Amy got deported and other news

It has been intense at YWAM Maui for the past few days. I already wrote of my intense prophecy and that one of our girls sadly chose to go home. These things coupled with the events of the last few days have made things hectic. I do feel an underlying peace about things but I still feel anxious at times.

My friend, Amy went home for a week to Toronto in Canada. She comes and goes from Maui with such a frequency that her passport has been flagged as a drug runner. This means she always gets hassled at customs. She usually tries to avoid this by crossing the border in New York and flying out of the Buffalo airport. She was supposed to fly out yesterday but got stopped at the border for three hours. The unyielding immigration official gave her a really hard time about being a missionary, which included him asking if God told her to come to Maui. She said yes and he said that God would have to tell him personally for him to let her over the border. He said that she has the wrong kind of visa. The kind she has would cover her if she worked in the kitchen or housinfg or pretty much any other department but since she uses a computer and does administrative stuff, she has to have a different kind of visa. He denied her entry into the U.S., took her picture (mug shot) and fingerprinted her, her mom and her best friend. She was officially deported!

Today I have been trying to help her by faxing and mailing letters from YWAM that might help her situation. Please pray that something works. This is a very busy time in the quarter for Amy's job here on base and since she is my best friend here, I miss her like crazy! Also her friend is flying here tomorrow for a visit. Her plane tickets were non-refundable. She will be here for two weeks and I guess I will be her buddy until Amy gets back. Crazy!

Also I don't want to go into detail, but there is a guy on base here that I believe may be struggling with mental illness. He is my friend and it is really hard to see. His behavior is very erratic and unlike him. Please pray that the base will know how to handle the situation. He is actually scaring me. The leadership team is aware of the situation and they are figuring out how to deal with him.

On a random rather undramatic note, I met a guy from Pasadena, Texas today. I was wearing one of my many Texas shirts. This particular one is a little league shirt that says Pasadena, TX on the front. He stopped me on the street to tell me that he was from there. It turns out that he was a pastor at a church there and has recently moved to the island to pastor a church here. I gave him the base's info and invited him to come to worship. It is always nice to have non-YWAM connections.

What a Weekend Phase 2!

That last post was getting pretty long so I thought I would break it up into two chunks. So the prophecy thing totally blew me away and even other people on base are talking about it. Crazy! It put me in a good mood. When I went home, some of the girls said Jaws was breaking. If you don't know what Jaws is, look on the internet. It is one of the biggest rideable waves in the world and it is here in Maui. It only breaks a few times a year and I had never seen it before. Ashley, Jess Bedogne, Merry, me and the two Swedes, Gustav and Andreas decided to go see it.

We drove to where we heard it was and parked our cars. You have to have a four wheel drive to get out there so we set off on foot. It is about a 45 minute hike. When we were almost there, some hippie girls in a ghetto Explorer offered us all a ride. So, we all piled in. It turned out that the girls were not alone. There was a big blue and yellow parrot perched on the driver's side headrest. A little strange but hey, this is Maui. They drove crazy and even sideswiped a windsurfing van. Eek. We got down there and watched people looking like ants descend the face of this mountain of water. It was awesome. It was easy to marvel at God's creation as well as the combination of fear and stupidity it took to get those surfers out there.

Then we started walking about. When we were halfway there, the same girls came and picked us up again. They drove crazy again and dropped us off at our cars. What an adventure!

Then we went to a little Super Bowl party that our mission builders, Retha and Jeff hosted. I am not really into the Super Bowl but I like parties and I like football. Unfortunately for our seahawk die hard hosts, the game did not go the way they would have liked. To me, however, I have already had my best footbal game ever- do the words ROSE BOWL mean anything?

One of our students went home today. It is sad. Her name is kelly and she is one of the girls I felt like I knew better. She went to my church too. She was getting pressure from her boyfriend and parents back home to come back. She had told them about some of the more charismatic stuff and this alarmed them. The thing about YWAM is that it exposes you to the full spectrum of Christianity. From the holy spirit to logically defending your faith. They don't force anything on you and everyone is encouraged to test the teaching with the Bible and personal experience. I remember all the holy spirit, speaking in tongues, healing and prophesy stuff seeming weird to me as well during DTS. I am still not fully comfortable with it all and I don't think I need to be. I read the Bible and test things that seem strange using that. I have heard people speak in tongues, for example, but it is not something I want for my life. I think it was hard for her to go to my church too where every service has healings, prophesy and/or speaking in tongues. I know that stuff can be hard for me to handle too. I am sad to see her go and I know she would have done great on outreach. She has two weeks to change her mind but I can't see her coming back. What a shame!

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!

Meeting Myrtle

For some time now I have used the name "Myrtle" as my fall back alias when I am asked my name at a restaurant. I have become quite quick and natural at spelling it. I have a few other aliases such as, CoCo and Bertha but Myrtle is my favorite. Last week I got a note in the office that a hotel had responded to my letter asking for free stuff. The note said Myrtle on it and I thought that was a joke the message taker had written. I soon discovered that I had indeed been contacted by a woman named Myrtle. Yesterday I met up with Myrtle, who gave us a ton of free bedding from the hotel where she runs the housekeeping department. I am now even more proud to call myself Myrtle.

My guests have all left now. It was fun to have them here but a bit stressful since they were on vacation and I was still supposed to be working. I ended up taking Monday and Tuesday off to spend more time with them. On Monday we drove to Hana. I had heard from many people that the drive was intense and exhausting and they were definitely telling the truth. I had to drive the whole way. It is only about 35 miles but it takes about two hours each way because of the crazy curves and slow speeds. It was draining. When we finally got there we went hiking at a place called the Seven Sacred Pools. It was beautiful and fun but I wish I had been wearing hiking boots instead of sandals. I went with Abbey and Misti and it was good to spend time with them.

Yesterday morning, I said goodbye to Misti. It wasn't that bad since I am pretty sure I will see her again. With YWAM friends there is always the possibility. Then Gena, Abbey and I utilized our last hours with the PT cruiser to go to Kaanapali, the tourist part of the island. We did not have much time there but it was still fun. Later we dropped off the car. It was nice to not have to drive so much anymore. After Hana, I am in no hurry to drive anytime soon.

I miss Amy. She is home in Toronto until next Tuesday. Before she left we had been spending about 90% of our free time together. Things are not the same here without her. I can't wait til she gets back. I thank God for her friendship and companionship.

More Wedding Bisnass

Sherry and Jono's wedding was probably the smallest one I have ever been to. More than half the guests were YWAMers. Carrie and Corey are two YWAMers who got married last year. They told me that barely any of the guests brought gifts. That is shameful and white trash. I was determined that this not be the case for Jono and Sherry. I made what seemed like an endless stream of announcements at base-wide events that people need to buy them a gift or give money to me to give them towards a laptop. I ended up collecting about $700. I was pretty satisfied with that.

Sherry was one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen and we all know I have seen a lot of brides. She just looked gorgeous. Jonathan totally cried when he saw her. It was really cute. I like it when the groom cries. One of his brothers totally lost it and all of Sherry's bridesmaids were crying. Their wedding was slightly unorthodox with a hula and they said their own vows. The vows were very informal but funny and sweet. The ceremony was short, which is always a bonus.

Amy, Sara and I were assigned to take care of the candles and the drinks for the wedding. We set everything out between trips to the chocolate fountains. The candles kept blowing out in the wind but later in the evening they managed to stay lit. I was also in charge of the music for thei reception and the dance. I was nervous about whether or not people would like the music or if they would dance. Sherry had okayed my selections but I was still nervous. Luckily everything turned out great and people danced all night. I had a lot of fun. I am not a very good dancer but I am an amusing dancer. I even pulled out my impersonation of Elaine's dance from Seinfeld. That dance and the Hammer by M.C. Hammer are pretty much the only actual dances I know. The rest of the time involves me doing goofy pantomimes. Gena and Todd did a hilarious dance together to a Destiny's Child song. I almost peed my pants. It was so great! Gena made all the bouquets and then she caught Sherry's bouquet. I was hoping to catch my third bouquet but alas Gena beat me to it. I should have thrown the elbows. Oh well.

After the wedding, all the DTS friends went to the beach and hung out and reminisced. It was really fun. We stayed out past 2am and I had to get up for church in the morning. It was worth it, though.

Sherry and Jono's wedding day

Today is Sherry and Jonathan's wedding day! They will be Mr. and Mrs. Craig. How crazy is that! Sherry and Jono met during my DTS so it is so much fun that they are getting married now. Yesterday they had their rehearsal dinner. They invited me and Gena along with the usual-wedding party, family and out of town guests. It was really fun and a good chance to spend time with Sherry before the wedding. I also got to hang out with her bridesmaids again, who I really like. There were a large number of people from my DTS there. Pretty cool. Sherry, Jonathan, Michael Berman, Liz Wilkes, Cherish, Misti, Abbey, Ryan Hagler, and me and Gena. It was like a DTS reunion.

Despite all the pre-wedding fun, life has been pretty hectic and sometimes frustrating this past week. Because my car does not work and my DTS friends are in town, we decided to rent a car for the weekend. It is exciting to be able to do that now with no extra charge since I recently turned 25. Renting a car is one of the only things you can do at 25 that you can't do at 24. I felt very mature and sophisticated. Amy came to the counter with me to ask about upgrades. The lady said it would be $10 more a day. I told her that was too much. There was some witty banter between us and the woman at the counter as we finished all the rental biznass. We were supposed to get a Dodge Neon. She gave us keys and we walked to the parking spot indicated on the rental form. It was not a Dodge neon but a convertible PT cruiser. PT cruisers are funny because they are kind of a mid-life crisis car. It is even funnier because it is a convertible. It is also bright blue. We look really funny in it.

