Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great meal today at noon! Turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberries, dressing etc!
We are thankful for all of you, and that you let us come here!
Goota get to the beach.
love, us

More explanations!

Thanks Len for your comments! Glad someone is looking at this blog of ours! Yes, this missionary work is very hard! But know that we are being used in mighty ways, even when we wash rags, dust furniture and fold clothes! (in the heat while watching palm trees wave and smelling plumerias, and listening to doves coo, and seeing the cruise ships resting in the harbor!)
So, the other pictures......one was Angie leading a mission builder meeting last Tues. I think Cathy is in the picture.
Another couple are at the Lutheran church, one of the building and one of the class I went to. That was last Sunday. The ocean view is a little distracting for sermon listening.
Tomorrow we go to a DTS (Discipleship Training Session) called Compassion. It is one of the "schools" this term and we are allowed to sit in on one for one day. Then the rest of the day we "reflect", probably at a beach! We actually have done a lot of reflecting while here and it has been very good for us. We are still getting along very well as roomies! Both of us like to read at night and neither of us are crazy about getting up in the morning! We don't usually make the breakfast van run. Too early!!
Tuesday and Wednesday are our last working days, and then Thursday and Friday we clean up, and do all the last minutes things that we haven't been able to do before because we are always working during the day!
There are many aspects to this experience.....I could write a book! I have been keeping a journal but it is hard to find time to write every day! So much goes on, way more than I ever thought!
God is good all the time. All the time God is good. And people here are the same as at home, with stories and struggles and quesions and hugs and words of wisdom and encouragement and smiles. Maybe more laid back than at home sometimes, the Hawaiian style.
So, ahuwi ho, (have no clue how to spell that, but it means....until we meet again!)
Aloha,
Marlys and Cathy

Explanations to the pictures!

Now that you have had time to make up stories about the last 14 picture I sent, I will tell you the real stories, although I imagine you figured some of them out! Of course there are 2 Booster shots, one at Curves where I have been only once as it is quite far away, and one at the entrance to the UofNations where we work. You will see Cathy in the walkin fridge getting some cold air. I think the heat bothers her more than me! The flowers in there were from the big staff feast. I don't know who put them there but after a week I took them out and put them in a place where everyone can see them and enjoy them. They are gorgeous!
We had shaved ice one night at a (get this.......) Scandinavian place! It is like a snow cone, and I finally felt a bit chilled, oh should I say, a little less warm, which is how we put it mostly!
The kids with me are the Smiths from Shaunavon. It was Austin's 6th birthday that day! They are fun to have around and live on the same floor as us.
One picture is of some leis from the Kona Coffee Festival lei competition. The entries were all so beautiful!
A Hawaiian sunset....nothing like it, except at Hastings Lake perhaps!!
Us girls at at ice cream place for Cathy's birthday! Their husbands were there too, but not ours. Soon though......5 days only till we meet them at the airport!
It is fantastic here. I can't remember the other pics so I will post this one and come back!

Explanations at a later time. For now, imagine what they are about!

Hope you enjoy these too!

More Pictures Again!

Third week here!

Well, we are into our third week! Cathy continues in the boutique, doing lots of folding and meeting lots of people. I continue to do laundry, clean rooms, and serve lunches for up to 100 staff! I think we are going to make banana bread for next Tues. Wish I had my home recipe. Didn't know I had to pack my cookbook!
Today is Cathy's birthday so we are going to go to an ice cream place, called Coldstone, a bunch of us, while the rest are at Wal-Mart. She has to drive the van there tonight. I stuck "quite a few" Canadian flags in her supper, to take the place of candles!
You can pray that my cough and sore throat and neck get better. Too late nights, too early mornings, too much talking!
Wow! I wish you were here right now to see the view out this window where I am sitting. The sun is big and round, just above a row of fern palm trees and over the ocean! It is gorgeous! It will set about 6:00.
Did you know that the Hawaiian language only has 12 letters? Can you guess what they are?
I went snorkelling for the first time on Sunday! Saw yellow fish and blue fish and loved it! Now I need an underwater camera!
Everything is so open air here. We eat outdoors. Cut hair outdoors. Serve food outdoors. Have no windows some places. Leave doors open all day. Put gecko covers (an extra sheet) over guest beds so that they are protected from gecko poop! Ride on scooters (well, not me yet, but everyone else does). Mow grass in the rain. Walk in the rain. Run fans 24 hours a day. Laugh a lot. Play cockroach jokes on the other couples in our building on our floor. (I bought a fake one!)
Last night 2 of the girls from Switzerland left. That is not easy to do, for them or for the friends they have made. The couples on our floor leave this weekend, and I am already wondering what we will do without them.
Last night we had our weekly Mission Builder meeting, and we prayed over the ones who were leaving. So many prayed, and all in their own language. It was amazing and so uplifting, but I couldn't help but get all choked up. I will never forget it or the people I have met here. It is more about the relationships than the work I think. And sharing our faith and our joys and struggles and learning from each other. There have been some very wise people we have met who have been a help to me already.
I have been in touch with Melody and David Brager at Haggai on Maui by email. One of the fellows here, worked there for 4 months this summer, when Amy's good friend from LCBI and Calgary was there. So I have seen pictures of her, and Amy probably saw pictures of this man before I even got here. He was there with his son. It is a small world. And yesterday 9 people came from Shaunavon, where Mom was born. They know many people I know, and I am even related in a way to them!
They know Kara's CLBI roommate, Lynnae, from Shaunavon too!
It is hard to post more pictures unless I borrow a laptop, so for now this will have to do.
You are in my prayers, and I think of you lots!
I would love to share more with any of you when I get home! It is going fast, and we are getting panicky about all the things we still want to do! Especially when our guys come!!
Thanks for your continued prayers for us and the Mission Builder and YWAM work here.
Oh, yes, we went to the Lutheran Church last Sunday, because we had rented a car and had a way there. It was just like home, but we got knitted leis as visitors!
Haven't been to my room yet so need so better go before I miss the van!
Love, Marlys (and Cathy, the birthday gal)

Third round of pictures! Yea!

