We have been here in Kona more than 6 weeks already. Now I find two weeks of teaching slipped by without an update.

The first of these weeks saw Jean Norment “Unveiling the Cross“… We sat under Jean’s teaching last year and it was excellent.(Clicking that link will take you to my post from last year on this teaching.) Her message definitely unveiled all that the Cross, and the blood of Christ, did once and for all. There is so much depth and meaning in this mystery that Glenda and I continue to see the veil being removed. One of our big takeaways last year was reinforced this time, we are even more certain that our unbelief is our greatest sin. I will come back to this later in this blog with an example.

Our Outreach locations were announced this week and preparations have begun. This year our school will be visiting: Battanbang, Cambodia; Penang, Malaysia; and Hanoi, Vietnam. Need I say that Glenda and I are both very excited to be heading back to Hanoi? We haven an awesome team of fully-equipped people who are ready to share their gifts with the people of northern Vietnam as Cultural Exchange and Volunteer English Teachers. There will be more on this in weeks to come.

The second week the teaching was on our Identity in Christ with Ivan Roman… a revivalist and church planter (Empowered Life Church) from Medford, Oregon. His wife Erica was with him and they spent time together ministering to the students. Ivan taught us from a wealth of memorized scripture and his experience about who we are in Christ. Ivan has a prophetic ministry and spoke into everyone’s lives. This was an exciting week as many people discovered we were Unveiling our Identity, becoming who we already are. Again our unbelief is what holds us back from becoming all God has made us, and it prevents us ministering with the power that is available to believers walking in the Holy Spirit. The power to overcome evil, power to overcome sickness, power to overcome addictions, power to lives wholly Holy lives.

There were a couple of external affirmations that built on this weeks teaching. The first appeared on Facebook, I was struck by this quote from William Booth while speaking about the 20th Century. I am afraid that in much of the world it continues into the 21st…

Then as I went through Morning Prayer from the “Daily Prayer: The Official Common Worship App from the Church of England” on Saturday morning I found that the Collect for the Day just summed up this weeks teaching so accurately.

God, the giver of life,
whose Holy Spirit wells up within your Church:
by the Spirit’s gifts equip us to live the gospel of Christ and make us eager to do your will,
that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen

Remarkable! How did God know what we were learning all week?  Oh, and I spent some time wondering what the Anglican Church worldwide would look like if they prayed this prayer with real belief.

Small groups, one-to-ones, praying, technical support, giving thanks, preparing & serving snack, praising, planning outreach, interceding, attending staff meetings, worshiping, etc, etc and just “being there” is keeping us busy and out of trouble. We give thanks for the technology that allows us to FaceTime and Skype, blog email and text message with family and friends. The world truly has become smaller for missionaries taking the gospel to the nations.

Thursday night in Ohana Court saw Suze Chmell speak, a young German girl who went home after her DTS and started a new YWAM base in her home town, you can watch some highlights here  http://livestream.com/ywamkona/thursdaynight2015

Wildlife this week…

This out-of-focus centipede was over 125mm (5 inches) long-  still only half grown

Underwater Wildlife. On Saturday, many of the men met a 7a.m. and headed to Kapaluli Beach for a snorkel trip. We had a great time and several went for breakfast afterwards.  I had to borrow the photo here from Dan, one of our students, who took many underwater photos as we swam with turtles and many, many fish.including the Hawaiian state fish, humuhumunukunukuapuaa