I hope you all are doing well. I arrived safely in Honolulu Sunday afternoon and was stunned at the colors and the beauty of these islands. As we approached the island, I could see the lush green of the mountains in the middle of waters bluer than I could have ever imagined. It seems that everywhere I turn on campus there is another bush or tree with flowers of another color, but my favorite tree is the one outside my window with the violent orange flowers. (I've posted them below)
Yet in spite of all this beauty, there is much darkness on these islands, and the vision of this trip is to help push back this darkness and bring the light of the gospel. We hit the ground running
on Monday with a training session followed by beach evangelism, going out in pairs and initiating spiritual conversations with complete strangers. People were pretty friendly and open to talking, so my partner and I had some good conversations, including one with a nursing student, a young local, and a French man (in French...we managed to chat for a good 10 minutes before we reached the limits of our vocabulary). All together, our group spoke to 50-60 people on Monday, and of those, 5 people came to Christ! Praise God! Please pray for our new brothers and sisters in Christ
Today, we were assigned to one of three campuses, and we went to orient ourselves with the campus and student culture as well as to pray over it for the work that God will do while we're here and for the people we will meet. I am assigned to the campus where we're staying, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the other two campuses are Kapiolani Community College and Hawaii Pacific University. We will be on these campuses three days a week, and after the first two weeks, the staff will no longer come on campus with us -- they have made it very clear that we, the students, will have ownership of the movements that we're launching (or rather, God is launching through us). It's a frightening thought that we're being entrusted with so
much, so please pray that we will be continually reminded that we are not doing this on our own but through Christ (Philippians 4:13), and that all the glory belongs to God.
I know this has been a long update, but I do have a few more prayer
requests before I go.
- Praise God for bringing all of our staff and team members safely to Hawaii. Several people had ridiculously long delays and reroutes, but they are finally all here.
- Praise God for the bonding that is quickly occurring within our team! It's only been three days, but I feel like I've known them for much longer.
- Pray that we would be honest with and supportive of each other.
- Some of my teammates have not yet finished raising their support and still have a long way to go. Please pray that God will bring in support like a flood and that their supporters will give generously.
- I've been feeling quite mechanical and dispassionate about the work I'm doing here. Please pray that God would restore the joy of his salvation (Psalm 51:12) and that the knowledge of the gospel would move from my head into my heart.
- Please pray for the students that we will meet and get to know this summer. Thank God for the ways that He has already worked in each of their lives and pray that He will continue to pave the way and guide us in our conversations.
Thank you for all of your support.
In Him,
Jessica
Picture time!
The view of Oahu from the airplane. The inlet on the right is Pearl Harbor.
Another view from the plane. I couldn't believe the blue-ness of the water
The view from my room window. Downtown Honolulu is in the top left corner.
UH at sunrise as viewed from my front door. I was up early because of the jetlag (a 6 hour difference from Eastern Standard Time)
Pink clouds over downtown Honolulu at sunrise
The view from my room window. Downtown Honolulu is in the top left corner.
UH at sunrise as viewed from my front door. I was up early because of the jetlag (a 6 hour difference from Eastern Standard Time)
Pink clouds over downtown Honolulu at sunrise
My UH campus team
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