We left for the Calgary airport praying hard for easy passage through. Our bags were crammed full and heavy, 48.5 and 49.5 lbs, according to the luggage scale we had borrowed from the Torris’s, we were not sure whether we would be held up by immigration as we were to be at YWAM for 5 months, not just a vacation. We only had one hour and five minutes to change in Dallas.

Our prayers were answered, a short line up, our bags weren’t weighed, the immigration official didn’t even ask how long we were to stay or where we were going.
When I checked TripCase our gates in Dallas were almost next to each other in Terminal D, WOW!
We were surprised to find that we arrived in Dallas 15 minutes early, but then got the update that our connection had moved to Terminal C, we walked over the skywalk and arrived on time. God is good.

Our flight to Honolulu hadn’t featured in our prayer, we knew we had a couple of hour layover and then island hop to arrive in Kona at 7:30, soI assume we didn’t think it needed God’s help. Leaving Dallas we were told that we would be arriving at HNL more than one hour early, great news! We then discovered that the Blue Angels were practising for the Honolulu Air Show and the airspace over the airport was closed, for one hour there were no arrivals or departures, good thing we arrived early. Flights were delayed and the backlog was being cleared when a UPS freighter hit some birds and the airport closed again, this time to clean up. We arrived safely in Kona, later than expected, tired but in good spirit. The bus driver, it seems had been driving too long and was over hours, we were to wait for a replacement. After 45 minutes there was no sign so the guy drove us anyway. Arriving at the base at 10pm we were shown to our rooms and told we could register Monday. Sleep came and went, in little bits, three heavy rains waking us and breakfast at 6:15 in the brand new kitchen.

Friday started with breakfast and meeting at the flag poles, we were processed into an opening ceremony that took time to thank the people of Hawaii for welcoming us to their land. We heard a message about the Christian revival that took place in the 1800’s and an invitation to journey in the canoe. We responded to their sharing by presenting gifts from our culture.
We heard the history of YWAM and a message from Darlene Cunningham, one of the founders.
We then spilt into 5 groups and head out to 5 stations, one included coffee. PTL.
We met lots of people from all over the world and many from our Crossroads DTS. We are a large group, 38 adults from 9 nations. USA, Canada, Norway, UK, South Korea, Finland, Malaysia, Japan & China.

The afternoon was with our own Crossroads School, 38 adults and 24 children, introductions and receiving some instructions for the coming days.

The evening was more Hawaiian entertainment by Island Breeze and Lorne Cunningham told the early days story, then 44 flags were processed. This was the highlight of the day for me. I already knew that there are 600 YWAM bases in over 120 countries and teachings in 96 languages and that YWAM has visited all the nations BUT as the flags were carried, waved enthusiastically, the enormity of the YWAM movement and its impact and our participation in it became an emotional moment…

While in the lecture phase Saturday is our sabbath day. We used it to visit Walmart, getting pillows making our third nights sleep much more comfortable. We walked around a bit and hid from the rain, still waiting to see some blue sky.

We got back to the rooms at about 8:30 quite tired and thinking we have been away for a week already.

For those of you who now about Cursillo, YWAM has very many similar foundational values, particularly noticeable are servanthood and prayer.

My good friend, Alex Weaselbear from the Piikani Nation, gave us a coffee mug to bring. Yesterday I found a Blackfoot name for the mug – it is now known as “Katai’tayaopiiwaatsis” or in English “Does he stay here?”

The short answer is NO

Here is is checking the view from the cafeteria. This is good medicine! Wait and see on Facebook and Instagram where he “doesn’t stay” next… (Think we might just call him Katai for short, though.)

Thank you to all who are supporting us in prayer, looking ahead at the weeks to come there will be times we will be even more appreciative and in need.

Bless you and be a blessing!