NIGHT SWIMMING WITH THE MANTA RAYS OFF THE SHERATON HOTEL WITH THE WINNS.

Diving with the Manta Rays has been the highlight of our tourism, swimming under the moon and the man made lights of the Sheraton Hotel and the dive boat had a wonderfully peaceful rhythm to it, as did the Hawaiian music wafting over the rocks and ocean. The dive lasted almost two hours with instructions and all, a video diver recorded the snorkeling for us as the Manta Ray’s kept eating right in front of our faces; the DVD will be about 15 minutes long and will be set to Hawaiian music. The Winn’s and we will share one DVD, I’m going to try and post it Saturday.

There where two Manta Rays tonight, one was six feet wide, the other was ten feet across.
The dive boat has lights, as does the Sheraton Hotel, plus the dive boat has divers that go
down to twenty-five feet with lights. The lights act like the Sun, which attracts the plankton, 
the Manta Ray feeds solely on plankton, so when the Rays see the lights, they know that food will be there.

The Manta Ray swims in shallow water below the plankton and then they do
back flips with their mouths wide open, by swimming they suck in the plankton.
When they did their flips, they came within 2 or 3 inches of us. Tonight two Manta Rays put
on a show for an hour, we could hear each other laugh and shout out joyful sounds as they
would flip below us and arch themselves so their giant gaping mouths would come straight at you.
The visibility was excellent, and the sea life came to action as divers, lights, camera and food were all in action.
Great, great time.

PICTURES FOR THE SHULGINS OF THE GROUNDS OF UNIVERSITY OF NATIONS FOR THE 50TH CELEBRATION (Click on any picture to enlarge).

Banyan Tree Cafes expansion and new two boat tree house for the kids.
One boat is Hawaiian, the other is Noah's Ark.

Side expansion of Banyan Cafe

Back expansion and view of down town Kona.

Hawaiian boat side view.

Noah's Ark finishing touches.

Massive meeting place for the 50th, this is above your old room dorms.
The walk way running across the path leads to your dorms above the pool area.

The Sail Coverings, a really big project for a weeks worth of show and tell.

65 eating area tents for the visitors.

Tent camping is on the soccer/football field, which is for the students who volunteered
their rooms for older visitors and some visitors.  

35 new flag poles were added, to the left will be food booths for people coming up to the base.

A view from the new dorms by the soccer fields, looking down on the eating area.
The building to the left is not done, but is being used for toilets and showers for the
 students and visitors who are camping.

Hundreds of YWAM flags lining the entry drive up the campus,
and all around the base, notice the flowers, please notice the flowers,
my friends planted all of them all over the base, tons of them, all over the base, tons.

SATURDAY ON THE EXTREME NORTH SHORE WITH THE WINNS.

The famous "Bottle Brush Tree" that nobody knows about because they are going by it at 55 mph. Who put the bottles on the tree that hangs over a cliff, and how do they stay that way, the winds are fierce up here, like blow you off your feet fierce?

Speaking of fierce, who's two fierce friends of ours on vacation, Gary and Karen Winn.
Fun, fun day, with fun, fun friends.



Pololu Valley was gotten to, down a very rocky path, and it was steep, athough short, it had a beautiful black sands beach and lagoon. This is the extreme north shore of the big island, the road ends here.



This was a very big beach, with very few people and no one went in the water, very, very rough and twirling like a washing machine, no rhythm, just mayhem, looks good, but junk, ya know.

Looking back up the river to the lagoon, great drift wood for hiking sticks, that's what they are looking for, Karen found a great one and gave it to me for the painful hike back up the boulder strewn trail.

Just a cool looking picture from the beach back up the other side of the hills in the lagoon. 
People live down here illegally.



Illegal homesteaders, I didn't know if they were Hawaiian, or just hippies, but they built a cool Swiss Family type of home, they had the whole place for themselves. You can see there little blue tarp, lean to house beyond the hammock.



Two families on vacation from Portland, joining their friend who lives in the
the little town of Hawi, who owns this cool, old, Hilo Sampan Dodge, people use to
take rides in this for 5 cents and tour Hilo. Cool huh?

A very Swiss Family Tree House in a yard on the way to the Pololu lookout.
This was a massive well built tree house in a massive Banyan tree in a persons
front yard, drive too fast, or talk too much and you miss wonderful sights.

In the same neighborhood as the tree house was this very old,
little church and cemetery, it was touching to walk and read
the old tombstones and go inside this church. The stain glass
windows had peoples names and the dates of their birth and death, family members gave money for
these beautiful windows. They were 100 years old.

This same little town was the birth place of the great King Kamehameha,
who fought some great battles to unite all the islands, after which the islands
continued to grow and thrive. He is very revered, and rightly so, he died in Kona
right by where the pier is today. In fact we swim at the beach where his Ali'i house is still seen.



This is the very cool, old style Hawaiian town of Hawi, we ate
at the highly touted Bamboo Restaurant and had ice cream back across the street.
Both came highly recommended and neither disappointed.



