Growth spurt.

I can feel myself changing.  I'm sorry if this freaks friends at home out, but when I come home I'll be different.

First of all, remember how I've always been finicky with germs and food?  Like if food is touching or it doesn't taste right I don't eat it?  Well here it's completely different.  (I can just hear mom going "woohoo!")  At home if someone says, "Amanda, would you like this peace of ham?  It's only been out for an hour."  I'd be grossed out, not just because of the hour part but I don't even really like ham.  But here, here I'm like "YES!  PROTEIN!  Gimme the ham!"  It's weird.  Or if I drop a cookie on the floor.  As long as it's not in the Ohana Court where everybody is, I'll most likely pick it up and keep on eating it.  I'm always hungry here and there isn't much snacky food at all.  I'd buy some but everything is so expensive.  A box of wheat thins at walmart is five bucks.  Five bucks!  And the dollar menu at McDonalds is a $1.20 menu here.

Another thing that's changed is me being finicky about my privacy and space.  I've (mostly) stopped being paranoid about doing stuff like dressing and primping in front of other people.  I used to hate when my sister even watched me put make up on.  But here when eight girls are all in a rush and there's two mirrors, you just stop caring.  And my personal space is my bunk bed and two shelves.  I used to be "this is your space, this is mine, nobody can touch my stuff," but now I'm fine with sharing space, and hairbrushes, and clothes, and whatever.  It's almost freeing.

The major thing that's really changed though is my attitude.  I realized in the past week I've been living a life coated in apathy.  There are a gazillion amazingly wonderful and amazingly horrid things going on all around me but I've been desensitized.  Desensitized to beauty and to tragedy.  This isn't God's plan for us!  I should be FILLED with awe for the things God loves.  His glory is everywhere!  In every child's innocent smile, in every bird and leaf and every painted sunset it's His mark on the world.  He is everything that is beautiful and good.  Glory is everywhere so how could we forget to see it?
It's the same thing with pain.  There is injustice everywhere.  This world is still full of racism, hunger, sex trafficking, hatred, and hopelessness, amongst so many other bad things.  How much do we hurt?  How much do we care?
Many regular church-goers aren't any better then anybody else/  They sit in our little pews once a week and half-heartily listen to some guy while sneaking peeks at their watches.  The rest of the week who even remembers about that spiritual stuff?  Don't they know that there is this INCREDIBLE God who is madly pursuing them, who is way more devoted to their lives and happiness then they could ever be themselves?  There is this man who died so that we can truly live in freedom!
Girls, instead of waiting on some guy to fill you up, look right in front of you and realize that there is this amazing Jesus guy who thinks you are STUNNING, and wants to take you away on the most amazing adventure ever, and he can fill your heart in a way that absolutely no guy ever could!  People, realize that there is this INCREDIBLE father who yearns for His children to just come to Him and just rest in His perfect peace and comfort!  The world will abandoned you and leaving you empty and tired but there is this GOD who is just waiting on His tip-toes to fill us with his spirit.  WHY doesn't this get us more exited!?
The speakers from last week said something that I hope will stick with me forever, as well as grab your hearts as well.

There is too much beauty and too much pain to ever be bored again.

Don't you think it's weird that so many churches, and especially youth groups, are dedicating so much of their time and money focusing on how to keep people at church from being bored?  All these youth groups, (I'm not talking about my youth group by the way, I love you guys,) spending hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars, on getting that new video-game set or cooler looking room to get more teenagers to think God is cool, and that He isn't all boring and stuffy like old people make Him look.

Why do we need this?  When did God ever become boring in the first place?  People, there is the God who is perfect and bigger and so great that it's impossible to exaggerate anything about Him.  And He, He is madly in love with us no matter what crappy stuff we've spent our lives doing.  And He is waiting to dive into our hearts and transform our lives into things of pure joy.  His love gets you higher than any form of any drug, His love will leave you more satisfied then any relationship, His love will make you feel safer then any caretaker or parent, and how on earth is that boring!?

