only scratching the surface of hawaii.

cliff jumping, green sand, and sunburns.

a few weeks ago, i went cliff jumping.
yes, i jumped off a 40-foot cliff (called south point, the southernmost point of the USA).
all my friends were doing it! :P

here's me before i jumped off the cliff.


what, you want proof that i actually jumped?
well, here it is.
(photo by my lovely friend, Kali).

i also love this other photo that Kali took of me. :)


this is south point.

one of my roommates, Chelsea, and her friend Amber.

another of my roommates, Catrina! :)

heading to green sands beach.
some people were lucky enough to get a ride.
the rest of us had a 45 minute walk through the desert to get there.

and here is the green sand beach!
i've been told that there's only two green sand beaches in the entire world.
(i don't know if that's true or not, but i'm just saying what i heard).

i wanted to bring back some sand, but i couldn't risk the fine.

the sand was more of a dark brown (almost black) color, it didn't exactly look green.
but whatever.


and i got sunburnt. like really bad.
this was taken after i got back from south point and green sands beach.

this is my back after it had blistered and started peeling. yeah, it was bad.
 and it hurt. a lot. but it's healed now. :)



other than the sunburn, it was a lovely day. :)

pure heart.

it was a weekend of freedom.
a weekend of God performing "spiritual heart surgery", so to speak.
and it was an amazing time to bond with other photogenX students (and the staff)!

this past weekend we went on a photogenX retreat to a place called Makapala, which is on the north side of the island.
on saturday, we had a full day of lectures, but it wasn't our normal lecture.
it was a teaching called "pure heart".
in essence, we talked about relationships (family and boy/girl), and basically got rid of the baggage we had been carrying around.

this past weekend, God brought me to the place where He showed me that only He can fill the lonely spots in my heart. He showed me that He wants to fill the holes with His love.
so i let Him.
and my lonely heart isn't lonely anymore.
it's grand. :)

here are a few photos from the weekend.

enough.

Jesus is enough.
He is enough to satisfy my hunger.
He is enough to satisfy my thirst.
He loves me.
He LOVES me.
He is pursuing my heart with reckless abandon
and i want to be fully abandoned to Him & what He is doing in my heart.

be in prayer for Greece, the people we will come in contact with there, and that everything will come together for our outreach.

here is a photo of all the lovely ladies on Team Greece
(this was after "the Hunger Games" and our battles with flour, water, and mud...haha).
i promise we're going to get a decent photo soon. :)
(i'm in the bright blue headband).


photo courtesy of Madalyn.

stories from room 89 {periplaneta americana}

tick-tick-ticktick tick-tick.

the noise had been going on for a few minutes before i finally decided to find out what it was.

i turned around and saw it sitting on a wal-mart bag.

we had been warned about these creatures,

and knew it was only a matter of time before we had one in our room.

oh yes.

there he was in all his nasty cockroach-y glory.

he was quite hideous.

we stared each other down.

i called my roommate, Bethany, over.

she grabbed something to capture him with.

he nearly crawled on her, but her high-pitched yelp scared him.

she threw the box over him and he was captured before he could disappear under Chelsea's bed.

we took him outside and tossed him over the railing.

the end.

team ????????

hey y'all!
so i'm super excited to announce where my 3 month outreach with YWAM will be.
it's amazing that we found out so soon.
i was expecting to find out in 2 weeks,
but we found out yesterday!
ahh, i'm so excited that i don't think i can wait another 11 weeks until outreach...

i think i'm just going to keep blabbering.
i want to keep you in suspense as long as possible. :D

it started on friday.
we were ready for lunch.
after sitting in lectures for the whole morning, i was ready to go eat some yummy food.
the leaders told us to sit tight and not leave yet.
they started playing a video.
a few minutes into the video, everyone started to realize that it was the outreach locations.
i thought it was a joke.
it wasn't.

throughout the video, the names of the places came up on the screen,
and when the video was over, i was so pumped up.
our leader, Jonathan, told us that we had 15 minutes to pray and ask God where we were to go.
we had to pick two places.
1st choice and 2nd choice.
we were not allowed to talk to anyone or call home and ask our parents.
i went off by myself and asked God where i was supposed to go.
i texted my mom and told her to pray for me.
God gave me a verse in Romans, and i instantly knew what my first choice was.

i don't think i've ever had the desire to go to this country,
and it was probably last on my list of "possible outreach countries",
but i felt that God wanted me there for a reason.
i'm not sure of that reason yet, but i believe that He has everything in His hands.

after handing in my paper with my #1 and #2 choices, i called my mom.
i didn't want to tell anyone back home what my choice was until i knew where i was going.

so.
yesterday at 5:45pm, we went to the soccer field.
we were playing in the "76th Annual Hunger Games."
(hahaha, not really! it was just the leader's way of announcing our outreach teams and locations).
it was a lot of fun.
they called out 8 districts (because of the 8 outreach locations...duh. i don't know why i didn't see it before), then they called out who was to go to which district.

we lined up in our teams and were getting ready for "the Hunger Games"
when Jonathan said there had been a change in plans.
he announced that the people "in our districts", were in fact our outreach teams.

by then we were all dying to know our locations.
he started calling them out.
when he got to my team, i waited in suspense to find out where i was going.
when he said the country, i wanted to shout with joy and do a dance.
i knew God wanted me on that team.

well, are you dying to know where i'll be going for three months???

okay, fineeee.
i'll tell you. :)

i'm going to this continent.

wait, you want to know what COUNTRY???
ohh, my bad. :P

i'm going to this country (the one highlighted in dark green).

you geography freaks (and i mean that in the best possible way) probably know what country this is, but for the rest of you, just sit tight. i'll tell you in a few minutes. :)

it's a land of beautiful people and places.

it's a land of ancient ruins and mythology.

ladies and gentlemen, i am going to the country of...

GREECE!

me and 7 other photogenX ladies (plus our two leaders, Campbell and Jillian) will be "pioneering" YWAM into Greece.

there are currently no YWAM bases in Greece, so we hope to start something there.

i'm SO stoked! :)

^"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek."

Romans 1:16

download and overload.

i sit in my dorm room
soaking up the precious alone time.
listening to pandora radio
and editing photos from our trip to the pier this afternoon.
applying aloe vera to my sunburn
and thinking about everything that has happened this week.

this week.
it has been exhausting,
challenging,
fun,
amazing,
and pretty much every other adjective you can think of.

i heard God speaking into my life and i'm learning to be still and listen.
He downloaded, and i'm on overload.
i'm looking forward to "chilling" tomorrow afternoon.

my mother (hi Mom!!!) requested that i blog again.
i realize that it's been a week, but i have had very little down time.
we didn't have any classes today, and i hardly knew what to do with myself.
but here are some new photos (for those of you who aren't on Facebook with me). :)

we went to the beach last saturday.
it was breath-taking.
so beautiful.

haha, i adored this guy's board.
don't judge! :)



you know you're in hawaii when they do a hula dance at church on sunday morning.

this is the hallway where my dorm room is.
the first door is my room. room 89! :)

me and one of my roommates, Cammie.
we unintentionally matched on wednesday, in our green-and-white-striped tank tops.

this was on easter sunday. :)
i love the real leis.

me...

i love geckos!!!!

i held this little guy. (the chameleon, not the kid...haha).
it was so amazing!

Molly held him too. :D

this is Christine. she's pretty amazing. :)

Kona sunset!

the lovely Kendra...
today she left us to follow God's calling on her life.

and a random adorable couple at the beach...

Kona coffee, anyone?