There was some unnecessary drama about who could drive it. It was something we really should have talked about beforehand but we didn't. I assumed that I would be driving always since it was my name on the rental agreement and no one else was authorized to drive. The girls thought anyone should be allowed to drive it. Having a lawyer for a dad, I knew he would kill me if someone else drove it and something happened. I cannot afford to have someone in debt to me for thousands of dollars. This is the worst case scenario, obviously but it could happen. The girls ended up paying $30 to have one of them put on the driver's list for one of the days. This was fine with me because now her name was on the rental agreement. Overall the whole situation was annoying though I could totally understand their point of view. It definitely caused some tension in what should have been a great reunion.

Housing Japanese Business Men

I have not been working quite as much as usual lately. One of my DTS friends is in town and two more will be coming on Thursday. I have been taking half a day off and working for half the day. Amy and I have been work-out junkies. We have been consistently going to the gym about 5 or 6 times a week. This is quite the feat since we are hitchhiking on most of our trips. Yesterday we had to hitchhike in the rain. This is not my favorite thing and if Amy wasn't so darn persuasive then I definitely would have skipped the gym yesterday. I have yet to notice a huge difference in my body. I think my calves are getting more muscular, which is the last thing I want to become more muscular as they are already border-line frightening. I am also trying to eat better, which means not gorging myself on every baked good I see. After Jono and Sherry's wedding, I plan to give up baked goods that include chocolate. They are having a chocolate fountain and it would be torture not to partake. I am also making an exception for this delectable Skor bar thing that Amy's mom makes. I am banking on Amy bringing some back for me when she goes home this next week.

I fear I will have Amy withdrawals when she is gone. We hang out so much that it will be really weird to not have her around. It is only for nine days so I am sure I will survive. I plan on getting my bike fixed soon so I can still exercise without going to the gym.

I hate Apple right now. I know this may hurt the feelings of some of my Apple-loving friends. I have had my IPOD mini for less than a year and the battery really sucks. I can charge it for hours and then it will say low battery and not work. I went on Apple's confusing unuser-friendly website and ordered a box to send it back to Apple. This stupid box cost me $30. I thought that would be no big deal if it resulted in a restored IPOD or even a new IPOD. Then Apple sent me an email that essentially said, "You are very unintelligent and your IPOD works just fine so we are doing nothing, SUCKER!" Those weren't their exact words but I know that is what they were implying. So, this means I paid $30 for my IPOD to go on a little vacation. So lame! I can't afford to essentially throw $30 away. UGH! I wish IPODS weren't so darn handy. I feel like I am just at Apple's mercy. I will say now that I will not be buying one of their computers anytime soon. At least Dell let me have an email chat with a man named Mahesh, who actually helped me.

Sherry has moved out of my room to go stay at the villa where she and Jono are getting married. It is sad to have her leave but at least they will be returning to the island for awhile after their honeymoon. I have already moved down from my top bunk to more prime real estate, her old bed. It is abnormally high with enough storage space to house at least four Japanese business men. Kramer made some money doing that on Seinfeld. Maybe I can do that to make a little side money. Then again, hiding Japanese business men under your bed is probably frowned upon at YWAM Maui. I will post some pics of the new living situation on my website. My new roommate will be Ashley. I think we will get along well except that she is a light sleeper and I talk in my sleep. Oh well, I enjoy an audience.

Let's get this wedding started!

This week Amy and I have been really good about working out. If we keep up the good work, when I visit in March, no one will even recognize me. Ok, maybe not but working out does make me feel better about myself.

Last night Sherry (my roommate) picked up two of her bridesmaids at the airport. It was nice to finally meet them since I had heard so much about them. They seem really fun. The room Sherry and I share has gotten pretty crowded with the addition of the two of them as well as Liz Wilkes, a friend from my DTS who came in today for Sherry and Jono's wedding. Tonight I am sleeping in Amy and Jess's room since we have to get up early for church tomorrow and the other girls in my room don't.

I am interested to see how my church goes tomorrow. Last week we had a guest speaker lady who did a bunch of healings. I don't know yet what a normal service is. I'll keep you posted.

Tonight a bunch of us girls went to this place called Mulligan's. Everyone talks about how much they love the place. I wasn't very impressed. It is really fancy. I pictured this quaint little Irish pub but it was not. I did have a lovely $8 apple pie. It was expensive but delicious.

Reflections on a 25th Birthday

So, yesterday was my birthday. It was a good birthday. Much better than last year when my grandma died and I went to her viewing on my birthday.

I feel like the key thing about birthdays is to feel loved and important to people. I definitely felt that way which means my birthday was a success. I did some work but not too much. I always feel like birthdays are usually just a few fun moments that make you feel like it is your birthday. The rest of the day seems normal but you keep thinking it should be exciting all day. Being in YWAM on your birthday means that you get people talking about your birthday all day. It's great! I got "Happy Birthday" sung to me no fewer than five times. I got cupcakes in the shape of the number 25.

In the afternoon Amy and I went to Wal-Mart and TCBY. Then we went up to her mentor's house. Her mentor is a lady named Moana who is married to a guy, Eric, with an awesome mullet and a partial handlebar mustache. He definitely disproves the stereotypes about mullets. He is super nice and a millionaire. They own four houses. One in Maui, one in Canadian ski country, one on the Hawaiian island, Molokai, and one in Paris. Their house in Maui is up near the top of the volocano and has an incredible view. Eric is an artist so they designed the house themselves. It looks like one of those places you would see on a cool house tv show. They have this awesome fishtank built into the wall between the study and living room. So cool. Amy and I just hung out and relaxed in non-YWAM land. It was nice.

Then she treated me to a steak dinner at Outback. It was good. I got a free ice cream sundae because it was my birthday. It was funny at dinner because my friend, Jared called. Now, I got lots of birthday phone calls from great friends all day. I was a bit surprised that Jared knew when my birthday was because we aren't really birthday call friends. It soon became clear that he just happened to call on this special day and did not know it was my birthday. It seemed to awkward to tell him so I decided not to. I felt really blessed yesterday because almost all my favorite people in the world called me or emailed me including my brother who had to call me from a pay phone in "Armyland," Georgia. I was especially excited to hear from my old roommate, Lucy who I had not talked to in a long time. I just love that girl!

After Amy and I went to Outback, we went home and watched some Law and Order. Mmm.... Box sets! Then some of my friends came over bearing gifts. I got stickers, a gift certificate to Borders and a funny shirt. I always joke that our other girls' staff house is where all the homebody girls live. I say all they do is knit and make handicrafts. Our house is more social and several of the girls have boyfriends so there are a lot of rules at our house. I like to say that "Anything Goes" at Mayu's. Two of my Mayu's friends found a shirt at American Eagle that says "Anthing Goes." Pretty funny. Today I wore it and wrote "at Mayus" underneath it.

Marti Harnly wins the prize for sending a birthday package that actually arrived on my birthday. I have heard rumors of upcoming packages and I am waiting on pins and needles for their arrivals. Better late packages, than no packages. That's what I always say.

Almost 25!

I am writing this the night before my 25th birthday. This seems really old. I will be a quarter of a century old. Woah! Luckily I am not the type of person to make assumptions about what I will be doing at a certain age. Many people my age are getting married, buying houses, and having babies. I guess I am not the norm. I am having a good time and I know I am where God wants me. I do hope he has planned a time for me to do those things in the near future.

I don't know what I am going to do on my birthday. I hope it will be something fun. In college, birthdays were grand events. My roommates and I always went out of our way to make eachother's birthdays super fun and very special. One birthday involved me being kidnapped and taken while blindfolded into a bowling alley where most of my friends were waiting. Another time my friends devised a giant video scavenger hunt that had to do with things I like. The players had to find a mullet, for example.

Last year was my worst birthday ever. My grandma died two days before. I was supposed to be on a Young Life retreat on my birthday but instead I was at a funeral home in Arkansas. Not ideal to say the least. The visitation was on my actual birthday and we did nothing that felt like my birthday at all. The only birthday-like event was when my brother put some matches in a bundt cake brought for my Grandma's funeral and the family sang a weak Happy Birthday. The bundt cake gave several of us, including me food poisoning so I spent the next day feeling queasy and I even threw up. No fun at all.

I did get a bunch of phone calls and text messages from friends, which meant so much to me. My friend, Katie H called me. I was very surprised since I don't even know when her birthday is. The best part of my birthday last year was at my grandma's viewing. I was sitting in the room next to the room with the open casket, trying not to look at it. I heard an old lady across the room talking about how she wanted to meet Liz. She came over and said that she had a granddaughter around my age and that she and my grandma would talk about their granddaughters a lot. She said that my grandma was so proud of me and that I was a missionary. That comment meant more to me than a million presents or elaborate birthday celebrations. This was in the midst of a confusing time for me as I was contemplating returning here to YWAM Maui. Thanks Grandma.

Washing a fellow Texan's feet

It's been a little while since I last wrote. This was the students' first week here. They have been super-busy and so have we. We had a mini-crisis on Tuesday morning when the DTS leader wanted to change the date of Love Feast. Love Feast is when the students come back from their two-night camping trip. They sleep outside under tarps, can't change clothes and don't wear deodorant. They only get to eat oatmeal and Ramen. Then when the students cannot take anymore, we bring them to Love Feast. The staff deccorates this church and dresses up nice. We cook all this good food and have a fancy dinner. Then we wash the students' grimey feet. It is a great feeling for the students and really symbolizes how Christ's love cleanses us.

