Kyle and Leah Nelson's Blog

Summer Recap...

2010-09-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

This summer has been an absolutely busy one. Alot of fun, but busy. In May we were offered to move into our friends house(pictures will come soon). They moved to Germany in early august and we moved shortly after they left. We are so thankful to be living in a house now. Seriously.

At the same time of having to move our good friend Andreas (Maxximus) Haupt was visiting us from Switzerland. It was great to catch up with an old friend and have a little vacation time.

After Andi left we had roughly 3 days before Leah's parents arrived. We had an awesome time with Stan and Jeannine going to glacier park, fishing, touring native american museums, going to the amish store, and driving, lots of driving ;) It was nice to have them here and the time really flew by.

Leah has been working as a CNA in a town called Ronan (about 20 minutes from our house). It's not the most glamourous of jobs (wiping butt almost all day) but it's a pre-requisite to get into the nursing program. She starts back in with school on the 27th of September.

Our youth group has been going strong all summer with it's theme..."The Summer of XS" The main idea is that anything that is truely worth doing is worth doing in excess(XS!). We broke down the whole youth group into grades/teams and made a competition out of the summer. We had journals with daily bible reading for everyone to do and write something in, and every week they would have to turn them in to get points for their team. We also did mini one day missions trips that they would get points for if they went. Once every 3 weeks or so we would break down into small groups and have "family time" discussions that allowed everyone to process things and go a little deeper through discussion. In the end, Leah and I's team ended up winning and for the prize we won a trip to a place that has paintball, xbox's, pool, foosball etc to hang out for the day. It really went well and was awesome to see some things "clicking" with kids as they discussed what we've been talking about all summer. We had a corporate sponsor, XS, that donated energy drinks all summer...yeah good times.

To wrap up our summer we drove to Washington over labor day weekend and got to visit our friends Jessie and Jesse for a day on saturday. Then on sunday the 5th we drove to the Gorge Amphitheater in the middle of Washington and saw Dave Matthews Band and Ben Harper. It was an awesome time. We drove up to the campground and were in awe of what it looks like when 15,000 people camp in a field. It was crazyness. The good kind. The show was awesome. 20,000+ people out in the middle of nowhere at an absolutely beautiful place having a good time. It was over all too soon. We'll be back for more. It was a great end to an awesome summer.

Told you it was beautiful

Camping is insane!!!

Glacier

2010-06-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

We took our first trip up to Glacier Park this year and were treated with decent weather and a momma black bear and her two cubs! The bears were just hanging out by the side of the road for quite awhile!

Spring is Here!!!

2010-04-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

220

2010-03-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

1- weekend
3- average hours of sleep per night
85- teenagers
220- volts it takes to restart the human heart
3,000- cans of Mountain Dew consumed

While that may sound like a normal youth retreat to you, but ours really was extraordinary. Instead of having a speaker for the weekend we had a drama as the centerpiece of the retreat. Without a lengthy explanation of the details of the drama, in essence it was about the prisons we put up around us. For each of us it is a different prison. It might be insecurity, sexual addiction, drug/alcohol addiction, self loathing, unforgiveness, or whatever else holds us back from becoming who God wants us to be.

One of the quotes that hit home was:
"Your future is not a matter of chance, it's a matter of choice"

I think this was a good wake up call for just about everyone at the retreat. You have to make choices now that will determine your future.

The most powerful part of the weekend came after the last act of the drama ended. We all went up to our rooms with our small groups and had a time of recognizing the prisons that hold us back from being all that God wants us to be. The things that hold us back from our future. After 20 minutes or so of reflection time and writing down what holds us back we all had a chance to share those things and pray with each other. It really was a moment of freedom in a lot of lives that night. It was amazing to see the awesome release that it brings when things are spoken others and then given up to God.

I'm really thankful for being able to be a part of our church's youth ministry, it's possibly the most effective ministry in our whole valley at bringing people to Christ. And it is such an amazing thing to see 150 young people every week come to a church and worship God. Alot of them, their parents are not christians, they became christians in the last year, or this is their first experience with "Church".

February Update

2010-02-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's already the second month of 2010. Twent Ten, Two Thousand Ten, or whatever you feel like calling it. The past month has flow by. Leah has been busy with school, lots of homework. I think I've learned more about bones in January than I have in my whole life. She's also taking a Native American history class. It is interesting to hear the other side of the history books, told from their perspective. God has been so, so faithful in providing for Leah to go to school. The first two semester of schooling are paid for by a federal PELL grant, and the school gave us a $1000 scholarship as well.

I've been busy with work, I've been working lots which is really nice. I've been spending most of my time in a large Tribal Health building working my way down from the 3rd story down to the first.

Here's a blurry little cellphone pic of what I've been doing the last week and a half. This is a Dental clinic.

Lately I've been kind of addicted to reading this blog for ideas of food to make for dinner: http://www.seriouseats.com/ It's worth checking out.

Speaking of food, here's a delicious meal from our honeymoon in Mexico.

Back to school...

2010-01-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

Today, Leah is headed off to her first day of school at our local college to finish her pre-requisites for the Nursing program offered here. We're both very excited that she's going to school to finish what she originally wanted to do before entering YWAM. It should be a good adventure the next three years, Leah will be in school full time the next 2 semesters and then part time next school year. Hopefully getting into the two year Nursing program in Fall 2011. We are both still very much wanting to go back into missions, and sometimes being home and waiting can be the hardest part, but we know that God has a whole lifetime ahead for us and that this is a good waiting/preparation time. We are leaving our options open for what's ahead, we know that at least we would like to visit the "very large asian country", maybe next year. We are also considering doing a TESOL course at the YWAM Montana base to be certified to teach english overseas...just thoughts and dreams at this point.

