Hello to all of my loved ones. I miss you and wanted to tell you thank you so much for your support and prayers. Today my dear friend Becca Wall surprised me at the Starbucks we have here in Manoa Valley just a short walk away from our base. My staff Lauren pulled me aside from a small group meeting to ask me if I wanted to help her bring back coffee for the staff before our lecture and I was like, sweet! of course I'll skip out on a small meeting to get coffee, I love coffee. So we were walking there and I was in this deep conversation with Lauren and all of the sudden as we were crossing the street Becca Wall walks out of Starbucks and it took me a second to understand what my eyes were seeing. I about wet my pants in disbelief of her presence! I dropped my purse once I got to the sidewalk and started crying I was so pleased and blessed to have a good friend from home be there to hug me and love me. Oh familiarity is so cool when you dont have it for a while. What an awesome surprise. Thankyou Ellie for getting a hold of Lauren. Thank you Becca so much for taking time to see me, it meant so much to me and my heart needed it. I am so sorry I could not stay longer to visit you but wow was that just a trip to see someone that I did not expect to see while I was here. Thank you again! Anyways I am doing just fine here and I am, like usual, procrastinating on doing some stuff that was due like two weeks ago and I have to finish this book by the end of the week which I am not even half way through so that is where I am off to. By the way for all you Washingtonians, not to make you jealous, but the weather is wonderful and I am sitting in the sun and it feels great. hah. I love you all so much and you mean so much to me.

ISLAND BREEZE

I am doing excellent here. I am in Kona now the big island of Hawaii and God is changing my life! I believe that my attitude is transforming into something wonderful, I am still being challenged by it but God has given me grace to love people here and to love Hawaii, as weird as that sounds. I wish you could be here to experience all of this. I have heard many amazing testimonies of students from all nations here. There seriously is so many people from all over the world here in the Kona YWAM. I have been lucky to meet them and hear their hearts and the persecutions they have experienced as followers of christ. I have cried a lot and God has won over my heart and soul. I dont deserve this life that he has given me but he has given it to me and I am choosing to do what he has called me to do. I dont know all of what that is but so far that is in India. With the children and the men and women there. To serve them and to be welcomed into their culture and learn from them as much as I can. Today it was so wonderful. We have these true Hawaiian islanders that have come to visit Kona and they taught us about Protocol which is when you come to a chief of a village and formally ask them for their approval and acceptance to visit, and the two parties give gifts in exchange and they taught us the "hone" (sp?) which is a Maori tradition and it means to breathe in the same breath to show that they are welcomed. So the hawaiian group called the Island Breeze Ministry came to us through protocol and we welcomed them and their group as well as they welcomed us and our group. It was truly beautiful how God is a God of culture and that we are to honor the cultures around us and respect the people within that culture. Upon learning about this culture of the Hawaiians it brought about something in our school here at YWAM. A native man from the Philippines came up on stage in representation of his country and shared with us his testimony. He explained how he first was uninterested in Missions because they came into his country to share gospel and along with that htey did not embrace the culture of his people, instead the missionaries came in and pressed the western culture on his people. He was offended until someone encouraged him to come to America and do a DTS in Kona. As he was sharing this with us, the leader of YWAM Kona, came up and asked for the forgiveness towards his country and many countries for not coming in properly and embracing the cultures of each country and learning from them and this action of hers started a wave of people coming forth representing their countries and asking for the forgiveness of their country and the persecution and wrong doings of our ancestors. I cried the whole time because I could definitely sense the presence of God working in all of our hearts as Nations coming together and asking one another for the forgiveness of our people and the bloodshed and offenses that we have done towards each other. Wow, talk about unity amongst God's people! This seriously lasted for three hours, then we danced together and sang together all 400 people of all colors, all nations, and all hearts holding hands unity, love, and forgiveness. I know my mom is please right now because she if anyone has pressed upon my heart, how important and honoring it is to God to forgive someone and as well, asking them for their forgiveness towards me. Mother, you would have loved it! My friend Anna and I took a walk together this morning around the campus here in Kona, and prayed for each other and our friends and family, it was so wonderful and we really experienced God's creation because the campus is set up on a hill and it is so close to the ocean and you can overlook everything, we even watch the sun rise. I dont know about you but I believe our God is amazing and deserves all of our glory and praise. I wish you all were here seriously because I have never in my life experienced God like this, and I know why now, I have come forth humbling myself as his daughter and have asked from him to open my eyes from being blind all these years and I know that I am but vapor to him and He has given me grace and mercy which is all I could ask for. I love you all so much and miss home so much but my place is here for now where God can work in my heart and I know this now and understand it. So I apologize to everyone at home whom I have called and complained a lot about the conditions I have been living in and how hard it was for me to get use to the unfamiliarity of everything. Yes I was uncomfortable here for quite some time and now I see. So thank you all for your prayers, I have never needed them so much before and I now can appreciate them. I pray for blessings to you all and know that I miss you and love you. See you soon.
YOU KNOW REALLY, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CROSS!

kathryn