I'm living a dream. You see, I have this imagination that works like the director of a film considering the score, the lighting, the visual enhancements, every look, detail, and nuance that will communicate in a deeper way with the audience. Events that seem boring, mundane, and insignificant to some can, for me, be a history altering moment with eternal significance and value. It's like this. Two people stand in front of a painting of the sky. One says, "I see an endless expanse with limitless possibilities, yet on the left the sky darkens and fortells of a storm to come. This explains the shading on the clouds and the direction and motion of the waves. The other guy says, "It's got alot of blue." I'm not the second guy. I like to explore the story as an author who delves instead of a journalist who simply describes. So as you can imagine, on a tropical island surrounded by people who are, shall we say "different", I would have no end of material to write about. And if you indeed come to that conclusion, you would be correct. However, the difference here is that the stories are already so colorful that there is no need for me to explore the meaning behind the colors of the sky and in doing so illuminate to you that the picture is not merely, ahem, blue. So let me tell you one such story that needs nothing but the facts for it's so fascinating in itself that...well, you'll see what I mean.

Friday morning, I went down the road through various gulches and corners of the rainforest, through Haiku to the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base there for the 8am worship gathering. The makeshift campus sits on a lush, soggy, green slope of land that hangs on the side of a gulch thick with ancient trees that make it look as if you could walk across the top of them. With multiple facilities and more people than rooms to accomidate them, the campus has that "hippie" vibe working itself out in a true sense of community. On this morning they decided to do worship outside because after all this is Hawaii. We gathered in a circle (because neo-hippie Jesus People like circles) and the worship team got in the center. "Now", says the worship leader, "We are going to illustrate the body of Christ today in our worship so the musicians will be the heart and rather than look inward we're going to take our focus outside so every one in the circle turn and face outside." With the accoustic guitars strummin and the dumbek drums humming the rhythm made it easy to move with the wind. Worshipping the Lord outside in an acoustic drum circle in Maui. Am I in a dream? Being on the wet side of the island meant that we were fortunate to have some dry weather in the morning but halfway through the worship a mist began to fall and I instinctively initially thought about seeking shelter. However the musicians kept on going and in spite of the rain seemed to have no plans to move. So there we stood. Around 50 people, in a circle, facing the outside, worshipping God, in the rain, on Maui. I looked up and to my left and saw a rainbow. Yes, a rainbow. This is the problem of writing like a journalist. The mere facts don't communicate the awesome sense of spiritual joy that such an event contains. Next Tuesday we'll be going down to Paia to share the Gospel and worship with these students. This must be a slice of the abundant life that Jesus was talking about.

I was asked recently how certain teachers have impacted my life over the years. It occurred to me that the ones who made the greatest impact I remember not so much for what they said, but for what they did.

In 5th grade I had a teacher named Mrs. Haugen in the little town of Lake Benton, MN.  We called her Mrs. H.  She looked and operated like the supernanny.  (Supernanny rocks by the way.)  Anyhow, most of my memories of her have nothing to do with what she said but a lot to do with what she did.  She had us make commercials with this new invention called a camcorder.  I still remember the commercial we made for 'Baxter Burneys Baked Beans'.  She had us doing plays on a regular basis and performing them for our peers and parents.  I was Rip Van Winkle once.  We had to construct some kind of vessel that would carry a raw egg four stories to the ground below without letting it break.  We flew kites while she taught us about weather.  We spent a good amount of time building and launching rockets in the football field.  We watched a lot of videos like 3-2-1 Contact (I still remember the theme song).  She was fascinated with the world and whenever anyone would travel on a vacation she would make sure they reported to the class in vivid detail what they had seen and done.  We painted a lot and cooked stuff that wasn't fit to eat.  We set fires and made messes and learned some really valuable lessons on the importance of teamwork.  Now that I type all of this, I have to reiterate that I can't remember anything she said.  But I'll never forget what she did.

There's quite a bit in the Bible about the dual productivity of doing and teaching. (Nick to Jesus in John 3..."We know that you're a teacher come from God for no one can DO these things you do except God be with Him." Acts 1..."This is a record o Theophilus of all that Jesus did and taught.") It's a fascinating study that illuminates the reality that in the Kingdom of God it's illegal just to talk. Having said that, I've been blown away at my Dad these past days. He and Mom arrived on the island last week and, without fail, have led at least one person to Christ every day since they've been here. I'm not just talking about an evangelical ambush, but obvious divine appointments in which a person who's hungry runs into someone looking to give away bread. I've heard more sermons of his than I can count, yet for all of the talking and invaluable conversation that we've shared (especially recently) his life preaches speaks far louder than he can. All of this is not to minimize the importance of 'saying' for the spoken/written word is a powerful creative force that can change a life. It's to maximize the vitality of the 'doing' for that is the very thing that, while difficult to master, can change the world. I'd like to try that sometime.

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.