Leah is looking at possibly using her Nursing to get into midwiffery in the future and using that overseas. I am considering and hoping to learn how to provide clean water and practical technology for third world countries. After drinking water that I saw feces floating in at one time, I can clearly see the need for this in providing health in the simplest form. In reality, we don't really know which direction we'll be headed first or what God has for us in the future but, I really do believe that God leads people through desires and dreams.

A tour of our little town...

2010-01-01T15:20:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T15:54:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!!

Mmm...the best cereal!

Best/worst present idea...money in a maze that you can't get until you solve it!

Dad cleaned house with poker!

This is the face of waking up at 6:30 am on christmas morning...ghost of bakers past! The cinnamon rolls were delicious though!!!

That's the best looking Santa I've ever seen!

She loves her new apron!

Wedding Pictures!

2009-12-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

We got our wedding pictures yesterday and they look great! Kyana Taillon did a great job!

http://kyanataillon.com/

New blog layout

2009-12-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

I've been having some trouble with the last blog layout that I had on here, some of the images were hosted on other sites and then the owners photobucket account expired...making the blog look ugly. So, this is the new layout for now until the older and better looking one is fixed :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T20:45:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!!

Pumpkin Carving Season...

2009-10-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

Gotta love that pumpkin placenta

Leah taking out her aggression on a poor pumpkinHaving a little too much fun with the pumpkin innards
This Jack-O-Lantern is a little too happy...

October

2009-10-23T16:40:00.000-07:00

This month has been an interesting one for sure. It started out so unusually cold and snowy for an october that we were all wondering what kind of winter we have in store for us! Thankfully the cold has subsided and it's back into normal weather in the 50's.

Leah enjoying her first trip to work in the snow!

Last week both Leah and I got the swine flu. It wasn't much worse than the normal flu. I worked after having it for two days...not saying that it was the greatest idea but hey, I worked nonetheless. Speaking of work, Leah is still working at the bank and work has picked up for me as well and i've been working normal amounts instead of a couple days a week which is really nice for a change.

Two weeks ago our pastor's wife Christina(youth group leader) asked Leah and I to join the staff of our church's youth group "Catalyst". We accepted. It has around 100 kids everyweek and seems to really be thriving. Kinda crazy that a town of 5000 people has a youth group of 100. I went to Billings with the youth group last week to a youth conference. It was a lot of fun and much better way to get to know the kids than just the wednesday night format. It was a good conference and the speaker "Reggie Dabbs" was excellent, as was the Tim Bach Band that did the worship for the conference. Leah and I are excited to find a place in the youth team and see what kids God will place in our lives.

I also got to see Emily Carpenter in her home town. It was a short visit, but it's always nice to reconnect with old ywam friends.

What good is a trip without a little vehicle trouble? Oh yeah, and this baby was shooting flames out of the tailpipe...which may or may not have started a small grass fire in the median..

Fall has fell...

2009-10-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened on wednesday this week, I walked outside from working inside someone's trailor house and it hit me, the cold that is. I noticed that it started raining, but it didn't quite sound right. Like the rain was almost bouncing. Oh, that's because there was snow mixed in with the rain. Just last week it was in the mid 80's. The tops of the mountains are white again, the leaves can't fall off the trees quick enough, and the slow descent into winter has begun here in montana, signaling that we have around 8 solid months before we feel the warmth of the sun again.

*************************************************************************************

Leah and I have started going to a small group on wednesdays for married couples (that's not the focus of the group though) and it's been really good so far. We have been going through the book of Phillipians and going through one chapter per week. This last week we were in chapter two and it was talking about how as believers we are as to "shine like stars". I got to thinking about what that really means and the best I could come up with is that there are alot of stars in the sky. And they are all shining into the darkness. It seems that alot of times we (myself included) don't shine like stars into the darkness of our world. In fact alot of times in my experience through work it's usually the christians that display the least Godly like conduct. I think that this speaks volumes to people that aren't christians and reaffirms to them why they don't need to become a christian. That leads me to the next point, how do we shine like stars? Of course we aren't perfect but I think a smile and a nice attitude goes a long way in showing God's love to someone. I think that something we as christians forget often is how we behave in public and in business has a huge affect on peoples view of christians and even God.

14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe

How many times do I complain or argue (at least in my head) daily? The lack of these things in my life will lead me towards being a pure, blameless child of God.

************************************************************************************

My friend Billy met up with my DTS leader Andy in a tiny little nation called Bhutan and got to spend time with the underground church there. In my dts over three years ago Andy had just started going to this country and felt that the Lord was calling him to go there every year and invest in this country. In the last four years the number of christians in the country has at least doubled. That is crazy! God is so good.

Click here for a video about bhutan!

http://acontextforhope.blogspot.com/2009/09/global-revival-fire.html

Anyway, just thought that I would write something on here since it's been almost a month, man time flies when you're having fun.

Until next time,

Kyle

2009-09-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

Things are finally getting settled in, normal life is taking hold ever so quickly. Summer is winding down and that means less outdoor activities in montana. Leah is getting used to being a bank teller, I'm back to work installing flooring. It has been really good being married, it almost feels strangely normal to be married. Although there is a moment here and there where you look at your spouse and go...are we really married?!? Like for the rest of our lives? Haha.

All the events of the summer are over, and it's kind of a relief. My birthday was yesterday, it was a good birthday, but there's one thing about my birthday, it usually signals the beginning of cold weather coming. It was 90 degrees yesterday but only supposed to be 65 on sunday. Of course.

