As many of you know by now, we have relocated from Austin, Texas to the island of Maui in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This year has been one of great transition for us and we are eternally grateful to God for His blessings of family and friends who have been praying for direction for this next season of our lives. As for this next season, we are settling into life in the islands quite well. Moving to Hawaii is like moving to a third world country in some ways. As of this writing, 90% of the boxes we shipped over a month ago have not arrived and the ones that have bear little resemblance to the ones that we shipped. This is fine with us as we sold or gave away most of what we owned before we left. That may seem somewhat shocking but I've got to say it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. When we finally were rid of our last car and turned in the house key to our landlords in Austin, we then realized that we had no keys to anything but the kingdom.

We left Austin in the middle of an ice storm that had nearly shut the city down. Our intention was to fly out on Tuesday, the 16th however the airport had run out of the de-icing chemical so our flight was cancelled for one day. We finally were able to leave on Wednesday but had to spend the night in Phoenix. This turned out to be a tremendous blessing because we had the chance to spend the evening with friends who we had wanted to get to see for quite some time. Thursday morning we arrived at the airport only to to find our flight delayed due to mechanical problems. An hour and a half later we boarded the flight for Maui with all of our belongings in suitcases. We arrived six and a half hours later and were greeted at the airport by Pastor Robb Finberg and his sons. They loaded up our luggage and we headed up to our new home. The church has been so gracious to us and blessed us far beyond what we could ask or think. The Hawaiian people are quite possibly the most generous people we have ever met.

Maui has, at any given time 135,000 people on the island and 45,000 visitors. Each year, millions of people from all over the world visit Maui making it a gateway for spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth. This past Sunday there were represented in the congregation of our church, people from Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Korea, Sri Lanka, Fiji, and the Philippines, just to name a few. We're excited about this opportunity to give a message that can be carried all over the world. In addition to Pastoring, I have taken up the hobby/occupaton of underwater videographer. I have had the blessing of being able to work with a company who films marine life and locations around the island. This is a dream for me and an amazing thing to be able to do. Traci is fixing up the house and making it a home, Britain is patiently begging to learn how to surf, and Sara is making a ton of new friends with names like Makanna, Uilanni, and Kokomo.

It's hard to preach about heaven to the Hawaiian people because they believe, in some ways, they're already there. The spiritual nature of the people makes it possible to see miracles happen with great frequency for they're not crippled with unbelief. Hawaii has a rich Christian heritage stemming from a great revival that happened in the early 1800's. The seal of the state bears this inscription. "The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness" The belief at the time of that writing was that the very health of the land and those who lived on it would prosper and be in health even as their soul prospered. As unrighteousness has crept in, Hawaii has now become the most liberal of the states, nearly crossing the line into becoming a socialist society. Drugs and suicide plague the islands and the people who know the heritage are beginning to cry out to God to once again, visit the islands with a wave of revival. This cry is not only being made by those here in Maui, but in many congregations on the mainland as well. Is your heart hungry for revival? God promised that if we would hunger and thirst after righteousness, that we would be filled. I pray that God would visit this land, our land, with a manifestation of his Glory that would shake the nations. May it be so in our day.