Triste

#120
The thing about this job... People always transition in and out. It's exciting to have new people come in all the time, but at the same time it's sad to see people move on to different opportunities. And the longer I'm on staff, the harder the goodbyes get, cuz each year, I know the people who are leaving more and more. But what a blessing to work alongside amazing people whom we are sad to see go. And we get to be super excited for the different places where God is leading them. Cuz we're ALL on mission for the Lord, wherever we are. And we'll all be reunited in heaven soon enough :)

Fun Theology

#119
First night of Staff Conference was SO encouraging. The speaker, JP Jones, taught from Colossians on how to know Jesus theologically, and how that's not an intimidating thing, but rather a freeing thing that helps us to know Him personally. So blessed to be here with these people!

60 Degrees and Loving It!

#118
I'M IN CALIFORNIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Staff conference starts tomorrow :)

Worth the Wait

#117
Flight stuff for Project, finishing Project notebook, having Kinko's print out Project notebooks, co-leading Campus Center small group, preparing two Vision Plans, d-pod with Josh and Steve... it's been a full day! But it was all exciting stuff. PLUS, after discipleship, Josh, Steven and I decided to go to Baskin Robbins for 31cent scoop night! We only waited an hour and a half in line. HAHAHAHA It was ridiculous but totally worth it. Gotta get to bed soon cuz I take Shaun and Karisa to the airport at 6am, and then I need to pack and head to the airport myself at 10am!

Job Description: Prayer

#116
Today was CCC's Worldwide Day of Prayer. Normally we'd get together with staff from all around our area, except that our area is just us. So our staff team spent the afternoon bringing ourselves before the Lord face-to-face, and seeking His heart individually and together. It was a beautiful, refreshing, challenging, nourishing time together. And for the last chunk of it, we got to pray for all of our students and staff going on summer projects, which was super exciting! Especially getting to pray specifically for Japan and for our team... Jamie and I were blessed by how passionately everyone prayed for our trip. May God be glorified in our leadership, in the project itself, in the team, and in the lives of Japanese students!

Who, What, When, Where, Why, How????

#115
For new staff development homework, I was supposed to repeatedly read through the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7) over the past week. I got to read it about 5 times over the last 7 days, and then got to discuss it with Shaun today during training time. Honestly, I had a LOT of questions. And Shaun didn't really have the answers, but it was such a great time of getting to bounce questions off of each other. I feel like the more God reveals to me about Himself, the more I have questions. Soooo happy that He's patient with me and is teaching me as I study His Word and bring to Him the questions that pop up. And I'm so happy that He's given us other believers with whom we can have these conversations so that we can help each other grow in a biblical knowledge of the Truth!

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

#114
HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!!!!!

What a beautiful start I got to have to Easter Sunday 2011. I woke up super early and went to the sunrise service at One Love. It was sweet on so many levels- the sunrise was just stunning, two ladies danced a gorgeous hula to Phil Wickham's "You're Beautiful" (one of my absolute favorite songs), the message was sweet, two people accepted Christ during the service, worship was powerful, AND I got to go to church with Matt Darby for the first time. He's a student at UH with whom I've gotten pretty close over the past few months- we meet up regularly on campus, and we go to the same church, but we've never gone to the same service on the same day... until today! And it was sweet getting to worship with him. It was his first time at a Protestant Resurrection Day service and he was just BEAMING. I love times like that when I'm reminded that I shouldn't take my relationship with God or the opportunity I have to worship Him in church for granted!

Missing Jesus

#113
I hadn't had a date night with Jesus in a while. So it was reaaaaaaally nice to spend a few hours tonight with Him. Started off with some time in the Word on a balcony overlooking Waikiki beach, and then spent a good chunk of time at Starbucks, sitting at a table, drinking coffee and venting to Him about what's been hard and then thanking Him for being awesome. It was so needed... I felt alive in a way I haven't in too long.

Good Friday!

#112
Schools in Hawaii got the day off today, so our directors decided to have our staff meeting early and then call it a day! It was really nice to have the afternoon off... kinda. Shaun and Karisa hosted a Passover seder tonight, with Messianic themes throughout, making it fully a celebration of Passover, but also with full acknowledgment of Jesus and how Passover foreshadowed what Christ would do. It was SUCH a cool experience! Then I got to go to Ala Moana beach for a sunset Good Friday service with Shaun and Karisa and Shaun's sister. Been feeling blessed today :)

Reaching Out at LCC

#111
TONS of people came to our outreach event at LCC today! The 7-piece worship team ROCKED it in leading us into God's presence to sing our hearts out to Him, Shaun was used powerfully to speak an important message about God's pursuit of our hearts,

and all the LCC Cru kids worked hard to set-up, recruit and welcome our guests.




