jellyfish attack

We had the afternoon off for Memorial Day yesterday! The guy who is in charge of the farm has a car and offered to drive us to the BEACH! We are usually so busy with class and work and planning for Cambodia that we don’t have much free time, so this was quite a treat! Even the car ride was fun! {we don’t get out much, ha ha!} It was a perfect afternoon– until we went swimming.

Davey and I both got attacked by jellyfish. I got hit around the legs and Davey was snorkling and actually swam into them and got hit all over. My lash shows up more because I’m less tan, but boy did it hurt! Everyone on the beach kept telling us to pee on it, but we opted out because Davey got hit on the forehead and neck and that would just be weird.

Anyway, we lived to tell the tale 🙂

So much for a nice, relaxing day off!

Happy Memorial Day!

{Thanks for the hat, Mandy!}

last week’s treat

I didn’t forget to blog this week. I was just really sick and slept most of the day. I’m feeling much better now and so here’s an update.

Last week, our friends Doug and Valerie came to visit! Doug was our speaker ALL week and he was amazing (as usual). He taught us that:

Life with God is NOT a march, it’s a dance.

Basically, we want a prescribed 10 step plan for hearing God and doing his will. We don’t get that. Life with God is not about following rules, it’s about going with the flow with God and learning the dance as you go. And usually when we’re confused about hearing God’s voice, it’s because we’re too focused on our self.

So, WAKE UP! And start living instead of resisting everything that happiness. Forgive reality. Jesus didn’t come to reinforce our life, he came to give us NEW LIFE!

Aside from some amazing teaching, we were spoiled and got to go out to dinner with them one night. This is amazing for 4 reasons. 1. We got off campus! {we don’t have a car and so we never get out past as far as we can walk}, 2. we ate the most delicious food that was brought to us {we didn’t have to stand in the food line and eat the “chef’s special”}, 3. We got to dress up {we get dirty  and sweaty every day at the garden, so it was nice to wear a dress and put a flower in my hair} 4. we had an amazing time with amazing friends. We didn’t remember to take a picture at the restaurant, so we took one in our room. Just as good.

As if that wasn’t sheer bliss, they invited us to drive around the island on Saturday! Valerie’s dad used to live here, so they know the island very well. It rained most of the day but we’re used to that. {side note: most of you think we’re getting nice and tan. Wrong. It’s been raining–down pouring, thunder and lightning raining– for the past 4 weeks. It’s like a warm version of Seattle. They say it’s historically the most rainy season they’ve ever had. At least we’re here when history is made I guess.} Since we’re usually busy with class and work from dawn till dusk, this was such a treat to get off the base and spend the day with our friends. Here are some highlights:

windyDavey and Hanu at the black sand beach

walking to the lava tube

The lava made a tunnel

Rainbow Falls

Enormous banyan tree

Do you see Akaka falls behind us in the mist?

Akaka falls. weird name

Sun came out in Laupahoehoe (La-pa-hoy-hoy)

Waipi’o Valley

taste and see

Aloha!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the verse: “Taste and see that the Lord is good” Ps 34:8. There’s a lot to taste and see around here. Here we are on the farm… learning about natural farming techniques from one of the two qualified men in the country! {If you’re wondering what those water filled hanging gloves are, the “supposedly keep the flies away because when the fly looks at it, he doesn’t know where to go. So they say. I think the flies just fly under them.} Anyway, half of our campus is Korean. That means every meeting we have is translated into Korean. Yup. I have learned 2 Korean words: 감사합니다 and 안녕하세요. Translation: thank you: kamsa hamida. Hello: anya sayaho. I have lots of friends to practice those words with too! The best part about this “lecture” was the authentic Korean dinner we had after!

I decided to at least try everything. {except the sushi} The salad had bananas in it and a ginger dressing, there were these clear noodles that were pretty good but slimy, I wasn’t craving any more of the tofu egg dish and one bite of kim chee {fermented cabbage in spicy sauce} was plenty. The rice was good! This meal was such a welcome change from what we’ve been having for dinner this week: corn dogs, grilled cheese and leftovers. 

We had another treat this week too! Our friends Dave and Jess {yup, same names as us!} invited us, along with 3 other couples, out to dinner and to a concert at one of the hotels. They treated us to a spectacular dinner and I’ll tell you what… when you’re living on pbj and have eaten the SAME breakfast for over 2 weeks, going out to dinner is even more amazing than ever. We had a blast hanging out and being “normal” for the evening. And by normal I mean not rushing to the next scheduled part of the day or being able to pick what you eat for meals. Money has been pretty tight {like debating-if-we-should-do-laundry-or-not-tight}, so we were so appreciative of their generosity. We were tasting and seeing that the Lord is GOOD!

The couple closest to the words I’m writing, DY and Tina, are our neighbors. They got married a week before we had to be here! A 3 month missions honeymoon in Kona!? Nice! 

It almost ALWAYS clouds over… or vog’s over {volcanic clouds} by 3. But it never reaches the sun, so this makes for some amazing sunsets and of course, rainbows! “What can this mean?”

There are pine trees here too. They say that out of the 13 different climates, this island has 11 of them. Aparantly, there is a desert somewhere and a snow capped mountain. Bet you didn’t think of that when you imagine Hawaii!

Hope everyone had a great Easter celebrating that Jesus arose! We woke up super early to go to a sunrise service. 

If you look close and kinda squint, you can see a ray of sunshine shooting straight up into the sky. He is risen!