There is so much that goes into this so the DTS director calling the day of to try to change it, is crazy. People were flipping out. We ended up keeping it as scheduled but this was only after several staff members resorted to tears. In the end, it turned out great! I washed a girl named Dinah's feet who is from Dallas. I made sure I got the Texan.

This weekend Amy and I worked out a lot. We are trying to be dilligent. We weren't so good during the week because I kept feeling sick. I got a migraine and my lymph nodes in my armpits are swollen. This means I have some sort of infection but my only real symptoms seem to be the fact that I have been irritable and borderline bitchy. Fun times for my housemates. Amy and I have also watched a lot of Lost. Man, that is a good show. We even downloaded the first ten episodes of season two so we could catch up. It's just so good and suspenseful.

Amy is having a hard time. She has been dating a guy from Canada and they were really serious. Now, being long-distance has taken its toll on him and they have broken up. This is not a fun time for Amy since she still loves him. There is still a chance they may get back together later in life but that is a hard place to be in. I know from experience. I think this means she and I will be working out even more. When I come home in March, I will be so buff, that is if I can resist YWAM's overabundance of baked goods.

Today I went to the church I will be taking students to this quarter. It is interesting. The worship team includes a guy with a mullet who is also a millionaire. It is a shame he is married and 20 years older than me. Today there was a guest speaker lady who did a healing service for people. It was a come to the front of the church, lay hands type of thing. I know God can heal like that but it is a little showy for me. I prefer more low-key healings but that is just a comfort zone issue. My students were a bit weirded out but I heard that this was unusual for this church.

A full day's work

Yesterday was crazy. Part of my new job is to coordinate one-time jobs in the community. People(primarily old ladies) call and want us to help them with tasks. I have been talking to several ladies and I forgot which one wanted us to do what. We were scheduled to help an old lady out yesterday morning. I thought we were supposed to help her clean. I was wrong.

I brought Retha, who is my mission builder and also my friend, Kristy's mom. She is a good cleaner and luckily a strong woman. I realized soon after meeting the old lady, Karen that we would be helping her move from Haiku to Kihei, a 45 minute drive. Retha and I had to load everything in a ten-foot trailer. We made to hair-raising trips across the island with a top-heavy trailer full of Karen's belongings. Karen was a crazy driver and being in a ten-foot moving truck did not help matters much. It also did not help that I was not sitting safely in a seat with a seatbelt but on a bucket in between the two front seats. Karen had a dangerous habit of stopping at the last minute and often scaring me into thinking she might not stop at all. I have never prayed that much during a car ride. Thank God I emerged from the journey alive.

The task took all day which I had not known nor told Retha. I felt bad for dragging her along on my exploits but I could not have done it alone. After our first trip, Karen treated us to lunch at a diner. Our order got mixed up and took way longer than it should have. Karen freaked out and yelled at our waitress. She threatened to walk out without paying for our drinks if we didn't get a hefty discount. It was so embarrasing and I felt sorry for our waitress. Luckily she ended up staying and not walking out. Retha and I did not know what to do. So awkward!

We carried so much crap and much of it had to go upstairs at Karen's new place. Retha and I carried a bed, desk, glass-top table as well as an endless amount of boxes. I almost lost it several times. It was pouring down rain at one point as we loaded furniture onto the truck.

I was so excited to see this tedious day come to an end. She gave us a donation of $20 each which amounts to about $3 an hour for the eight hours of manual labor. I almost screamed! The money is not even for me and I am giving it to the housing fund but this paltry sum for a full day's work was hard to take. My ankle hurt and I am getting sick, evidenced by the swollen lymph nodes in my armpits. Ugh! What a crazy day!

We had some decent talks about YWAM and what we do but I fear my mood as too sour at the end. She was an astrology-loving new ager who is in some sort of dance group that dances to songs of various religions. I hope we made a good impression on her because that experience wa a lot like Hell.

The students have arrived

Things have been super-busy here the last few days. Students began arriving on Thursday and continue to arrive today. Last night was our opening ceremony. This is where we welcome the students and give them leis. We as staff were supposed to arrive early to pray and help set up. I was just about walk in the door of the chapel when one of the DTS staff told me I needed to pick up a student from the airport. Apparently he had slipped through the cracks and had been left at the airport for an hour thus far. The DTS staff was busy with opening night bisnass, so the task was left to me.

I hopped in our of our terribly tacky big green vans and headed to the airport. All I had was a name and a picture. I searched a bit and finally found Graham. He had had a rough day. It was 7pm and he had not eaten since 10am. He had waited in the airport for an hour, his luggage was lost, he had had to sprint to make one of his flights. Needless to say, he was not in the best mood.

When we got back to the base, someone had parked in the van's spot so we had to drive up the hill to one of our other houses and walk down. Luckily Graham didn't have any luggage. I showed him his room and gave him som Count Chocula cereal in a ziploc bag to go. Then we headed into the opening ceremony an hour late. Right when we came in, everyone exclaimed that he must be Graham. They were in the middle of announcing all the students' names and I guess they had already come to his. I think the whole experience was quite overwhelming for the guy.

After this we had refreshments and I tried to learn the names of more students. I like to aggressively get to know them in this first awkward stage when they are not friends with eachother yet. It is pretty amusing since they are all so painfully insecure at first. I also played my favorite group game- "Blame-shifting Butt Grab." I grab someone's butt and then scamper away to make it look like it was the unlucky person behind them that did it. It is a good game. I only did it to the people I knew and not the students I had not even met.

Now the students are on EXODUS- this two-day bonding wilderness time. Amy and I are picking up two students from the airport later today and dropping them off unwittingly at the campsite. Suckers!

Hookin' Em' In Hawaii

I had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Ever since I found out that the Longhorns would be playing for the National Championship, I have been antsy about watching it. I figured out ahead of time that the tv at my house simply would not do. It was not okay to watch such a crucial game through a snowy hazy reception. I decided to watch the game at a coffeeshop with a big flat screen tv. I watched it there until the last five minutes when a worker who clearly was not a sports fan, made me leave. It ended up being good because I briskly walked to a nearby bar and watched the game in a roomful of fans evenly representing the two teams.

That was the best football game I have ever seen! Oh my gosh! It was so back and forth with a last minute win by my team. I really could not have asked for a better game! It did make me seriously homesick for Austin and all my fellow Longhorn friends. My friends here are not into college football and think my love of it is an odd quirk. I made sure to inform them all of our win and played a can opener that plays the Eyes of Texas over and over again while reminding them of our win. They still don't care that much but I sure do!!!!!!!

This was a good morale booster as I have been feeling a bit down lately. I just miss people and places from home. I think it is some sort of post-holiday blues. I don't know. This definitely improved my mood. Go Longhorns! Man, I am just so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray for Fireworks!

I did not want to sit around the house on New Year's like a loser. Sorry those of you who chose to spend the end of 2005 that way. I didn't do anything for Halloween and I was not going to spend another holiday sitting around wishing I was doing something festive. Amy did not want to go out because she was wary of the possible drunk drivers after being hit by one last year. I felt bad leaving her alone since we do pretty much everything together lately but I could not bear the thought of staying home.

Gena is housesitting for a family and has full access to their minivan. Ten of us piled into the minivan and set off toward the other side of the island where fireworks were rumored to be found. First we stopped off at a youth group gathering that one of our guys was connected to. I felt pretty awkward being there since I did not know the kids or feel compelled to get to know them for this one-time meeting. I did participate in a weird game where everyone is in a circle holding ropes between each person. There is a trashcan in the middle and the idea is that the people in the circle whip eachother around and try to force a player to touch the trashcan. There is a lot of shimmying, flopping around, and crazy manuevering. It was pretty funny to watch. I was not a very good player with the residual ankle issue. It is frustrating to not be able to play sports even weird ones with circles and trash cans. I did snag some of their food, though. There were also a bunch of fireworks for the kids to play with. This would not be happening with my high school youth group.

After hanging out with high schoolers, we headed to Wailea, a really fancy part of the island. We walked for a long time along the coast and found a great spot to watch the fireworks. We walked out onto the reef which was about 30 feet above the ocean. The waves were really big and powerful, which is unusual for that part of the island. The people we were with had brought little fireworks and were lighting them and tossing them into the ocean. They actually continue to spark in the water and it looks really cool.

The fireworks started and were so close to us. I had never seen fireworks this close. It was like going to the movies and having to sit on the front row. You could barely see it all at once. The fireworks were definitely not the best I had ever seen but the setting was positively ideal. The only thing that would have made it better was if I had been there with a boyfriend or husband. It was cool and I am very glad I did not stay home.

Adventures in Hitchhiking

The last day of 2005 was pretty fun. Amy and I decided to hitch across the island to Kaanapali. This is the tourist area where we like to go pool hopping. (Tanning and swimming at nice hotels, trying not to get caught.)

We got picked up very quickly for each leg of our adventure. The rides were very interesting.
Ride #1: We wanted to go to Costco and we got picked up by a guy in an old ghetto BMW. He was also planning on going to Costco so it was perfect. Midway through the ride, we learned that he had just had two Bloody Mary's before we got in the car with him. Lovely. There was only one point where I feared for my life. Then we got to the Costco parking lot and he seemed to want to hang out with us but we ran ahead.