So...I bought a large Van for my flooring business. I get alot of comments about it being creepy and whatnot. His name is "Chester". Just seemed to fit ;) Can't seem to get away from these huge vans after spending hours of my life devoted to them at ywam maui. At least it's not green :)

I've gotten a bit more fishing in lately as work has been slower the last couple of weeks...that's always good! Been catching lots of small mouth bass. Tried my hand at fly fishing...I gave up after battling the wind for an hour.

Anyway, that's all for now! We're missing everyone out in ywam maui land!

Don't know what to title this...so much has happened!

2009-08-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry that it has been far too long since I have updated this. Lack of internet access and free time in the last month has left the blog untouched. I know that interest in it dies quickly if it's not updated regularly so I'll try to keep up.

So, yeah, July 25th was a great day. Getting married is one of the most surreal experiences of your life and it really does feel like a blur...just like everyone say's it will. It was awesome and I really loved our ceremony. Our reception was at a really beautiful museum, and I could barely believe that it was for my wedding. Way nicer wedding than I thought I would ever get. Leah's parents went above and beyond what we expected. We were so amazed that so many of our friends and family could make it. We were really blessed and felt so loved that people would go out of there way to come to our wedding!

thanks Ben for the pictures!

We went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on our honeymoon. We were there for ten days at an all inclusive resort called "Dreams". It was an awesome resort that was located outside of town in a cove surrounded by thick jungle. It had a private beach which is really nice because Leah and I are quite the beach snobs after living in Maui with YWAM. We went on two "excursions" while we were there. An ATV offroad adventure and a zip line "canopy" tour.

The ATV's were a blast. We got to ride through little mexican villages, through rivers, and through mud puddles. Luckily it was the rainy season so there was plenty of water! At the end of the tour we had a tequila tasting with about ten different tequilas.

The second excursion was a canopy tour. It was a course set up of zip lines through the jungle. I think there were about ten different zip lines and some of them were about 100 feet up. You would zip line to a platform built in a tree, then they would hook you up to the next zip line and so on. We also rapelled down 90 feet! It was fun because it was the first time I had done either of those things!

I will put up more honeymoon pictures later this week and then some pictures of our new apartment!

New place to live!

2009-06-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

If I counted up how many different places I have lived in my life...well I don't even remember some of them so that tells you something. Over 20 at least. BUT! This one is more special in every way because it's where me and Leah are going to live after we get married in july! I get the keys to it on tuesday and can start moving stuff in. It's crazy to actually have a place to live now, and to top it off it's exactly the place I was hoping to get. God is good. It's a little 2 bedroom apartment close to town, near our highschool and it's a nice little neighborhood. It's in a 4plex apartment house thing and we're on the ground floor.

Lake view..so classy.

Pow Wow

2009-06-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I live on an Indian reservation in Montana. I'm also a flooring installer...one and one makes two and that lead to my Dad, my old boss Jon, his brother, and I installing carpet on the pow-wow grounds in Arlee, MT. We installed 16,200 square feet of carpet under two big pavillions used for dancing and traditional stick games. It took us four days and we were all beat today after doing so much carpet in such little amount of time. I've been keeping quite busy installing flooring, which is a huge blessing. I can't believe how busy I've been since home.

It's bigger than it looks, 75 across and 125 feet long!

Some Modern day tee-pees, haha

pics from sunday with the fam at kerr dam

2009-06-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Montana

2009-06-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

I really am blessed to have live where I have lived in my life, spend most of my life between montana and hawaii. Definitely two good places to live. It's especially easy to appreaciate montana when it's this time of the year and the weather is starting to get nice again. Oh, and it's nice that it's stays light until after ten o'clock too!

Here's a few pics for all of you that don't really know where I live, most of these are taken a few minutes drive from my house. They're obviously not all my pics.

2009-05-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day-2009

Great Grandma on top and Gramps and Grandma (not dead yet!haha)

I like this one..if I have a headstone one day I hope it reads somthing like this

Great Grandma and Grandpa

Great Aunt and Unlce

It's still hard to believe that these people are gone. My grandpa died a little over a year ago while I was in maui and it's still kinda sinking in, the idea of life without him. I know that he's in heaven now and that makes me so happy.

couple o' pics

2009-05-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

the front yard

haleakala

swinging bridges bamboo forest

the entrance to ywam maui

the ocean in lahaina

launiupoko

New Car!

2009-05-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

I just bought a new car today! Well...I guess the term "new" is relative. It's actually a '96 with 107,000 miles on it. But, it's new to me. I guess you can chalk this up as Leah and I's first major purchase together! Woo! It's a subaru legacy and it's all-wheel drive...so hopefully it keeps leah on the road in the snow that is surely to come in the montana winters!

Back to work!

2009-05-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

Leaving YWAM Maui was a bit scary for me, no, it's not that my parents are bad or that life is really that tough at all at home. It's not that the reality of getting married was hitting me. It was the mere fact that I was headed home with no real job leads and not alot of optimism either. I'll admit to freaking out a little on monday and all the worst case scenarios were running through my head. But within 3 days of being home I got a small carpet job. The next day I got a call from another store that said they had a job for me on wednesday. And the same day another lady called me to come do work for her. I put in a full day of work today and it was nice to be back in money making mode after only signing the front of checks for so long! It's crazy to think that I've had to trust God for so many things and in much harder circumstances than this, but it's easy to forget all those times that God did provide. This is just another example of God providing and me not trusting Him enough!

