The move

Aloha friends and family

Howz it?(along with the shaka)

Just a little update into the lives of Kawika and Kelsey (Kawika is David's hawaiian name). It's funny because the person who consistently calls David Kawika is Aunty Keahi, and she usually says it during announcements second service. I think people are slowly putting the two and two together.

Well, it is beautiful here in Hawaii. Too beautiful in fact. I've heard that since my mom has been home (Oct 19) there have been 3 blizzards. Ok, so I'm thankful for no blizzards. But wow, it's hot here. I started with my first client on Monday. I'm loving my job as a paraprofessional, and am so blessed to be working with these kids everyday. Honestly, I see it as having the opportunity to pray over these kids lives, while in the classroom, everyday. But I tell you what, it sure gets hot in those classrooms. With no air conditioning and no breeze, whewweee it is warm in there. Time to go buy some more short sleeve shirts.

We are also moving into Hilo. It a week's process. We don't have to be out of our current apartment until the end of the month, but we've been able to start moving into the new apartment. Hopefully Friday will be our official day of totally being in the new apartment. We have begun meeting our neighbors. Masah to the left of us does not speak much English and to the right are some interesting folk. We know we have entered a spiritual battle ground. But to live out our Isaiah 61 calling, we need to be there. We aren't sure how long, but at least for 3 months. But I tell you what, boy do we have an ocean view!

Isaiah 61

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to

-Preach the good news to the poor

-Bind up the brokenhearted

-Proclaim freedom for the captives

-And to release from darkness for the prisoners

Well we are living with the poor, brokenhearted, captives and prisoners. Literally. So we are asking our intercessors out there, those who continue to tell us that you are praying for us,Pray hard. Not just for us, but for the people around us. Whether this turns out to be 3 months or a year, we want to see these Val Hala apartments radically changed. God, I believe, has some major things planned for the city of Hilo come 2010. Watch out Satan! Watch the power of the One True God move in the people of Hilo. And yes, it will only be the beginning. Ripple effect, baby!

What is my dear husband doing now a days, you ask? Well, let me tell you. Besides moving almost our entire apartment, he has been working on a leadership manual. We feel so strongly that the leadership needs to be on the same page, David has written a book. Well, not quite but a bit of a booklet I should say. We continue to be reminded that we are just servants. With just us, nothing can be accomplished, but if God is the One engineering it, promoting it, helping his tools work the way they should (that would be us)...well then it can only be good, great in fact!

We are learning a lot in our marriage. It's great! But God continues to teach us to put our stubborn wills down and our pride and work on serving one another, even when it is tough. We have also been noticing the importance of healthy and constructive criticism along with encouragement and praise. Can't have one without the other. So to all the married couples out there, can you relate...or is it just us? Maybe it is just us.

Praises:

-We are moving into Hilo (with that comes a lot of prayer requests as mentioned above)

-We both have jobs (we realized the other day how blessed we truly are to both be working in a down economy)

-Great jobs!

-We continue to be blessed by all of our church ohana!

-A TrueU Senior/College small group will be starting Sunday. So pumped. Ready to rock some worldviews

Prayer Requests

-We are moving into Hilo

-I want to work myself out of a job. Before you jump to any conclusions, let me explain. Working with students with mental and physical disabilities I have come to the conclusion that it's more than just a medical diagnosis. Many of these students are in captivity. I want to have the highest turn over rate of clients. Where they'll put me with one client and in 1-2 months they have to pull me out, because the client is functioning just fine and even looking more "normal" as well. After 5-6 of these quick "turnovers", they then will notice a consistent pattern. What a great time to give God all the glory and preach the good news of Jesus Christ and what can happen through the power of His redemptive blood for humanity. He seeks our wholeness (physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional).

mommy's visit

Aloha friends, family, and strangers (since this is a public blog),

Wow, what a week! Well, some of you know that my mom came out and spent Wed-Mon with David and I here in beautiful HOT and humid Hawaii! On the way over to Kona to pick her up, David and I had a great time driving a new side of the island. It took an extra half an hour, but we had a great time seeing the beautiful coastline, windows down, driving and talking. For the first time since being here, we ate at a chain restaurant...drum roll please...Outback Steakhouse! Yum! I ate so much food that I felt a little sick actually. That just goes to show you how good the food was! On Thursday we took her to Mauna Kea beach where she swam, literally swam, with the turtles. That night we had a great night with the Youth! Friday we spent some time at the church, and then left David to go to the beach! We both took naps under the shade listening to the waves. Something we both noticed was how families congregate at the beach. Beaches here are not the "show off the bod" beaches...they are a location where families come and play. It's great! Saturday was such a crazy day. After a walk around the neighborhood, we went to a botanical garden, we went to the downtown market, David and my mom snorkeled in a fish sanctuary...funny story there... and went and saw lava flow into the ocean. It was absolutely amazing. All of us on the way home couldn't help but praise the Lord. Looking at beautiful plants, watching fish in the coral habitat, and then in the dark watching orange lava flow into an ocean with the sky lit up with stars...you can't help but know there IS a God!

