Week 2

Somebody pinch me! Has it seriously only been 2 weeks? God has been doing so many amazing things, that all our days here seem to be blending together. It feels like we have been here at least a month. Our days are getting filled up fast and we are beginning to wonder where the time is going!

This week has been full. And when I say full, I mean full! We have honestly been blown away as the Lord is redefining the word outreach...outreach isn't just 3 months of ministering to people, but the Lord is cultivating in us a "kingdom culture". A day in and day out lifestyle of pursuing Jesus and loving people.

We have been set up. What I mean by that is God has made this so easy for us! Doors have literally been opening up right before our eyes! Our team is growing closer together and coming more alive everyday! Gifts that we didn't even know that each other had are coming out! Everyone is so sensitive to what the Holy Spirit is saying, which as a team we have been thankful for because this has kept us from moving into striving, where we could literally burn out and never want to do ministry ever again. We love being here! We love what we get to do everyday!!

Week 2 has really established what we will be doing here for the remaining of our time... of course we are flexible and eagerly jump to where the Holy Spirit is guiding. For now Tuesday through Friday from 10:30 am till 1pm we get to go to this low income facility called Bishop Manor and play with the children. There are upwards to 600 units in this facility. It feels like little Mexico when you walk in, and a lot of them only speak Spanish. We are so thankful for Rami as her first language is Spanish!! The other portion of people that live there are from Cambodia. It's like we are in this whole other country going there. It's a reality check really as these are just simple people that don't have much. The parents love that we are there and want us to teach more about the Bible. Some of the parents have been a bit stand offish but have really come out to be with us as the week has gone on. These people are so hungry. The children are amazing! The lady that runs the children's program is truly a hero in the faith. She came in a couple years back when gangs and drugs were a very dominant factor at Bishop Manor, and cleaned up this abandoned building and turned it into an after school program and a church on Sunday mornings. She is amazing and it has been super fun working along side her. We all enjoy very much teaching the kids Bible stories, coloring with them, having water balloon fights, and swimming with them in the pool. Day two the children beat us there and were all sitting at tables waiting patiently for us ready to tell us their memory verse! I think this is our favorite part of the day!!

At the end of last week we were at Newsong Church in Irvine working with the worship leader getting the prayer room cleaned out, getting it ready for this Friday's first night of "Soak", which will be a night of healing, ministry, worship, and evangelism. Soak will take place every Friday night. There is a lot of expectation and hope for what the Lord will do on these nights. After our ministry time at Bishop Manor we will spend our afternoons in the prayer room, which is good because we have definitely missed prayer room time in Kona.

Tuesday evenings we attend "Xealot" at the pastor's home where we stay. This is a great time of fellowship with other "mutants". The pastor has a great view on what it feels like to be a Christian. Basically our weaknesses, or what makes us not fit into society are our strengths, or our "super powers". These super powers give us authority to speak into people lives who have gone through, or are currently going through where we have come from. This is a very fun evening where about 25 of us are here until 10:30pm talking with one another and praying for each other. On these nights we have met key leaders that have asked us to partner with them either with prayer or actually helping in there ministry. When I say God has made it easy for us I am telling you the truth. We meet incredible people with such genuine hearts and the Lord opens doors for ministry.

One amazing Lady we met at Xealot invited us to walk through the streets of Santa Ana on Saturday morning. We brought water to the homeless and our hearts began to break. The Lord is really giving us eyes to see these needy people. God is showing us what it means "what you have done to the least of these you have done it to me". A heavy reality... but can we do it? Look long enough into the eyes of the least of these and you will see Jesus. We will be going every Saturday in hopes to comfort and bring more clean water for them to drink. It seems like we could never meet their tangible needs. We are fully reliant on Jesus to show us how to love them and help them.

Thursday night we were invited to have dinner with the pastor and a business man who owns a hotel in Irvine. He shared with us his vision for his hotel and invited us to come pray through it and asked us to host a venue. We stayed there over the weekend and are super excited for what God will do. We will share more about this venue later as we are getting more vision for it. But it will most likely be in about 4 weeks.

We have had another amazing week here. We are falling in love more and more with the Holy Spirit. We are becoming more of a family. We are cultivating a kingdom culture. We love the little children. This is outreach... this is true life.