Beach Thinking

What a week it has been! We have been on the go from wake up to bed time every day. With the exception of Friday and today, we have spent every day at the beach, swimming and snorkeling and sunbathing...or in my case turning into a lobster the first day and then spending the week swimming snorkeling and applying sunscreen while sitting as close to the shade as I can get. I have seen a ton of fish, some beautiful coral and rock and a couple of friendly sea turtles. It has been so amazing. 

Friday we took "the road to Hana" Hana is Hawaiian for Heaven, but the road to get there is chocked full of God's wonders. The first stop was a bamboo forest, and a short hike into the forest brings you to a magnificent waterfall that you could swim under if it weren't so powerful.  Truly amazing. We passed at least 30 waterfalls on the way, but only swam in the one. We stopped at a little shop that sold coconut ice cream, not coconut flavored ice cream, literally ice cream made out of coconut milk, coconut meat and coconut sugar. Also amazing. Then we came to the rainbow eucalyptus trees which are naturally brown and red and green and yellow, absolutely beautiful. Finally we reached Hana which was a lovely little town that still had streets and walls built by the ancient Hawaiian culture. On the way home we swam in a beach that had unbelievably aqua blue water and plumaria trees all around. 

This is the bamboo forest

On a more personal note, this has been a very interesting week. I have been under a lot of stress to get everything done and figured out, finances have been stretched a bit, and trying to figure out how everything will work with my visa has been difficult. My student visa will take a few more weeks to come through, but thankfully I still have a few months left on my social visa so I can still get into the country without a problem. It has been a very interesting task to balance the planning and faith aspect of everything that is going on with the fact that I am swimming with sea turtles and drinking out of coconuts. It finally got to the point where I had to simply stop and have some deep prayer to figure out what I needed to do. I was uncomfortable with doing something that could so potentially be offensive to people, to be here on Maui when things are still working themselves out, but then the tiniest phrase came to me. "God's fool." I had often thought of this phrase, but had never applied it to what I was doing until now. I had been telling myself that if God had not so blatantly been the one to set this up, then I would not have done it, and I kept thinking about how things "should have gone" but when I realized that this messy thing that I am in the middle of is God at work, showing people that things don't have to be perfect, and in fact sometimes you have to step way out on a limb it was as though it was suddenly ok. I am still trying to figure out what is the best and wisest way to handle the situation, but I am not nearly as stressed as I was. I have realized that God sent me to Maui for a reason, and that He is the one that is sending me over to Indonesia, and not only that but He is the one who picked the date (cause honestly, I didn't). 

So, with new found faith in what I am doing, and who I am doing it for I will embark on a whole new week here on Maui. This week will be entirely different than last week was. Last week was spending time with family (who is now gone) in a hotel and just hanging out. This week I am in a hostel (so please be in prayer for that) although it is a good one I think, the manager does not like people with an attitude and I already like the people I am bunking with. My cousins that I am visiting here will be back at work, so I will have much more time to myself. My plan is to rest and pray before heading on to Indonesia next Sunday. So, I hope you all will be praying for me this week, I will keep you updated on things as I can. I am confident and scared, but I know that God is with me. I send you all my love. Aloha.