Its been a whole month!

Well folks its been a whole month. I've been having a great time here getting to know the community and just growing relationships. I spent the past couple of days writing out Christmas Cards. I've NEVER sent Christmas cards...I'll be mailing out 30 of them tomorrow, most likely more next week(once I get feeling in my left hand again HAHA...yes I'm left handed.)

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving day. I sure ate my share and then some. I went to my friend Mark's home in Waialua. The neighborhood he lives in consists mostly of people who have moved here from the mainland or other countries. They get together every Thanksgiving that they are in town and everyone brings food and has a huge community thanksgiving, about 30 friends who have now become family, or Ohana. This cool looking guy is Hannes. Hannes is an Austrian Redbull jet pilot, among other amazing things he does(Skydive, cliff dive, stuntman)

It was my first Thanksgiving holiday away from home and Family but I was very grateful for the opportunity to make friendships with people like me, who aren't in near proximity with their family. 

So as I've mentioned before I've been leading worship here, now for 4 Sundays. Whoa! The spirit of the Lord sure is moving here. Slowly but surely people are getting more in tune with what worship is, and how to do that openly. God has really been moving in our worship times and I'm praying that the church body would continue to seek Him. Pastor Larry and I have been praying together which has been great. We also have a vision for a coffee style music night in which we would open up one of our large rooms here for local artists who want a venue to share music. We'll be painting the room, and getting very creative with vibe. The hard part will be raising funds to do something like this. The church doesn't have a budget for it so it will be coming out of our pockets.

If you feel led to help financially the door is always open for that. Please get in contact with me. Its a ministry opportunity we feel will reach many unchurched people here on our side of the island. It will give us an opportunity to meet and create relationships with people we would not normally meet on our regular days. Well Surf's up! Da REAL surf started a few days ago with 15ft Hawaiians crashing against the sand. BIG BREAKS dats for sure. I'm going to watch a movie now!

Here is a picture of me and the youth! Still need a girl leader! Keep praying PREEZ

He > I

Well its been a few days since my last post. I'm still alive, call off the search people. Let me give you some highlights of the past few days

Mark let me borrow his hollow body guitar, along with an amp and a BOSS ME-70 pedal fx board, which looks like this  Obviously...this looks like a time machine...but its not, and I aim to spend time on this a little everyday getting myself more familiar with it so that eventually I can play lead guitar for worship. I'll be a regular Dave Brunelle!! Haha, yea right, in mine and Chris Saunders' dreams maybe. I have been spending quality time with it though and its getting a little easier every time.

Mark also went out of his way to hang out with me Tuesday and introduce me to some of the local Christian guys in town. Mark btw, is like my uncle out here, and let me tell you, he's a super blessing. I felt like a little kid being introduced to my new friends as we walked into the He is Greater than I store.
He is Greater than I is a Christian clothing store out here in Haleiwa town run by guys who grew up here. 

 I wasn't sure if I should have been hiding behind Mark as he introduced me, while "I wonder if they'll like me"ran through my mind. I took the opportunity to share that joke with them. Upon first glance at them I knew I was going to be able to gel with these guys, but I had to make sure my first impression was a good one, meaning that they knew afterwards that I was funny and confident. Chris knows what I'm talking about. It just so happened that hanging out there was a youth pastor from the church across the street, so not only did I get to meet the store guys, but some of the guys involved in ministry close by. It was really cool to put faces to other people that God has called out here.

Afterwards we checked out the Christian bookstore just across the way. The people there were kind and welcoming. As Mark was chatting it up, he knows everyone, I went and perused my favorite part of bookstores, the USED section. I picked up Erwin Mcanus' Soul Cravings, noticed how cheap it was, and walked it over to the counter. The lady, Jody, looked at me and said "You want that book? You can have it, its mine anyway." Blessings! I've already gotten into the book and its tough to stay out of it. 




Pastor comes home saturday from his mainland trip, so thats going to make this place a little less quiet. Also, a week from today John Mediana is flying in to the Island to do some work! A familiar face YESSSSS! I know Jesus' plan for everyone is just have them move here to see me. John is only the beginning!

Keep praying for me friends! I start giving music lessons on Thursday, so pray those go well! Your financial and spiritual support is always welcome. Thanks for reading!

PS: Here's the link for the online store to www.hegreaterthani.com/  great Christmas ideas!

Worthy is the Lamb!

