket….Now being so mesmerized by a sea turtle  that I did not notice a wave crashing high on the shore  drenching my towel, book, and SADLY my PHONE!!  Not stopping to put on a cover-up or shoes , I dash upstairs to see if I can salvage my phone. In all honesty, I am not thrilled with my phone, but at this moment I love it because it represents me not having to go and purchase another phone that I really had NO need for before today.  Upstairs, I am frantically blow drying the excess water off and getting ready to put all the pieces into rice (which thankfully I have on hand, thanks to my over packing of food.) I pull the sim card out and it flings across the foyer into the sliding door crevice that is now home to my sim card, 20 years of dust bunnies, and who knows what kind of insects. “Uhmm, “ I think to myself. “It cannot be that hard to get a sim card out of this crevice. If it went in there has to be a way out.” I then start scouring the condo for something long and skinny to assist me in my search and rescue of the sim card.  A mop handle is too thick. Some long pulls of too much extra pieces on the end to serve the purpose of recovering the sim card.  Finally, I decided on some bungee cords. For the first 10 minutes, I successfully pushed the sim card farther back and under the door.  Grabbing a hanger, I started dragging it with a hanger. Success it is working. Finally, it is within my reach, but it sandwiched in between the sliding door and the floor. So close and yet another set back. “ What can I use to free this sim card?” AH HA, I’ll use my tweezers. I grabbed my tweezers and pinched the sim card with them and pulled it free.

Maybe God is teaching me that I have an unhealthy attachment to my phone!

It has been FUN FUN FUN to have mom with me in Hawaii. Yesterday we went snorkeling, on a farm tour, and to the north shore.  One of my all time favorite movies is Gidget. I watch it every summer. Right before coming to Hawaii, I watched Gidget Goes Hawaiian.  Anyway, on our snorkeling adventure, I felt like Gidget at the beginning of the first movie when she went on a “man hunt” dressed in snorkeling gear…. I had the 60’s style bathing suit, the ridiculous looking snorkel gear….all I needed was a Moondoggie to come rescue me! In all seriousness, getting ready for snorkeling was very comical and actually snorkeling was amazing! We had the opportunity to see lots of fish and mom even saw a sea turtle.  After snorkeling we went to the Macadamia Nut Farm for a tour of the farm. We got to see where a lot of movies and television shows were filmed including: Gilligan’s Islands, Jurassic Park , 50 First Dates,  Fantasy Island,  and You, Me, and Dupree.  During our tour with our hilarious tour guides , a chicken was mere inches away from my back when I was sitting down. At the same time, there was about 4 or 5 about a foot in front of me trying to eat the coconut (who knew chickens ate coconut?)  I was nervous as a cat and wanted to jump up and run away. Thankfully, the tour guide could see my fear and threw the coconut in the opposite direction to get them away from me!  I survived!! Contrary to my irrational fear, the chickens are not out to get me;  today they wanted the other cocoNUTS!  Love to everyone back home! Less than two weeks until I will be back in Douglasville readjusting to heat and humidity!    

It was a busy, busy, good week!  I have not been updating my blog because I lost my internet connection at my apartment.  I thought that I might be a little sad that I wasn’t at Preteen Camp this week, but I woke up early and went to bed late and stayed busy in between just like at camp.  Over the whole summer, God has been teaching me to let go and let Him work in my life and in the lives of people around me.  It was really cool to see how God worked through and in individuals lives this week. He  is so faithful! Currently, I am so tired that I cannot really think clearly to write  details (plus Starbucks closes in 15 minutes).  

I am very excited to have my mom join me for the week!! I am looking forward to seeing some more Hawaii sites with one of my favorite people! I successfully made it to climb Diamond Head today without getting lost. It sure helps to have someone with you with a GPS... Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car, so I do not have any pictures of the amazing view at the top yet!

Much love to all and happy 4^th!

Calling ALL pets to make an appearance at Backyard Bible Club!!

Chuukese Dog must of reported to all of his animal friends that Backyard Bible Club was the place to be today! Not only did he show up, but several of his chameleon friends did too!  Chuukese dog made himself right at home during crafts and therefore became the recipient of the fish key chains that the  were making.  The chameleons traveled on kids’ backs, their hair, their shoulders,  and participated in all the activities (providing a great distraction mainly). 

Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Psalm 127:1

World Changers is here for the week working in Waianae, so I will be busy tagging along and assisting wherever needed. We went to their worship rally tonight and their key verse for the week is Psalm 127:1. I don’t recall ever having read this verse before, but it sums up what the Lord has been teaching me here in Hawaii.  It is all up to God…He works through us, but HE is the one at work!

 We have to be at the World Changers site tomorrow morning at 6:00 am, so hopefully that means that tomorrow I will post pictures of the sunrise!! I have been waiting for a morning when I had to wake up that early before seeing a Hawaiian sunrise. I have to check the exact time, but I am pretty sure it is 5:45 am. 

Love to all!  Internet difficulties the last couple of days. I will post pictures when I can!! 

Calling ALL pets to make an appearance at Backyard Bible Club!!

Chuukese Dog must of reported to all of his animal friends that Backyard Bible Club was the place to be today! Not only did he show up, but several of his chameleon friends did too!  Chuukese dog made himself right at home during crafts and therefore became the recipient of the fish key chains that the  were making.  The chameleons traveled on kids’ backs, their hair, their shoulders,  and participated in all the activities (providing a great distraction mainly). 

Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Psalm 127:1

World Changers is here for the week working in Waianae, so I will be busy tagging along and assisting wherever needed. We went to their worship rally tonight and their key verse for the week is Psalm 127:1. I don’t recall ever having read this verse before, but it sums up what the Lord has been teaching me here in Hawaii.  It is all up to God…He works through us, but HE is the one at work!

