first week into a new year...a new decade

Can you believe it is already 2010? It seems like just yesterday I was planning a wedding, now here I am 157 days into marriage (no I didn't do the math, and I'm not counting, that number is thanks to facebook). It still is pretty unbelievable we have entered a new decade. David and I had a great New Years, not overly exciting, but memorable. We had a few different options for parties, but in the end it ended up being the two of us and Trevor. For a while Trevor read, and David and I discussed and wrote our New Year goals/resolutions. Then we took time for all 3 of us to pray and make this new year Christ-centered and focused. I will say that David made a personal resolution to give me a foot rub once a day. Jealous? Well, he is 3/5, but you know what, I'm still honored that he'd be so bold as to rub my feet...daily for that matter. Yes, I do have an awesome husband.
Well, my folks took off Sunday. Sunday wasn't much of a vacation for them though. David and I were at the church until 1:30am (David put in a 17hour day on Sat) renovating the upstairs...its in progress, but looking good, we then launched our first Fuel service of the year, followed by our Jr/Sr/College small group, then a Parent Meeting, and a Parent Conference which were well attended by our youth and parents. So after a restful vacation, we sent my parents off exhausted and needing rest. We'll plan better next time mom and dad, sorry:( But we really had a great time with them. David and I enjoyed a week of mostly vacation, a little bit of work on the Kona side. We were able to hike some of the Waipio Valley, just think Pikes Peak incline Hawaiian style), snorkel, whale watch, kayak, lava watching and enjoying a lot of time in the sun. We also ate lots of food, training for half -marathon here I come!!
Our next round of guests are my Uncle Dave and Aunt Susan and Haley and her fiance Andrew. They come this Saturday. We are looking forward to having them here, and to finally catching up on wedding plans for Haley.
Well David's been working, and I start work tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing my client, but anticipate a lot of work is ahead. It's amazing what is lost in a 2.5 week time span. Oh well, I'm thankful for a job, that's for sure.
What can you be praying for? David and I and our marriage. With busyness, expectations, and such we need to continue to make time for one another and cultivating our marriage. So please continue to keep us in your prayers. We are so excited for what God is doing, but we never want to lose site of one another in the process.
With that, God has given me a specific vision for something this year. As a dreamer and visionary, I'm excited to take it and run. But God needs to prepare the way. So I'm just looking to him on his timing.
Relationships in the youth ministry! We want to go deeper and get to know the students even better!
Youth leaders, we need more youth leaders to pour into our students...anyone? You could be an answer to our prayer!

Well more to come...what were your new year resolutions...we would like to hear from you?
kelsey.poole09@yahoo.com

Aloha from Hawaii,
Kelsey

pics to come

pictures as promised with commentary

Playing with the small kite

Hawaiian squirrel...mongoose
beautiful kona sunset
Sorry for the sideways pic, my mom loves the shade and dad likes the sun
David with his model pose
My dad enjoying time on the beach

Here is Trevor body surfing

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas

Well, as many are getting blasted with freezing cold temperatures and in some cases snow , my family and I are sitting in a beautiful condo in sunny Kona watching for whales. I'm not telling you all this to brag, more to convince you to pay us a visit in the year 2010. We love visitors!

But really, it continues to be a blessing to be here in Hawaii, but really the blessing is that we are approaching Jesus' birthday, our Savior's birthday. I mean to fathom the importance of this particular baby, our Messiah, being born with purpose that directly affects every single person that has walked this earth or will walk this earth...wow, we are approaching a pretty fantastic day! And what's even cooler. no pun intended, is that no matter where we are, we can all celebrate this special day. So no matter where you are or who you are with, don't take for granted the amazingness of CHRISTmas Day!