Ride #2: We got picked up by some guys in a pickup truck. The bed of the truck was completely filled with stuff but we told them we could make room. Amy ended up sitting precariously on top of a cooler holding onto bungee cords for dear life. I tried to hold her down as well. I was sitting on the tailgate (it had a guard thing on the back) and on top of some pears. There was also a spearfishing spear, bottles of water, four surfboards and who knows what else in the bed of the truck. Midway through our winding ride we smelled the strong scent of weed coming from the cab. Neat.

Ride #3: Our last ride on the way to Kaanapali was an odd tourist guy. Usually tourists do not pick up hitchhikers. This guy had just driven around the island by himself and was going to meet some "friends." He had that child molester vibe complete with the standard issue handle-bar mustache. He talked really quietly. I kept watching his hand to make sure he didn't try any funny business with Amy, who was unfortunately close to him in the front passenger seat. He tried to come with us to see the Hyatt pool but we ran off as he was trying to bargain with the valet guy.

We had fun sunning ourselves and pretending to be wealthy tourists. Then it was time to go home and we again kept getting picked up right away by strange people.

Ride #4:We got picked up by this woman who seemed familiar. Amy figured out that it was our waitress from Bubba Gump's a week ago. Amy even remembered that the girl used to live in Hana and went to school in Buffalo. The girl was extremely talkative but cool so it was a good ride.

Ride #5:The bulk of our journey home was in the car with some college-age guys. They were driving a nice SUV. They seemed nice in a non-creepy way. They played some quality music like Ludacris. They were very hospitable and offered us a beer. That did not bother me though I did decline the offer. The thing that did bother me was that halfway through the ride, the driver took a sip of a beer that had been previously hidden from view. Awesome.

Ride#6: We were only 4 miles from home when we began ride #6. This middle-aged guy and his son picked us up in their two-door coupe. We crawled in the back to find the messiest back seat I have ever sat in. There was trash everywhere and old rice on the seat where I was to sit. Score! I had no choice but to sit on the old squishy rice. Amy just laughed at me. She found her own treat next to her seat- half of a cheeseburger-rock hard.

So, there were some sketchy moments during our hitching adventure but we made it safe and sound and had a good time. I have been thinking about getting my car fixed. I am going to look into price stuff soon.

Birthdays and Kwaanza

I took a lil' blog break but never fear, I am back. I am pretty sure I have yet to write about our Kwaanza fun. On December 26th, all of us on base went across the island to Kihei to a touristy beach. It was pretty crowded with people trying to get as much sun as possible before returning to whatever frigid wasteland they came from. We had a lot of fun bodyboarding and I saw one of the biggest mullet owners ever. A great day!

I saw a flier in town that advertised a Kwaanza celebration. For those of you unfamiliar with Kwaanza, it is an African American holiday between Christmas and New Year's. There are many traditions that I don't fully understand but when I saw the words, "soul food potluck" I knew I had to be there. Soul food may very well be my favorite genre of food. We went to a local elementary school and found possibly the largest concentration I had ever seen on the island. There just are not very many black people here. I miss them. We hung out, ate and played Kwaanza bingo. We were going to get our faces painted like African animals but the line was too long.

The 28th was Amy's birthday. I am very intent on making people's birthdays as good as I can. Since Amy is my closest friend here, I had to make her birthday special. I did not let her know what the plans were. We started the day by going to IHOP for breakfast. Then we went to the Maui Ocean Center. It is this aquarium that Amy really likes. I had never been there and my previous unsatisfactory aquarium experience made me skeptical. It ended up being cool. They have some really amazing fish and it is cool to think that they are all located in the ocean around Hawaii. The sharks and the jellyfish were my favorites.

After the aquarium, we went to play mini-golf. Amy and I both got hole-in-ones. Seth did not, haha. Then we came back home and watched more episodes of Lost. We are pretty into it. We have been getting the discs from Netflix so we can't watch them exactly when we want them but we didn't have to pay for the whole thing. I made Amy a rice krispie cake since she can't eat white flour. I think she had fun. If not, at least I did.

Now we are back to work. I have a lot to do after a weeklong vacation. I am most excited about exploring my new job. Hopefully I will still be able to put my heart into housing as well.

Getting the giggles in church

Last night the 11 of us left on base went to Paia Hawaiian Protestant Church for their candlelight service. None of us had ever attended the church but it is only a short walk from our house. The church was mostly full when we shuffled in. We ended up sitting in the very front. Our group tried unsuccessfully to all squeeze into one pew but we had to overflow into the next.

I was sitting between Gena and Kristy. The service was pretty formal and involved a lot of alternating between sitting and standing. The sermon was hilarious. The pastor was not a native English speaker. I presume that he was from the Philippines. He mispronounced words in ways that had us shaking to control our laughter. He kept talking about retinas (he said Ra-Teen-as). He said we were supposed to love our enemies but he pronounced it (Enemas). There were tons of other flubs. I was trying valiantly to keep from laughing out loud. Sitting next to Gena did not help one bit. It reminded me of High School when I sat next to Neha Patel. One time I was struggling to supress a giggle when Neha whispers that she "has the giggles." This does not help me one bit.

Last night Gena kept poking me and looking at me at inopurtune moments. I was silently laughing so hard that I twice starting crying. It felt like when you feel like you are going to throw up and try to hold it in. It seemed like most of my companions were having similar difficulties. I lost the not laughing game when the pastor for some reason said a word that sounded like "Poos." I actually laughed out loud. I could not believe it. After that I kept thinking about the fact that I had actually made a sound and almost busting out again. I was so excited when the sermon finally ended. The congregation held no grudge despite my loud guffaws. They invited us to have Portuguese soup with them afterwards. They also gave us little good bags with fruit and strange edible Asian treats. A good time was had by all.

After church, we decided to open the gift we bought for YWAM. We bought Catch Phrase. We had fun playing it last night before bed.

In the morning we all gathered around to open presents. We had received permission to let the three boys on base spend the night in an empty bedroom at our house. That way we could all wake up like a family. After we opened our gifts, we had a good breakfast with bacon, eggs, toast and cinnamon rolls made from scratch. After that we laid around watching the Law and Order SVU box set that Amy got for Christmas.

Then our group separated to have lunch/dinner with two different families from our base. I went to Tam and Libby's. There was some good food. We had mashed potatoes, ham, rolls, green bean casserole and dessert. It was great. I heard that the other group only got pupus (that's what they call appetizers here). Haha Suckers! I ate until I thought I would explode. Amy and I have resolved to start eating healthy and workout again starting tomorrow so I had to get in a final act of gluttony.

After gorging myself, I took a nap. It started out as a short nap but it just kept going. It was so nice. Everyone came over and we played more catch phrase and another fun game. It was good times. Not to sound prideful, but I have an uncanny ability to play many board games. It always surprises people. I am also strangely good at Jeopardy. I have yet to find a way to capitalize on this talent of mine. Too bad I cannot play board games for money. For example, when given the clue, "She's a slut and she's married to..." I correctly answered, "Carmen Electra." I don't know how I do this and it unfortunately did not help me much in school. It is only an amusing party trick. If anyone has an idea on how to capitalize on this, let me know.

Joe Montana and Me

Wow! I cannot believe that tommorrow is Christmas Eve! That is so crazy. It really does not feel like it. I think the main reason is that the weather here is still sunny and warm. I went to Wal-Mart today and it was crazy. People still buy lots of stuff at Christmas even if it doesn't feel like Christmas. Amy and I went grocery shopping to pick up some more food for those of us still on base. I could not believe the prices. I don't shop for food much here other than picking up the occasional item like spray butter. A loaf of bread costs $5! So does a box of cereal and a jar of pickles. It is insane! I got so frustrted by the prices.

I have kept my eyes peeled, looking for Paris. I was unsuccessful. I did, on the other hand, see my first celebrity since being back on the island. (During my DTS I saw Laird Hamilton, Willie Nelson and Gabrielle Reese but they all live here so that's not too special.) Today I saw Joe Montana waiting to cross the street at our town's only stoplight. I was not sure at first but I have seen him on tv enough to be pretty sure. He was wearing a Notre Dame tee-shirt and I found out on the internet that that was where he went to school. So, it was him for sure. Yay! I like spotting famous people about as much as I like spotting mullets. There are a lot of tourists on island right now so I am hoping to see more famous people.

Getting the mail has been very exciting. THere are lots of letters and packages for people. I have heard rumors about people sending me packages but so far I have only received one and that was from Sarah Sto-Gregor. She's always so on top of things. I figure that between now and my birthday, (January 17th) I will probably have a package 'o' rama. I will get late Christmas packages and birthday packages. How exciting! I love mail!

Where's Paris?

I got a call from Gena today. She was working at Anthony's, the local coffee shop where all the cool people hang out. She called our house as is the protocol I established with her, to inform me that Paris Hilton was in the shop. I was about to go to the beach anyway so I hurried down the street. I found out when I got there that I just missed her. I scanned the street and looked into some shops trying to find her. It was a very funny concept: Me playing Hide and Go Seek with Paris Hilton. I don't know if the fact that she did not know she was playing counts. Unfortunately Paris eluded me. I had predicted she would come to Maui for Christmas since she is currently dating a professional windsurfer whose family lives in our town. I am hoping to see her sometime during her visit. I don't even really like her but I just want to see a celebrity.