 We have to be at the World Changers site tomorrow morning at 6:00 am, so hopefully that means that tomorrow I will post pictures of the sunrise!! I have been waiting for a morning when I had to wake up that early before seeing a Hawaiian sunrise. I have to check the exact time, but I am pretty sure it is 5:45 am. 

Love to all!  Internet difficulties the last couple of days. I will post pictures when I can!! 

The Misadventures of Island Living

taking a goofy picture in the reflecting mirror by the diamond head lighthouse

Sharoleen and me by the ocean

This was before we found the big cardboard. This piece is really too small for me, but I wanted to have the experience anyway!

I was a much better cardboard sledder on the big piece of cardboard,  my camera died so I couldn't get pictures

Lastly sliding down the hill!

This morning started out to be a promising day to hike Diamond Head and enjoy Bible Study in the park… only I overestimated my sense of direction in Hawaii and set out to find the Chevron past the Jesus is Coming Soon Church without a GPS. On my way to pick up Philios, one of the Chuukese college students, I got lost. I was told to exit off King Street, so that is what I did. I exited off of the King Street that I had come across a couple of weeks ago…Little did I know that King Street is BIG and the freeway has multiple King Street exits. I am not even in the right town. I stop at a gas station to get directions and then head back the opposite direction to hopefully find my way. In the process, my phone rings and Philios is trying to get me there too! Well I couldn’t hear him on the speaker phone and pick up my phone. I maybe have it next to my ear for 15 seconds when the blue lights go on behind me and I am getting pulled over.  I pull over and wait for the officer (the window is already rolled down because there is no air.) thinking it might be a really good time to shed a tear. Of course no tears come and all I can say is how sorry I am and that I know that I was wrong. I did manage to tell him that I was lost and he said that he would get me to where I was going.  After taking my license, I prayed that maybe  he would have mercy on me the poor lost girl driving a beat up van. Not so, he came back and apologized for having to give me a ticket. Then he asked for my local address and for the life of me I couldn’t think of what it was. At that moment, I don’t even think that I could have told him the town that I was living in. I think I am the only person in the world who can get pulled over, have a amiable friendly conversation including laughter and still get a ticket... I think I just look guilty... which I was... there is no denying the fact that I was on my phone even if I was getting directions. At least I got good directions to the Chevron Station right past Jesus is Coming Soon Church from him...those were the most expensive directions I have ever received!  Lesson learned: Don’t talk on the phone while driving in Hawaii…no exceptions….follow all traffic laws because I don’t have the gift of getting out of tickets ( and it is the safe thing to do).

I arrived at the Chevron station past Jesus is Coming Soon over an hour and fifteen minutes late… making it impossible for us to climb Diamond Head and still be on time for Bible Study. Instead we drove/walked around Diamond head and took pictures at all the scenic places!

At the park, all these kids were “sledding”/ sliding down the side of the hill on cardboard boxes. My inner child came out and I had to try it (after all the kids went home and left the boxes!) Not as fun as sledding in the snow, but it is a fun memory!

During Bible Study the birds surrounded us from all sides… I probably was the closest I have ever been to a bird. I tried to remain calm, cool, and collected. The only time it didn’t work was when they were flying mere inches above my head.

Finally, to conclude my evening, I remembered how much I love to do laundry in a laundry mat… You wash all your clothes at once and dry them all at once! In less than 2 hours all the laundry is done!! I love it!!!!

Happy Sunday to you all!

Love, Kelly

Still having a good time even if we are not hiking! Lastly and Philios are with me in this pictures

Lastly, Philios, and me... climbing trees 

Meet Raston and Kimwill

Raston sporting my sunglasses!

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Jonah 2:9

When I first met Raston a couple of weeks ago, he could tell you the plan of salvation, quote scripture flawlessly,  and was at every church related event we had, but it was all head knowledge. He had no interest in having a relationship with Jesus.  Tonight during the invitation,  he came forward and gave his life to Jesus. He is so excited, and I am so excited for him. I was out of the room talking to another boy (who I ‘ll mention in a minute), so  I didn’t actually see Raston make his decision.  He told me later. I asked a group of kids what their favorite part of VBS was and the answers varied, but Raston’s answer was “allowing God to change my life.”  The change in his life is already evident! 

Kimwill eating a sucker!

I had the opportunity to talk to Kimwill this evening about what it means to be a Christian. We had a long discussion going through the plan of salvation and talking through the meaning of some of those churchy terms that we have heard all our lives, but are brand new to these kids. We discussed how you either believe that Jesus died on the cross taking our place and that there is no other way to have a relationship with God except through Jesus …. Or you don’t. There is no in between and you can’t ride the fence.  Kimwill said, “I believe Jesus took my place.”  After praying, he requested that we pray for his dad.  Kimwill’s favorite part of VBS was talking to God.

Pray for these 2 preteen boys. They have a hard road ahead of them. Most Chuukese boys in this neighborhood drop out of school and gangs are prevalent.  Pray that God will put his hedge of protection around these boys and keep them from evil. Pray that God will send a man to mentor and disciple these boys and teach them to be godly young men.

Me, enjoying my hat! 

On a lighter note,  today I went to the Makaha resort with Darla for lunch.  I had been on the beach earlier in the day and was planning on going back to the beach after we were finished, so I thought that was a good enough excuse to wear a hat to lunch!! How I love hats!!  I really wish it was fashionable to wear them all the time! One of the wonderful things about  being in Hawaii is that no one knows me, so I can wear hats anytime I want. Of course the fact that I am posting it on my blog for all of you back home to see I guess defeats the purpose. One day I am going to wear a hat to church! How much fun would that be?

Tomorrow ( Saturday) I am hiking Diamond Head with the Chuukese youth that are going on the Big Island mission trip!

Love to all of you!