Life is good back at home! Last night my parents, aunt, and grandma all got together in our living room and we had a little family bible study. It was really nice. It was funny, when we first started my aunt said that she had been reading the "book of peter" which is actually two books. But the day before this I was racking my brain for something to do for a bible study and I really felt like the book of 1st Peter was just sticking out to me. Random. It was good to just read through the first chapter and discuss. It took us over 2 hours to get through the first chapter!

My parents ordered "The Truth Project", the series from focus on the family that I had started in Maui as part of our guys staff growth group. I look forward to going through the 13 part series and actually finishing it this time!!!!

Here's a picture from my first day back at work (I am self employed in case you were confused by the previous paragraph)

Here is The Truth Project trailer:

Back home...

2009-05-10T23:18:00.001-07:00

I am back in Montana. After a couple of years of living in Maui and being on staff with YWAM I have made my way back home. It's nice to be back in a place where the air is crisp and clean. Where my bedroom is bigger than the one I used to share with 4 other guys. Where there is a fridgerator full of food that doesn't have peoples names scribbled on it. Where I can leave my towel in the shower. Yep, it's a little place called "Home".

It was one of the best moments I have had all year when my two nephews ran up to meet me and hug me as I arrived in the terminal of the massive Missoula airport. I missed those little guys so much. My neice Kellyn is still warming up to me though, she's a bit shy and I'm pretty much a complete stranger to her. Yeah, family is good! As I was walking to our car in the airport parking lot my nephew Kaden asked me "uncle kyle, when are you leaving?" Sadly that's most of what he knows of me and that is the norm for him, to see me leave after a couple of weeks of being home. My brother explained to him that I just got here and that I'm not leaving. That's a good feeling to know that I can be present in their lives.

I'm laying in my own bed as I write this...queen size and lots of warm blankets on it. Just livin' the dream.

Some photos..

2009-05-06T23:36:00.001-07:00

It is really nice to be back with Leah! We're having a great time here in California. I'm heading home to montana on saturday...which is sad and exciting at the same time! Things are falling into place with the wedding plans! Everything seems to be coming along smoothly! Here are some photos I took from yesterday!

This is where our wedding reception will be!

Eureka...I found her!!

2009-05-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

After something like 15 hours of travel I made it to california! And I finally got to see my beautiful fiance again! I'll be out here for a week of catching up, registering for gifts, getting fitted for a tux, and sending invitations! I already know that this week is going to go by too fast. The weather here is less than beautiful, 55 and rainy! Apparently is was sunny right before I got here but I don't believe 'em!!!

I miss all the people in maui, the last few months on staff were really fun and the base has a great group of staff right now. BUT! I am so glad to be with my fiance...it's so, so good to be back together. There was like ten minutes of weirdness at the airport, not really believing that the other person was real, then it was back to normal.

Tile

2009-04-28T02:07:00.000-07:00

It was just in time, one last project to finish up my time here in Maui. Our living room area needed the floor replaced desperately. The old floor was small pieces of wood in brick pattern that was coming up almost daily. We had a lot of fun doing this. It was hard work and only the third time I've tried my hand at laying tile but it went well and definitely improved the look of our lecture hall/dining area/living room

Fitz pulling up the old floor with me...life's never boring with Ryan Patrick Fitzgerald.

woo hoo it's finally done after three days!

Community Outreach Randomness

2009-04-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

Every other wednesday this quarter our base staff go out into the community and serve. Some people go to the Boys and Girls Club, some go clean a local coffee shop, some help with a christian school, and then there's trash pick up. Guess which one I get to do? Haha.

So, this wednesday afternoon we headed down to the little hippie town of Paia armed with gloves, trash bags, and good attitudes. We dropped a few people off at the local coffee shop "Anthony's" and decided to pray before we headed out to pick up some trash. There are four of us on trash duty. Sam from Colorado. Jasmine from New Mexico. Tik Pimpaeng from Thailand, and myself. So, I pray to just bless our time of trash picking and I also prayed something that I don't normally pray, that we would meet people that God wanted us to meet while picking up trash.

Sam and Jasmine head off one way, Tik and I head off towards the beach. We are about ten minutes in, walking across the basketball court towards the beach, obviously with our eyes on the ground searching for any misplaced rubbish. Out of nowhere we hear 'hey! are you guys ywam'ers?' and we were like 'yeah!'.

A semi-intoxicated man (Tommy) in his fifties approached us when we looked up to see who was calling our way. He say's "hey, Loren Cunningham baptized me in Switzerland!". Now normally I would just kind of laugh off these kind of guys, there's a lot of crazies in Paia. But something here was different. He knew the name of the founder of our missions organization. And, Loren Cunningham did spend a good share of time in Switzerland. He goes on to explain/slur that he did a dts back in the seventies and spent some time in Kona, where the main center of YWAM is. This spiked our interest.

About the time he stops explaining this seemingly random coincidince his friend, who is also innebriated approaches us. Introduces himself, asks us if we are from church. We tell him that we're with YWAM. That got him really excited because in his memories of ywam'ers he recalled the time that they came to the beach with milk and cookies as well as the time there was a free barbecue. He said that it was then that he knew someone out there really loved him, half jokingly of course. Then back to the Tommy, he say's "yeah! that's what God is all about! Unconditional love! You can't accept it because you can't understand it! But that's what God is!"

His friend quickly pointed out to us that he wasn't a christian. Tommy then pointed out that he needed to get him some sandals. He said, well I guess we'll just have to trust that God will provide. Immediately I knew that I had to give him my sandals, there wasn't really any thought to it. So I slipped my sandals off and scooted them toward him, apologizing that they weren't in the best shape. Just as quickly as he put my sandals on, they both decided they needed to go buy a beer. And off they went.