I once read an article about Amy Poehler, the chick on Saturday Night Live who does weekend update with Tina Fey. She was asked to describe herself growing up and the two words she used to describe her child self were bossy and a tomboy. This is probably what I would say about myself as a kid as well. I thought this was interesting.

Lately I have been doing a lot of nothing. I am off work for the week so I have been vegging. I finished reading THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. It was good but sad. Now I have moved on to INTO THIN AIR about a big Everest expedition. It is pretty captivating. It feels so good to just relax. It is making my ankle better. It is still not perfect and I can't run yet but it is improving.

I haven't hung out with my best buddy here, Amy, very much lately. Her boyfriend has been in town this week. I have hung out with them some but I also try to stay away and give them their alone time. I definitely remember what it was like to be in a long-distance relationship. At least in our case, we were only 7 hours away by car. They are more than 7 hours away by plane and in different countries.

A baby extravaganza

Ankle Update- It is slowly getting better. I am trying to stay off it more. Yesterday I spent most of the day laying on my couch, reading a book while elevating this pesky ankle. I do notice a difference today. It is hard to do nothing like that all day. I think we all have this inner voice that nags us to not be lazy and not rest too much. Sometimes that voice is simply wrong. I know I need to stay off my feet but sometimes I just can't take so much sloth sometimes.

So many people here are having babies. Three of the wives on base are curently pregnant and the other two have had babies within the last year. Apparently being in YWAM contributes to fertility. I think I am soon to be entering the season of my life where lots of my friends are having babies. Erin and Zach are having one in May. I am hoping they have it on May 5th- Cinco de Mayo and my dad's birthday. Then I just found out that Sarah Musselman is pregnant and due in June. I think I am probably about a year off before a deluge of babies for my friends. I have always planned to be married at least a year or two before trying to procreate but as I am about to have my quarter-life birthday, I realize that I am no longer a spring chicken. What does that saying mean anyway? I'll just have to see what God's plan is. I often wish God would just tell me who and when I am going to get married but he doesn't operate the way I'd like. Luckily I am able to remember most of the time that his timing is best.

Christmas is fun mail time. I have not received any X-mas packages but almost everyday I have received several fun Christmas cards. I like the ones with updates. It is always cool to see how friends are doing.

Today we had a basketball team from California come and help out on base. Gena and I put them to work doing yard work and cleaning our vans. It was so needed. They totally blessed us. This little old neighbor guy had them clean up his yard as well. Smart guy.

I have decided to make a calendar called "Wayne in your bed." Wayne is a guy on staff and I am taking pictures of him in the beds of girls on staff who have gone home for Christmas. I plan on leaving each girl a copy of a pic of "Wayne in their bed" on top of their bed when they get home. it should be really funny. I am really excited about the calendar. I will post pics pretty soon.

Firefighters and Policemen Galore!

Last night was quite the adventure. The plan was to let my housemates watch some Felicity episodes and then for a bunch of us to watch LOST. None of us have seen it so I ordered the first disc from Net Flix. We are ready to join the craze and have another connection to the outside world.

Our hot water was out so the boys went outside to switch the propane tanks. One of the tanks was defective and started spewing propane gas. It made this really loud whooshing noise. The guys told us to get out of the house. It seemed like an overprecaution but I departed, nonetheless. I was very unprepared for the evacuation as I was not wearing shoes and had only the clothes on my back and my cell phone. Then the neighbors called the fire department and they pulled up in their big truck. They were followed by four police cars. We were told we would not be allowed in our house for an undetermined amount of time. We headed over to the other girls' staff house. It was pretty scary not knowing whether our house would be okay and not knowing when we could return. I kept wishing I had had the foresight to grap valuables like my laptop or even my purse. We tried to watch a movie at the other house but we were all on edge. Then we all got together and prayed. That made things feel less out of control.

It turns out that the firefighters went in and turned off our electricity. In the process, they found numerous fire hazards, which they thankfully did not fine us for. One of which was the ghetto decorating job Amy and I had done by covering the broken maintenance van next to our house with Christmas lights. At one point they closed off a bunch of the street and then hosed it down. I don't really know why. Anyway, three hours later we were back in our house safe and sound and watching poor Felicity try to return from the past to the present day.

Urine and Blood

My foot stil hurts and I still walk like a gimp. If I was wearing pants, I could probably say my limp was a result of having one wooden leg. I guess I could paint wood grain on my bare leg but that seems extreme. Every day my ankle has felt significantly better except today. Today it felt the same. This was probably due to the fact that I have not been icing it much or elevating it or staying off it. I need to go easy but going easy is not my strong suit.

Today I had to get a physical because my parents are getting me life insurance. Actually I guess they are getting themselves life insurance because I will be dead and get nothing out of it. I had to answer a long questionaire on the phone prior to the physical. The guy who asked me the questions was not particularly smart. He asked if I had ever smoked. I said I smoked about five cigarettes in my life. He asked when the last time so I said maybe a year ago. So, the genius writes down that I quit smoking a year ago. Then my uncle who is my insurance agent called and asked if I was a smoker. Word got back to my mom who called concerned about my nicotine addiction.

The physical was not as bad as I had feared. My roommates got me scared the night before about how thorough the exam would be. Apparently in Canada, the word, physical means a gynecological exam. Uh, no thank you. I did have to contribute a blood sample and a urine sample. She weighed me and measured me and that was it. Not too bad and no taking off my clothes and wearing those terrible paper gowns that leave nothing to the imagination.

Tonight a local church made us food. It was so nice. The church members were really cute and even performed a hula for us. Good times.

I have a cankle.

My ankle is recovering. It is still swollen and funny-looking. It looks like I have a dinosaur foot or a cankle. I feel bad for the people who have cankles that will not go away with ice and elevation. I am able to walk. Hooray for no crutches! I walk stilted and funny. It looks like Frankenstein or like I have a stick up my butt. I am slow and steady but it sure beats armpit assualting crutches. The ankle is still sore and tight but it has already improved so much so I know it will get better. It seems to be healing pretty quickly since it was only Sunday that I did it.

I officially agreed to staff the Summer DTS school. There are a couple of other people who are interested but I don't think they will be able to since they have not been asked. I feel like maybe I am supposed to go to Bangladesh but I am not sure yet. If so, there is a chance that this Summer's Bangladesh team will go on a 40 day prayer hike across Bangladesh. That sounds intense. We'll see what God wants.

Amy- my current YWAM best friend, has her boyfriend, Luke coming in town today. She is more than excited. I am interested in meeting him since she talks about him so much and I have talked to him on the phone a bit myself. I hope they have a really good time together.

I hate it when I am looking forward to something so much and then it turns out to be a big letdown.
I remember one Christmas where I got it into my head that I was getting a trampoline for Christmas. My suspicion was seemingly confirmed by the fact that Jocelyn knew what my gift was. I asked her if she would want to play with my gift and she said she already had one. Since she had a trampoline, I knew I had figured it out. It turns out that I was wrong and my big gift ended up being a desk. Not quite the fun and exciting present I had hoped for.

The latest time this has happened to me I was so excited and then it turned out to be painful, hurtful and disappointing. So instead of being uplifting, it was draining. Yesterday I was really upset but my housemates were very supportive and I feel much better today. There is definitely a sense of sadness when I think about it though.

The sea was angry

On Sunday, I had an altercation with the ocean and the ocean won. It was even stronger than Sarah Morgan. I was suntanning and went out into the ocean to cool off a bit. The waves were stronger than usual but since I live in Hawaii, I knew I could handle them. I was mistaken. I was only about ten feet away from the shore when I began to get pummeled. I fell down once and ended up with a bathing suit full of sand. This was funny and I laughed along with some little kids on the shore at my slight misfortune. Then another wave took me up in the air and slammed me into the ocean floor. The sheer force was amazing (in a bad way). It felt as if the full force of my upheaval came down on my left leg/foot. My left foot felt as if it shifted to the right while my left leg continued its downward course. For those of you unaware of such things, this is an awful feeling. I expected to see my bone poking out when I finally escaped the ocean's clutches.

Luckily reality was kinder than my imagination. There were no bones poking out but my foot definitely felt wrong. I hobbled with the help of Thama to the outdoor beach shower to attempt to rid myself of the sandbox that had developed in my bathing suit during my gnarly adventure at sea. I knew I could not walk the mile back to my house so I called one of my housemates to come and pick me up with her car. Since then I have been unable to put pressure on my foot and therefore unable to walk. Luckily the base had a set of crutches lying around or I would be completely immobilized.

My ankle/foot has swollen up and is a slightly abnormal color. Yesterday I went to the doctor and after x-rays was assured that it was merely a sprain with no broken bones involved. I think this may be my first sprain ever. I have seen many other people with them but not me. It is not much fun. I remember thinking that crutches were fun when I was a kid. That is a lie. They are annoying and even painful. Yesterday I spent all day on them and today the thought of getting back on them makes me want to cry. Luckily my foot looks and feels better today and though I cannot manage without the foul crutches yet, I can imagine a time in the near future when I will be able to. The foot still hurts but not nearly as bad. I hate having to depend on other people for things. This is my downfall much of the time. God keeps trying to teach me these lessons on healthy interdependence but I do not listen so He has the ocean teach me a lesson. I need to learn the lesson the easy way and not the hard painful way. That's what I get for being so stubborn I guess.

Scandalous shower gifts

Time here moves by at a lightening fast pace. I feel like there are so many things I want to do here that I don't have time to do. I don't even feel terribly busy so I do not know where the time goes.

