Hawaiian Mission Builder Adventures

More pictures from Hawaii!

2007-12-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

A couple mornings the last week I got up at 5:40 and walked down to the ocean to see the cruise ship come in around the corner in the dark! I really enjoyed watching the ocean that early in the morning! (for me that is amazing!). Also saw some triathlon swimmers and canoe-ers. Hawaii at dawn is the best part of the day, not so hot!!

On campus they were trimming the coconut trees and so there were lots of coconuts on the ground. Jac, my supervisor, took one and hacked at it so that we could try the coconut milk. It really wasn't that good. Maybe not ripe enough. Anyway, we had fun!

Another of my jobs at the Global Outreach (GO) center was to water the plants in the courtyard and on the patio. It was rather a guessing game as I have no idea how much to water these Hawaiian plants. But it was something I felt at home doing, and it always felt good to get wet in the heat!

Anytime someone left we had a going away party. For mine we had apple pie and ice cream. These are the ones I was working with at the end....Jac from Oregon, Sujung from Korea, Amanda from California, and Esther (who had just come), from South Dakota. Esther is also a teacher, just retired from Kindergarten, so she was able to show me around the campus school as her son works on staff at the Uof N.

Here I am in our room, which is in the upheaval of packing, making leis for the guys. I picked the plumeria flowers off the ground from trees at the campus, and strung them on dental floss!
Leis are given often in Hawaii, for recognition, for welcome, as thank-yous, etc. You can buy them, but when the flowers are everywhere, it was fun to make them myself!!

Next time......pictures from our trip around the island with the guys!

Blessings to you all!

Back home in Alberta again!

2007-12-04T10:33:00.001-08:00

Hi from frosty Alberta! Len and I landed back to the land of cold, fog and snow late on Wed. Nov. 28, after he had joined me for 4 wonderful days in Hawaii. I was able to show him around where we lived and worked and then we toured the rest of the island!
The right picture shows the class that Cathy and I attended one Monday morning. It was a Compassion DTS (Discipleship Training School). For every month we work, we are allowed 1 day off to go to their morning classes, and then "reflect" the rest of the day. So it was good to see what the students do, and to hear their speaker.

The next left picture is me with the Mission Builder coordinators Angie and Bob at our last Mission Builder weekly meeting on Tues. Nov. 20. They do so much and are always busy at Hale Ola and on campus, making things work well for all of us.

The next one is of Cathy and her work student, Stacey. Each student has some job on campus that they do every day from 3-4:30ish. It was fun to get to know them too!

Each Tuesday afternoon there is a big staff meeting at Ohana (meaning "family") Court. This is a big open air arena where we also have our worship times on Monday mornings and Thursday evenings with all students, staff, and Mission Builders. One of our jobs in housekeeping was to serve lunch to these staff people on Tuesdays, about 100 of them. This day we made banana bread with chocolate chips (which was new to the Americans) and served apple pears. There was nothing left of our 10 loaves!

I miss being there! Having the pictures helps, and also hearing from new friends!

Cathy and Richard made it back late Saturday night, Dec. 1. They got to see Pearl Harbor too, spending 2 nights in Honolulu.

We had a great time as roomies! This experience is one we would recommend to anyone!

God blessed us in so many ways, and we felt honored to serve Him and His people in this way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-18T22:26:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-16T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hope you enjoy these too!

2007-11-16T22:34:00.000-08:00

More Pictures Again!

2007-11-16T22:23:00.000-08:00

Third week here!

2007-11-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-05T23:37:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-05T23:16:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-11-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

Yea, pictures!

2007-11-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

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.

2007-10-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

2007-10-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Oct. 27,07 Marlys and Cathy made is safely to Kona last night. They are staying in a dorm about one mile from the University of Nations. Today's schedule includes shopping and the beach and a similar schedule for tomorrow. Mission work sounds like alot of fun! Len

Departure Day Soon!

2007-10-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

Time has flown by and we fly out on Friday morning, less than 3 days away! We are excited, and are busy getting the last details taken care of at home, and trying to get our packing done!
I think our husbands have been briefed on everything for while we are away! They should be fine. We will miss them and our families, and hope that we are missed too!
It is quite strange to go to a place you do not know, and try to imagine yourself working there.
I am thankful that we go knowing we can trust God's direction and His care for us on this journey and adventure!
Hopefully we will figure out how to post pictures on here for you! If not, those of you who know me (Marlys), will surely get a chance to see many when we return!!
God bless all you are doing also!
Love, from Marlys ( and hi from Cathy too.........I am so glad to be doing this with her!)

The Hawaiian Team:)

2007-10-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to leave!

2007-10-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

In 3 weeks today, we will be starting to work. As yet, we do not know what we will be doing. Could be housekeeping, kitchen work, groundswork.......!!! We are excited! Still lots to do at home though before we go, to have things carry on without us at home, and to be ready for things that happen immediately on our return too!

Mission Builders in Kona, Hawaii!

2007-10-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Cathy and Marlys have been accepted to be Mission Builders at the University of the Nations in Kailua Kona, in November, for 4 weeks. We leave from Edmonton on Oct. 26! This is our blog! If you want to know how or what we are doing, we welcome you on to our blog!