As far as summer missions related stuff goes, I have gotten my plane ticket info and finally some information about orientation! So I officially leave on June 02 at 10:15 AM Atlanta time and arrive after a non-stop flight to Honolulu at 1:30 PM Hawaii time. Do not be deceived, the trip is longer than 3 hours. Its actually 9 hours! Woot! We are scheduled to com back on July 28 leaving Honolulu at 3:15 PM Hawaii time and arrive in Atlanta at 5:35 AM. Please ask for blessing on who ever has to pick me up at that ridiculous hour :-P
Orientation weekend looks like it is going to be pretty cool. The Good news is that the commissioning service on Saturday starts at 2:30, which means I will be able to get out of there in time to make it to my initiation into Delta Sigma Pi at 6PM! God is sooooo good! That weekend is going to be good no doubt! I will get to have some uality time with my missions partner as well as our other brothers and sisters going out on the field this summer.
In other news, there have been a lot of realy cool things that keep reaffirming that I am supposed to go on this trip. I really think one of the coolest things God does is that he sets up little reminders and check points right under your nose and you don't know their significance until later. Let me start from one of the cooler instances. One of the first "check point" that God presented me has to do with a shower curtain. Back in the 6th gradeish time period of my life, we spruced up my bathroom. My mom made me a shower curtain and said it could be any design I chose. I had chosen a beach island pattern with a special resort and palms and kyak like boats in the water. Just recently my mom told me that when she was making the curtain with a friend that her friend pointed out tht it was actually supposed to be Daimond head beach, at the bottom of Oahu!
How cool is that???Another has been developing for a couple of years. In preparation for this trip, my mom has gotten some really good reading material on Hawaii and its culture. She has been reading through them and told me the ther night that if I recive a red envelope sometime near my birthday, that I should accept it. Apparently red is the lucky color in Hawaii, which makes sense given that Hawaii is heavlily influanced by asain cultures and red is a luck color there too. This struck me as quite interesting because I grew up really liking the color blue, but since about my sienor year of high school, my taste has changed to red. Its funny because after that point I became particularly fond of red. When I got a new car, it had red interior lighting.
When I got my phone for this round of contract, I decided to go with the red color, where as I would have normally gone with generic black or metal.
Another cool, and probly the more ironic was the color of "send me now" cause braclet I chose at Confluence... you guessed it, its red.
So those are a few of the things that are just getting me soooo pumped about this trip and How God is in every thread of it!In closing, I like to leave you with a provocitive thought. Last Sunday I heard some really encouraging words. During our college bible study, the college minister talked about this guy named C. T. Studd. This guy was an excellent Cricket player in his prime, but he is better known for the mission work he did setting up opium recovery clinics in asia and ending his missionary carrer in a culture of cannabalism where he was able to share God with these natives and evetually God turned the culture around to using Studd and his family. In this study the minister brought up one of C.T. Studd's quotes-
"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell."
This has really been on my mind all week and speaks to me so greatly. Although I may not be going to Hawaii to meet a physical need like poverty, I am going to a spiritual battle field. Please pray for me and my partner Todd as we prepare our hearts, as we get our information at orientation weekend, and for the hearts that the Holy Spirit is plowing as we speak in Hawaii and all that Todd and I encounter.
~D-Rice
1 comments:
I like it! :)