Yesterday I helped throw a shower for my good friend, Sherry. She is getting married at the end of January. The shower went well. It was held at this former-YWAM girl's house. Her house is super nice but it was a bit cramped with 25 people in it.

I, as usual, gave the most scandalous gift. It wasn't even my best showing. I gave a candy necklace man thong-thing called a posing pouch. It was exquisite and definitely provided the shock value I crave. I think everyone had fun.

I think Thama is having fun though I have not been the world's best tour guide. It is more like I am letting her see how me and my friends hang out. Last night my whole house minus Sara plus Thama went to Lahaina, the tourist town on island. We saw a celebrity. Keala Kennely is a famous female surfer. She was on Blue Crush on the part where the main girl is competing and nervous. Keala tells her to go for it. She was signing autographs at a store. We thought we were too cool to get one. We saw the Banyan tree all lit up. The banyan tree is this giant tree that looks like 20 trees because all the roots have grown up like separate trees. They light it up for Christmas. It looks cool. It is not as cool as the lights on the riverwalk in San Antonio at Christmas but cool nevertheless.

Thama is here!

Thama is here! My first guest! Well, actually she is the third McGregor to come visit me. Yay McGregors! I should probably entertain her since she flew out here. But yay she's here!

So much to say

This morning I wanted to sleep in to try to make up for the amazing lack of sleep from this past weekend. I had no such luck because the neighborhood dogs began barking at 7am and continued to bark every few minutes after that. So annoying. I hate waking up early against my will.

I don't want this to become the world's longest blog entry so I will try to stick to the important highlights. This weekend I went home for the wedding of Emily Ray and Van Hardin. I arrived Friday morning, which turned out to be a very stupid idea. I should have scheduled myself to arrive earlier. I barely got to spend any time with Emily, half of the reason I was in town. I felt like the recurring theme of the weekend was not enough time. I got to see some of my most favorite people in the whole world but for painfully short periods of time. It was like I had forgotten how much I love all these people until I saw them in person. It made me remember all the incredibly fun times we had had in the past. Knowing that many of those times cannot be repeated was quite painful. Maybe this is why I teared up every time Fred sang a single note. It so reminded me of the amazing times at camp.

I cried so much this weekend. I don't know why I was so emotional. I think it may have been a combo of lack of sleep, jet lag and more. At the reception I was also on a sugar high since the only food left to eat when I got there was fruit and chocolate fondue. It was so good to see so many people I love together at once. I spent much of my time at the reception talking to Zach and Erin, who I miss so much. I almost cried when I heard they were in town. I told you I was emotional. I got to see lots of fun Cho-Yeh friends including those who play for the other team. We seem to have quite a few of those these days.

I have decided that in order to retain my sanity, I must return home for a longer period of time in the Spring. As of now, my plans are to say yes to leading the summer DTS. This would mean I start training in May, the students have lecture June through August and then we go on outreach to a foreign country from September through November. That would mean I could not go home at all during that span of time. So, I think I will come home for 2-3 weeks in the Spring. Then after I get back from outreach I will probably come home for X-mas. After that I won't come home until I am leaving YWAM. Thinking about coming home in the Spring makes me happy. I just need more time with the people on the mainland I love.

So, despite the tears and excessive emotional times, the wedding was really good. It was standing room only in the church. Emily and Van are very beloved people. During the reception, there was a line to talk to them at all times. They made these little cards that said instead of giving out parting gifts, they made a contribution to their missionary friends: me and this guy named Jeff. That blessed me so much and of course when I found out, I started to cry. The tears should come as no surprise.

I got to spend some quality post-wedding time with Jocelyn, Jason, David Morgan, Sarah Mo'Bryan, Devin and Lee. It was good to get some chillin' time since pre-wedding and during wedding time was pretty rushed and hectic. During the hang-out time, Jason Fowler fixed my N key. This is huge since I was becoming angry every time I used my computer because of that pesky N key.

On Sunday I had Christmas with my family. It went really well, despite my fears about being crunched for time. I got a bunch of TV box sets. Yay! My grandma made my favorite meal and good times were had by all.

I stayed with my DTS friend, Misti on my overnight layover in L.A. It is weird how it was not weird to see her even though it had been more than a year. I love friendships like that. I am now back in Maui. This is good but I am glad to have a tentative date to return to the mainland.

Sarah Fun Day

My looong weekend came to an end and we went back to the working world. Today was another break from work. The teams left at 5am this morning. I woke up early to see them off. Those who know me well know that I am not the nicest version of myself when I wake up in the fours. I was, however, surprisingly chipper this particular morning. I am definitely going to miss those guys. I can't wait to hear their stories!

Two of the female students were not going on outreach but their flights did not leave until tonight. One of the girls was Sarah Barthel, who left after two weeks when her mom died. The other girl was Brittany who is getting married in May to a guy currently stationed in Iraq. I did not want them to spend the day sad about missing their friends. I decided to turn it into Sarah Brittany Fun Day! I added Amy and Amy's friend, Sarah and Brittany, one of our mission builders. So the count stood at two Sarahs and two Brittanys. It was a good time. Everyone knows how much I love Sarahs. We took them across the island to teach the girls how to surf. Gena and Kristy met up with us later. I taught three of the girls to surf. It was so great! They all stood up! I got the leash caught around my neck and I thought my ears were going to come off. Very scary! Other than that, lots of fun. Also my friends were surfing at our local beach and saw a shark. Scary.

There has been some talk of different options for me going overseas. There is the Philippines basketball boomerang in the summer, around the world touring our outreach destinations with Amy in the Fall or staffing the summer DTS in the Summer. I am praying about what I am supposed to do. There are some exciting options but I just don't know what.

Flashing at the Hilton

Yesterday I had some fun times. Me, Amy and Sarah hitchhiked across the island to the tourist part. The hitching was really effortless. We got two rides from nice women. It is nice to hitch with women cuz you can assume they won't be shady. On the way home we met up with some fellow YWAMers who had one of our giant green vans. We laid out at the Hilton and pretended to be guests. It was good times. I did have an embarrasing moment poolside. I took off my tanktop only to discover that part of my bathing suit rode up, exposing one of my boobs to the public. I quickly pulled the bathing suit down. I scanned the crowd to see if anyone's face showed an "I just saw a boob look." No one seemed to have noticed. Miracle! It was still embarrasing. Luckily it was not near as bad as in high school when Jocelyn came off a water ride at an amusement park and inadvertantly exposed herself to the cutest guy in our church youth group and his girlfriend. She did not even notice right away and had to be told by the couple.

We did some shopping and I got stuff for almost all of my family members. Yay! This is important since my Christmas with them is on December 3rd. I still have a few more things to get so hopefully I will pick up some stuff when I take the students into town.

Last night a bunch of us went to a local church where some of our YWAM friends were leading worship. I love it when our people lead worship. They are so talented! Sherry sang and I also feel really proud to be her friend when I hear her sing. She has such a beautiful voice.

Then we came back and watched Coach Carter. Amy was in a weird mood and kept doing strange things with her exercise ball. I solved this problem by throwing a pudding snack pack at her.

Thanksgiving a day early

We celebrated Thanksgiving a day early here in YWAM land. It was really good. I have discovered that I really just need a bunch of people and a lot of food including turkey for Thanksgiving to be good. Family is nice but as long as I have turkey, I am good. Christmas is not the same, however. I need more than just presents. I helped serve at our Thanksgiving. There was soooo much food! They cooked 13 turkeys! The only thing that ran out was the corn. I had to fish through the corn juice to find the few morsels that were left. It was really interesting to watch which of the delectable Thanksgiving treats people chose. Luckily I served the stuffing, something I don't like. If I had liked it I would have been tempted to eat it.

After dinner, my friend, Gena cut my hair. She did a pretty good job. She wants to be a hairstylist so she takes even a trim for a friend pretty seriously. Last night, Amy and I decided that we would go to a spin class at the gym in the morning. The gym here is not very smart. They have offered me two ten-day passes for free so far and have never even told me how to become a member. How do they ever get anyone to join if they keep giving free passes?

The spin class was very similar to being tortured by enemy soldiers. I thought that my MS 150 biking experience would make things easier. I was wrong, very wrong. I was ready to quit after 20 minutes of the hour-long class. Luckily Amy and I were never ready to quit at the same time, so we stuck it out. Also we were in the back corner and we were afraid that the instructors would ridicule us if we quit. I was proud that we made it. Then we picked up Amy's friend who was on her way back home after teaching in Korea for a year. Her name is Sarah. I love Sarahs. It is always nice to be in the company of Sarahs.

Speaking of Sarahs, I probably mentioned our DTS student, Sarah Barthels earlier. She is the student who left after the third week because her mom's heart surgery went bad. Her mom died and so she did not return. Well, this week, she came and surprised her fellow students. She will be here until the day the other students leave for outreach. I did not know she was coming and it was so great to see her again. I hurt so much for her when her mom died. The students leave early Tuesday morning and she does not leave until that night. I have decided that Tuesday will be Sarah fun day. I want her last day here to be really fun.

Crazy story- One of my housemates, Alicia, is 36 and never been married. Some of the staff here thought she would be good with a guy they knew from back home. He is 39 and divorced with two kids. The two of them started talking on the phone a lot. Things got really serious and after they had been "phone dating" for about three months, they got to meet for the first time in his home town over Thanksgiving break. Talk about a lot of pressure! It was the first time they had ever met each other. She is still there right now. A few days ago Tony proposed to Alicia. Now they are planning on getting married in April. Crazy!