Not too often do you get to hear one drunk guy tell another drunk guy the gospel! I hope that both of them turn their hearts toward God and recieve his unconditional love.

The end is near...for me!

2009-04-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the title of this post is a little misleading! But, the end of my time at YWAM Maui is drawing near. I came on staff in May 2007, and I can easily say that it was the fastest two years of my life...in a good way. I can barely believe that I am actually headed home in a couple of weeks knowing that I have no plans on coming back. Maui feels like home, it's just too bad my family couldn't live out here too!

I guess I will try to give a little re-cap of the last two and a half years since I first came to maui in September 2006.

2006 :
Did DTS Lecture phase in Maui. God changed me so much during this time and it was such a great time of learning more about God as well as building a better foundation of basic christian beliefs.
In December I went on outreach as part of my DTS to Thailand,Indonesia, and Malaysia. Obviously there are a ton of things to be written about this...but not for now.

2007:
For the first two months of 2007 I was in Indonesia and Malaysia still on outreach
I came back home for two and half months before returning to Maui on staff
Upon coming back on staff I was placed in the maintenance department where I learned the ropes until two months later when I was put in charge
From then until December I was Maintenance head and was in charge of keeping our base up and running a small crew of other young guys.

Leah and I started dating in December.

2008:
I staffed a DTS starting in January, going through the end of June. I returned to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and added a country this time...Brunei.

Went home in July to meet Leah's parents and then she got to meet mine!
We were fortunate to be able to go to a friends wedding in scotland in august that Leah was a bridesmaid in.
The end of August we returned to Maui. I was back in maintenance and after two weeks I was put back in charge of it until December. Leah and I also were both leading weekly prayer times for our base for one hour every thursday morning.

On September 5th, Leah and I got engaged!

2009:
Continued working in maintenance as well as doing outreach preparation for the team going to Borneo as well as continuing to lead prayer times.

In March, Leah left maui and went home to prepare for the wedding as well as work and save some money.

And this brings me here, looking at leaving a place that I really do love and believe in. I know that every time I hear a story from someone on our base that has just returned from outreach that I, and the other staff on this base had a hand in sending them out. And I feel completely blessed to have gotten to see lives changed through our teams that go out from here.
I'm really going to miss this place. God did alot in me and through me while I've been out here, alot more that I would have ever guessed the first time I set foot here in 2006.

I'm leaving Maui on April 30th and going to see Leah for a week in Eureka, California. After that I'm heading home to find a job, car, and an apartment/condo/house. All before getting married on July 25th.

New YWAM Maui Website!

2009-04-14T21:41:00.001-07:00

Today at 2:00pm our base updated the look of our website and added new content as well!

Check it out: http://ywammaui.com/

You can see who I live with: http://ywammaui.com/staff/meet-our-staff.html

And, if you want to see some of my photos(they're not all from me though): http://www.ywammaui.com/news/photo-blog.html

The Truth Project

2009-04-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

So, for this quarter on base our guy's staff growth group are going through a series of videos from Focus on the Family called 'The Truth Project'. It's a series of classroom lectures from Dr. Del Tackett on the issue of truth and the way it plays a role in every area of our life and society.

We are covering alot of large and heady topics such as:

What is Truth?- Is it relative? Is it absolute? Does it matter?

Philosophy and Ethics

Anthropology

Theology

Sociology

That's a lot of "ology" for you.

So far we have covered 'what is truth?' and 'Philosophy and Ethics-say's who?'

Both have been rich in content, almost to the point that you can't quite grasp everything that is being said, so I will try to recall what I can.

One thing that I feel like God has been showing me (and it's timely as well) is how the Bible and the Truth can be applied to all aspects of life. This was a generally accepted thing back when our country was founded. Even the folks that didn't believe in God were writing laws and such based off of what the Bible said was right and wrong. There was reference point, a foundation for that basis. The Bible was applied to every aspect of life and was held as a compass for which we could always reference back to. Whether that's in science, history, or just working your job and raising your kids. And it's no wonder that the Bible was held in higher regard when they actually believed that what is in the Bible is true. Not half true. Not partially true. Not just a book of good morals or a behavior guidance counseler.

John 8:31-33 (New International Version)
31To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

When you look at what is being preached to you by secular media and even some christian media it's messages of tolerance and relativity. Right and wrong, black and white are left in the dust in return for whatever seems right and gray. What is truth? Is it subject to me and my feelings or conscience? Is it better to compromise what is true for a message of false love and acceptance? Or is truth based on something completely removed from me and unchanging in nature? Like...God and His word. Are we HOLDING to Jesus' teachings and becoming His disciples?

Here's a short overview of our last lesson:

"Philosophy, according to Dr. R. C. Sproul, is "a scientific quest to discover ultimate reality." This would seem to indicate that philosophical ideas about truth are closely aligned with the biblical definition given in Lesson 1: truth = reality. In this connection, it's worth noting that the 1828 edition of Webster's Dictionary included the following affirmation: "true religion and true philosophy must ultimately arrive at the same principle." Significantly, Webster's original definition of the word also asserted that philosophy aims "to enlarge our understanding of God." God, of course, has been edited out of subsequent editions of the dictionary. This is consistent with the perspective of contemporary culture, which has been taken captive by the unfounded assumption that "the cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be" (Carl Sagan). Another way to say this is that current thought pictures reality as a closed box – a cosmic cube – in which there is no room for anything that cannot be sensually or materially perceived. The problem is that with the lid of the box closed and God excluded, philosophy is deprived of a universal reference point and thus crippled in its "scientific quest for ultimate reality." As a result, it cannot answer the most basic questions about right and wrong behavior."