There were about 40 people in the room as Shaun spoke, and I'd estimate another 10-20 went in and out during the meal! Keep praying for LCC- God is doing exciting things there :)

Waiting on Josh

#110
I'm sitting here at Yogurtland with Steven. We've been waiting for Josh to show up to our D-Group for the last hour and a half. It's actually quite the frequent occurrence that the two of us will be waiting on him. But it's cool, because it's only due to Josh's being on the football team that this happens (practice lets out late a lot)! He walked on to the team a couple of months ago, and it's been a blessing getting to walk with him in figuring out what it means to stand strong as a man of God in the midst of a very worldly culture. Even he has been shocked by how crazy the football players are here, compared to, say, high school football players.

I love my UH D-Group. It's always an adventure with Steven and Josh. Can't wait to see what God continues to do with us :)

Almost Freak-Out

#109
Freak-out moment happened earlier today, when Jamie and I realized that we're a month away from reporting to briefing for Project. Because of the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear situation, we've had students drop, rejoin, drop again from our team, and we actually have spent most of the last month dealing with issues related to the crisis. This has led to us still not having flights or housing secured in Japan, because our roster keeps changing. Do I want to panic? Yup. Am I tempted to just have a total oh-my-this-is-not-going-to-work moment? Of course. But in this time, I'm choosing (and it's not a choice that comes very naturally right now) to trust that God has it in His hands, and that as long as we keep moving forward in faith, faithfulness, and diligence, it's gonna be ok. After all, it's His Project, right?

Claiming Victory

#108
Just got off the phone with my buddy James. He's a senior at CSUF and he's our project's Operations Director. We got to talk business for a while and figure out some logistics for project, but then we got to spend some time hearing from each other on where we're at spiritually and what God is doing to prepare us for this summer. It was so exciting! Because neither one of us is in the most joyful or triumphant place... we're both feeling under attack, we're both feeling some discouragement... But getting to talk about that made us remember the battle going on, and that we have victory in Christ, and that the fact that our project is being attacked (Jamie's feeling it too, as are a lot of our students) probably means that God has great things in store! Shaun and I got to pray through all this earlier in the afternoon too. God, this project is Yours! Your will be done. And we claim Your victory against the enemy in Jesus' name!

Breather

#107
After a LONG and full week of ministry last week, we went straight into an exhausting, but also super awesome/encouraging, student leadership overnighter. So we're beat. It was nice to have a day off today to sleep in, go to 11am service (was SO convicted by the sermon this morning too...), enjoy small group one last time before I come back in August (got to bring dinner for all the guys too!), and even meet up with Kelly Moore (AGO brother/former-roomie-twice-over Rob's younger sister) for dessert at Duke's! Late start tomorrow to start off another full week- I'm super excited about ministry, actually, and it was nice to get a bit of a breather today to get rested for the homestretch of the semester!

Exciting Expansion

#106
We ended our Core Team overnighter by praying for and commissioning the leaders of each of the campuses. The pic is Windward Community College's Akela, Hannah and Paul being prayed for. God has been doing a lot there since they first started as Hawaii Cru's first Community College movement last year. Now we've expanded to have a solid and growing presence at Leeward and Kapiolani Community Colleges too! So exciting to work with these awesome students next year:)

They're SO Hard-CORE haha

#105
We're at Core team overnighter! I can't believe it's so close to the end of the year, but this is such an exciting weekend of getting together with our outgoing and incoming student leaders and casting some good vision for what we do, bonding as friends and co-laborers, and praying through how to better reach our campuses. Please be praying for our time, that God would lead us in it and that, because of the planning that happens here, we would be used more and more mightily by the Lord to build spiritual movements here on Oahu.

Violence Happens Here Too

#104
There was a shooting right by my house today! Apparently, police had a standoff with a guy who'd stolen a car or two. And it happened a block from where I live. I missed it all, but definitely caught the traffic jam that it caused. Crazy.

