I am 4,690 miles from home in Honolulu, Hawaii where I will be living for the next few months. After two weeks I've found that I miss home a little bit; not because of the snow, snakes and losing sports teams; but because of friends and family. Hawaii is terrific. The weather couldn't be better, the people are friendly, and if you bring a snake with you in your luggage, you can go to jail for up to five years. Any place where snakes are illegal is the place for me. I love almost everything about living on the island of Oahu, but it will take some time before I feel like this is home.
An average day here at YWAM Honolulu starts with breakfast at 7am and is filled with lectures, work duties, volunteer work/ministries, evangelism outreaches and select moments of free time during which I take naps. Lectures have been informative and convicting. Work duties around the base include yard work, maintenance, housekeeping and kitchen work. I'm on maintenance with one other fellow. We do odd jobs around the base like painting and cleaning out select areas. Every Wednesday morning I go with a small group of students and staff to Kualoa Ranch to do volunteer work. Movies and TV shows like Jurassic Park and Lost have been filmed on the ranch which makes sense; the scenery is surreal. So far we've been raking leaves and relieving beaches of trash. Eventually we'll be planting indigenous plants and removing invasive ones up in the mountains in order to help restore the natural ecology of the island. On Friday nights a group of us goes into Chinatown and ministers to the homeless. We hold a church service in a tiny cafe and give out some food and water.
I will be in Honolulu for a few more months before I go with my outreach team to Nepal. We have 11 students and a married couple as our leaders. Another team is going to India and another is going to The Philippines. My team will fly into Kathmandu in early December and eventually we will make our way to the other side of Nepal to a city that starts with a "D" via a twenty-six hour bus ride. We will spend a total of two or so months in Nepal.
Every day is an adventure that brings with it a new challenge. Thank you very much for your support, I can't thank you enough for contributing to this life-changing experience. God bless you!