I've loved and fallowed God for many years, but right now it feels like a thin vial is being uncovered from my face, and I never even knew it was there.  I am feeling God's wonder and love and beauty and awesomeness in a whole new way, and it if filling me with ecstasy!  Half the time I feel drunk.  (Well, I think.  I've never been drunk so I don't know for sure.)  I think of the pain in this world and how long I've been a lifestyle of I-don't-give-a-crap and it makes me want to cry but then at the very same time I can feel God's love and peace almost like a heavy warm coat on my heart and it makes me want to dance.  I feel so joyful and my cheeks hurt at the end of the day from smiling.  I pray that this never, ever ends.

People, it's time to get rid of apathy!

God is so amazing!

So today was one of the most joyful days ever.  I woke up a little tired and cranky, but as soon as I got into the swing of things all was great.  The message as always was spot on, and the lunch was actually pretty good.  But what really got me pumped on life is the prayer room.  The prayer room is where we all go to worship.  It's not like most worship where there's the rows of chair and the slides and stuff.  There's just a few people up front that play music but they just go with the flow.  If it feels right they'll play a song for a minute or ten, they don't really have it all planned out and I really like it.  People sit, stand, read their bible, journal, dance, sing, basically whatever they want to express their love to God.  Today I just felt like singing super loud and jumping up and down and I just got so filled with God's joy.  It's like He was just right there and I could feel him all around me like sunshine.  After singing and dancing for a couple hours we all got into our groups to pray for our countries.  So we got even more pumped up over that praying together over all the people there around the world.  I left that place just filled with so much joy and energy it was just crazy.

So every wednesday night here we have ministry night.  What it is is that we walk to the streets of downtown Kona and basically love on people.  The goal isn't to convert people or tell them they're wrong or anything, the goal is to just be a light and let people know that Jesus really loves them.  We do stuff like listen to their stories, buy the homeless some food, or just pray with them if they wish.  Of course if they want to know more about Jesus or follow them that's super cool, but we most def want to break that stereo-type of that christian who goes down to the street and yells "REPENT YOU SINNERS!"  Because people hate that, it pushes them away, and that's such an unloving way to present such a loving God.  Over the years lots of people have become good friends with the people here, have been healed from injuries or sicknesses, and even decided to follow Jesus themselves.  There's all sorts of incredible stories of all this crazy awesome stuff that;s been going on down there at past ministry nights, but I never really fully believed they would happen to me.

So I got in a group of four other people (we have to always be with someone else for safety) and we prayed for the joy God gave us to just overflow into other people's lives.  We walked down and started searching for people to love on.  I was especially keeping my eyes out for any homeless people, because personally I find them easiest to talk to.  They're usually more open to what you have to say, and they're always happy to let you buy them a sandwich or something.
Anyway we weren't really finding anybody who wasn't talking to someone else, so we all decided to lay on the grass.  Three of my group decided that they should just chill on the grass, but the fourth guy Ron and I wanted to start walking around to see more people.  We walked around for awhile, and I was starting to maybe think it wasn't such a good idea to leave the rest of the group.  No offense to Ron, he's a cool guy, but see the three people that stayed, Jonas, Josh, and Taren, were more extroverted people, while Ron and I are more shy and we both felt super awkward just going up to strangers.  We tried it a few times, just saying hi to a few people and even offering a guy to buy one guy a cup of coffee, but none of them seemed very interested.  It was getting close to the time when we were supposed to return back and I was feeling pretty discouraged.
Finally Ron and I decided to stop and pray before we walked back towards where we were supposed to meet.  Well, we were about a block-length away when we passed this boy who looked like he was about eleven or twelve.  He was sitting alone on a bench looking really upset and he was rubbing his ankle.  Ron and I walked a little passed him and then stood awkwardly peeking at him, wondering whether we should approach him or not to pray for him.  Don't get me wrong, of course I feel bad for twelve year old boys with hurt ankles, but I'm also totally new to this whole praying for healing thing.  I didn't even know God still really ever did that nowadays.  But since I've been here it happens all the time, even in my class.  Somebody will have an injury or ailment and we'll all lay hands on it and pray for God to heal it and it immediately gets better.  Now that I've seen it a few times with my own eyes I no longer believe it's bologna that people fake on TV shows.  But I never though God would do that through me.  I mean what happens if I pray for the boy's ankle and it still hurts and then I make a fool out of my self and make God look stupid.