My friend Josh and I got to go out sharing today. It was super fun! After our first conversation, we both felt like we were supposed to talk to one more person, we both felt like we were supposed to talk to this one guy who was sitting near us in a purple shirt, so we did. And it was sweet! We got to hear a lot from Henry about his life, his beliefs, his relationship with God, and we go to share the Gospel with him, going through the four laws with him. It's always fun getting to share the Gospel with people- even (or especially?) with those who think they have a relationship with God, but then aren't sure, once they see what the Bible says. Pray for him, that he would get it, and do something about the fact that he has never made a decision to accept Christ himself, because he's always been told what to do/believe by his upbringing.

DONNA!

#103
Donna is the sweetest girl. At the beginning, you think she's just this smiley, quiet, timid girl... and then you get to know her and find out she's a rockstar. She loves Jesus SO much, and she's one of our most gung-ho-about-evangelism students! It's AWESOME. Well, she and I have been co-leading a small group this semester, and today, she took over and led the whole thing. She did such a great job it was awesome! Her insights on what loving others as God loved us really means, as well as her prompting of discussion, as well as her examples of what we were talking about, were all just great! God really used her today and I'm super proud of her/blessed to be working with her. :)

Relaxation... or Ministry?

#102
Jamie and I were going to have a couple of hours of summer project meetings tonight, so we decided that we'd take some time off this afternoon and go chill at the beach with my friend Tayler, in town from CA. It was so nice and relaxing to just spend a small part of the day sitting on the sand/going in the water at Waikiki. And we made friends- a man from South Carolina named Kevin, and a newly-wed couple from Japan! It was great having conversations with them, but I left kinda frustrated that I didn't get to share Christ with them. Especially the Japanese couple, since I know they'll have very limited (if any) opportunities to hear the Gospel in Japan. It inspired me to start going to Waikiki more often on my free days and just meet people and be more intentional about sharing Christ with them. I love doing evangelism on campus, but I also wanna do more of it just in everyday life! For now, gotta pray for Yoko and Takahiko, that God would have them cross paths with some more believers through whom He will plead with them to be reconciled to Him :)

Give Thanks to the LORD

#101
This morning in SoulCare, Karisa led us in a time of reading through Psalms of thanksgiving to meditate on the sovereignty of God, and then we went off and each wrote a psalm of thanksgiving of our own. SUCH a cool activity, getting to reflect on what I, myself, am thankful for when I think of the Lord! Y'all should try it :)

Thanks, Gary Stanley

#100 (WOOHOO!)
Just listened to my last lecture for New Testament Survey. Best class I've ever taken in my life, hands down. My understanding of the NT has just exploded and come to life in crazy ways. Sad it's over. Can't wait to read NT again with this understanding.

Fun Fun Fun

#99
Recommendation- go see Soul Surfer. Great movie, awesome representation of Christians/Cjristianity (I know, RIGHT?!), inspiring story. Our last Cru social of the year was an afternoon at Waikiki followed by the movie. We had a sweet time having fun together and having sweet convos with each other, before the chaos of finals and the end of the year!

#1 USC vs. #8 UH

#98
I just got home... so I'm sorry about being 10 min late :-/

So tonight I thought I'd take part in UH culture a bit more... get to experience more of this campus which I'm supposed to be learning, loving, and serving. So I went to the UH men's volleyball game. Ok, maybe it was also because they were hosting the #1-ranked Trojans! WOO. It was so much fun. Great game- went to five sets, very exciting times all around. In the end, the Trojans were handed just their 2nd loss of the season. It was a blast getting to don my cardinal and gold and fight on with all my might with my friend Tayler who's visiting. And even though we were rooting for the opposing team, it felt good to experience more of UH life, seeing the arena where they play, hearing their fight song, etc. Slowly but surely, God is allowing me to learn this place, and I'm really starting to appreciate and like it :)

Pioneering Love

#97
I just love being on a "pioneering" team. The start-up era of a campus mvmt is full of excitement and newness and training- all stuff that I love. And community colleges are where it feels the most "pioneer-y". So today, first time back on LCC in weeks, was just so refreshing! Jamie and I had such a great time training the 20 or so students who showed up on how to share their faith, and just had a sweet time spending time with, encouraging, being encouraged by, and discipling the super gung-ho crew over at Leeward CC Cru!

Why Do I Freak Out?

#96
I won't lie... I faced some pretty major discouragements this morning. This whole dealing-with-directing-a-project-to-a-place-that-has-radiation-"dangers" thing was starting to weigh on me. But I have friends and family praying for me/the trip/the team, and it's helped a lot.

