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Week 2 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads

It has been warm in Kona, just over 30C (87F in American) every day with humidity in the 75-80% range. 🙂

I will start this week with our Work Duty as I missed that detail in my last blog, and I only mention the weather because of work duties. We have to do 10 hours of work per week as part of our credit hours. I get to work on the construction clean-up crew from 3-5pm, awesome! I had been hoping and praying for an outdoor chore. Although, it has been far from a chore working with some other older-youth from our Crossroads DTS and many younger-youth from the aPAC DTS (Pacific Asia), God has built some great relationships through digging holes and filling them up again.

We have dug some drainage ditches, along paths and around buildings, and filled them with rock; we have dug postholes and filled them with fenceposts and concrete; we have dug trenches and filled them with irrigation pipes; and without digging, we have filled a dumpster with construction garbage. The warm temperatures, the physical labour of shovels picks and wheelbarrows, along with careful eating (and no drinking) has led to my shorts getting quite loose and the need for a belt.
Glenda prayed for an indoor work duty and has been blessed to work out in the library. She gets to climb up and down a step stool in very narrow aisles lifting all the books off the shelf to lovingly remove the never-ending dust. The job also involves using a computer to check books in and out; assisting students to find books; the sale of cold drinks and praying for and with students using the library. This is shift work as the library is open until 11pm, her shift this week has been 9-11, making sleep time shorter than preferred, next week is 7-9pm, much better!

Our classroom has fans and, occasionally, a refreshing breeze blowing through. Last weeks talks by Dr Doug Richardson the “Nature and Character of God” and “Hearing God’s Voice” were excellent, Doug is an accomplished and entertaining speaker, he has a couple of books available online and a new one coming called ADVENTage Points, an Advent reflection for not-yet-believers, is going to be worth a read for all. He also shared a paraphrase of John 1:1-14 that uses conversation as the translation for logos, read it here and ponder.
Takeaways from the talks? As Christians we are to join God in the renewal of all things, be a generous listener, our life should be an invitation for hope, and we need to have a beginner’s mind. A beginner’s mind is what Jesus talks about when he says we are to be child-like, not experts.
Friday we had a DVD teaching by Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM and University of the Nations. The subjects covered were “Working in the Opposite Spirit” and “Relinquishing Rights” both excellent. There is nothing more powerful than lambs amongst wolves, and relinquishing rights, not responsibilities, to God. This book by Loren expands on his message Making Jesus Lord: The Dynamic Power of Laying Down Your Rights

On Tuesday evening, Innovision Studio showed The Pink Room an Emmy award documentary made by YWAMers. Filmed on site in Cambodia it is about human trafficking and the sex trade, the movie tells the story of Mien, a young girl who was rescued and has a happy ending, this is not so for most girls.

On Wednesday evening the Word by Heart School put word_by_heart_logo_xsm on an amazing demonstration of scripture recital. Jackson Ambe Ndecheck one of the presenters shared this video link of his worship at the Easter 2014 Service at Mokuaikaua Church, the oldest church in Hawaii. The school is going to run a seminar while we are here and we intend to be there. They told us that it is not memorizing, it is learning the story. We will see.

Thursday we had dinner with Stephanie Armbruster, a friend from YWAM Turner Valley who is working with YWAM Ships here in Kona. Afterwards, we went to Thursday night worship in Ohana Court which was hosted this week by Heartbridge Performing Arts DTS, wow!

Saturday saw us volunteering as security for the IRONMAN world championship. 2,187 athletes entered the race – a 2.4 mile rough water swim, a 112 mile bike ride, through lava fields in 32C with strong crosswinds blowing in from the sea, and a full 26.2 mile marathon. Astonishing! The winner finished in less than 8.25 hrs, the 1,985th contestant, the last to complete the course, crossed the finish line after almost 17 hours.