Anyway Ron and I finally took a deep breath and went over and asked him if he was okay and what happened to his ankle.  We asked his name (JT was his name) and if we could pray for his ankle.  He lit up and said "Yes, Please do!"  We layed hands on his ankle, gently as to not hurt it, and each prayed, asking God to not only heal JT's ankle but just to show him how much God loves him.  We said Amen and asked JT to move it around to see if it still hurts.  I was totally doubting everything personally and was ready to apologize for not being a "good enough prayer" or something like that.  But I looked at JT and he had a look of complete shock on his face.  Like a deer in headlights.  He wiggled it around a little more and then said, "How did you do that!?"

I was in shock!  I felt like jumping up and down!  I didn't know God would do such a thing through me!  Ron and I were all smiley and told him it wasn't us, it was God, and God had chosen to heal his ankle just because He loves him and cares about him that much.  JT kept saying it was "totally freaky, in a good way."  We hugged him and talked for a few minutes more and started heading back when JT started limping after us trying to catch up.  (His ankle wasn't totally healed, it felt a lot better though.)  He wanted to know if we were Christians  and we started talking more.  By then another group of YWAMers joined us and started talking to JT too.  The other group along with us decided to pray for JT's ankle again to see if God would heal it even further, after we were done nothing hurt but  little tingle in his toe.
Matt Beasley, one of the guys in the other groups who is just a crazy-hard Jesus-lover, got a strong feeling from God that JT was really into music.  He asked JT if that was true and JT then immediately lit up like a deer in headlights again and started excitingly tell us about all the different instruments he plays, and how the heck did we know that about him!?
We once again told him that it was God, not any power from us.  JT is a Christian who loves God, but like me just a month ago, he had no idea that God is so crazy awesome and so madly into him that He would do stuff like heal a sprained ankle or let us know cool stuff about him,  Matt Beasley then went on telling JT that God has a really special plan for JT's life and wants to use his musical abilities in amazing ways to give people hope.  How exiting!

JT once again thanked us and just looked super exited and filled with happiness and disbelief that God would seek him out so fervently through complete strangers!  I have no doubt that he was super encouraged in his faith and that this night shook up his whole life and outlook on God.

Because I know that's exactly what happened to me tonight!

God is soooooo good!  :-)

Pictures!

So I know all of you, esspecially those without a facebook, are probably itching to see some pictures of what life is like over here.  I have lots more, but here's a few to start out with.  ^_^







My room.  Four bunks, eight girls.  It's cleaner now, this is when we first moves in.  That's Gabrielle you see on the near right.  My bunk is the top one to the right near the window.  You can't really see it in this picture that well.  I like it because I'm right next to a window.

 

These are a couple of my roomates, Gabrielle and Martine.  They're both from Holland.

Me and a couple more of my roomates.  That's Karis on the right, and Kelli on the left.  They're both from California but didn't know eachother before they came.

  I have more roomates and will probably post pictures of them all sooner or later.



The trees here are really big.




They just keep getting bigger...



And bigger.





This is the pier downtown where we swim alot.  It's not the most exiting beach ever, but it's still pretty cool and it's very close.  The water's murky close to shroe but if you swim out deep you can see all schools of bright yellow fish everywhere, which is pretty cool.



A school of bright yellow fish!

Me swimming at the pier.



This is actually at a different beach.  Also while swimming with a bunch of fish though.  One of my very favorite things to do here.  :-)



This blog just wouldn't be truly me without a gecko picture.



