Turtle Soup

It's Sunday afternoon in Kona. This week has been busy but enjoyable. For some reason, this week we've been the most homesick we've been yet. However, as I check the news from the mainland I see that Tiger Woods just won his 12th major and the Mariners still stink. So, I guess some things never change. Angie's parents, Russ and Kathy, are coming out to visit us in less than two weeks so that gives us something to look forward to. We have five more weeks of training left in Kona before we head out to the Fijian Islands when the work will really begin.

Our teaching this week was really phenomenal. Our speaker was Jean Norment who has been an international Bible teacher for many years. There was so much good teaching it was hard to take it all in. One person compared it to trying to drink out of a fire hose! The fun part is that she and her husband, Bobby, will be leading our Fiji team. Bobby and Jean are originally from Montgomery, Alabama where Bobby was President and CEO of Norment Industries. They both bring a lot of experience and wisdom to the table so we are really looking forward to traveling with them. Plus they are really fun people.

On Thursday, Sam and I served as greeters and ushers for the weekly Thursday night campus gathering. We got as dressed up as people do in Kona and wore leis. Sam is learning to look people in the eye and give them a good firm handshake!

This weekend has been fun. I had van-driving duty on Saturday morning until noon. After that, we climbed in the car (sometimes you just need to feel some air conditioning) and drove south to Kona Joe's coffe plantation. Angie was in her happy place. Saturday evening we had a dodgeball tournament to raise money for one of the college outreach teams. Each team of 6 had a buy-in to participate. It was a great fundraiser idea. Unfortunately, my team, "The Geezers" lived up to our name and were trounced in short order.

This morning we went to church at Living Stones Church. It is in a very old stone building right next to the beach. Having church in a historic building like that with all the old windows open to the water added a very cool and rustic feeling to the service. Following the service the whole congregation walked about 300 yards over the lava rocks to a small beach where several people, including one of the gals from our YWAM class, were to be baptized in the ocean. When we arrived at the beach there were six large sea turtles just hanging out in the shallow water. The kids got to wade in and let the turtles bump up against them. It was really beautiful to see these people be baptized in such an amazing setting, especially with a bunch of sea turtles surrounding them.

This afternoon we are just relaxing, working on our homework, and trying to rest up for another busy week.

Sometimes the cafeteria food just doesn't cut it. Here we are having Costco pizza dinner with our good friends Nick, Jen, and Christian Greener.

Katie hanging out with her friends from Korea.






You can tell Sam's a little nervous by the way he is standing.

Hmmm, do I touch them?