Crying and Crowd Surfing

Yesterday was a good day. I finished fixing the spelling and grammatical errors on our base's website. Now we don't seem so uneducated. Then I took the afternoon off in order to have some one on one time with one of my favorite Fall students, Leah. It was really good. I like that girl. She is considering coming back on staff, which would be awesome! I try not to get my hopes up when people say that while they are still here. A lot can change when they go home.

Amy and I started watching Arrested Development. I got season one and season two in a package. A great gift! I had never seen it before. We've only seen the first two episodes but Amy and I are pretty hooked already. It is a very randomly funny show, which I appreciate. I am excited to watch more.

Last night was testimony night on base. This is when a few returning students from each team get up in front of the entire base and share things they have learned. This is an awesome time especially for those of us on staff here in Maui. Sometimes we can lose sight of our higher purpose and get too focused on the daily stuff here. But the reason we are here is to send teams out to spread the love of Christ to other countries.

I could see changes in several of the students just from hearing them speak. There is a new confidence in them and a greater sense of their identity in Christ. One of the students, Derek gave an emotional testimony. He said that he had been praying for his dad to become a Christian for years. He gave up for awhile but recently renewed his prayers for his dad. While he was in DTS, his dad became a Christian. While Derek was sharing, he asked his dad to come up to the front with him. It was very emotional as Derek was crying and his dad's eyes got watery. My eyes got watery but I refused to release the tears.

Then Maria, one of our staff members, came to the front and said, " A lot of times when someone becomes a Christian, we are happy but skeptical and reserved. We remember the other friends we have that became Christians and fell away. We figure we'll just wait a year and see if they really change." I totally agree with what she said. Then she said, "We need to break out of that skepticism. The angels are rejoicing in Heaven over one lost soul being saved. I want you all to scream and yell that Richard (Derek's dad) has become a Christian." So we all started cheering and screaming and jumping up and down. I was trying to cheer but I just started to cry. It was really emotional but in a good way. I definitely wasn't the only one to cry. Then Maria had Derek and his dad crowd surf over us. It was so cool. The worship was awesome and really got me pumped up! What an awesome night!