The number of students is increasing and my free time is decreasing

Today we picked up our first students from the airport. We actually already had two guys here but we have known them from before so the students that came today made it really feel like it is all starting. A YWAM Maui tradition is to play pranks on our unsuspecting students. They are already confused and a bit insecure when they get here so we like to capitalize on that fact.

Today we picked up one guy and had Matt wait on the road by the airport to play a hippie hitchhiker. He said his name was Zerg and spouted New Age beliefs. I didn't think it was that believable but the kid we picked up thought his act was real. Sucker!

Then we picked up a girl today and had Josh at the airport pretending to be a student as well. He appeared holding a large inflatable Free Willy/Shamu style inflatable whale. He acted slightly odd but the best part was that he said nothing of this random whale he supposed brought (fully inflated, mind you) from home. We didn't mention the whale either even as he was cramming it into the back of the van. At the end of the ride, we revealed his identity to the girl student. She had been so wierded out by this "fellow student" that she hadn't said a word to him on the ride to the base.

Today I really wanted to work out and I thought I had an appropriate time window. The girl's plane was delayed and I had a meeting at night so I didn't get to go. I am going to have to get use to this extreme decrease in free time. I may have to get up earlier (I know you are making shocked faces or are gasping in disbelief) to get my work out in. I am pretty much addicted to working out these days and I have few other options.

Ending the Blog Drought

Wow, I have been quite the blog slacker without even realizing it. Most of my time has been spent getting ready for the DTS students to come. I have been reading 1 Samuel lately. It is definitely one of my favorite books of the old Testament. I recently read the part where the Lord calls Saul to be king. Even though as far as physical stature goes, Saul, is the obvious choice, he is scared. When it comes time to announce the next king, Saul is nowhere to be found. It turns out he is hiding in the luggage. He is about to be named king and he is hiding.

I feel like that sometimes with responsibility. I get nervous or feel I am not up to the task. At those times, hiding in the luggage sounds like a great idea. I am excited about being a DTS leader but as the students start arriving (starting tomorrow), I am tempted to hide. I obviously won't and I think this experience will be great but it is a lot more responsibility than I have had in a long time. At least when I feel this weak, I know it can only be God getting the job done.

I got a three-day weekend this weekend. It was a nice little vacation before the chaos begins. There were some swiss people staying on base and we took them to Kihei. Our group was too big to hitch together so we split up. The other people got a normal ride from a French tourist while my group ended up with a car full of people drinking and smoking pot. What luck! Then we all got a ride together in a wind surfing van. In Kihei, I got to see Cherish and Laura, my friends from my DTS. It was good times. With DTS people, you can just pick up like no time has passed. It is the same way with camp friends and I just love those kind of friends.

On the way back from Kihei we all got a hitch back together in the back of a pick-up truck. It was great because we hadn't even really been trying to get picked up yet and then the guy took us all the way home. Pretty sweet!

Media Reprieve

I was under the impression that I would be starting a media fast today. It turns out that is not the case. We will be doing some form of media fast each week. This Wednesday and Thursday I can't listen to music or read books or magazines. Then another week, I have a two day computer fast and another couple day span I have to give up all media AND (longing sigh) my cell phone. This one will be the hardest for me. I love my cell phone. Luckily this one won't occur until next month. I will let you guys know when I have those particular days of mourning.

This lady donated a trampoline to our base and Amy and I have been trying to put it together. Unfortunately we are not as mechanically inclined or strong (despite obsessive working out) as boys so the process has come to a standstill until we find willing boys. We have to keep the whole operation on the down low since the leadership team will likely deem it a liability and try to take it away. BY being covert, we should get in at least a couple weeks of jumping. Although, our friends may rat us out when they keep seeing our heads appear above the hedge.

Everyday I have a new opinion about my car. I am back to the idea of fixing it but I am still not sure. We'll see.

Bye Bye Media

Starting tomorrow my DTS school leader is making us have a three day media fast. This means we can't watch movies or tv, listen to music, read magazines or non-Christian books or use the computer/the internet. It is only for three days but I think it will be tough. I am sure it will be good for me to focus instead of distracting myself with my toys. So, I won't be answering emails for the next few days. Luckily I can still use my cell phone.