Sunday we had a great morning with the students talking about worship! We then had a cook off, which the students planned, to unite adults and students. Members of the church signed up to bring a dish (potluck style). We probably had almost 70 people crammed into our upstairs room enjoying great food and fellowship. Well done Mana Akua students! They did a great job planning an event with purpose.

Monday we had to say goodbye, for the time being, to my mom. But before we did that we just happened to go to a place called Waikaloa Hilton Hotel where people can swim with dolphins. Well, we didn't swim with dolphins, but we probably watched these dolphins for over an hour as people swam with them and the dolphins performed. It was incredible. David told us he is going to be a "dolphin trainer by day, a youth pastor by night". All that to say, we were amazed at these creatures. (David had never seen a dolphin before)

Things continue to go well in the youth group. God is putting a lot of pieces together which is really neat to be a part of it all.

Prayers for the Youth Group:

We still need more youth leaders (for a Thursday night outreach)

We need volunteer host homes, haven't announced our need but we are hoping the Lord lays it on peoples hearts (probably for small groups)

And ultimately God's Will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

Our personal prayer requests:

-We think we are moving at the end of the month. We should be signing over the lease tomorrow. It's a "rougher" area, but we really feel the Lord is calling us there for a time being. For safety and protection, but more importantly for favor with the people living there (mainly locals, we are probably two of the few haolis there) and for God to soften people's hearts. We want to see God move in that apt complex

-Our car overheated on the way back from Kona. It's working fine now, but we are taking it in to get everthing checked out just in case. We know it's the Lord's car, so we are just praying this "overheating" is a minor detail

-The moving ordeal

-Friends, close friends

-My job at Tiffe, I think I'm starting the 26th of Oct

-homesickness, I esp feel the desire to go home often, but the Lord is teaching me that Hilo is home for now. And I'm slowly learning to embrace that...it can be difficult

David and I are doing well. We are continuing to learn a lot, esp in the area of communication. He continues to be a great husband and it's so neat to watch him in youth ministry! God is teaching us a lot, and our desire is to never stray from the will of God. We thank you all for praying and continue to pray...harder!

We love emails! We want to know if you are reading our blog...email us at

davidandkelseypoole@gmail.com or kelsey.poole09@yahoo.com.

Just remember to look at the creation around you and know THERE IS A GOD! And not just a god, but a God who loves us so much to send His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross and to rise from the grave. That by his blood he shed on the cross, he covers our sins, and our hope is to live eternally with Him. What power! What truth!...live the truth!

We love you all,

David and Kelsey

pics of tourist day

whew!

Boy was this week busy! David and I learned the hard way not to cram 4 events + job training into one week. Since most of the students were on Fall Break, someone recommended we take advantage of the "free" week and plan a lot of activities for students. Hmmm...not going to happen again. So we agreed and began planning an overnighter for guys, tourist day, a mini-mana akua retreat, and beach day. On top of all that, I began job training for my paraprofessional work at an organization call TIFFE (the institute for family enrichment). Needless to say, we were exhausted come Friday!

But we had a great time hanging out with the students.

I am so excited to start work. I'll be helping special education teachers work 1 on 1 with students with autism and other such mental disabilities.

Both David and I are looking forward to my mom coming out to visit on Wednesday too.

Well I know on the mainland you all have been suffering from cold weather, well here we have had just the opposite. These past 3-4 days we have been in the high 80 degrees with hardly any cross breezes. Just hot and muggy! Things are finally starting to cool down. After church David and I went to the Onekahakaha beach where we laid out for about 2 and a half hours. It was so beautiful and sunny and breezy...what a relief!

Yesterday David and I went to a local's schools HARVEST FAIR, which was a lot of fun and gave us a little taste of fall. We then went over to another youth pastor's home, Dale and Sarah, and watched the Michigan and Iowa game. David was craving some football time! It was our first time to have wings in a long time! Yum!