Maybe God thought/knew that I needed a pick me up, but I had quite an exciting afternoon, after the tough morning. After small group, I got to stay back and talk for quite a while with a guy who came for the first time. He definitely seemed to know a lot about the Bible, but we got to go reaaally deep into what the Gospel really is all about, and it was such a blast watching his face as his mind kept on being blown by what God actually did in Jesus. My new friend's response was "Wow. That's... unbelievable. That's so amazing. I don't know that I can believe that!" It was great. I got to tell him that it's good that he's not sure he can believe it, because it is THAT amazing, and it shows that he understands it. That encouraged him and now he wants to go and talk to God and ask for faith to just believe and take it. SO. FUN. (pray for him!)

Then I had d-time with Steven. Right at the end of it, it started pouring. And we both had parked almost a mile away, so we just claimed Jesus and told the rain to stop, and it instantly calmed down to like halfway. Then we looked at each other a bit shocked and a bit ashamed of being shocked, and prayed it again, and it instantly calmed down again. After the third time, it just stopped. WHAT?! God, thank You for reminding me that You're totally in control... You've got it all in Your hands. The same Jesus who stood up to a storm and said "Peace, be still!", and had the storm obey immediately, is the same Jesus who holds our Project in His hands. Why do I doubt and freak out?

God Provides

#95
Got a call from a student on my project team today- he just wanted to let me know that support has been coming in like crazy, and that he's now at over $4900 out of the total $5850 he has to raise! WOW! Support raising is always an exciting part of summer project- whether it's insane stories like this where he's at like 5/6 of the goal with 6.5 weeks to go, or it's the last-second push that gets people to their goal... it's just fun to know that God is providing, and I love that He makes it super exciting to watch!

New Friend

#94
Made a new friend today- Steven. He's a 3rd year from San Jose, and Shaun and I just found him sitting on a bench so we decided to talk to him. Talked a lot about his spiritual background and such, shared some of the Gospel with him, and encouraged to pursue discovering who God is and what a relationship with Him would look like. We invited him to the small group that meets in the dorm where he lives, so I'm hoping and praying that he goes sometime! I had to leave to another meeting but apparently Shaun got to talk to him for like another hour! Can't wait to hear about it. I love that this is part of my job- meeting random students on campus and seeing if the Lord will use us to bring them to Himself! :)

Life on Mission

#93
Last night, Peter (frosh at UH) said to me "Man I can't wait to get back to school on Monday!" and I'm like "HUH?!" and he was like "Yeah! Gotta get God's love out there! The time is now! God is moving!" OH MAN was I convicted... Campus ministry is my JOB and I so easily forget the big picture of what we're doing. God had to bring a student to remind me of the passion that brought me here, the passion that should still be driving everything I do. Then today, I listened to a Reality LA podcast, and it was all about how we live our life on mission and how the Gospel (and the passion to share it) should define our relationships, display our motivations, and direct our ambitions. MAN. And then tonight, I got to read this month's prayer letter from my friend Kimiyo who is on STINT in Tokyo. God is doing crazy things over there... He is on the move around the world and is bringing many into a saving relationship with Himself! What am I doing wasting my time losing focus so often? UGH. Lord, help me to fix my eyes on Jesus, and to lay the Gospel as the motivating foundation of everything I do. Let all that I do be worship to You!

Check out Kimi's prayer letter with amazing updates from Japan here!

Happily Ever After

#92
Shaun and Karisa got married on March 19. Unfortunately, flights to CA were super expensive, and our spring break project was starting on the 20th, so none of us staff got to go. In fact, the bummer was that most of the friends they had made since moving to HI couldn't make it. So their friend Erin threw them a lil reception here on O'ahu so that we could celebrate them. Yummy pupus (appetizers/snacks), great punch, fun people... PLUS, they showed (along with the slideshow that they showed at the wedding reception) a video that one of Shaun's former students at ASU made that tells the story of Shaun and Karisa's relationship, using stop-motion animation. It was amaaaazing. All that to say, it was a fun night. May their marriage be mega-blessed, always centered on and grounded in Christ, and full of adventure. :)

Making Friends!!!!!!

#91
6 hours. 6 hours of staff meeting today. Was it exhausting? Absolutely. Did I need a refresher afterwards to unwind at the end of a long but super productive week of ministry? Oh yes. Which is why it's great that I've been making friends lately :) There's a somewhat random group of local Christian twenty-somethings who hang out and I've been invited to chill with them a few times in the last week. Tonight was great as we just had a pleasant time hanging out at a diner, talking story (local talk for chatting) for like an hour. Encouraging time of sharing Jesus stories and getting to know each other! :)