These pictures can only be added 5 at a time, so it is a bit slow, and sometimes I have to do it twice because the internet doesn't download them for some reason.
Anyway, last Sat. evening Cathy and I went for our usual McDonald's parfait, and met a guy from campus. He was with Michael, the fellow in the picture with me and introduced us. Guess where he is from? PNG! Mt. Hagen actually. We never did get there when we visited the Haabs but it is the base for MAF. So it was really fun to talk to him.
The next 3 pics are back at the Kona Coffee tasting festival. Cathy had a great time sampling all the different kinds. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but I actually did try little sips of 2 different kinds, so here I am!
The Kona Inn in this town is bright pink, and the 2 washrooms are located at the end of a very pink and narrow walkway, quite high above the ground. It is the "Loo with a View". Anyway, this group of kids thought it quite amusing. They are also mission builders and students and are from Norway and Sweden, so we had a good time together laughing at this site. One of the kids is Preben again, and I think Kristina, and Albert, and I'm not sure of the other one. Oh, Hannah, I think. She saw me today and recognized me as the one from the village that she took pictures with! Cathy is washing her hands after her visit to the loo! We met quite a few people here and enjoyed the pinkness, and the ocean view, which is quite spectacular from us here. But it was hazy and hard to photograph.
Then there is me painting a desk in our laundry room area. I have also painted a phone booth, but it needs another coat. Today we were too busy cleaning rooms and doing laundry. It reminds me of when I cleaned Scratches Cabins in Banff for a month after Gr. 11! Never thought I'd be doing the same kind of thing again! And with kids the same age again, but me at past 50!!
Cathy and I took a long walk tonight. We were cooked by the time we got back and it was 9:00.

Second round of Picture

Hi! This time we have Cathy and her supervisor, Nelta, folding clothes in the Boutique, a daily ritual!

The kids in the van are coming back from a coffee festival up the mountain a bit on Sat. It was at a small artist's village. That is Preben from Oslo, Cathy, me, and Dionne, from Winnipeg, who came the same day as us, and who loves taking pictures even more than me.

The beach pictures are from Sun. Nov. 4, at Hapuna Beach. It would have been a good time if it hadn't rained the minute I got in the water! Actually, I got rather chilled and had a very hot shower when we got back. There were 2 van loads of us, mostly kids. Most of them slept for the hour home. Typical! It really poured so you probably don't have to feel jealous of us here in Hawaii on that day. We got back to our room and wrote postcards, read and napped. Just like a normal sunday afternoon!

The next picture is of our kids at the Monday 8:00 worship service for all workers and students to begin the week. I really enjoyed this one, lots of good music, and the kids dancing all over. I think I learned a neat new song for KidFEST if I can remember it. I tried to video it.

I am going to try to download 5 more pictures before bedtime. Hope you enjoyed these!

Yea, pictures!

ures

Well, here we are fínally. I am writing on a German computer so this is very slow cause the keyboard is all mixed up. But Karina has been so nice to let us download and show us how to post pictures. I am sitting outside the girls dorm and there is a cool breeze. We had rain today, a real downpour during supper. Some kids have come by to trick or treat, and lots of people were dressed up on the campus and at WalMart. The pictures are a variety cause we cannot do it all at once. We got leis when we arrived and in the pics we are sitting on our beds. One building is where I do housecleaning, called the GO center, Global Outreach, a hotel-conference building that we clean. I work with some zoung gals. Cathz works in the Boutique, no pic zet. There is a picture of where we wait after work and meals for the van to take us back to our dorms, about a km. awaz from the campus. We went to church here right at the ocean, and I visited one kids class - outdoors. One girl drew mz picture! On Sat., the daz after we got here, we roamed a bit downtown and bz the ocean, and got to the farmers market where we bought some neat fruit! We wént to our first beach on Sundaz with a couple van loads of mission builders. Saw some neat turtles. Last night we went out to the place where YWAM began and had a bonfire and saw the building thez are restoring. Saw it bz flashlight as there is no electiricitz out there. We get up and take the 6:45 van if we want breakfast and one hour later if not.I work 8-4:30. Cathz is off at 4:oo. It is quite the experience being with all these people from all over the world. We,ve enjoyed that. And there focus is all the same, to reach the world for Jesus and seek his will for their lives. Manz conversations around us are focused on this and it is good to hear. I still am amazed to be here and wonder at the beauty every day. God is good and we are blessed in this place. Thanks to zou who have read our blog and sent us messages. It means a lot! It is time to get to bed. Thanks too for zour prazers.