This is the best ice cream place in Hawaii, and these are our Canadian friends we happened upon.

We ate inside by the screen doors and listened to Hawaiian music
as the gentle breeze filled our hearts, while the food filled our stomachs.

Our four ice cream chairs on the street, watching life ease by.

A cute store next to our ice cream chairs, shopping was a must for Karen and Carol.

TURKEYS AND WI-FIs

Well, here I sit on our last work Monday at 5:37 A.M. trying to bundle up some thoughts about what’s been happening with me, us, since I last posted on Tuesday, which was about “MAGIC”, which I know you’ve all read. I’ve still got no time to write, but here is a blast of facts beginning with Wednesday the 24^th.

Wi-Fi has been working on an on and off mode from Wednesday-Friday, it has been most off when I had a smattering of time to write, or the energy.

Wednesday in the kitchen was crazy fast with all the prep for THANKSGIVING, I helped pull apart and pan 62 turkeys…hot turkeys…with my bare hands.

Greasy, hot, slippery, turkeys.

No Wi-Fi when we got home. Took the holocaust van to Wal-Mart for much needed shopping, I dodged out after 20 minutes and walked across the street to Borders and read some Hemingway and had a muffin and decaf coffee for dinner, I then bought a great Christian book called “God Attachment.”

I got walked home at night a little lighter and little brighter.

Thursday was a super early day, I, and two others, Ron and Brenda, both from Canada, had the privilege of being team captains of crews for the massive onslaught of people and birds, with this privilege came a longer work day, and earlier work day, and a harder work day. We think we were picked because of our age, Vern said it was because of work ethic, we think a gaggle of 60 something’s was better than a flock of 20 something’s being in charge of anything.

We served at a breakneck pace 1000 people for Thanksgiving Lunch.

My crew had to resupply the quickly vanishing food lines, two tables, two lines for each table, cranberry, yams, turkey, salad, bread, butter, napkins, forks, knives, plates, etc.

My crew had to be at work at 5:00 for packing dinner sacks, so when they came to dinner they could pick up their dinner sacks, since there wasn’t going to be any dinner served at the campus that night.

All Mission Builders had to work only half day, all except me, Ron and Brenda.

SPECIAL NOTE: This is for Heather and Zhenya only, don’t anyone else read it. The Turkey Lunch line lasted from 12:00-2:00 and went all the way up past the pool, up past your building and up on the sidewalk that leads to your building.

The feeding of the birds was like the fishes and the loaves, except reversed, instead of the food multiplying, the people did.

WOW!

Buckwheat and I walked after work to our hangout, “On the Rocks,”resturant, to bury our feet in the beach sand, with the Tozers, from Moosonee, Canada, ya know, except it rained like never before, what a down pour, we were soaked to the bone, it lasted for a couple of hours, but it felt good after being punished by the bird people.

I can’t write about Friday and the weekend because the cattle vans are firing up their engines. Must run, this last week is the 50th Annivesay Celebration week with 5000 people expected, this last week should be fun. Hopefully, I'll post tonight.

A MAGICAL TIME.

Our time here in Kona, Hawaii, as Mission Builders has been filled with some very special times, through some very special friends, doing some very special things, seeing some very special sights, but none of it has been magical, until tonight.

There have been some physical trials, but never spiritual ones.

There have been some questions regarding our mental stamina, but never to the point of despair.

Our time has been trying regarding the long haul of it all.  The disconnect from family has been the hardest, at my age, with my past stroke scare; there is a panic to my time here. I haven’t said anything to Buckwheat, but I’ve often been in a state of silent, momentary panic regarding never seeing my family again, and was this wise to do, will something happen to me while I’m here, like what happened in Mammoth Mountain?

Within all the amazing times, there have been little bleeps of doubts, as to whether all of this is worth anything at all, and wouldn’t I have been wiser to have just stayed home. Of course when one writes about something like this people are going to blow it up to mean more than it means to me, so, let me say quickly that it’s been worth it.

We have made some extraordinary friendships; in fact I’m friends with Elizabeth and Tim Tozer for crying out loud, these very fun people are from Moosonee, Canada, just across the Moose River from their neighboring town of Moose Factory. Here are some facts about our new friend’s home:

Moosonee is a town in Ontario, Canada, on the Moose River approximatel 12 miles south of James Bay. It is a mispronunciation of a Cree adaptation of Anglo-Norman etymology. Moos- Marsh(Moose River), on-corner, ee-[one who lives there]. It is similar to Mus- Marsh, Kog- Koog or Cake[tract of land], ee-[one who lives there]

Moosonee is the railhead on James Bay of the Ontario Northland Railway where goods are transferred to barges and aircraft for transport to more northerly communities. Moosonee is not particularly far north, being located at 51°N—which is roughly the same latitude as Saskatoon, Calgary, London, UK, and Berlin—but is isolated due to its lack of road access to the rest of Ontario. The community was the site of a fur trading post set up in 1903 by Revillon Frères, competitors to the Hudson's Bay Company which later bought out Revillon.

