What a weekend!

I had an action-packed weekend. It was so good! This past week I spent most of my freetime hiding in my room and relaxing. I just needed some recoop time. I fear that my new roommate, Ashley thinks I am a hermit. At least when Amy gets back, I will be going to the gym again and not always in the room.

So after lounging around so much, I was up for a trip to Kaanapali when Ashley suggested it. Ashley has a car and is pretty good about inviting people along when she goes places. I went with her and two other staff members- a fun brother/sister pair named Rachel and Josh Cordy. There are six kids in their family and like most kids I have met from big families, they are laid-back and easy to get along with. We went to the touristy part of the island to get out of Paia. Even though we live in Hawaii, it is easy to forget you are in paradise when you remain in our little hippie town too long. On the way, we saw a ton of whales jumping out of the water. I am not much of a whale aficionado but seeing them is cool.

We hung out on the beach but the weather was weird- getting hot and cold, cloudy and windy at random intervals. Also the sand was blowing. We went to the pool at the Sheraton. We swam around, went on the slide and went in the hot tub. Then we were lounging on chairs by the pool when a very polite woman asked us for our room numbers. When we told her we were not guests at the hotel, she asked us to leave. Amy and I never get kicked out of the Hyatt pool. We even managed to score hotel towels but I think the fact that Rachel was loudly talking to her dad on the phone about the fact that she was pool hopping did not help our cause much.

Then we met up with a majority of the surf team and watched them jump off cliffs. Afterwards we got pizza and then I spent the rest of the evening working on my book and lounging around.

Today I went to church. It was weird not having Amy there. A guest pastor was there named Pastor Helena. I had heard of her before and I think she comes to the church about once a month. I had never seen her though. She had an intense in your face kind of style that was not my favorite but she had some good things to say in her sermon. Then she announced that she would spend some time prophesying. In YWAM I have been to a number of events where someone was prophesying. But the person never has any words for me. I am not even 100% sure what I believe about this kind of stuff. It is definitely out of my suburban Presbyterian box. I have come to the point in my faith now that I think prophesy definitely happens and that there are false prophets- Benny Hinn types and real ones. The Bible says that prophesy happens too and that is what I try to measure my experiences by. With that said, back to the prophesy lady:

Before it even started, I leaned to the girl next to me and said that I never get prophesied about. The way it worked was that everyone was seated as we were during her sermon and she just pointed to random people, asked them their name and had them stand up as she shared a word from the Lord with them. As this was going on, I was praying that God would speak to me this time. She talked to random people in the congregation mainly telling them how they resembled important Biblical figures and how God was going to use them with those gifts. They were probably true but slightly vague. She told Eric, one of my DTS students that he was going to the nations to spread the word. She said that God was proud of him and that he would be coming into money soon that he would have to pray about using. She told another DTS girl, Brittaney some stuff about how people are drawn to her positive attitude and other nice things that I can no longer remember but seemed true at the time. For me and Paul, another YWAM staff member, she was less vague, especially with me but I will tell that part of the story last.

Paul was told that he is a gifted teacher. He will have a big ministry but he needs to beware of Delihahs shady women that will take his focus. If he gives into them, his ministry will not be what it can be. There is one good girl for him but he needs to wait and resist the others.

Now to set mine up, I have been thinking and praying about a lot of stuff lately. I have been thinking about what I will do after YWAM and I have also been thinking a lot about if and when I will get married. 25 seems really old sometimes and I wonder when and if I will get married and have kids. Most of my closest non-YWAM friends are married so I think it is a pretty natural thing to think about it. I am in no way obsessed by these thoughts. I have not yet become that girl but I have been thinking about this a lot lately. So, Pastor Helena points at me and my heart starts racing. I stand up and she says, "So, you want to know if you're going to get married? I was shocked. I mumbled yes. She said you are going to get married and you are going to have two children. You are going to have two children but I see a third child. I don't know about this third child. Maybe someone is going to give it to you. You will remember me when this happens. Then she said, you are a teacher. You will be a Sunday school teacher and you will change the lives of your students and they will tell their parents about your teaching and you will draw them in. THen she was like, I don't know if you even like kids but I see you building things with the kids.

That is what she said as far as I can remember. The church gave me a cassette tape of it that I plan to listen to again. This totally squelched my remaining doubts about prophecy. It had to be God who told this woman what I needed to hear. There is no way a perfect stranger could be so alarmingly accurate at addressing my latest struggles. It was so cool. I thank God so much for that. I have a real sense of joy and peace after all this. It was so amazing!