YWAM Sports has come to an end.

I had such high hopes for my basketball team in the playoffs. I thought that unlike volleyball, that we really had a chance. Apparently I was mistaken. We lost our first playoff game by ten points and are therefore, no longer in the tournament. This definitely sucks. The worst part is that no one really played to the best of their ability. Only one of our local players, Marci, played really good. That chick was on fire with at least 5 three-pointers. I played okay but definitely not my best. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. At least now I don't have to scrounge around for rides.

Yesterday was so busy for me. In the morning we commissioned the Fall school students during our base-wide worship. Commissioning is where we pray for all the teams before they leave. The teams leave next Tuesday. I can't believe it is happening so soon. After we prayed for the teams we still had a full-length worship service. This meant we went about an hour longer than we normally do. Then we had a fractal meeting which is a meeting with all the heads of the various departments. This went until it was time to get the mail. (My favorite time of the day) and then we had lunch.

After lunch, we left for our Housing outing. Gena and Kristy and I took 3 of our 4 housing students out surfing on the other side of the island. There were no waves but we were determined to teach the girls how to surf. The water was ridiculously shallow for some reason. When I was paddling on the board, my hand would graze a rock, even when I was pretty far out. It was a bit unnerving. I am not a very good surfer but I can teach almost anyone how to stand up on their first lesson. I got both housing girls who wanted to surf to stand up and it was such a good feeling. It was almost as good as teaching my Young Life girls how to surf. I got one good ride myself but got really freaked out at the end of the ride when I could see the bottom was only like a foot away. The bottom of the ocean there is reef and not sand so it can cut you up.

After surfing, we arrived late to dinner and I had someone save some for us. I scarfed down my food. Then I changed out of wet clothes and into basketball gear and we left for the game. Such a busy day!

I got approved for my proposal of a new position for myself. I call it Community Relations Coordinator. I will be in charge of Kairos- our community outreach for the students. I will also be responsible for our image in the community, find opportunities for the staff to serve outside of our YWAM duties, call businesses and let them know of our willingness to serve, solicit donations and whatever else I think of. I am excited because I think this will be more fun/fruitful for me. I will still be doing housing stuff part-time but Gena will be the head. She is nervous because she has a job in town too, but I really think she can do both with ease.

I really like being here and I feel this is where God wants me. Once in a while, I do miss home, or more accurately I miss a specific stage in my life. Lately I miss living in the duplex with Lindsay, Lucy, Big Sar and Emily Stone. What a sweet time that was! I am lucky that my living situation now is living with a bunch of girls but it is not the same. I need to appreciate the past but not dwell on it too much.

Yay I come home soon! Yay Thama is coming to visit!

Waxing party

This week I did a lot of painting. It is getting old but the office bathroom is looking so much better. It is also nice to have something I know I am doing when there is nothing else I have to do. I also got to monitor the bathroom patterns of the people who work in the office. I will be posting a chart on my website. Not really.

Last night Kristy, Amy, Julia, and I went to Wal-Mart and Costco. This is pretty standard YWAM free time procedure. It is a bit like working at Camp Cho-Yeh, the options are limited. We do, however, have world-class beaches unlike Livingston, Texas. When we got back we watched Office Space. Such a quality film! It did make me miss Austin some. Oh, speaking of Texas, I was wearing a Longhorns shirt and the other day as I was walking down the street, a guy was walking towards me, also wearing a Longhorns shirt. He was probably in his late forties. Instead of the usual Texan-to-Texan talk of where are you from and such, he says "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" To which I replied, "I live here." That was the extent of the conversation. How odd is that? It was like seeing someone you know from home so you say hi but it someone you don't like so you just say the minimum and move on. Very strange indeed.

Today I tried to sleep in. It is a shame when I cannot sleep past 10am. I used to be a champ at sleeping in. YWAM, what have you done to me? I was planning on going to the beach. I need to be tan for Emily's wedding. Everyone expects the girl who lives in Hawaii to be tan and I definitely do not want to let them down. Instead of going to the beach, Amy convinced me to go to the mall with her. I realized that since I am doing a family Christmas on the 4th of December, I should probably be getting the presents pretty soon. I ended up getting Shella's present so I was at least partially successful. Then there was a "waxing party" at my house. Sara, one of my housemates, has a sister who is trained to do waxing and such. She came over and people paid to have her wax armpits, upper lips and eyebrows. Don't worry, there were no bikini waxes involved. I personally did not participate in any hair removal but I did take part in some tasty treats.

Then Amy convinced me to go with her to the office. This was after I made fun of her for wanting to go to the office on her day off like a big dork. She wanted to print off stuff for support letters and then ended up printing invitations for the bridal shower we are throwing for Sherry. I ended up going the humorous route instead of the cute route. The front has a frightening picture of Jonathan, the future groom, making a strange face and dressed in a girl's shirt and jeans. The caption says, "Here's your chance to make Jono smile..." and the inside has the details about the lingerie shower. I think they are funny but I hope the other hosts don't get mad that they aren't very fancy. After invitations, we watched Amelie. It is such a cute movie and it always reminds me of my hearth-tending former roommate, Emily Stone. I miss that girl.

What is a garberator?

I am around Canadians quite a bit here at YWAM Maui. For the most part, they seem just like Americans. I am always a bit confused when they start referring to kilometers, liters and Celsius. The other day we were playing Loaded Questions and someone’s answer included the word- garberator. Apparently this is what Canadians call trash compactors. Weird!

Last night my basketball team, the Born Again Ballers won another game. Whoohoo! We start the tournament on Monday and I think we have a real chance. I am talking with two of my teammates about having a basketball boomerang. A boomerang is when our base goes back to a country we have been to in order to do another outreach. There is usually a short training time before hand. We are going to be praying about going to the Philippines.

Last night after basketball, the power went out in our whole town. It was pretty crazy. I ended up taking a shower at the other girls’ staff house. Our shower is outside our house and the night before I had taken a cold shower with two uninvited roach guests. The other girls’ shower was so much nicer even by candlelight. It will be hard to return to my shower. My house is the cooler girls’ house except for the shower part.

Today the team who just returned from Borneo spoke about their experiences. It was so good to hear about what happened there. They had so many amazing stories of miracles, healings and people coming to the Lord. It was intense. I hope the next Borneo team has as good of an experience.

I am putting my car up for sale. I still don’t know what God wants for my car situation. I feel a peace about it like something big is going to happen. I don’t know what. I know the peace is from the Lord because having peace about no car is not my style. It is more my style to try and get instant gratification and buy a new car right away. I am confident God is asking me to wait.

Please pray for my brother. He is having a hard time in the army at Ranger School.

Goodbye Wolverines, the end of an era!

Today was our last volleyball game. True to form- our referee was a transexual. This was the same transexual who almost decapitated me with her back row attacks. We won one of the three games. It was against the number one team. We played the best we ever have as a team. I played really crappy, however. It was definitely a shot to the pride since we had several fans in the house. God keeps teaching me the humility thing. I hate that lesson. I hope he doesn't have to teach me that lesson tomorrow. I want to play good at my basketball game.

Today I went shopping for housing stuff. I am so tired of Costco. Somehow buying toilet paper is not as fun as it used to be. I get to be kind of a biznatch when I have to go shopping for Housing. I hate it. In the afternoon I worked on painting the ceiling of our chapel's bathroom. It looks so much better already. I think I will work on it tomorrow too.

I put in a proposal to have a new job here. I call it community relations coordinator. It would encompass many different things. I hope it works out. The leadership team has to pray about it and talk about it. I will let you know how it goes. This position would allow me to use my gifts and strengths more I think. We'll see.

Prank calls for adults

I am so excited because my friend, Thama is coming to visit me. She made her plane ticket so it is really going to happen. I can't wait to show her my life here. The funny part is that she is coming only a few days after we see eachother at Emily Ray's wedding. I told her I wanted her to come that soon. I have a few other people who are likely to come visit but no one anytime in the near future so I told her to come soon. And she's coming! Yay! I can't wait!

Last night I invited some of the girls over for a game time. We played my favorite game, Loaded Questions. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and slowly got the hang of the humor part of the game. After game time, somehow we started prank calling. I say we, but it was actually me that did 90% of the calling. First we called people we knew and then we moved on to businesses. I called Wal-Mart and asked about adult novelties, about other random things. It was a good time. I also called McDonald's and said I left my underwear in their bathroom. I was surprisingly good at not laughing despite the fact that there were ten people in the room. I closed my eyes to help keep me from laughing.

I ordered some great Christmas cards from Costco. Now everyone on base is ordering them. My Costco card is really getting around. We have ordered four different sets so far. The Costco people probably think I am crazy now and oddly obsessed with Christmas cards.

My friend, D-Ray is engaged! This is so crazy to me! I can't believe it! They have been dating for six months. The funniest part is that her name is Susie just like his mom so she will be Susie Ray #2. Haha. I think they are going to have a long engagement. I want to go to the wedding so bad. I hope I can go.

I already had some quality friends here when I arrived like Gena and Sherry who I knew from my DTS. My two newest close friends are Amy and Kristy. We hang out a lot. It is pretty funny that my main friends are a Czech girl and a girl named Amy. In late high school/early college, my main friends were a Czech girl (Sarah Stojanik) and a girl named Amy (Khoshbin). Funny stuff!