Well a big congrats to our friends Kory and Ali Lantz who got hitched this weekend! Also Matt and Jamie Metzger! Wow, some solid couples!

Prayers and Praises

Praise God for another week of driving our amazing car. We still can't get over that~

Praise God for more time to build relationships with students, we are LOVING getting to know them better

Praise God for a great HMC family

Praise God for a job opportunity that allows me to get into the local high schools

Prayer for our health, David and I haven't been feeling great

Prayer for moving at the end of the month, hopefully! We still need some details worked out

Prayer for safety with my time with my madre!

Prayer for wisdom as we think about the youth group for next year

I am getting a bit homesick at times

Specifics:

More youth leaders

With the changes we are looking at, we are hoping not to lose any kids, however, we understand that with change...there are growing pains

Our hope is to be a light to all of the youth in Hilo...we want to focus more on evangelism and discipleship

Wisdom in recreating a new look for youth room, name, tshirts

We need 4 host homes as well as youth leaders for small groups

Wisdom and favor with both man and God

Growth in our current students

We want to grow, however, we can't have too much growth without the adaquate support from youth leaders!

Thanks you all for your prayers and support! We love and miss you all so much!

pics:)

here are some pics of some flowers we picked at the women's retreat. They were everywhere. I bet on the mainland these would be so expensive.

Also, David had a Guy Time "sleepover" on Sunday night. Today (Monday) they went to an open field and played airsoft. This is my husband's job. Can you believe that?

Mahalo ke Akua

Aloha ohana

As I'm learning a wealth about the language here, allow me to share with you some of my newly acquired knowlegde:

Howz it? (that's the pidgeon greeting here)

I'm pow (means I'm done)

There's choke food here, the dakine pizza and icecream in the fridge, eat that (means there is plenty of food here, you know the pizza and ice cream in the fridge, eat that)

Where's the rubbish? (means where is the trash can?)

Bra (means brother)

David guys (usually is in reference to David and I)

I hope that gives you a taste of the language here in Hawaii (the w is pronounced as a v)

Well, from Monday, our lives have calmed down a bit. Don't get me wrong, they are still very busy, but we have had a bit of a breather. We still thank God for our car everyday! We LOVE driving it. We did give the Jennings (our landlords) a 30 day notice for our residency in their apt. We really feel like God is calling us into Hilo, so we have a cracked door we are pursuing, and as long as things work out like we think they'll work out (haha, we tried that before) we'll be moving into a 2-bedroom apt in Hilo (downtown area with ocean view) at the end of the month. So we appreciate your prayers as we pray that this will be a smooth and less eventful process. We will miss our current beautiful apt, but we are excited to be more in town for the next 3 months. Come Jan 31, we will then decide to either renew a 6 month lease, or move again...so I guess the adventure continues. But since it is only David and I right now, why not make life an adventure :)? If anyone wants to share an adventure like ours, I'd suggest a good read. It's called Wild Goose Chase, and while reading it's challenged me in many areas of my walk, but also has confirmed many part of our current adventure. Again, great read!

Well we continue to praise God for:

our new car!

a roof over our heads

a wonderful job

a wonderful church family

building relationships (I had a great opportunity to build relationships with the women at HMC this weekend at a retreat)

Well our prayers are:

-I start job training for my substitute position at TIFFE (The Institute for Family Enrichment) as a paraprofessional. This means that I go into local schools and help special education teachers work 1 on 1 with students.

-David (and sometimes me) are "hosting" several Fall Break activities for the students this weekend. We are praying for fellowship, fun, safety, and even revelation!

-Besides the TIFFE position which would probably give me 13-15 hours of work a week, David and I are praying about an opportunity to work as an Independent Sales Consultant for Mary Kay. I know, some of you are rolling your eyes, but it's been on my heart and I can't deny it. I told the Lord, if this is a serious opportunity I don't want to seek clients from my church and/or family. Clients (that I would intentionally "sell" to would have to be outside of my circle of influence as of now). He would have to bring a completely new circle of influence in my life for a Mary Kay thing to work. So we are just starting to pray and look into things. Any advice, suggestions...please feel free to email me at kelsey.poole09@yahoo.com

-The apt working out, if not that apt, something to work out since we gave a 30 days notice

-The Jennings would be able to fill their apt and be blessed

God is good, we keep saying Mahalo ke Akua!

Mahalo ke Akua (Thank you God)

Aloha,

David and Kelsey