Church

We have really been enjoying our church, North Shore Christian Church (The Tent Church). We have been faithful every Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights....hey, they serve delicious food at every gathering so how could we not be?! ;-) The people are very friendly and we feel comfortable being there. The church has about 100 people on any given Sunday and there are about 10-15 young adults go to the bible study on Wednesday. During our bible study, we talk about what Kahu (pastor) Steve preached about on Sunday, much like small groups at One Life. We are really loving it. There are a few young married couples in the small group and the rest are young, single adults. We have made lots of friends but definitely miss the ones we have back home!

The direction of the church seems to be looking quite exciting. From what we have heard, the leaders and church were kind of in a rut a few years ago. They weren't really reaching out...just doing their thing on Sunday. Well, we had dinner with the Youth Pastor/Assistant Pastor and his wife and they were just so on fire for God and making a change. It was so awesome to hear. The church is making steps to be more outward focused and reach out on the people of Kauai. I am very excited to see what kind of ministry opportunities we can be a part of.

Reaching out to people on Kauai can be quite difficult. Being a Christian isn't as common here as it is back in Ocala. Typically people are either super spiritual (in a yoga loving, tree hugging, Buddah worshipping kind of way) or don't care about life or the meaning of it and smoke a lot of weed among other things that feed the flesh. it would be pretty typical to be driving down the road behind some sort of work truck and smell weed coming from the driver while he is on duty. When it comes to teenagers on the island, drugs are an obvious problem as well as gang-type issues and many of the girls get pregnant before they graduate. I work with a guy and he's been to jail several times, has 3 kids and a couple of grandchildren ...and he's only 31! All that to say, people here desperately need God but are very difficult to reach. That's why we have to be the different in their life!

You can be praying for us to continue to make relationships that edify Christ with the people in the church as well as people outside. Why else are we here right? Can't just be a year long vacation! :-)

With love,
Houston and Brittany

Blessings: work and food

We haven't been on any adventures lately because God has definitely blessed us with a lot of work this week. Houston was asked to build an outdoor shower cover for one of James' aunt's properties. It turned out really great! She was super happy with it.

                                     

Doesn't it look awesome?!?

He was also able to pick up a side job to help out a guy doing lawn work, deliver some materials for someone and mow a couple lawns for Paradise Lawn care.  Houston and James finally got their trailer and a smaller lawn mower so they can get more work done!

                                                 

Just this week he was able to make probably twice as much as I have made the whole time at my job. I am thinking about quitting and joining forces with Houston doing side work! ;-) Not really but it is tempting! It was just really awesome to see God provide for us and still allow us to have some time to go to the beach and enjoy the island!

So, being in Hawaii has made us open our minds to new things a bit. This is a time to change and stretch ourselves. We decided that we needed to branch out with food a bit. We are eating more organic things and planting a garden but recently we gave ourselves a food challenge. This challenge came about when James' cousin Hali was in town and cooked a few meals for dinner. It seemed like every one of her meals had a food that we have never even heard of before. We decided that we needed to branch out a bit and try new foods. Our challenge is to try at least one food a week that we have never eaten or even heard of in some cases. I LOVE trying new foods....Houston not so much.... but he was so up for the challenge. The challenge is helping Houston branch out and try new foods but it is also helping me learn how to cook new foods and have a more versatile menu.  Some items on the list I have tried before but maybe have never cooked. It is SO MUCH FUN! Even Houston is getting all into it and pointing out crazy veggies that he wants to try. So far we have tried leeks, quinoa and kabocha (japanese pumpkin). We like all of them! Houston is even branching out with regular foods. I made some healthy gumbo-type stuff (picture below) and he ate it and liked it! Ya'll, this stuff has tomatoes, green peppers and onions among other things! Im telling you, back in Ocala he would have stuck up his nose to this! I am writing so much about food because this is a pretty big step for us!

Our garden is also doing pretty well. We are learning a lot about gardening and the fact that it takes work and time but it is so worth it to have food that you know where it is coming from! In Hawaii there is big controversy about GMO foods. Most people are so against it and even try to pass laws where all foods should be labeled if they are GMO or not. There isn't a ton of exposure about GMO on the mainland, but here people talk about it often. You should look it up if you aren interested in how our food is being genetically modified. :-) Anyways, we are loving having a garden and we just picked our first veggies today!

Look at those yummy squash! Well, a couple of them weren't so yummy. They had maggots in them.  :-( It's okay though because this whole garden thing is a learning process! We will eat a few of the squash and keep a closer eye on the ones that are still growing. Right now we have a cucumber, squash and some beans that are waiting to be picked. Its pretty exciting! I really find gardening something I can totally get into. It's just amazing to see life sprout from tiny seeds!

Wish you were here,

The Brothers

Naked Guy and more Hiking

Well Mason is out of the house now. It's a little weird to be honest. We just so used to having him around and always doing stuff with us!