Transvestites are strong

Yesterday Gena and I went shopping for housing stuff all morning. It was tiring but we got all the stuff at the ten different stores that we needed to buy. We used some of our garage sale money to buy a mattress. This is not fully our department's responsibility. We usually do not even have enough money to make this an option. One of my Housing DTS students has lost two mattresses already. The first was infested with bed bugs and the second had mold. She was sleeping on an inflatable mattress. We found the cheapest new mattress on island for $149. She was super-excited about having a real mattress. It did not seem to matter to her that the mattress was covered with three prints of fabric: two mismatched floral and one American flags. Talk about classy!

I had the afternoon off and just chilled. I was feeling a bit sick but I could not put a finger on what exactly was wrong. I got to talk to Emily Ray, which was very good. We mainly talked about our number one complaints right now: her shortage of quality friends and my car being out of commission. No fun but good to talk/commiserate.

We had our final volleyball game before the tournament. We lost which I am almost positive means we are in last place. This would mean we play the first place team in the tournament. This means we probably only have one game left. This last game we played decently but the other team had an amazing player that we couldn't contain. He/She was definitely a transvestite. Thankfully (s)he played by the more restrictive guy rules. If (s)he had been allowed to spike from the front row, one of us may have been decapitated. Seriously!

After volleyball, I went over to the place Amy's mom is renting to take a shower and sleep in a non-YWAM bed. The two-faucet shower is amazing! In the morning when we woke up, Amy's neck was throbbing. She felt too bad to go to work. I felt fine and planned on being at work when it was time for the students to come. Then I was suddenly sidelined with a quick-onset of explsive diarreah. Not fun at all. I spent the next hour running to and from the bathroom in five minute intervals. After the eruption subsided, I felt weak and afraid to eat possibly ever. Amy and I basically spent all day laying on a futon and watching cable. I am going stir-crazy at this point. I think my stomach is no longer trying to wage war on my bowels. Tomorrow should be a better day. It better be since I am scheduled to have lunch with a lady from my church. Free food. My stomach better not plot against me.

Garage Sale Success

Blog 11-7

Sorry I have not written in my blog in a long time. I am a big slacker. I had a really busy weekend. On Friday night, there was a harvest party for the staff girls. Many people on staff come from parts of the world that experience four distinct seasons and they miss that being on Maui. It ended up being very fun. The hostesses had Fall-scented candles all around and hung Fall-colored leaves from the ceiling. Since the leaves don’t change here in Maui, one of the girls painted green leaves Fall colors. Pretty clever!

They had Fall-themed snacks that were very tasty. My favorite was definitely the Jello jigglers. It had been far too long since I had had any Jello. What a wonderful surprise! The jigglers were in the shape of leaves and pumpkins. We also played some games. A lovely time was had by all. The only downfall was that because of the unholy amount of baked goods I consumed, I was subject to an uneasy stomach for the rest of the night. I really need to learn self-control but those jigglers were so delightful!

Early Saturday morning we had our base-wide garage sale. This was my first big thing as housing head. Gena, my assistant and I worked the whole sale and I had my students work in shifts. The whole thing went awesome! We got rid of so much junk and made $277.70. That is way more than we have made at any other garage sale. Man, I must be a good housing head! Just kidding. There are definitely some differences between Hawaii garage sales and those on the mainland. At home, people start coming as soon as you put up the signs even if it is not officially time yet. Then by 11am, no one is coming anymore. At this garage sale, we had steady customers from 8am to 1pm. We were supposed to end at noon but people kept coming and buying stuff, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were obviously cleaning up. It was good and I definitely learned some things for next garage sale. At one point, we had a female customer in a dress in our tangerine tree picking tangerines. It was a sight to see. It is crazy that we have so much money in the housing department right now. We have about $300 and this is after we got a bunch of stuff for our guest/speaker house. I am considering using the money to purchase a couple of mattresses. One of my housing girls is currently sleeping on an inflatable air mattress. Her previous mattress had mold inside it and the one before was infested with bed bugs. We could use 50 new mattresses but I doubt we will ever have that much money to spend on mattresses. But if we purchase them a few at a time, it is do-able.

After the garage sale, I took a nap. Then Gena, Sherry and I used our ten-day passes to 24-hour fitness. I worked a lot harder than I expected. I am seriously wanting to join the gym but the start-up costs are high. We’ll see. On Saturday night I worked on a present for Emily and Van’s wedding. I hit a few snags but I hope to remedy the situation. On Sunday we went to church. There was an Indian piano player there as a guest musician. He was good, I suppose, but I could not take my eyes off the power point presentation that accompanied all his songs. It was full of pictures of him with orphans and other pathetic looking people. And there he is with a weird front to back comb-over and cheesy grin. Creepy.

Sherry and Jonathan and I were bored after church. My car’s transmission had been malfunctioning again. Jono discovered that the transmission fluid was bone-dry. Apparently there is some kind of leak. I miss Toyotas. My corolla and I got along great! He refilled the transmission fluid so the car works now, but I feel like I am just constantly waiting for something else to go wrong. Dumb old American cars! We went into town to alleviate our boredom. Then we had a terrible dinner of “whatever is left in the kitchen.” I don’t think it was called that officially but it is definitely what it looked and tasted like.

At night we had a going away party for our base director and his wife. I really didn’t want to go but my conscience would not let me skip. The desserts were good but the whole thing went long. The base director has not really been in the picture for the last six months so I don’t really feel his absence. I have never been on staff when he was in charge. I was only a student. After tearful speeches, I was tired and went home. Thus ends my hectic weekend.

Awkward Eighties Dork

Last night we had an eighties party/dance. It was lots of fun. I had put together an outfit from things I found at a thrift store. I did not fully realize until I put my outfit on that I had gone for eighties dork. Most people were dressed as funky eighties people. I brushed out my hair, something any self-respecting curly-haired person never does. It got really big and scary. People were shocked at how different I looked and I loved watching the double takes. I made an awkward dork face in all pictures.

Today Gena, Jono, Sherry, Amy and I went to the gym. Amy is a member and has been harrassing me to join as well. She has almost broken me down. Today we went as part of a ten-day free pass thing we got on the internet. The gym was pretty nice but not near as nice as the one my dad belonged to. Amy and I worked on arms and back and she kind of acted as my personal trainer. She competed in a fitness show once (like a combo of body-building and a pagent). Apparently there are no roids or super manly women, just fit women. Anyway, she worked with a trainer and knows how it works. I think if I had someone counting on me to go with them to the gym that I would be less likely to not go. I know Amy would want to go a lot. She had been waking up at like 4:30 am to go with another staff member. She is hardcore. So, I am about 75% sure I will be joining the gym.

In other news, I finally got my housing prize in the mail. We have been waiting for him since before the students arrived. It is a lifesize cardboard cut-out of a police officer. He is amazing! I plan on loaning him to the cleanest house each week. Tomorrow at worship, I will be unveiling him. I am excited to see how people respond.

I have a busy weekend coming up. On Friday some of the girls are throwing a harvest party because they miss the changing seasons of the mainland. I don't know what the party will entail but I believe there will be board games and baked goods. What more could I ask for? Then on Saturday morning we are having a garage sale. My department is hosting it and the proceeds go to us. It will be interesting to see what the local hippies purchase. Then on Sunday I have church and then a going-away party for our base directors. Hopefully I will get some chill time in.

Born Again Ballers With Special Guest Win!

We had a basketball game today and it was so fun! We won our second game so far. I finally got what I have been wanting since this DTS began. We had Lindsay Lieser play on our team. She is a DTS student who played four years of Division 1 basketball in college. The students have growth groups (bonding time with their team) on our game nights so she has not been able to play with us. This time I convinced her leaders to let her play. The only stipulation was that her whole team come so it could be a growth group. I arranged enough transportation to get my team and the 12 person Bangladesh team to the game. It was so fun having so many fans. About five other people from the base came as well.

This week we are doing something called "Angel-Mortal" week. This is like a secret santa thing between DTS students and staff. Some people get really creative. My anonymous angel this time is really good. So far I got some fake teeth and a bunch of candy. Today the person really outdid his/her self. At the basketball game, I am running down the court and I hear my name. I turn to see the Bangladesh team holding up individual pieces of paper that spelled out GO_ HIGHTOWER! It was really clever. Everytime I came off the court, one of the Bangladesh guys would wipe my face with a towel like a prize fighter. I also got two ice-cold Gatorades. It was a sweet deal.

So, with my cheering section and an NCAA basketball player on my team, the other team really ad no chance. I only scored two points but I had pretty good defense and actually got a few rebounds. Winning is so fun! I mean playing at all is fun but winning is FUN! We are playing a scrimmage on Friday. It is awesome to play this much basketball.

Today after work, I took Amy around to photograph various sites for a gift she is making for her boyfriend. We took this new staff member, Rachelle with us and it was nice to see some of the island through fresh eyes. It is sad but true that sometimes you can become numb to the natural beauty of this place.

Yesterday was Halloween but it didn't feel that much like it. Halloween is not exactly frowned upon at YWAM Maui but it definitely isn't celebrated too much. If I were in Austin, I would go to 6th street to gawk at the outlandish costumes. Here the same kind of thing happens in Lahaina but everyone here looks down on it so much. Maybe next year I will find someone willing to go. Sherry and I hung out and wanted to eat crepes but the crepe place was closed for Halloween. We ended up going into town to eat crepes at IHOP. Mine was good. After we got home, desperate to celebrate Halloween, I watched two episodes of the Simpson's Halloween specials. It should tide me over till next Halloween.