Another Brief Update

Hi everybody,

A lot has been happening this week, including trips all over the place, skate ramp designing, brushing up some rusty math skills, practicing for Sunday's worship band, going bowling with the youth, and meeting every morning with several of the youth to read and discuss the Bible.

I will put more pictures up later, but here are five from this past week that I think are fairly good.

I got some new wheels for my skateboard

Fish with Flashbacks

Rainbow over the church

Taylor, Jason and Me

Kaitlynn with Peter the Hedgehog
Peter with Andrew the Monkey

Toward the start of our hike in Kokee


All of us there


Looking down at the Na Pali coast from Kokee


Why don't I ever have a skateboard when I need it?


Post-Kokee shoes

These pictures are mostly from a hike in Kokee State Park that we went on with the kids from the youth group. The two pictures right after the rainbow are from 'dawn patrol,' when kids come at 7am every morning (weekdays) to read the Bible. Around 8 we get together to talk about what we've read, and then we just hang out for a while at the church.

Other stuff: I edited together a video for the sunday morning service with highlights from the Salt Pond Beach day two weeks ago and the MYF water war of last wednesday. I'll try to get it up on youtube so you can all watch it... This morning I also helped with the "big kidz" sunday school during the service and taught the youth sunday school after church.

more later...

What I'm actually doing here...

Hello all, It has come to my attention that some of you want to know what I'm actually doing here instead of just looking at pictures. I guess that makes sense, since "Otherwise, [you] might get the impression that . . . the SCIP internship [is] a 10 week vacation in Hawaii," as my mother so adroitly pointed out. While this is a nice place to be, I am also doing a lot of work while here.

So, let's start with today, shall we? This morning after Jason edited the service from yesterday for CD archiving and online distribution (sometimes he edits it and sometimes I do), I put the sermon online at kalaheomc.org. After this I had some lunch and then Jason, Pastor Ed, Richard (a youth worker) and I all went to the Hanapepe Salvation Army to help with their Monday Soup Kitchen ministry. I chopped onions for the chili, helped clean up the room, and checked through a pantry of canned goods for expired food before the soup, salad, rice, and buttered bread was ready to serve and people were ready to eat. Then I helped serve food to the forty-odd people who came to eat. I recognized one of them as a fellow who also had been at the Food Pantry last Wednesday, but I don't know his name. After everyone had eaten I helped put away the extra food and clean up the kitchen and eating area. After arriving back at the church, I hopped in the car and drove out to a good spot to take sunset photos, some of which I will share below. (I'll also post a couple of photos from Kekaha Beach, where I went last night to take sunset photos.)

More generally, to cover all the mystery time up until this point, I've been going to meetings, working with the youth group, and helping with all sorts of ministries of the church. This includes the Food Pantry, the go-to-a-school-and-give-the-teachers-free-coffee-and-smoothies ministry, the videotape-the-Sunday-service ministry, grounds work, hospital visits, and others.

Regarding my use of music and skating in ministry, I have had some opportunities to do that and it looks like more are in the future. I have been skating around in the parking lot with some of the youth before and after MYF (Missionary Youth Fellowship). Also, it looks like we might be able to build a mini-ramp to set up in the parking lot or somewhere. I got to play my bass for Sunday worship on the 25th of May and will be playing again this coming Sunday. Also, I may have the opportunity to lead worship at MYF a few times before I leave, so I look forward to that.

Just to clarify, my intent hasn't been to keep you all in the dark about the ministries I'm participating in, it's just that they don't typically make for that great of photos (besides, I'm usually too busy doing stuff to pick up a camera!)

Enjoy the photos below, please!

Found this little guy crawling across the ground outside our door...

Who doesn't love Mountain Dew?

Plumeria

The previous three photos were taken a little under one second apart

Visible on the left-central part of the horizon is the island of Niihau, 17 miles away

Kekaha Beach at sunset

The last bit of the sun peeks over the horizon

Sunset from the hills just south of Kalaheo:

Be sure to click on the photos for the full-sized images. These smaller versions hardly do justice to most of these photos, especially the sunsets.

Also, Blogger has a wacky idea of what constitutes the "undo" and "redo" commands, as well as a scarce grasp on basic editing of line breaks and spacing. Just thought I'd throw those out there.