I seem to hear the Pali calling me
I seem to hear the surf at Waikiki
And from Pacific Heights I seem to see the lights
Of a city that is very dear to me
I seem to see the waving sugar cane
The coco palms all nodding in the rain
In fancy I am led Back to dear old Diamond Head
Honolulu, I am coming back again
Honolulu, I am coming back again
Well, at the time, I had just come back from my awesome week-long vision trip to Honolulu three and a half weeks prior. I felt really called to do ministry there, but since I hadn't been given my assignment yet, I was thinking to myself, "I sure hope the song applies to me!" Well, like I said in my previous post, I can now say to the capital city of Hawaii, "Honolulu, I am coming back again" :) It will definitely be an intense adjustment once my support gets raised and I actually move over there. Ministry there's not easy. Life there is surprisingly not easy. The move will be hard. But I'm so excited for what God has in store for me there. And a lot of that excitement comes from what I experienced during my vision trip. Here are some highlights...
I just love the staff team. Shaun, the director (the shaggy one), has been a friend of mine for a while now and it was great getting to stay at his place all week and get to know him a lot better. Tricia (2nd from right) won't be there anymore after 5 years of helping lead the movement, but she was sooo encouraging to me on this entire journey of figuring out whether I was supposed to go to Hawaii or not. Ed and Lynee (bookends) had just reported to UH and eagerly showed me around campus and were also very encouraging all week. Jamie (2nd from left) wasn't there yet when I went but she just got to report a few weeks ago, and she's been fun to get excited about Hawaii with. And Kent (next to Shaun), who is the director at the movement in Hilo on the Big Island, is a wise man whose insight I just soaked up as I got to have dinner with him and the other guys one night.
The students are great! It's still a baby movement... very small, but intimate. I got to go their equivalent of a weekly meeting, which was very casual- sitting on the ground outside a building. And I even got to join in the leadership team's end-of-the-year meeting where the current leaders AND next year's leaders got together to cast some vision for next year. They're so eager and excited to do God's work at UH and it was an honor getting to know them and join in this meeting.
Justin, a really good buddy of mine from USC (we were in AGO together) is from Honolulu and is currently living there, planning to stay for another year or so. We got to hang out and catch up one afternoon, and it was so refreshing to spend time with my brother. If I get to report to campus within the year, I am very excited to have him be a part of my life out there!
Let's be honest- it's a beautiful place. I got to spend a day away from the team, away from campus, away from the city, just exploring the island by myself and spending time with the Lord to see what He would say to me about my future. It was a hard afternoon of wrestling with God on a lot of things, really coming to the realization that, should He call me there, I would be leaving so much behind in LA. But in the end, it was such a needed time to process with Him, and I got to do it in some spectacular settings :)
So there you go... just a glimpse into what my week out there looked like. It was a busy week, and it was almost an information/emotional overload. But in the end, it made me feel more called to go, and now that it's been confirmed that Honolulu is my placement, I'm so much more ready to just be all out excited for this next chapter of my life! It's all in His hands... It's His work, His calling, His blessing.
I love it.
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