We had a great time and learned a bit of a scriptural lesson. We quickly became aware that very few of the 2,187 athletes, aged from 19 – 84 years, enter to win, they enter to finish. When I was writing about finishing well as I left the U of C, my hardships, trials and tribulations, my stamina, my persistence and determination pale when compared to what these athletes put themselves through. 12,000 – 20,000 KCals of energy are burned off during the race, (barely 300KCals/hour can be consumed while competing). Keeping going through it all, the temperature, humidity, wind, hills, sunburn, blisters, sweat, mind-games they must keep their focus on the one thing! As Christians our one thing is Jesus, will we endure and persist? Will we give him 20,000 KCal in 8 hours? even 17? Will we be an Ironman for Jesus?

Our Outreach Options: The school will be split into 4 groups for outreach in Fiji, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam – we got to pick a first and second choice we will know Monday afternoon which we get. We selected 1. Vietnam and 2. Malaysia.

Now back to homework, I still have 4 chapters of the Acts of the Apostles to read and summarize.

Have an awesome week, we love you all and miss you, please be blessed and be a blessing and join with God in the renewal of all things.

’til next week.

Week 1 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads

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We have been here at University of the Nations, Kona, for over a week, having arrived late Thursday evening, but Week 1 of the school started on Monday. The first few days covered lots of details, getting student ID, and how to keep our Journal. This will be a very detailed record with specific pages devoted to teachings, I am sure it will be a treasured record of the journey. The first part required decorating the Journal in a meaningful way, a title page, two pages describing what we want and what we need to do to get there, and the next two were who we are. If you have read my Retirement sermon you will know that these are important questions for me. All must be presented in graphical form with text. Any of you who have been to Cursillo, this is MEGA poster time!! We also found out who is in our small groups and began meeting/grouping.

We spent a few hours with Judy Orred, on Thursday and Friday, as she “attempted to lay a foundation for hunger” by sharing some thoughts about the Nature and Character of God . She was very successful, dropping lots of bombs with no time to explore any to any depth. Judy has raised our curiosity level for next weeks teaching on the Nature and Character of God and Hearing His Voice with Doug Richardson

Below is the Crossroads DTS logo that is on the wall outside our classroom and on our name badges.

Meals have been great, no cooking and no dishes, we are committed to eating at the cafeteria as often as possible, the meals are included in our fees and we don’t want to be spending where we don’t need. So far there have been no off-campus meals, no snacks and no hunger pains. We are truly grateful. Here is a sample breakfast…

Last Sunday we attended church at Living Stones Church, it is on the beach and pastored by a YWAM Crossroads graduate. The worship was excellent and the message on hope very practical and Bible-based. We plan on returning there this week.

We walked back to the base, about 2 1/2 miles (4Km) and stopped at the beach for a bit of foot cooling therapy.

Every morning begins with an hour of worship and intercession for the nations, Mondays are special as the whole community gathers in the Ohana Court for Monday Morning Worship. Ohana means family in Hawaiian and there are basket ball nets 🙂 Gathering with over a thousand people to worship first thing on Monday is very powerful and puts God first in the week.

The other weekly corporate gathering is on Thursday evening, this is open to the community,and this week had Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM and University of the Nations sharing an apostolic message with the community. Note the beautiful sunset framed to the left of the stage with an old rugged cross in the foreground and the YWAM number 1 foundational value To Know God… above.

There was also an unexpected visitor who blessed us with his presence, turning up uninvited in our accomodation. Scolopendra subspinipes, or Sc_ipes for short, just a little one at 8 cm, they can get to 20- 30 cm.

I have managed to walk or jog at least 5 Km every day, Glenda has walked every other, and the campus is on a hill with over 90 steps. This is good exercise, although I am having quite a bit of pain from Achilles tendonitis or plantar fasciitis, not sure which.

That is about it for Week 1, you are all in our prayers and intercessions, stay in touch and please continue to add comments and feedback as you like.

Be blessed and be a blessing!

P.S. Wednesday afternoon we will know the options for outreach locations… Patience, please, Lord!

Our YWAM journey has begun

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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!