$30,000

A friend and I just walked back from Anthony's coffee shop, one of the many struggling small businesses here - it seems like half of Paia is shutting down! Hawaii is being hit very hard by the economy because tourism is fading off. I've lost track of the number of people I've met who have lost their jobs and are searching for anything. A lot of people at my church have been moving back to the mainland. So in Anthony's this guy came over to talk to us and I thought he would just hit on us and move on, but no. We got into some political chitchat and he kept saying he was leaving but then walking back to tell us something else. When he finally left and we finally stopped laughing my friend was like, "It's times like this I wish I had a blog ..." And I remembered I have this and haven't written in ions ... so here I am.

Updates of the election were on the TV and after he got the lame jokes out of his system he started telling us that he doesn't know which candidate is better, but he was sure that Obama would win. He chuckled as he told us he would lose a lot of money if he didn't, because he'd put $30,000 on a bet. When I think how far $30,000 would go for me, it blows my mind that someone can just toss it out on a bet. What kills me even more is that he just got done telling us how he has been a businessowner for almost 40 years and this is the first time that he's ever felt scared. Everyone's fear is paralyzing them from spending which is screwing the economy over even more. He's been coming to Maui for 32 years and was distraught that most of his favorite waiters have moved off the island in the past few months.

The $30,000 deal made me assume he would vote for Obama, but he leaned in close to tell us that he couldn't vote for Obama for one reason. Abortion. His politically correct manners shined as he told us that he didn't want to take our rights away from us (we assured him we have no desire to exercise that "right"), but it's just wrong. And he can't imagine standing before God in judgment for all the babies he would have a hand in killing if he voted for someone who supported that. Amen! He owns some cemeteries on the side ("You see I did that cause I saw this whole thing comin!") and talked about the babies he's buried and how his daughter can't have children. He knew the stats on how much of our taxes go toward paying for abortion. Absolutely disgusting and heartbreaking.

It was refreshing to talk to him, because I have grown tired of people brushing abortion off as "just one issue of many." Who cares what a person says about anything if they think murder is justifiable? If human life is not at the core of their value system, there will be tragic repercussions to their behavior. Abortion is not just another issue! It is life or death and God calls us to choose LIFE. It's not about being "pro-life" and "pro-choice." The logical opposite of pro-life is pro-death no matter how they try to market it.

Yeah. I could go on but luckily for you there is a huge pile of homework calling my name. :)

But guess what?!
This past weekend our base had Manny's Mustache Marathon, a 7.1 mile run from the base in Haiku to one of the houses in Paia. I've never run more than three miles, so I thought I'd jog as much as I could and walk the rest, but I ran almost the entire thing! It was hot as heck but once I got to the portion along the ocean I was golden. I also felt like throwing up a few times, but then I'd see a guy up ahead and force myself to pass him. Smart comments had been thrown around beforehand, agitating me enough to make it my goal to pass at least two guys. I beat half the guys and was the top finisher for the girls!!! I still can't believe it. We had a BBQ on the beach to celebrate and the guys had a modeling faceoff to be judged for the best mustache. I guess the whole idea came out of a way for the guys to show off their sicknasty mustaches from "Overgrowth October." Oy vey.

nissan xterra baby!

Some of us volunteered at the Nissan Xterra World Championship triathlon in Wailea this weekend. Handing out drinks to the runners is a ton of fun. (Seriously!) Saturday is a 5 & 10K run and Sunday is the real televised deal of a one mile swim, 27 miles of biking on trails, and a six mile run.

malcolm muggeridge

"The greatest artists, saints, philosophers and, until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, . . . have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master-drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me untenable; and anyway I'd rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw." [mm]


"This life in us, . . . however low it flickers or fiercely burns, is still a divine flame which no man dare presume to put out, be his motives never so humane and enlightened. To suppose otherwise is to countenance a death-wish. Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other." [mm]

life life life

celebrating ada's birthday at flatbread! she is from norway & claims the pizza at flatbread is better than rome! i know i love it, but what don't i love to eat. ;)

my friend abbey & her baby Israel! we were on the same team to nepal & she is one of my favorite people in the world, hands down.