Howzit my Braddah Braddas!? I hope you all find yourself well! For my Californian friends I know its pretty chilly out there. Stay warm! Stay alive! As for me the weather is pretty consistently Hawaiian hahaha! Lets get down to brass tax (I'm not sure what that means...)

Last night was Friday night and we had youth bible study led by yours truly. I had a total of 5 guys, all boys, so it felt a lot like having my D-group. Usually we chow down on some Impossible pizza but Luis doesn't have the change for that right now haha! So Fried chicken it is! The guys chowed down and consumed it all, even all the drinks I had bought. These dudes can put food and drink away I'll tell you that.  After some hangout time we got to discussion time. Our discussion was on Worship. What worship is, why we worship God etc.

Afterwards we practiced getting a little silly in worship for the Lord. I shared with them about how this place should be a place where they can get really outside of themselves and let go, not having to think about what other people think about them. Kids feel so pressured to look cool and be accepted by their friends that they miss out on so much of the benefits of worshiping God. In the end I think it went really well. Thank you to those who have joined me in prayer for these kids.

I'm going to keep this update short, tomorrow is sunday! I would love you guys to continue praying for me and what God is doing here. While praying and worshiping this afternoon I felt God really calling for a desperation for Him. I began to pray that my own desperation for God would be a blessing and an example to my peers/leaders/friends, believers AND non-believers. What am I saying with my life and the way I live it? I leave you with that, and another hawaiian word: Pau(pronounced pow), meaning I'm done.

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

Aloha mah Braddah Braddahs, hope you are finding yourselves awesome! I'm doing my best to stay dry here in this rainy Hawaii weather. Last night we had quite the storm come in! Well here's another update for you!

 Last night I had the chance to head down with the Koffmans, Joe and Sammi(Not Reggie and Juli haha), to a young adult bible study they attend in Waialua, not too far from us. The plan was to go through Psalm 119, but God had other plans that night. I met some great people, and we shared prayer requests right at the beginning which made for an interesting night. One of the guys whose name was Paul is from Fullerton, went to Biola and is now in the Airforce. His family actually lives in Brea! The house owner was Britt, an amazing woman! Another guy is John. Now John is part of something awesome called the Red Light Angels.

What the Red light Angels do is they go down to Waikiki and areas with heavy prostitution to talk to the women out there and offer to serve them, get to know them, and show them some love. John shared asked us to keep one particular family in prayer.
This one family is composed of:

•  the mother, who is a prostitute and has been for many years.
•  4 Kids, 3 boys and 1 girl. The girl has a child, and has another on the way
• The Father is the pimp, but seems to be MIA at the moment.

The Red light angels have recently been given the ability to move her in to an apartment which is a welcome change for the kids, being that they have been living in hotels their whole life. They were so excited to receive a couch and have it be theirs. We are partnering with them to help them get as many household items as we can. I hope to be a part of this with John and the other Red light angels ASAP. John expressed that they could use more guys and I've been waiting for just such an opportunity.

God is doing great things over here. I'm so glad that I get to update you guys. Please pray for me and what God is doing through myself and the others here. If you feel led to support me financially, one time or monthly, refter to the post just before this one to help you out! or Just talk to me! I still have a good amount of free time to my hands, but I can see that changing very soon! Your Hawaiian word of the day is Ohana: Family. Stay connected my Ohana! Love you all

Ps. Here's a picture of the Garden beds I cleaned up 

Finances and how you can help!

At the request and advice of one of my good friends I'm going to get more specific about how you can help me financially. Before I left California I had a chance to sit down with Josh Reeve, the money guy at The Cause, and talk about how much I should be making a month. The number we came up with was $500/month. Doable right? It goes like this.

$200 I get a month are from working here at the church as the facilities worker.
That leaves the rest. $300. The Pastor has offered to pay me $200 out of his own salary, but If it can be helped I'd rather not do that. Also, I am going to begin giving voice lessons to my friend Mark and his daughter very soon. There are other ways I can potentially raise funds (ex. get a job), but I would much rather focus on the ministry. 


So basically if I can find 20 people to give $10 monthly I'd be set! Or 10 people to give $20. I won't do any more math for you anymore. You can figure it out.

 If you go to the Cause you can help me by making checks to The Cause community church and add: LC Hawaii in the memo line, or pay with your debit/visa/credit card and add my name in and hawaii in the "other" line. You can also click on the donate button on the right, but it does charge me a fee. About 0.33 for every $1.


Anyway this morning I removed the weeds out of two raised beds we have here at the church. I'm excited to get some things growing there soon!