September 26th - Arrived Kona, Hawaii

It’s official! The Watermans are in Hawaii. I don’t think it hit me till we stepped off the plane into the warm humid air last night at 10:45pm, local time.We picked up the car, stopped off at a grocery store to gather some essentials and then drove the 15 minutes to our condo. This morning we woke up to a gorgeous view of Magic Sands beach just across the road.

Crystal clear water

Jenny face timing with Nanny this morning

Monster avacados! 

As we were scrolling through photos today we came across this one taken 26th September 2014.

This day last year was our first day in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Jen and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary with a one week all inclusive holiday (without the kids). One of the things we wanted to  chat about on the trip was how the next twenty years were going to look. I had no idea what was just around the corner. Just a few months later our lives were about to take a massive turn.

I heard a quote once 'If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans'.

Here's another cool coincidence. Back in 1996 Jenny and I did a world tour (10 months) and found ourselves in Goa, India. It was Jenny's birthday and I asked her what she would like. She said that what would make her really happy would be if I took her winter clothes, sold them at the market and bought her a summer dress! OK, there is a challenge. It turns out that this is not unusual behaviour in India and in a jiffy I had exchanged her winter clothes for a beautiful red summer dress worn today by Jemma in the avocado photo above. How cool is that!

September 25th - Travel Day

The last few days have been a whole lot of waiting around, completing and adding to ‘to do’ lists, many goodbyes and lots of prayers with friends.

On Sunday we were ‘commissioned’ by our church…

Matthew 28:16-20 New International Version (NIV)

The Great Commission

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

That’s what this trip is all about.

Burnett Fellowship Baptist church

Thank's everyone for the lovely cards and gifts. Thanks Peggy for the rocks.

Jemma and Ryan are at school today. They will be home between 2:00pm and 3:00pm and at 4:00pm we will get a ride to the airport. Lots of hurrying up and waiting. Our flight leaves at 7:45pm, arrives 10:50pm local time. The weather in Kalaoa Kona is hot and humid.

Next entry will be from Kalaoa Kona!

10 more sleeps

We just sent out a mass e-mail to family and friends and if you are reading this then you must have you clicked on the link and may even have subscribed. If you are someone that we have not spoken to in a while you may wonder what is going on so here goes.

We created this blog back in 2012 to keep in touch with family and friends (mainly Nanny and Anita) while we went across Canada. We continued to blog the next couple of trips including Hawaii in 2013 and the UK in 2014.

Equipment check

YWAM

In a couple of weeks we (the whole family) are heading off to Hawaii for three months to attend a YWAM course and then in December we will be deployed to somewhere in Asia on an outreach mission.

If you would like to follow us on our adventures you have two main choices Option 1 - subscribe to the blog and you will get updates sent to your e-mail address. Option 2 - if you just want to check in once every few weeks thats fine too.

A brief update on the past 12 months.

Barry (thats me) was laid off from work on December 17th 2014 and I have since been living a life of leisure, enjoying the best summer ever, and generally decompressing from 37 years of work. 

Ever since the dreaded day when I was laid off I have felt God’s presence and calm in my life and no rush to go and find work. I found myself connecting with friends I hadn’t seen for a long time, helping out lots at the church and spending more time with Jenny and the kids.

One morning Jenny woke up and said ‘YWAM’.  We were in Kona, Hawaii a couple of years ago and had driven past the YWAM University of the Nations campus and had briefly thought about missions work, but how could I ever get 6 months off work (I took 10 weeks off in 2012 to go across Canada….hmm maybe getting laid off was not such a surprise!)? I guess anything is possible with God, so we decided to answer the call and check it out.

YWAM is Youth With a Mission and their purpose is to build and equip YOUNG people (ie Youth) to spread the gospel around the world through teaching, serving and mercy missions. YWAM has a program for people at a crossroads in their lives, ie older people, who would like to do the same thing. This is the shortened summary for those like me that have a short attention span.

In summary…

We leave Sept 25th for Kona, Hawaii. We will spend a few days acclimatizing, and on October 1st we will start the 12 week Discipleship Training School (DTS). 

Around Dec 21st we will head off to Asia (location to be determined) for two months and then head back to Hawaii at the end of February for a debrief.

We have our return flights to Canada booked for March 7th 2016.

Jemma and Ryan are enrolled in a school on campus where they will follow much of the same curriculum as us, do some Canadian school work online and spend some time on Hawaiian studies learning about marine biology and volcanology. The kids will get to spend a night up on the volcano! 

That’s it for this blog entry. 10 days to go and counting.