I'll close off with a sunset picture.  It's not the best Hawaiian sunset there ever was, but nevertheless it's pretty.  This is taken near my classroom.  It's a long walk because everything else is way down all the buildings you see here.



Thanks for looking!  Keep praying for me and checking back!

Me in a wheelbarrow

So sometimes during worship we've been asked to close our eyes and try to imagine how much God loves us. One of my roomates got this image of God just running up to her and twirling her around a field, another person just pictured how someday she was just going to sit on God's lap and just feel completely safe.

But today as we were singing "How He Loves Us" by David Crowder, (which is one of my favorite songs ever, it almost makes me cry!) God just gave me this really vivid picture of him pushing me up a hill in a wheelbarrow. I bet this sounds pretty strange so let me explain.

When I was realy little I remember being out in the yard with my mom and dad when they were doing yardwork, and if I was lucky I'd get to ride in a wheelbarrow. I bet all kids have probably done this at one point or another. You get in and lean back and your mom or dad takes the handles and pushes you around. I remembered how even though I loved wheelbarrow rides I'd also get scared. Because as I sat in the wheelbarrow looking forward I couldn't see my dad, and what if he accidentally dropped the handles! Our yard felt so bumpy and I worried about falling out, even though in reality it wasn't likely.

And I was just thinking how our walk with God is a lot like that. I'm just sitting in this wheelbarrow, going over all these bumps. Just like I couldn't see my dad push me from behind as a little girl, likewise I can't always see God. I don't know where's He's going to take me. Sometimes the wheelbarrow feels really tippy and shakey, and I worry as God's just pushing me up this hill, what if I go over a bump to big and the handles slip from His hands?

And I realized how silly I was to not trust that God is plenty strong enough to handle it, no matter how steep the hill or bumpy the terain. Just as it was silly for me to not fully trust my mom and dad to not drop the wheelbarrow, it's even more silly still to think the God of the whole universe can't push me and all the little weeds in my life with ease.

A week later

So I've been here a little over a week now. It's been pretty crazy.

Just a warning, before you read this, I can't figure out how to do spell check. Grandma, I know you'll be really annoyed. But just bare with me.

Right now I'm sitting outside the banyan tree cafe. It's a really neat place. They have fantastic drinks that are even better then starbucks and they're soo much cheaper. Pretty much everybody else is just getting out of this huge meeting where they signed up to volenteer at the iron man marathon taking place tomorrow. I didn't know that pretty much absolutely everybody was going or else I would've too. I kinda feel left out.

So the big thing that's been happening lately is God moving at large in a way I've never experienced before. I see myself as well as the people around me going crazy after Him, and that's amazing to see. Lately He's felt so close I feel like I could almost reach out and touch him. Esspecially when we worship. Worship here is different then anything I've ever been a part of. Some people stand, some people bow, some people sit, some even lay on the ground. THey dance, they sway, they cry, they pray. And here it's not for show, it's like even though we're all together in a big group wirshiping our God it's like each of us are by ourselves with just them and Jesus. It's so incredibly different and beautiful.

The lectures here have actually been really great. On an average day they start at eight and go till twelve. The length is so hard. Even though I try to eat a big breakfast every day I always start feeling super super hungry about halfway in, and it's super hard to concentrate. Sometimes we go a half hour over and then it takes just about every ounce of strength to not just get up and leave. And I promise, it's not because the lecture isn't interesting! They are so spot on about all sorts of stuff that I wanted to know about God and life and missions. I've noticed it really helps if I bring my sketchbook and draw. But I haven't seen it since yesterday, and I'm really trying not to freak out about it but it's hard. That sketchbook has some of the most personal information ever, things I wouldn't want anybody to know. Most of it's just nice drawings but a bug chunk of it is pictures and letter that represent some of the biggest darkest secrets I have, and all day I've just been trying not to think about somebody just picking it up and going through it. I've asked several people and I can't find it anywhere. DTS people, if you are reading this, if you see a large hardcover sketchbook with a nature design on the covers please bring it too me asap and don't read it!

