A week on project

Hello everyone,

It's hard to believe that we're wrapping up our 4th (and the staff's last) week of summer project - it's been an amazing journey so far, and I'd like to give you a glimpse of what we've been up to the for the past week:

Thursday 7/8: Prayer Van
Once a week, a few students from each campus take a day off to go in the prayer "van", which visits a different Oahu campus each week to pray over that campus, and then have lunch and some free time on the beach before heading back to UH. On Thursday, I went with the prayer group to Windward Community College, which currently has the largest Crusade movement on the island, with about 15-20 students (and growing!) that only began a few semesters ago when Tricia, the Hawaii staff team leader took a student from her church to share their faith once a week. It's amazing to see what God does in such a short amount of time and it definitely reminded me of the power of prayer.

Friday 7/9: Staff day
We had an extremely long staff meeting to place all 30 students in their leadership positions that they would have after we leave. On the bright side, I finally got to work out and lap swim!

Saturday 7/10: Team social day (alternates every other Saturday with a community service project or an outreach event)
This week, we had an outing to Pearl Harbor to honor those who gave their lives for our country and then a visit to the Swap Meet at Aloha Stadium, which is basically a giant street fair that puts the NYC ones to shame. The social team handed out slips of paper with "get to know you questions" for us to ask each other throughout the day, and I feel like I learned a lot about the students I was with, including worst haircuts :) and embarassing moments as well as more serious conversations about their testimonies and how the Lord led them to Summer Project.

Sunday 7/11: Church at Kaimuki Christian Church and Ohana Time
Ohana time has taken many different forms to build the team, but this particular night included some group games (like the human knot), followed by an encouragement activity where each team member had a sheet of paper with their name on it taped around the room, and everyone had 15 seconds to write a note before rotating to the next name. By the end of the night, we all had pages with 45 different notes of what others appreciated about us.

Monday 7/12: Day of rest, with men's women's time in the evening
Hung out at Waikiki beach with some other staff and enjoyed fresh takoyaki (Japanese octopus in fried batter covered in sauce). For women's time (my committee), we decided to let the students run this one. During our planning time, they talked about having a slumber party, but we (the staff women) never got details and we noticed some of the student women were acting suspiciously. It turns out that they had actually planned an appreciation night for us! It was a really sweet and encouraging time as each pair of roommates verbally affirmed each staff woman. I felt so loved!

Tuesday 7/13: Training, campus time, weekly meeting
During campus time, J and J from our team ran into R and had an opportunity to share the gospel with him. If you remember from a previous update, R is our HPU contact who has been so helpful in introducing us to other HPU students. He has become friends with most of our campus team members and spent a good amount of time hanging out with them, checking out our weekly meeting, and asking lots of questions about what we believe and what we're here to do. We think he's close to coming to Christ, but is unsure because he has been to church with Mormon friends before and doesn't quite know the difference between our beliefs.

Wednesday 7/14: Training, announcing student leadership positions
After hours in that Friday staff meeting and beyond, we challenged our students to their roles and announced them during training on Saturday. Of the 3 women I'm discipling, T will be leading our small group, C will lead women's time, and P will be the female project director. I'm so excited for them and how they'll grow as they step into these roles!

Only a few more days before I return to the mainland...I can't wait to see you all, but I'll also miss these students and staff. Please pray for us to finish strong and for the students to rise to the challenge as they run the project themselves for the next 3 weeks.

Please also pray for our team as we are experiencing a lot of conflict on our project, especially with one particular student who doesn't seem to recognize how his/her actions result in tension within the team and his/her various sub-teams. Issues that started small are now approaching serious proportions, so please pray for wisdom in how to proceed in managing this student (even if it means sending him/her home) especially since the staff are leaving in 3 days.

The staff are leading a time of conflict resolution during this Sunday night's ohana time, where we'll train students in healthy conflict resolution skills and then give them time to put into practice what they've learned with people they're in conflict with. Please pray for this time to be led by the Spirit, for students to address the issues at hand with truth and grace.

Thanks,
Jessica

Thanks for your prayers!
Jessica

PS - food post coming soon, by popular demand :)