This weekend I went to another baby shower. This was for another one of the base wives, Libby. This will be their first, so it is really exciting. I won another shower game. I am getting the hang of the baby shower circuit. This game was where you divide into teams of two and write down a boy and girl name for each letter of the alphabet. The mom to be picks her favorite. Amy was obviously my partner and we spanked the competion. We were rewarded with earrings.

Amy and I have discovered that praying before hitching is beneficial. Since we started praying, we haven't gotten any pot smoking, alcohol drinking, acid dropping, leering, speeding, used to be incarcerated rides.

Last night I learned an important lesson. I drank an energy drink last night so I was afraid I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. I decided to counteract the effects of the caffeine by taking two benedryls. This was not smart. I went to bed around 1:30am and had to wake up at 8 for church. I woke up feeling dizzy and almost fell out of bed. I felt like I was still asleep. I was in a fog until some intense napping after church. I felt I could sleep forever.

So, I am definitely going to the big Bang!

I just realized that I haven't written in my blog in a while. There is no excuse for this.
I have been pretty busy lately. We have meetings for DTS staff every morning and every night. We get afternoons off but Monday we had a staff meeting most of the afternoon and Tuesday we had the dreaded base clean-up in the afternoon. This has made the week seem much more hectic.

We found out officially where we are going and who we are going to lead with. I am glad it turned out this way since I was already telling everyone where I was going and who I was going with. It will be good to lead with Matt since we were in DTS together and went on outreach to New Zealand. We have both seen each other at our worst. Also, we already know each other so we don't have to go through the awkward get to know you/ fake first date stage. Co-leaders always have to spend all this time together to get to know each other but Matt and I can forgo some of that. One annoying thing about co-leading with someone is that people try to match make the two of you. I am not interested in that at all.

The students are coming in two weeks. I am getting excited. I have talked to half the girls on the phone. It is hard to tell what they are actually like on the phone. I will be interested to see how accurate my first impressions are.

I have finally moved into my new room and got my stuff settled in. It is nice to be rooming with Ashley again as we were roommates for about two months before my visit home. We get along well as roommates. Our room is at the girl student house but it is set apart from the main house. The problem with that is that we have to go outside to go to the bathroom. This can be creepy late at night since we have had robberies at this house. Also we need to be careful early in the morning since the students will be eating breakfast in the car port, right outside our door. I need to make sure I am dressed appropriately.

I miss really sleeping in

I finished my first week of DTS staff training. It's mainly a lot of meetings but so far it hasn't been too bad. I looked some of the future students on Myspace to see if I could find out any dirt about them. No dirt yet, but still interesting. I can't wait to meet them! Maria told us to enjoy this weekend because it will probably be our last free one for awhile. I hope she is exaggerating. I do enjoy my free weekends.

I tried to sleep in today until 9am. Despite sleeping in Amy's room where the sun doesn't shine directly in my eye like in my room, I still woke up about 20 times before 9am. I refused to give up, though and get out of bed before 9. Here in Hawaii, the sun rises around 5:30 am and sets around 6:30pm. Because of this, it often feels earlier than it really is.

This morning we went to a baby shower for one of the wives on base- Jen. She will be the second of three YWAM wives to have a baby this year. We are definitely being blessed in the baby department. We played some baby shower games. This was only my second baby shower. I have been to a ton of wedding showers but not as many for babies. I won this game where you have to see how many clothes pins you can grab off the line with one hand. I don't know how this relates to babies but I won and that's all that matters, right? I got a lotion/body wash set.

Then this afternoon, I laid out at the beach. I have been trying to get more beach time since I won't live in paradise forever. Unless you count Texas as paradise.

I told you so

My roommate here bought a car and kept putting off getting insurance. Amy and I think this is wrong and we have told her this but she won't get it. The other day she was driving down the street and someone hit her from behind. Since Jacki was driving illegally with no insurance and the other lady was here on an expired visa, they decided to each pay for their own damages. Pretty crappy, if you ask me. I want to say, "I told you so," but that's nice but I really did tell her so. And now despite the costly accident, she has still not gotten insurance. Not smart!