life is good. the leader of our girls small group has us list highlights and "lowlights" of our week when we meet together each week. i have to stop myself from going on and on about highlights! i am learning and growing so much. to be able to say that i am learning to KNOW the nature and character of God ... is amazing. it is a privilege and i am so thankful for this time to dig into His Word and His Truth for my life! so much happens every single day.

i was really encouraged when one of the staff said to me, "chelsea, do you see this?! can you see what the Lord is doing in you?" and went on to explain how much deep change she can see in me already, and how awesome it is for her to be able to watch. i was slightly jealous because i can't necessarily see it, but i do feel it and i am THRILLED to know that it is taking place. i am so hungry for Him and what i want more than anything else is the Lord. i love being around people who are hungry for Him. talk to people about the Lord. ask people about their testimonies - for their lives, for that week, for that day. it makes my day to be around people who love to talk about God. it's a shame that it's not more natural for everyone. i know that personally i need to talk to everyone about my love for Jesus. not just the people closest to me who i know love Him as well. He needs to be not only the forefront of my mind, but the forefront of my conversations. constantly.

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

waxer

don't mess with a man's woman.
i love being protected and am unashamedly a sap for love stories, so this analogy from waxer (our speaker) clicked immediately. :) anyone can mess with waxer or say what they want to about him, but the minute they say anything about his wife - "you'd better forget about it - it's all over!" a man will do anything to fight for and protect the woman he loves.

and what is the church to God? His Bride.
and what are people constantly bashing? the church.

what a convictingly great word ... to be careful when we start talking trash on His bride! it's also encouraging to know that God will redeem His church. that as His body we are on the forefront of His mind. waxer influenced me tremendously and i can't summarize everything God spoke to me and did inside of me this week. that was just one of many 'waxerisms' that will stay with me. i have a lot to apply to my living! he talked a lot about our role in the church to serve, and how when we are serving to serve people we will end up burnt out. when we live to truly serve the Lord and not man is when we will find fulfillment. another good line was that the key to frustration is unmet expectation. how easy is it to apply that to not only church, but relationships? work? life in general? we forget that we have both physical and spiritual needs to be met, and commit entirely too much time to meeting our physical needs. not that they aren't necessary, but they aren't everything. which is why we see people like michael jackson or britney spears having their physical needs perhaps met in excess, and yet they are going crazy. their spiritual needs aren't being met. (then there are the searchers like pamela anderson sticking up for PETA in a desparate attempt to find purpose, but that's not quite getting it either ...) instead of worshipping God they are worshipping themselves and receiving worship. and it's not just the rich and the famous - i am just as guilty. we are created to worship and serve God, not ourselves.

funkiness

the spiritual atmosphere in paia is notoriously heavy, as a lot of beliefs are mixed together and experimented with among the drifters. it gets prayed into a lot and i have not felt threatened or attacked during my time here. (which is so the Lord's hand, because i have heard some horrid paia stories.) apparently a lot of girls in our house have been having trouble sleeping and as one explained - "experiencing some funkiness." my roomy & i were oblivious until the other night when we were laughing away in a midnight conversation and i heard someone two rooms down quoting scripture. i said we should get up and pray with them but then we decided not to because we thought maybe they were just reading the bible out loud to each other to finish their assignment. (we read through the old testament.) of course they weren't doing homework and we had a house meeting about it last night.

in all honestly it was a frustrating meeting for me because i had been sleeping and feeling fine, and evidently i'm an ignorance-is-bliss kinda girl because it freaked me out. last night i had trouble sleeping and woke up a lot and had a huge headache this morning. go figure. pray for protection and for deep, refreshing sleep. i hesitate to even write about this, because i hate to give the devil any attention. i think his work gets recognized way too quickly and if we had that much fear of the Lord and His power we would be much better off! if satan has the power that he does, so what? it should only lead us to a fuller realization of the power of our God who defeated satan completely!