Totally changing the subject...
I think I'm going to China for my outreach. Yesterday our leader Jeff got us together for a meeting to talk about the different outreach locations. He then announced that God told him we should decide on our location that very day. The original plan was for us not to decide for a few more weeks, so it freaked me out. I was not feeling ready at all!

So Jeff went through the different options for about ten minutes each, then afterwards he asked us to just pray and write down on a piece of paper what we thought God said, then write a second choice as well. So I had my little internal freak out, and started praying really hard asking God to tell me wherever He wanted me to go. (And yes, I know to all you non-Christian people out there this probably sounds pretty crazy...)

So I immediately thought of Mozambique, so I put that down. I dropped it in before I started second guessing withot even putting down a second country. But as soon as that paper went in I felt super anxious like I had made the wrong desision. I couldn't stop thinking about China for some reason. So I prayed some more, and talked it over with Jeff, and made the switch. I feel good about it. I'm still not sure when I find out if I'll be going for sure though, and I;m not sure exactly when I'll find out. It's making me go crazy. I like knowing exactly what's going on! I guess if I want to be a missionary I need to get over that pretty fast though! :-)

Living here is mostly fun. Did I already say I have seven roomates? I knew I'd have a few but I didn't know it would be that many! EVen before I knew that there was eight of us in one room I was still super nervouse. I've been on other mission trips and summer camps and the like before, and I usually hate living with that many girls. They fight, they're super annoying, they're catty, they gossip about eachother, they leave me out, etc... But these girls are super awesome. I love living with them. We all are totally different but we haven't had any problems whatsoever so far. We talk about everything and it's super cool.

There's Dahea (I probably spelled that wrong), this Korean girl from Australia who lives in the bunk below me. She's pretty quiet bit seems super nice and has some really awesome T-shirts. Her birthday is only nine days before mine, which is pretty funny. In the bunk bed accross from us there's Karis and Elyse. (Once again, sorry if your names are spelled wrong.) Karis is this super pretty chick from California who's just plain really fun to hang out with. Elyse is really cool too. She's this really honest, down-to-earth person who has all these crazy stories. She made all these room-cleaning rules list so she sounds like somebody who would totally grate on my nerves but we actually get along really well. Then there's Gabriele and Martine, two friends that come from Holland. It's super funny being around them because they speak in Dutch to eachother then english to us, so sometimes when they talk I think "wow, I can't understand a thing they're saying. I must be really tired," before I relize they're speaking a different language. Then there's Kelli, who's this really pretty tall slender chick that's also from California. She looks like a supermodel or something. She's only seventeen and the youngest girl in our cabin. Then there's Zari, who's from Afghanistan, and pretty much threw everything I've ever thought about women from Afghanistan out the window. She doesn't wear a vaile or anything and she's super BA. She's really tiny (like I feel super big and tall standing next to her, and I'm pretty short), but she has all these different stories of where she kicked all these guy's butts. It's hillarious. I really love them all and it's gonna be really sucky in eleven weeks on outreach where we mostly all head to different countries and have to get new roomates.

So I've also noticed Hawaii isn't this relaxing place at all. It's uncomfortable a lot of the time. You're sweaty and sticky 24/7 and nothing ever dries off. The rocks everywhere are super sharp, esspecially on the beach. Not at all like the slippery smooth rocks at home. I got slightly hurt a couple times and I'm fully expecting to get a lot more haha! I hurt my back a little when I dove off this little cliff,which sucked because then I couldn't dive well for a couple days after that. Then a few days later I jumped off this dock but I didn't jump off far enough because I scraped up my foot in the rocks beside it, and kicked a sea urchin. Which I didn't really know untill later when I noticed the edge of some purple spikes underneath my skin. It's kinda gross. People here say I should just let them work their way out but even though it doesn;t hurt it's really gross to see them stuff under my skin.