We wore him out a bit the day he had his flight. His flight was taking off at 7pm so we decided to have one last adventure. Mason, Houston, Travis (ha! sounds like the Brothers) and I snorkeled for about 45 minutes to an hour from Ke'e beach to get to Hanakapi'ai beach. On our way we were able to see some reef, lots of beautiful scenery from the mountain, caves, turtles and...a butt naked man. Yeah. James said we would get used to seeing naked people while we are here. We got tired at one point from the swim so we decided to pull over onto the beach. Well, there was this butt naked dude standing facing the mountain with his hands in the air....probably worshipping some mountain god or something. Once we saw him, the whole pulling over idea sounded more like an awkward situation than a good idea....so we kept snorkeling on along to another section of the beach. We finally pull over and do a bit of looking around and Naked Guy come walking right towards us.  Unfortunately each of us got a good look at EVERYTHING as he walked past us. We didn't realize it, but our destination was super close so we decided to walk the beach instead of snorkel the rest of the way. We figured we would run into Naked Man again but we did not expect to see him laying on his back in the sand and doing kicking motions with his legs. It looked like he was riding a bicycle while laying down. Seriously? SO AWKWARD, but funny too.  We just avoided eye contact and made our way to Hanakapi'ai. We rested a bit on some warm rocks before we started the two mile hike back....barefoot. Yep...no shoes. On our way, tourists graced us with funny looks as well as "Way to go" or "You guys are tough." I thought it was a perfect last day for Mason. Naked Guy and all. :-)

Before we set out! 

This is where we saw Naked Guy. Sorry, no pictures of him! ;-)

On our barefoot hike back.

To cope with missing Mason, we had a cookout on the beach with some of James family and family friends, We made hot dogs and campfire bananas. The bananas were so awesome! We just cut the banana in half, loaded it with goodies (chocolate chips, marshmallows, peanut butter, cinnamon, and/or honey), wrapped it in foil and stuck it in the coals. DELISH. One of the family friends plays the banjo so we were entertained by his lovely music and singing while being warmed by the fire and starring at the stars. I thought being at the blueberry farm at night was the best place for the stars but they turn it up a notch over here. You can easily see the Milky Way pretty much every night and from probably anywhere on the island. It really makes you think about the vastness of God and get all deep thinking and stuff. :-) Its good to do that sometimes...to realize our creator is way bigger than us and our little problems. He's got it under control.

Friday night Houston and I went away for a couple of days to stay in a cabin in the mountains on the South side. Originally it was supposed to be a group of us, but people bailed and we weren't allowed to get our money back so Houston and I went alone. It was nice to have our own house for a bit. Our house has just been so busy for the past month and a half! It's always Houston, James, Nevin and I but we have had Mason there for a month and also James' cousin there for three weeks (most of the time overlapping with Mason). That's quite a bit of people in one house! Anyways, Houston and I stayed in some crappy little cabin but it was lots of fun. We had no service, no internet, no TV so we played cards and read and did a lot of hiking. We hiked the Canyon Trail to Waipo'o Falls. This was easily one my favorite hikes thus far. The views of the canyon were UNREAL! Pictures and video do nothing compared to actually being there. There was also a small waterfall and anther large one at the end of our hike. We stayed at the end of the trail to eat a snack while enjoying the view and sounds of mountain goats and waterfalls for about an hour. It was so amazing!

Aloha,
The Brothers

hiking, surfing, camping

Well, I've heard from a few of you that I am taking too long to write on the blog so I made myself post tonight. :-)

This past Friday night we (Me, Houston, Mason, James, Travis <-friend, Hali<-James' cousin) went camping on the south side of the island. It takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get there but it is so worth it! I love going to the south side because it feels like you are in Tennessee or something with a view of the ocean added. We went to the beach right when we got to the south side and watched James, Hali and Travis surf. I had to work so we got there pretty late and didn't want to start surfing. When they were done showing off their skills, we headed up the mountain to a camping area called Kokee. It is a nice camping spot with bathrooms and all. We wanted to rough it up a bit so James decided to go down a road that only a 4 wheel drive truck could handle to see if there were any spots to camp. After a bit of a drive, a few million bumps and some mud flinging, we found a spot to pitch our tent. We got a fire going, talked, ate too much junk and made Oreo S'mores to top it off. Yep.... Oreo. The bomb! :-) After doing the typical camping stuff we hit the sack.

When morning rolled around after a long sleepless night, we woke up and went to The Lodge for breakfast. It is a restaurant that is on the Kokee camping ground. We got fueled up and went on our hike. I can't remember the name of the spot we hiked, but it is at the very top of the mountain. When I say top, I mean it! We were like seriously in the clouds. It was pretty awesome. Some of the trail looked like one of those scenes from a spooky movie where you look down the road and it's all foggy and creepy. Despite the fact that the clouds blocked a lot of the views, we still managed to see some beautiful scenery and have a fun hike. The hike was SO muddy. We were slipping all over the place and laughing hysterically when Houston was the first to slip and fall. The trail went on forever but we didn't. The beach was calling our names so we had to listen to it's beckoning and head out. I surfed for a short amount of time and everyone else caught a lot of waves. My arms just don't have enough strength to surf for a decent amount of time yet. I have to keep practicing and get into shape! We headed home after the beach and went to bed pretty early. We were worn out but it was a great day!

We were pretty much this dirty all over!

Every first Saturday of the month Hanalei has a board swap. Basically a bunch of people go with their boards and trade their board for another board or just sell it. We got a new surfboard and I am totally stoked! The board is so huge! It's a nine foot long board and it is apparently really fun to ride. We got a great deal on it too! It is probably better for Houston because he is so tall but I can't wait to try it out as well.

Houston and James are doing a few more lawns thanks to the connection with James' aunt. They are still waiting on a trailer so they can really advertise and brach out. Everything takes FOREVER in Kauai!!! We will be patient and know that God provides (that was the sermon was about this morning too!) They did get their first check from a customer today! They were pretty excited! :-)

Guess that's it for now! Love you all!

Love,
The Brothers