Tim is my kitchen body and he is a Bush pilot in Moosonee, he is a Cree and lived on the Cree Reservation before he met Elizabeth. Time flies in supplies to outposts. He’s a Bush pilot for Pete’s sake.

Tonight was our final Mission Builders Tuesday night meeting. The Mission Builders leaders threw us a party up here at Hale Ola, with clam chowder, Sushi, Spicy Chicken Wings, Long Noodles, Kimshee, rolls, some kind of Korean fruit-soupy-veggie type of dish, with dessert. We were very touched by Glory, Buckwheat’s Korean friend who put a lot of work into it for us all.

The night was filled with fun, laughter, birthday singing (we sing happy birthday in all the languages), good by prayers for departing Mission Builders, fun, crazy singing, and praise. But for me two special things stand out, no three special things.

The first one is Jennet, a Hawaiian women from Oahu, who taught Hula to Tabea, the German, and Elizabeth Tozer from Moosonee, Ontario, Canada, and Katrina Tozer, Elizabeth’s very, very cute and smart young daughter, she’s maybe eight or ten. With Jennet leading they sang and danced to Melekelkimaka. It was pure delight with flash cameras piercing the nights black, truly wonderful.

The second was having all the Mission Builders who are leaving within the next two weeks coming up for prayer, there were maybe fifteen of us, as people prayed, tears filled the silent parts of the prayers, holding hands with all of my young and old International friends was very moving. Think of saying goodbye to newly built friendships after one week of camp, than times this by six.

We have been together for almost two months, day and night, living, praying, singing, laughing, traveling and eating together. Leaving meant feeling everyone’s love.

This was very tough.

The third thing was when Elizabeth Tozer from Moosonee, Ron from Canada, Uta from Germany, Joann from America, Michelle from Korea, and Audra from America sang some Angels are watching over you song to us. The nigh was moving and filled with emotion as you gazed out over all the nations and ages of all of these wonderful friends.

Tonight put the whole YWAM Mission Builders thing into perspective. We’ve been so touched by so many people. We know we’ve formed lasting friendships, and are deeply shaken to have come to the realization that we will not see most of our friends again, the best we can hope for is to keep in touch through email, and Facebook.

Buck and I took Sara from South Africa out to dinner last night, Sara is the most beautiful twenty four year old girl, she is very smart, very funny, and very mature, she to is leaving and asked Buck and I to pray for here as she heads back to South Africa and an uncertain future. Having three daughters makes me very protective for Sara. Buck and I prayed that if she needed anything that we would be there for her.

Tonight was a magical night of spirit and soul. Buck and I are grateful to God to have been privileged to have served Him here, and be a part of these wonderful people. Their accents, twangs, lilts and efforts with English will stay with me, even now at night on my blog, I’m full of whimsy and sadness as I think of them, and they will never know how much they mean to me, especially all the young girls.

Magic time has turned into Sandman time and another day of work.

Thank you Lord for calling us here, and calling them here, it’s been MAGICAL.

A Week End In Hilo, Body Surfing at Hapuna Beach, & Kitchen Picnic.

First stop, the Country Christian fair, Buck bought some awesome ear rings from The Masters Hand



Phyliss the ear ring maker and her best customer



The Christian Hawaiian Country Fair Band





Two Newfies at the Hawaiian Botanical Garden





The Leanig Tower of Buckwheat




A very big Banyan tree





Lester swinging on one tiny Banyan hanging root/limb




Our Hilo hotel room. Don't ever stay in Hilo...nothing to do, no beaches, sights, or pretty little things.




Opps, there are two pretty little things after all.




The most amazing little beach park on the road to Waimia



A local Hawaiian family living in the beach park, fresh water, tents, bathrooms, grass, beach, fishing...ONO!



Waipio Lookout. A Hawaiian homestead until a Tusnami wiped them out. Now, a local beach. Only Four Wheelers can make it down. The very steep road starts to my right.



Luki, Kevin, Ron and Robby (Chef Vern's very fun and cool son), cooking chicken, steak and playing music



Princess Buckwheat



Starbuck looking for Moby Dick, or is it Moby Dick looking for a Starbucks?




Sunsets, always pretty, all the time.




The WooChing family, Hero, Shannon, Psalm and Luki




Shannon, Hero and Luki's birthday cake





Buckwheat, Christina (German), Jueng He (Korean), Tabea (German) , Christin (American)



New Mission Builders, Gordon and Jennifer (Washington)



Two old Mission Builders, I mean old as being here for a long time, oops, what the heck, this is Ron and Sharon.




Two WooChings, which one, that's the question?



Chef Vern an Karen, preparing and hauling everything for the part, and this is having a day off from us, I don't thing its enough. Take tomorrow off Vern, take a trip to Hilo.