I'm leaving maui on April 30th so I won't be able to go through the whole twelve part series, but I know that what I've already watched and discussed has got the 'ol wheels a turnin (as they say).

Easter

2009-04-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

So it's Easter Sunday tommorow and that's got me thinking. What do we think of when we think of Easter? I know that for me, most of my life it was a one-two punch of candy and Jesus. And while I always knew of the importance of Jesus' death and resurrection, but I don't think I ever realized the absolute neccessity for it.

It's interesting to think of the fact that God set up a system previous to Jesus' coming that we couldn't live up to. There were so many laws set up that no flaw-full human could ever live up to them. We would have to make atonement through animals to cover our sins. The point of this was, we could never live up to the perfection set forth by God without messing up one of the laws. Where there were sins there had to be an atonement made for sins through a blood sacrifice. This scripture says it well:

Romans 8:2-4
2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

The law was weakened by sinful nature. It could never fully direct the israelites attention towards God and over time these things became more about rituals than actual acts unto God.

Hebrews 10

1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.

2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.

3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me;

6with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.

7Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.'

"8First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Without a savior (Jesus) coming and making the once and for all sacrifice, we would still be under the Law of Moses and never free from our sins.

Thank you Jesus for your death, resurrection, and the freedom it offers!

YWAM Staff Retreat

2009-04-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

This past thursday through saturday we had a staff retreat to a place called "Kaupo", that is pronounced cow-po. It is on the other side of the island from where we live in Haiku, and it is really far from anything. I can now see why I have not been over to this place in two years of living on this island. There's no real reason you should come other than to see the beauty of the island. But, it does make a great get-away place that has very little in the way of interuptions. The nearest gas station is about an hour away.

Our time out there was more for refreshing and relaxing than anything. Our last Discipleship Training School left on outreach this last Tuesday morning so everyone on our base is kind of taking a breather from the daily impact of having another 40 people around or base and the work that creates. It was a much needed fun get-away for many of the staff to just leave behind the responsibilities of our daily jobs.

Tim on the grill!

Can't use your arms!

While out there we played self-made games like launching people into the air using a tarp, or relays.

Here are few more pics from this weekend:

Whale Watching and Hurricane Winds...

2009-03-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

So one of the awesome things about living in maui and having someone who owns a charter boat business that goes to your church is, every once in a while I get to go out on the boat! This time our whole base got to go on a whale watch to go out and spot Humpback Whales! What we didn't know was that it was going to be windy, really windy! There were 50mph gusts out there making the water choppy and the whales hard to find. BUT! We did see whales, maybe around 1o of them in total. They are huge. That's really all you can say when you see a humpback whale. They can get to be nearly as long as our 55 foot boat! When one breaches out of the water a little you kind of get a glimps of their huge-ness! It was a fun couple hours of riding on a boat, getting blasted by wind, and spotting some whales!

I consider myself very blessed to get to go do something like this for free out of the kindness of someone else's heart!

I didn't get very many pictures of the whales, but here is one of them pokin out of the water a little.

New Look

2009-03-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

After a few hours of work on thursday night, I changed the entire look of my blog to an entirely more classy looking website. Hope you enjoy!

Let me know if anything doesn't work or if the links at the top for pictures and videos etc. work for you!

A day in the life

2009-03-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

So, some of ya'll don't exactly know what a normal week looks like for me or what exactly I do every day, so I thought I would show you what my week looks like!

Monday:

8:00 Worship

9:00-5:00 Work in Maintenance (yard work, vehicle maintenance, house repairs etc)

5:00- Evening off

Tuesday:

9:00-5:00 Work in Maintenance

Wednesday:

9:00-3:00 Work in Maintenance

3:00-5:00 Lead an outreach prep time for DTS team going to Borneo

Evening off

Thursday:

8:00 Lead Base-wide prayer time

9:00-5:00 Work in Maintenance

7:00 optional lecture to sit in with DTS school

Friday:

8:00 Worship

10:00-12:30 Lead base staff guy's growth group

1:30-5:00 Work in Maintenance

Weekends free, other than church!

This is the inside of the Maintenance Shed

Garden Update...

2009-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Full view of the garden

A Jalepeno Pepper growing

Manoa Lettuce

Tomatoes galore

Beans,Beans, and more Beans!

35 green bean plants in total, and to the left is a row of about 20 banana plants

Last but not least, I caught this little guy crawling around base last week...

Hawaiian Culture Moment...

2009-03-18T01:02:00.000-07:00

So one of the great things about living in Hawaii (other than the nice weather) is the culture. Nowhere else can you find a place that has designated Spam as it's state food! Yeah that's right, Spam. They love it. It's served at McDonalds and Burger King for breakfast. They even go so far as to make sushi-like wraps out of it called "Spam Musubi". It's actually not bad....here, have a look

It's really not as bad as it sounds, although I would have probably argued someone on this point before I ate it for myself. I've actually come to like fried spam with eggs, it's kinda like ham...but not, haha.

Hawaiian local (non-traditional) food is a cross between asian and white-trash delights! Say for instance if you order a "Plate Lunch" it will often consist of Chicken Katsu (breaded chicken with barbecue like sauce), rice, and macaroni salad with a slice of spam. Hmmm, interesting food combos to be sure!

Anyway, that's all for today (this one was for you grandma), I'll put a garden update on here soon.