Honestly, the sunrise service was a HUGE disappointment. They didn’t sing ONE easter hymn/song and they didn’t say ANYTHING about Jesus rising from the dead. Easter is not Easter without singing “Up from the grave He arose!” So when we got home, Davey and I looked up all the Easter hymns on YouTube. Easter just wasn’t the same either because we missed our family. Wish you were here Sheryl and Dave and everyone else! {We only saw their car…}

Even though we missed our families, we had a great brunch with our group. Here I am with Dianne from New Zealand. 

Here Davey is with one of our leaders, Carolyn.So as we  Davey eat our kim chee bowls {like cup o noodles with “kim chee… bleh!} and corn dogs, and countless pbj’s, we remember the good times we had and the good food we ate this week and can say with confidence: God is good. {and He’s good for a lot more reasons than just food}

 

week one

Our first assignment was to make a journal. Every week we have different things to write about and reflect about. Here’s Davey’s cover:

And here’s mine:

quite a contrast, huh?! 

Week one was quite a bit of orientation and “getting to know” the group. It’s been a challenge to remember everyone’s names… especially Chu Myong and Chyong Chik. Chyong Chik said we have to say his name 10x a day to remember it. By now, I think we’ve got them down! Although we are one of the youngest members, we’ve gotten along great with everyone and learned a lot. We had an AMAZING speaker on Thursday and Friday and he talked about Christ’s love and living a life of love instead of following a bunch of rules and striving to be good. 

After class ends, we head off to our work duty. Basically everyone on campus is assigned a job they have to do everyday for 2 hours. I am SOOO excited I get to work in the garden! It’s much better than waking up at 4am for breakfast dish duty! So from 3-5pm we work the land… the past few days we’ve weeded and planted peppers, arugula, bok choy and papaya. I’ve been learning so much about natural farming and how to garden without chemicals. We make fertilizer from egg shells, fish guts and vinegar, use worms to make compost, and burn wood to crush charcoal to add nitrogen to the soil. Sasi, one of my friends from our group, is working in the garden with me and we hope to be able to use these skills when we go overseas to teach people to grow their own food.

We cleared out this whole area and made 6 raised beds to plant vegetables!

Sasi and Grace weeding the garden

papaya trees

Here’s our group after a day of hard work!

This is where we went to church today:

It’s called Living Stones Church and the pastor preached an incredible message. The church building is so small that they set up seats outside as well. Here’s the view just beyond the outside chairs:

Here we are with our friend Sasi. Tom, who took the picture, told us “smile you just won the lottery” and I guess I was the only one who was excited about it…

Here’s part of our group after church. Nancy, the lady in the blue, got baptized in the pool. 

And we found 3 of these guys in our room that afternoon

Guess we’ll let them stay to eat all the bugs 🙂

A visual day in the life…

Our days have been so packed full that it’s been hard to find time to blog! So, I woke up early to post a quick video.

I’ll write more details and show more pictures from the week over the next few days, but for now, hope you enjoy this video. Warning: it’s really long… 9 minutes. But our mothers wanted to see where we are so we decided to take the video camera with us for the day. Hope you’re not too bored or that you get a headache from me moving the camera too fast at some parts. 

p.s. We got jobs in the garden, as you will see on the video! More on that in another post!

Kona

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

We went to the farmers market yesterday and got the biggest avocado I’ve ever seen, strawberry papayas {my new favorite fruit}, apple bananas, tomatoes and a juicy delicious pineapple. I’m very proud of myself because I cut the whole pineapple with a little flimsy white plastic knife! Yeah!

Today we start our training classes… and they give us “jobs” which we will have to do every day from 3-5. We have a hunch that we might get to work in the garden/farm!

I’ve been thinking a lot about volcanos. After all, we’re living on a volcano. I read about how although lava destroys everything in its path at first, it has a greater purpose. It enriches the soil and it’s really good for plant growth after it hardens. Who knew? I think that’s what will happen with our lives while we’re here. When we think we’re lacking and are being challenged to surrender everything; when Davey’s flip flips break on the first day {yes, that happened}, or when I have to cut a pineapple with a plastic knife because we don’t have a real knife; or when we wonder why God brought us here… our lives will be enriched and we will grow in the process.

the big day

Our vintage cell phone alarms woke us up dark and early at 4:30 am. And we got through airport security and bag check in a record 30 min! {Thanks Mom and Dad for driving us so early!}

Davey and I have very different travel styles. I like to get there at least 2 hours early… just in case. {this is probably b/c Newark is my “home” airport and there are ALWAYS lines out the door. Davey, on the other hand, likes to live on the edge. He is usually the one who’s name is being called on the overhead speakers to board the plane. But my dear, sweet husband has realized, after traveling with me for 2+ years, that a happy wife= a happy life, so he very graciously raises the white flag of surrender and agrees to get to the airport early to avoid my worried, frazzled nerves and fears about missing our flight. He’s so sweet.

We touched down in Seattle at 10:30 west coast time and had a great 6 hours touring the city with Davey’s brother Dan.

1st stop was the public market and the original Starbucks. They had the most beautiful fish, produce and flowers. It was a sight to behold!

Good thing we had hot coffee to put our hands around because it was FREEZING COLD and rainy. BRRRRR! This sign was very exciting to see… it’s hard to read, but it says “Hawaii is closer than ever”…

Back at the airport, we boarded our plane to our final destination. I was rainy when we got there, but who cares… it was WARM! It was funny to see that the majority of the people on our flight were with YWAM too! We loaded up in busses and arrived on base around 9:00 island time… or 3am NJ time. We registered, got our ID cards, met the staff and were brought to our room. {pictures of our humble abode to follow…} We finally made it. It still hasn’t really sunk in that we’re actually. We’re so excited to see what God is going to do in these next months!