A Thanksgiving Birthday

Today I have officially survived 19 years on a massive ball of dirt hovering, drifting eerily close to an even larger fiery nuclear ball, all through an unfathomably large vacuum. I would also like to congratulate the other 6,500,000,000 people, on this Earth, for surviving another year. Praise the Lord. In the spirit of sharing here are three wonderful pictures! I hope you enjoy them.

I call this "Nature Meets my Mustache"


This is my work-duty team "Special Projects"


I call this one "Me, the Ladies, and the Cactus People"

Time is flying by!

WOW! Things are going by quickly. A week just zooms by! I was talking the other day to some friends of mine about how when we first got here a day was so slow, and now it's like a week goes by and I don't even notice...

Anywho... this last week was on the topic of relationships. They were both from Hawaii and it was interesting to here their take on relationships, and "culture sensitivity". Relationship is one thing I have neglected in my past, but as time goes on I realize that in any situation, or field of work, the first thing you should do is develop a relationship with the people around you. It is crucial! The main focus however was making our relationship with God right, and continuing to let down walls you've put up which limit God's transformational power.

About 4 weeks ago I joined the "Choir of the Nations". This weekend we gave two performances: one to the Kona base, and the other in a local market. It was a really good experience to work with people who had limited musical backgrounds yet were so passionate for Jesus and for glorifying Him. Despite some technical difficulties here and there, everything came together in a surprisingly solid way! By the way- our choir dressed in Hawaiin shirts and khaki's for the performance.

I've been experimenting a lot with language and how we communicate as I've been here. One of the first things you notice on the Kona base is how diverse language is here. So on top of my Japanese studies I have also been messing with constructed scripts (creating an alphabet for any language). I have also just checked out this book from the library called loglan.

To summarize, Loglan is a language designed to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf) that the natural languages limit human thought. It does so by pushing those limits outward in predictable directions, principally by:
-forcing the fewest possible assumptions about "reality" on speakers
-incorporates the notational elegance of symbolic logic
-removing all structural sources of amiguity
-generalizing all semantic operations (what can be done to one word, can be done to all)
-derives its word-stock from eight natural languages (culturally neutral - [or at least culturally diverse])

Making up for lost time..

Well first of all... here is a picture of me in Kona. In case anyone was curious as to what it looks like for me to be in Kona. Actually this is a picture of me in my dance attire, to be more specific. I am learning Ceroc. It is a swing/salsa fusion with a dash of ballroom. It is as strange as it sounds.

Here is what is going on in a nutshell:

Last week- A team of guys came in to talk on worship. What ended up happening was we spent the majority of the week in crazy worship, minus the talking part. This one guy was insane and would began to cry and drool because of the hurt in people and in communities around the world. We had one night where 17 drums were on stage and everyone just danced, like in that one matrix scene. However, despite the insanity, there were some powerful times spent in the midst of the Holy Spirit. By the end I was ready to process a lot of it all.

This weekend- I spent most of the time indoors studying Japanese. 私は八時間が先週末で勉強しました。 Which means! Last weekend I studied eight hours. I think. Soo...

This week- we are covering the Holy Spirit. The woman teaching it is serving as a doctor in Japan which is exciting. She has many impossible stories how her hindu family all came to Jesus through the radical power of the Holy Spirit moving on them. So, crazy stuff.. and today we had a big prayer time.

I've been fasting and praying asking for some guidance as to where I should go after this. Strangely, I think my plans and God's plans might line up more than I figured they would. So the plan still is to finish my college applications. I think UChicago may be where I need to go. So please pray for me and I will keep you posted.

I'm still here..

Sorry I haven't been updating lately. I will post in a few days with a picture of Halloween and to explain recent events here at YWAM. In addition to this I have the final details on my outreach plans.

"I am the vine and you are the branches"

Just felt like I should make a quick post about some amazing things which have recently transpired.

The week's speakers, Ane and Nu'u, have allowed the past two days to remain open for what God might want to do.

Well, yesterday I went up for prayer and it was powerful. I am struggling to humble myself before the Lord, but through prayer and God's grace my heart is softening. God is moving with a firm steadiness into the deeper regions which I have kept to myself. What is so exciting is that once I received the prayer I was really able to clearly hear the Lord and clearly perceive things.

I often felt ashamed at how I could be more excited about touchscreen technology-or home cooked meals- than God. That clarity and connection with God I felt was so incredible, that now I get really excited now when I have a chance to pray. I'm entering into a place where I can pray to, or praise Jesus fully, the result of which is a more palpable relationship with my Creator. Now there is a peace within me which truly passes understanding (considering I should be stressed out of my mind).

Tonight I was in the prayer room just freely talking to God. He talks in paragraphs, it's crazy, but anyways. I was walking out thinking that I have so much to learn and how I still get confused if it's really God or half God or if it matters or if I'm out of my mind. So.. I walk out and this girl and guy from my DTS are talking. She is looking for confirmation that she picked the right location for outreach. Apparently he confirmed it for her after prayer. She says to me "pray about it", and I don't want to because I know I will get it wrong or something. I kind of thought it might be in the pacific, myself. So anyways I got peer pressured into telling her what I heard. I stop and just pray and wait to see if God decides to play along. Immediately, for some reason, one place stuck out so... I asked if it was right, and to my surprise it was the place she felt lead to -and the same place the guy had confirmed (not the pacific). Life is full of some amazing coincidences... right? *cough* *cough*

So I felt like I should share some of that.

Food for Thought

Ohayoo!

So once again I've picked up learning Japanese. I unintentionally began a weekly class for my DTS. It was going to be just private tutor time with this guy named John (A Korean student from Tokyo University), but it turned into 12 people in our classroom with John. What was funny was that some people were asking me if I would be attending/knew about it. My friend Yukako (Ashley) promised she would teach me some Japanese, and another girl in my DTS, Yuko, will be helping at Japanese class.

I had a dream last night that I was playing the piano with sticks and everyone was amazed at my talent. It sounded beautiful though, at least in my dream.

I am thinking of writing a story for one of my application essays. If I do write it and finish. Count on me uploading it.

So far things here at YWAM are fine. I pray a lot, we go to worship often, and our speakers have some crazy stories. Sometimes the speaker will prompt our direction, other times the speaker will do nothing and God shows up and everyone gets really excited, etc. etc. I think if I wasn't crazy before I came here, I sure will be by the time I leave. Walking around talking to God all the time (I can't see Him but He comes with me everywhere), abandoning the common sense of the world (Who cares about money, or physical security? I don't!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA -Lord help me), and all that good stuff. No one will think me in my right mind.

YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!

Well, here's a quick video for you. I volunteered at the Ironman race as security. With my XL shirt tucked in, and my aviators on, I looked like a real pro. I can safely say that I was very strict with every person I encountered.

Just look at the picture and video they speak for themselves. This is an awesome event. The youngest competitor was 18 and the oldest was 79, at least that is the oldest I saw.