the best part of the house meeting was hearing that some of the guys (who all live in a house one block away) had been waking up in the middle of the night sensing a need to pray over our house. for a few nights they had been right outside praying over us around 3am. two nights in a row the exact same van drove down our street and each time it saw the guys would stop suddenly and turn around. we live on a one way street. even though the doors get locked at night they had been keeping the key on a ledge beside the front door. (they moved it to a lockbox now, thankfully.) God has been faithfully protecting us from only He knows what! what an encouraging blessing to know there are guys humbly waking up to intercede through the night because they are that sensitive to His Spirit. thank you Lord!

lectures

A large chunk of my time here is spent in lectures. Our first and second week were taught by staff and mainly by the YWAM Maui base director, Tom Osterhus. I have very much respect for Tom and his ability to effectively communicate the wisdom the Lord has given him. He did "Biblical Overview" last week which might sound dry, but is far from it! I absolutely LOVED the entire week and grew so much. You leave with headaches and have conversations and wrestle with things, and know God is stretching you and making you who He has created you to be. This week was "Inductive Bible Study." I had gone through it before so it wasn't new information, but I was able to practice it and feel comfortable with the concept now. We have a more in-depth project due in a month, so we'll see if I'm still saying that once I get into Phillipians.

Here are some excerpts from the first few weeks ...

• God knows what His potential through me is, and it is far beyond anything I can grasp!

• Having a Biblical worldview is important because ideas have consequences! This is a catchphrase for our school, and I'm fascinated by the examples we study. America was based on Biblical principles and prospered for so long because of that solid foundation we take for granted. Since we have turned away from those standards as a nation we have begun to fall into deeper depravity and until we turn back to the Lord, our nation will continue heading in a frightening direction. Nations like Nepal that are based on Hindu principles have never achieved much. Even a country like Finland which doesn't profess Christianity but is still based off of Christian ideals has reaped the benefits of living from godly guidelines. When North and South Korea split, the North remained communist and now has rampant starvation. South Korea turned to Christianity at the end of the war and is thriving. They actually send out more missionaries than anywhere besides the USA and even have four of the world's biggest churches!
• I was intrigued by the difference between consequential judgment (we sin and that has natural consequences/effects) and retribution (God's punishment). This came out of a discussion about people who say Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans was the people 'getting what was coming to them.'
• God has been teaching me so much, a lot of which might make you say 'Well duh Chels', but it is deeper than I can put into words. It's about connecting head knowledge with heart. It's about confirming truth inside of me and learning how to articulate it so that I can effectively communicate my passion for the Lord to the world.
  

• Theology can lead you into a deeper place of worship because it magnifies the TRUTH of who God is and as we get in touch with scriptures we learn who God really is. Worship is meant to be an expression of the TRUTH that we know. I am learning so much about truth. I'm also convicted of being a "sponge thinker" because I tend to just absorb and need to be more of a critical thinker in all of life. We took evaluations and almost everyone scored in the "secular humanist" range ... SCARY!

• "The marks of truth as Christianity conceived then are that it is supernaturally grounded, not developed within nature, objective not subjective, a revelation and not a construction, discovered by inquiry and not elected by a majority vote, authoritative and not a matter of personal choice." [Harry Blamires]

• The Abrahamic Covenant blows my mind. It opens my eyes to who God is and how much He loves us. Covenants in that day had to be walked out by both parties to signify commitment, and whoever broke it would be cursed. Imagine the fear that Abraham had to feel about entering a binding covenant with an infinite God! But God was the only one who had to walk through it. Whether Abraham broke it or not, God's promise to him would remain!

Yeahhh, that hardly scratches the surface. I am so thankful that I am here and for everything the Lord is revealing to me. Yesterday in our girls small group time I was one of the only ones not crying from the stress of the school and I was questioning myself like, 'Am I not putting enough into this Lord? Should I be more frazzled to be more stretched?' I can picture God laughing at me, but of course in the moment He calmed my ever so quick to compare spirit. We've got a good thing goin on Chels, and there is no need to compare yourself to anyone else. So many sweet times with God, every day. Whenever I'm gone I find a million more things to be thankful for about myself/family/life ... and lately a big one has been: work ethic. Thanks Ma! :)