Pray for King Kekaulike High School

2009-03-12T15:35:00.001-07:00

Recently at King Kekaulike High School there has been a marked increase in drug use, not only pot and alcohol but cocaine and other narcotics. Also gang related fighting, suicide attempts, cutting and other destructive behavior. There is a prevailing sense of helplessness amongst the students who are caught up in these things and although this behavior only represents a small portion of the student body it has had a marked affect on the climate and atmosphere on the campus.

The Scriptures declares that "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall raise up a standard against him." Isaiah 59:19

We are going to pray for change in this school and it's students!

2009-03-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

Revival Maui
http://revivalmaui.com

This is what's happening as far as what God is doing in Maui recently. This is hard to describe or put a handle on, but it's basically a small group of people that got together randomly and have a heart to see maui changed and for God to bring revival through the way of Purity. Purity of all types, heart and mind, sexual purity. Through praying and fasting for our island.

Monthly we have been meeting with prayer and worship and asking God for our island to be changed. Each meeting there are more and more people and most people are leaders or pastors from churches on island. At our last meeting there was over 70 people. It quickly has grown into a big thing that churches are getting involved with and getting behind to see revival come to their island.

My roommate Ryan is one of the leaders of it and sparked my interest in it and where it's going from here. Things are happening fast and almost daily more and more people are getting involved and people are moving quick in response to the call. It's already developed from nothing to something quite large in under three months and it will be awesome to see where God takes this. There is no agenda. No hidden motives. The only motive is God.

This is a sort of mission statement from them:
Romans 8 tells us that "the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God." What is this world eagerly anticipating? The revealing of the sons and daughters of the King. That they would realize who they are and become walking God-encounters for those around them.That revival would start in each one of us, and as we arise and shine His glory, people all around us will catch this fire, this passion for Jesus. Then He would set this island ablaze with generations passionate to see the King glorified and His Kingdom come to earth, as it is in heaven

If you want to know more it would be good to start with the history of this: http://revivalmaui.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&Itemid=29

Check out the site at: http://revivalmaui.com and see my photo's on there as well, they were all taken by me :)

Revelation 19:8 (New International Version)
8Fine linen, bright and clean,was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)

Returned from asia.....

2009-03-01T16:06:00.000-08:00

This last week our Fall 2008 DTS teams returned back to maui from three different locations.
Borneo, Bangladesh, and Ch!na. They all had awesome stories to share about God moving in the world.

In Borneo they saw many people give their lives to the Lord as well as a few healings. One lady was completely mute and started talking again. Another lady was deaf AND mute and regained her hearing and could make sounds out of her mouth...but she hadn't heard words in so long she forgot what they sound like and how to speak! God is good, huh?

In Ch!na the team spent most of their time in the south east of Ch!na in a large city there doing lots of street ministry and just sharing the gospel with people. One of the main ways they could reach out to people in this closed country was by inviting them out to lunch at McDonalds and then just spending time with them and sharing with them why they were there in Ch!na. Six people gave their lives to the Lord during their time there, which is a really big deal in a place where it is not even legal to share the gospel!

In Bangladesh the team that went there spent a month at a Compassion International (the people who always have those feed the kids ads on t.v.) center working with children and showing God's love to them. They also got to share the gospel with alot of muslims as well as a witchdoctor. When they got to share with the witchdoctor, she let the team pray for her, although right after the team left her house she went outside to a shed with idols in it and was chanting and screaming so our team stood outside while she was doing that and continued praying.

Ephesians 6:12
12"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
___________________________________________________________________

It was encouraging to hear all the stories from the teams and always good to put back in to focus what we are doing here. Even if we aren't alway the ones that get to go to these places in the world we do our part in sending others. And it also gets me excited for the future and where God will take myself and Leah in the future.

2009-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Faces of Indonesia...

These photo's were taken during my trip to Indonesia in spring 2008

Click on any photo to enlarge

What I'm up to lately...

2009-02-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

click any pics to make them larger

Well, it seems our little hobby project is starting to develop more and more. We started off with a few tomatoe plants that we planted in an area that used to be used for an outdoor eating area and has been vacant for the past 2 years and now we're looking at this as a way of providing extra food for our base. It's still in the early stages but we hope to have the garden fully planted within the next couple of weeks.

So far we have tomatoes, candy onions, green onions, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, and green beans. We will also be planting corn,carrots,lettuce, and egg plant.

I've enjoyed the gardening quite a bit and I'm really suprised how much I have grown to like taking care of plants and flowers. I guess after doing this stuff for a couple of years it starts to grow on ya.

More from Kona

2009-02-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

I just returned home (maui..for now) from the conference in Kona and am glad to be back in my own bed.

The conference was excellent. Our speaker, Kris Vallotton, is a pretty straight forward no nonsense kind of guy who had a way of getting under some people's skin when he would end a sentence with "Now that's a good word!" or "I'm right on this". It was all in fun and you could tell that he said it to get people thinking about what he just said. When the week began he said that was his goal, to get us to think.

We had six lectures in total, with around 20 hours of teaching time. Some of the topics were Honor,Freedom in Christ,Sexual Purity,Prophecy, and Healing. He has been in ministry for 31 years and now runs the school of supernatural ministry in Redding,California with over 1,000 currently.

There was lots to be learned and thought about. Not every single thing he had to say I agreed with but it definitely made me think about some things that I have never had to think about.

It was a good week of learning,refreshing, and getting vision for the future.

The Gathering-Kona

2009-02-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Kona,Hawaii at the YWAM Base here monday afternoon looking forward to what was ahead. Already it has been amazing.