Well, and for a little update on the Pooles...David and I took a 2-day Sabbath which was very much needed after 2 Christmas parties and an all night bowling event thingee on Friday. I didn't know bowling could be so much fun at 3 in the morning. It's was a very busy week, but we've been able to rest and relax and look toward finalizing some things for the youth group as well as enjoy family time since my entire family is out here to enjoy Hawaii~We have spent a lot of time on white sandy beaches. David, besides diving, has picked up the art of boogie boarding/body boarding, along with Trevor. They are body boarding machines! Trevor and I tried flying our mini kite yesterday too, however, the winds were too inconsistent we ended up putting it in the ocean and in a tree. Oh well, we'll try again later.

Well, I'll write more later and post pics soon. As David works, my poor husband, I'm off to the beach:) I'm awful...

Merry CHRISTmas!

Kelsey

Christmas season

Well, my folks get in tomorrow, so we'll be a bit busy. We'll post things occasionally throughout Christmas. Especially pictures!

btw, We did get another car. So for you all who are coming to visit, we now have something for you to drive! That was a big answer to prayer!

Write more later,

Kelsey

is anyone reading??

Aloha,
As Christmas season is approaching and David and I are about to celebrate our first Christmas as husband and wife, we were trying to find ideas of neat Christmas traditions. What is a Christmas tradition that you do? Maybe it will spark some ideas...plus I don't know if anyone reads this blog:(

*tear*
Kelsey

you must try this pie

Aloha friends and family,

This is just a brief update from the week. It's been an interesting, hard, crazy, good, visionary, and humbling week. Yes, all of those characteristics rolled into 7 days can make things interesting. Last Sunday feels so long ago, you know, one of THOSE weeks!

Well for me, things were a bit rough with my job. Not only is it a ministry to the client I work with, and the students in the classroom, but to the teachers as well. But my prayer was to have a job that would allow me to be out in the community, so God answered my prayer! It's been eye opening, difficult, and challenging, but God seems to be teaching me things everyday. But I will say not a day goes by where I don't ask God, 'Why am I here?' I don't want a job to just have a job. I always want to be open in how God wants to use me. Prayer is slow and steady. They are looking to end services probably at the end of the year because he's improving, we'll see. But I will say I had a neat opportunity just to speak truth to my client in a first grade way. We were walking down the hall and we saw a bird. He asked me, "How can birds fly?" I told him God makes them fly. He usually responds to me after I answer his question, but this time he just kept walking. I can only pray that those words are seeds that are firmly planted and it is God who will water and harvest! I have several Christian co-workers and I get updates from them. For some reason God is targeting this one school with Christians PPs, and from my understanding the teacher is even a Christian. One of my co-workers told me that his client accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and a lot of his PP work is discipling this student. This student is pono (right), and more are being prayed for and ministered to! God is awesome!

David has had the challenge of casting vision for the youth group. We believe God has laid on our hearts the desired result, but it's coming up with the game plan of how to get there. We were pretty sure of our ideas and plans, and after confirming it with our spiritual authority we were ready to run, drive, go like a spiritual freight train. But God, for a reason we have yet to understand, has halted that freight train for a little bit. He/we are re-looking at our plans and God's vision (we are sure that it is His vision, especially because it aligns with the HMC vision, and actually a unifying vision that we are seeing amongst all the churches on Hilo side of the Big Island). So we ask for your prayers, I ask for your prayers, especially for my husband as he goes before the Lord again and says, "Here am I, send me" and together, "Here we are, send us". And when we are sent, we know the end result but how to get there...well...sometimes we can only see 5 feet in front of us.

As I mentioned earlier, God is humbling us. Yes, this is the pie you must try, humble pie my friends. It's an awful smelling pie, in fact, the smell is so repulsive it turns many away. But for those who are brave enough, and it's only a few, we dig their forks into the soft center and holding our breath not wanting to smell the stench, we open our mouths and force it in. But I tell you what, once we taste that pie, it's the sweetest pie that anyone has ever tasted. It's soothing, it's comforting, it's healing. But once that bite is over, we go back to recalling the repulsive stench, not remembering the sweet and perfect taste.

So if I can leave you with one thing, do you need to eat humble pie?

snow in hawaii