Wow, I'm sorry this post has been so long! Anyway I want to close by asking people reading this to just keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Even thought the people here are really cool during the past few days I've been feeling overwhelmingly lonely. I miss everybody at home so much. I miss hanging out with people who really know who I am. I'm tired of feeling like an outsider. I never know where to sit at meals, and half the time I feel like just a tagalong wherever I go. I feel like I'm in fifth grade all over again. I mean I have my roomates and a couple of other friends who I can totally chill with, but when I don't know where they are I just don't know where else I can fit. And since most of those people aren't even going to China, who the heck will I hang out after the lecture phase end and I'm across the world? I just feel so sad and awkward being away from my people I know at home. My best friends who know everything about me. My parents that can give me hints on what the heck to do and my sister who I laugh with. My church who's totally used to my crazy randomness. My pets, oh my gosh I miss them!

THank you church, friends, family, and whoever else reads this. I'm sorry there's so much to read. I'm sure it's probably pretty boring getting through it all. I miss you.

Quick update

Hey, I don't have long on this computer, but I want to give everyone a quick update of what's going on. I arrived yesterday, and the plane ride was pretty easy. I sat next to a lady with a really annoying laugh (just imagine somebody going "huh, huh, huhuh, huh," in a naselly voice and that's her), but everything else was just fine. I was super tired though. I had only been able to get two hours of sleep before leaving. I arrived and got to my room, which is pretty nice. It has a little bathroom with a shower and a toilet, (we had to steal some toilet paper from one of the public bathrooms) and a sink outside. The two Holland girls say they saw a cockroach about four inches long in the shower when they first came. I only saw one cockroach so far though, and it was pretty little. There's also a bunch of teeeeeny tiny ants all over, which I guess I don't mind, and a bunch of gnats that like to sit all over my bed, which is kind of a pain. Because when I was trying to sleep last night they kept trying to crawl on me.

Mostly yesterday I unpacked, met some people, and walked in a daze. I took two showers because it's so hot. Cold water has never felt so nice! The dinner was pretty good. Salmon pasta or something of the sort. There's so many different accents here. It seems like there's more Asians here then there are white people. There's a Korean transolater that transolates everything, and there's Korean characters below englich words on the worship slides. It's kinda cool.

I have seven roomates. One's from California, one's from Australia, Two are from Holland, one's from Afghanistan, and one's from the UK. We have another one coming, but all the staff can't get ahold of her. I hope she's okay.

I went downtown last night with some people and got some shaved ice. There's 100 flavors, andf some of them have really crazy names like "tigers blood" or "suicide" or "Palm Tree Breeze". They want to get through every single one before the three months is up.

This morning breakfast was at 6:15, but it wassn't so bad because it still feels like 9:15 to me. Then we met around this huge fountain and took our shoes off (we seem to take our shoes off for everything here, for worship, for prayer, for meetings, etc.), then we fallowed some native hawaiian people to this huge outdoor place where they sang for us and stuff. THen we had to put our arms around eachother and pray together. Everybody was kinda swaying side to side and it totally reminded me of that scene from Avatar where all the blue people link arms under that tree. It was a little funky. Then they tought us some Hawaiian words and stuff, and then they told us we should take the person beside uis and do this thing where we press our foreheads and noses together and breathe in sharply. It's called doing a "honnee" or something and it's supposed to symbolize sharing breathe and life I think. I was way to shy to do that and so was 99% of everybody else. You're like an inch from the person's face! Plus I was sitting in between two boys. Awkward!

Then we all worshiped and that was pretty cool. They were two songs I've never heard before and everybody really gets into it and sings so loud here. It's amazing. I don't think I've ever been in the middle of so many people that are fired up about God's love.

Oh, I saw a mangoose! And a gecko. And a big banana spider. I'll post pictures once I get the camera wire and laptop recharger. I forgot it my mom sent it but it'll be a few days.

Anyway gotta go now, it's almost lunch. Keep praying for me, I love you all!