November 21st (Week 8)

Countdown to Vietnam - 28 days to departure

This week we learned about  Holy Spirit and healing. We missed Monday’s lesson because we spent all day in the Kona Emergency Room! Ryan and a friend have been playing on a toy car rolling down the hill to see how far they can get. Exactly what I would have done at his age. Inevitably, they went too fast and Ryan put his foot out to stop and fractured his heel. Ouch. Thankfully it is a clean break and will heal without need for surgery. Pacific Blue Cross (our insurance) have been great. One of the great things here is people keep asking if they can pray for Ryan’s foot. No miraculous healing yet but maybe its YOUR prayer he needs. Give it a try.

A HUGE shout out to Glory, Peggy and Trevor, Gareth and Gabby, Derek, Christina for the 30b box of goodies that arrived this week crammed full of supplies for the Vietnam missions trip and goodies for us.

Glory and a team from Burnett (our church) are currently in Columbia on a missions trip. It sounds like that is going great too. Take a peak at our church Facebook page.

One final thing, every Thursday evening 6:00pm to 8:00pm we have a guest speaker. This week was particularly interesting. One of the founding pastors, Kris Vallotton, from Bethel Church in California spoke. If you can be patient with the Korean translation it is well worth a watch.

Our speaker this week, Gord Whyte sounds EXACTLY like Don Edwards Jenny’s uncle in Powell River. Here is a link to one of his lessons. Gord Whyte Youtube

The hospital was great. Lovely people, speedy service...waiting for the bill.

Well wishers from Ryan's class.

Thomas and Ryan

Opening the box from Canada

What a great haul! Christmas came early in Kona.

Reading letters and cards. Thanks again everyone.

Week 7

November 15th.
This week we learned about Spiritual Warfare and Deliverance. I don't even know where to start. Basically, if you believe that God is real (add one letter to God and you get good) then you will also believe in the Devil (dEVIL). In our Alpha course we talk about how a lot of people believe in the devil, especially if you consider current world events, but do not necessarily believe in God. This subject is not talked about much in western churches although Hollywood is making a fortune talking about it. It is considered way too ‘out there’. We tend to believe that if I can’t see it it is not real.
Our speaker and his team have been very actively involved in the US and around the world in delivering people from demons and told many stories about their personal experiences.

Any non Christians reading this may think that we have finally ‘lost it’ and will be sending out rescue parties for us. Believing in a supernatural God does include believing in the supernatural.

Jenny and I have personally had some crazy supernatural experiences including one where we broke up while on safari in Africa in 1997.  Jenny and I found ourselves over a thousand miles apart after Jenny left the Safari. After some cooling down time Jenny decided to fly down through Africa to meet up again with the Safari truck and miraculously, accidentally bumped into us about 200 miles from where we were supposed to be. More details under ‘Cross Canada 2102 Side Stories’ —-> “Who’s Natalie”.

The most impactful question this week was “What will you ask when you are on your deathbed? Is this it or is does eternity exist? If so, which eternity am I going to?”

We had some friends from Vancouver Island, BC visit us this week! Hi Royce and Kelly. Royce heard through Mike T at Trane that we are in Kona just a week before he came over and he decided to pop in and see us. We had a great little visit and gave Royce, his wife Kelly and two friends a tour of the campus. It was great seeing some friends from home. Seven weeks here is a long time but we are already past the half way mark of our time here and are on countdown to our departure on December 17th.

Does that date sound familiar? See our blog entry September 15th 2015. I was laid off last year at around 7:00am on December 17th. Exactly one year later, almost to the minute we are heading off on a two month missions trip to Vietnam. Supernatural or coincidence?

We had Longboard Pizzas on Friday night. One 28” pizza and one 20” (A Pizza Hut large pizza is 14”). They are massive and delicious too.

Week 6

Sunday November 8th
We were actually glad to get back into our classroom this week. We watched three 50min videos for three days about human psychology and how we build up walls of defence around spiritual wounds. How when we are hurt we swing between feelings of rejection to acts of rebellion. The course is called ‘plumbline’. A plumbline is a weight at the end of a string and is used to make sure a wall is built straight.

We watched the videos, took notes and after each video we were given 10 minutes to reflect and write down anything that came to mind. I thought of my Dad and how when I was four my mum and dad told me off for jumping on his lap. This was after he had been in hospital, diagnosed with Leukaemia and had come home for a final family visit. He was very sick and died just a week later. It was weird that I thought of this and I was surprised how sad it made me feel. There were a few other very old memories that had similar strong emotions and when we shared on Thursday in our small groups a ton of emotion came flooding out. The small groups were set up so our wives were with us when we shared and I was invited over to Jenny’s group when it was her turn to share.

It turned out to be a very emotional and healing week. The entire class went out to a beach called ‘the end of the world’ (seriously, I don't make these things up) and threw a rock each into the ocean representing any pain and repentance. It was an awesome experience and fun afterwards.

Week 5

Monday 2nd November
We received our travel itinerary today.
We leave on December 17th 6:54am from Kona to Oahu
A three hour layover in Honolulu and then a 9hr40min flight to Tokyo where we layover for 22hrs! Yippee, lets get sushi!! On the 19th December we fly to Seoul and then on to Hanoi, Vietnam arriving on 19th December at 10:00pm.
We have had a couple of meetings to discuss ministry there. I think I listed some of the ministers earlier?

• Teaching ESL at universities
• Helping with drug rehab
• Children's ministry puppets, crafts, the Jesus film
• Lots of ‘unregistered’ churches
• 7 million people in Hanoi
• Staying at rented apartments - could be a bonus

We will meet twice a week for the next 6 weeks and between us we will research the culture, language and customs. Very exciting. It will be a lot cooler there so back up to the boutique (on site free thrift trailer) for some warm clothes.

We joined about 500 other students for our studies this week. We had two guest speakers, David Hamilton, a missionary and Darlene Cunningham cofounder of YWAM. The history of YWAM is an amazing story. On thursday night our guest speaker was Dr Benny Prasad a 35yr old Indian guy that has the world record for travelling to every country in the world in just over 6 years.

We had a fun day in Hilo the past Saturday (Halloween). There is a new road that goes over the top of the island right past the Mauna Kea turn off cutting an hour off the journey. We explored some lava tube caves, a couple waterfalls and went for breakfast at Ken's House of Pancakes.  It is the most food our Norwegian friends have ever seen. A true American 50s diner Hawaiian style!