I have started DTS staff training. I really like it so far. It is me, Matt Laskey, Ashley Bacchara and Josh Cordy. Maria is our school leader. So far, it just feels like talking with friends. We are trying to get to know each other better. We are also beginning to pray for our students. We have been calling them to see how they are doing as well. I am very excited and I am expecting big things.

On a really sad note, my friend, Jane's dad died of a heart attack yesterday. That just hurts my heart. I found out shortly before my DTS leader meeting and I had to show up late because I couldn't stop crying. I looked at pics from Jane's wedding this summer and I have one of her parents and one of Jane and her dad. Looking at these did not help with the trying not to cry game. I definitely prefer a short illness, then death to sudden death. Sudden death is just so hard because of the shock value. Jane's dad was a strong Christian man so I know he's in heaven but this is still really sad. It hurts my heart. Please pray for her family.

About to get busy... not that kind of "get busy"

I can be a sporadic blogger at times. I will write everyday and then I forget for a few days. That's probably good because no one wants to read my thoughts everyday.

I had another celebrity sighting. The other day, Amy and I were walking down the hill in our town and spied Kelly Osborne. I recognized her right away even though she has lost a lot of weight. After I saw Owen Wilson, I had come up with this plan where I would just say, "Hey, (insert celebrity name here) as I walked by to show that I knew who they were but I wasn't going to pee my pants in excitement. Well, Kelly should have been my first chance but she looked pissed and I lost my nerve. Next time, though, I will do it. I adapted this celebrity greeting idea after hearing about my friend, Sam, who saw Ice Cube and said, "sup, Ice?" Classy!

Today it has rained all day. Usually in Maui it rains and then sunshine appears, rain and then sunshine. Not today, though. It is the kind of day where you want to stay inside and watch a movie. We watched the old John Candy movie, The Great Outdoors. Good times!

I am supposed to be moving soon. I have lived in the cooler of the two girls' staff houses for the last eight months but now that I am going to be DTS staff, I am moving into the girl students' house. But the DTS students aren't here yet so the only people in the house are the three School of Worship girls. My old/new roommate, Ashley got back from Thailand yesterday. We were roommates for a couple months before I went home and will be again since we are both DTS leaders. She has moved into our little dungeon-like room at the girl DTS house but I am taking my time. The room is small and she found a giant spider in there last night. Also my main friends live in the house I am in now. I do need to just move my stuff to my new place. I figure I will just sleep there and still hang out at my old house. It is right next door. Also, when the students come, I will hang out with them but that's not for another month.

I am starting training on Monday. It will be weird to start being busy since I have been a slacker lately. I will mainly be busy in the mornings and nights and have the afternoons off. I would rather have nights off but I will survive. I still get weekends off. Also my friend, Katie H, just made a plane ticket to come visit me in the middle of June. Hooray! I am pumped!

Relationship stuff

I want to express my opinion about dating here at YWAM Maui. People here have different opinions about how it goes down. The way I see it, you can't casually date here. We live together, eat together, work together. You will see that person so much and if it doesn't work out, the potential for awkwardness is incredible. I would never start dating someone here unless I thought there was a serious chance we could get married. And I don't see that happening any time soon or ever. Also, we are all friends by default. I think that when you start dating a friend, it gets serious right away. So, there again goes the idea that you can casually date. You just can't.

This can be a great place to meet a mate but you have to be serious right away. There is currently a girl on staff who is kind of on the prowl. This rubs all the other girls the wrong way. Not smart!

God taught me some stuff the other day. I was rereading the story of God's promise to Abraham. I didn't realize that it took 25 years between God promising Abraham a son and Isaac's birth. That is a long time. God was still promising him over and over again during that time but I can totally understand why he would doubt. Then he took matters into his own hands and slept with his wife's servant to create Ishmael. Despite this, God still blesses Abraham.

I feel that through that prophecy in January, God has promised me that I will get married and have a family someday. I need to trust Him and know that He will make it happen His way. I have met guys that really liked me, really wanted to get married in the near future and would make amazing husbands. I could settle for one of those just to get married like Abraham did when he had Ishmael but if I hold out for God's best, He will fulfill His promise. I need to stand back and not try to make anything happen on my own.