Monday night there was a meeting for worship/prayer put on by the "Fire and Fragrance" focused DTS. It was an awesome time of spontaneous worship and praising directed towards our Lord. It was kind of a buffet of worship as our meeting leader, Andy Byrd, summarized at the end of the evening. It started off just asking the Lord to come then moved into a quiet time of worship and some of the staff went around and prayed for people. Then as free flowing as can be- it turned into a time of joyful worship and thanking God for who He is and his greatness. This lasted for a couple hours...maybe more.

Tuesday morning we had lecture with our speaker Kris Vallotton. He spoke on heaven coming to earth and that God has already given us the keys to the kingdom-

Matthew 16:19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

It was good and very thought provoking...lots to chew on.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours, what seemed like 20 minutes, in the prayer room worshipping and praying. It was a powerful time of adoration!!!!

Gardening

2009-02-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of things I figured I might do when I first came to YWAM Maui, but growing tomatoes,onions, and green beans never popped into my head. The idea came over the last couple of weeks, realizing the potential of an old, vacant, gravel filled, outdoor eating area. So we started a garden to hopefully produce some food for our base and make use of our land. The tomatoes have already grown visibly in the past couple of days since being planted!

Engagement Photos

2009-02-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

Click on the photos to enlarge them!

Thanks to Benjamin Cordy for taking these photos!

Kona!!!

2009-01-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

The second week in February I plan to go to the YWAM base in Kona, Hawaii for a conference style week of teaching and worship. The speaker will be Kris Volloton from Bethel Church in Redding, CA.

The week is entitled "When Heaven Meets Earth".
The three major YWAM base's DTS schools in Hawaii will be gathered in Kona for the week. The meetings will have around 500 people at each one, with daily worship and prayer.

I'm excited for what God has for this week, and what can be learned and recieved!!! Leah and I both felt the Lord prompting us to go for this week. Pray that it would be a time of renewal and that it would spark more passion in our lives for the Lord!

For more info:

http//www.kvministries.com
http://fireandfragrance.com
http://theburn247.com/about

The picture above is from the same conference held last february.

Opening Night

2009-01-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

Tonight kicked off the starting of our new Discipleship Training School, and what better way to do it then worship our Lord?

We have 22 new students from canada,USA, and europe. They will be in maui for the next three months going through weekly lectures and preparing to go on outreach. The school will be broken up into three teams to go on outreach. Indonesia/Malaysia, Ch!na, and Bangladesh.

All of us that are staff on the base are excited for the new school and the new friends that we will make.

Transition Time!

2009-01-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

With the new year brings transition for our base. Staff that went home for christmas are returning back to their positions on base. A new Discipleship Training School is starting on the 10th of January.

Over Christmas break we only had around ten people on our base and it was quiet...and nice. Things are about to get crazy again and soon, ten people will turn into sixty and it will go back to having to stand in line for meals and waiting turns for showers. But it really is exciting to have 25 new DTS students coming and knowing that I will make 25 new friends and get to be part of their lives and see them grow over their time here.

This next three months I will be continuing to serve in the Maintenance department as well as lead a Guy Staff growth group, as well as prayer times for the base once a week for one hour.

I'm excited for what the last 5 months on staff will bring!

Prayer for Zimbabwe

2008-12-23T01:29:00.000-08:00

Every week Leah and I lead our base in intercession for different topics,issues,places, and people. We recieved a letter from the leadership of YWAM to be in prayer for Zimbabwe and it's people. They are in a desperate situation in almost every way. There is scarcely enough food for people, inflation is the highest in the world, clean water is almost non-existant and what little there is,it is for sale.

The government is completely corrupt and is run by the elected president Robert Mugabe. In 2000, in an effort to give back land to the indigenous people he passed a law that kicked any white farmers from their own land and put this into effect. Soon the land that had been colonized by the british for already well over 100 years was handed over to squatters and people with no knowledge of farming, one of the biggest economies of zimbabwe. This in turn lead to a quick collapse of the country's economy and and caused prices to sky rocket. People have to stand in line at the bank for the better part of a day just to pull out enough to by a loaf of bread...and repeat that process the next day to feed their family.
The government, in particular their leader, Robert Mugabe, has turned a blind eye to his own people and the disaster that his nation has become, blaming the problems on the people that originally settled on the land as westerners coming to his country.

We prayed for this country in early December and the very same day that we prayed there on the front page of BBC News was a picture of Robert Mugabe and a Headline that read "World Leaders call for Mugabe's Removal". Most of the issue at hand in the politcal world is from the recent Cholera outbreak that has already killed over a thousand, and new cases are reported to be 26,000.

The people of Zimbabwe need our prayers.In the end, these people need hope, and that hope is Jesus. Take a minute of your free time and pray for this country, it's people, and it's leader.

If you want to read more:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/16501.htm

Christmas Time

2008-12-23T00:59:00.000-08:00

Well, our discipleship training school teams have left on outreach and the base has closed down for christmas break...so there was only one thing to do! Buy a tree and decorate what is normally our lecture hall into a nice living room!!

2008-12-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

Tour YWAM Maui! This video was taken over a year and half ago, when I first came on staff.

Pool Facelift!

2008-10-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

This past week it was time for an extreme makeover for our pool. The paint had been peeling off the bottom of the pool for quite some time now and it was time to take action. We drained the pool and then painted it this majestic ice blue color!

Current...

2008-09-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

Currently I am serving on the YWAM base as the Maintenance department head. I have three other guys that I work with. We do pretty much everything from mowing the lawn to fixing leaky things everywhere. I enjoy the job for the challenging aspects of learning more about fix-it solutions and whatnot. I will be doing this at least until January.

2008-09-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Engaged on September 5th to Leah Brandenburg!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-14T17:14:00.001-07:00

in Montana in July

2008-09-14T17:14:00.000-07:00