How’s it?
That is how you casually say “hello” “howdy” or “what’s up” in Hawaii.

“Mahalo” translates to “thank you”. However, it has a much deeper meaning than our western version of “thanks” or “thank you”. In Hawaii it is a word used to express divine blessing of admiration, gratitude, and praise. I have even seen “Mahalo” referred to as a prayer of thanksgiving wrapped into one word. I enjoy seeing the locals faces light up when I tell them, “Mahalo” for their services at the marketplace and they immediately say it right back. If you tell them, “thank you” they generally reply with, “no problem”, “no worries”, or a head nod. This is not true with “Mahalo”! As a mainlander, I have told myself that I will start using this term more often because of what it represents beginning right now. I would like to give a HUGE Mahalo to all who are following our journey through our blog page! Everyone reading this has personally played some kind of part (whether large or small) in assisting my family for our second round of cross cultural training in Hawaii. Even those who are following along our journey through social media; Mahalo to you too and please feel free to subscribe to our blog. Mahalo to all who continue to pray for us and a HUGE OUTRAGEOUS MAHALO to those who have pledged to continue financially supporting us during our next 6 months of training! We can’t make it without you!

To give a little update, we made it to Kailua-Kona a little over two weeks ago. It is so beautiful here! Even though Kona is a small city, it is one of the largest tourist attractions on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii. With a little less than 12,000 population, Kona is known worldwide for its organic grown coffee bean which sells for a minimum of $30 per pound. There is also an IronMan event happening this weekend that will bring in athletes from all over the world. 3,000 are expected to show up this week for the triathlon event. Cruise ships come to port twice a week from the mainland pouring countless tourists to the Kona restaurants and shops. A little known fact about this island: the most southern point of The United States of America is not Florida, it is actually the south side of The Big Island which is less than 2 hours from our house. All the people we have encountered here are amazingly kind. It reminds me of a small town atmosphere that I am quite familiar with where everybody acknowledges one another. There is so much more to say about The Big Island’s beaches, snorkeling, and active volcanos but the primary reason why we are here is for missionary training!

When we arrived at Kona, we immediately brought our belongings to the YWAM campus. The University Of The Nations is another name for the campus where we stayed in a one-room dorm for five days. You read that right, five nights with a family of five in a one-room dorm with one bed without air conditioning. Our hunt for long term housing became extremely real at that point! Especially when we were given a deadline to be out within a few days for the sake of students coming to claim our temporary dorm. After diligently hunting for long-term housing, we found a place to rent within 5 miles of the campus. The problem was the rental wasn’t going to be available till the 2nd of October. Our new landlord saw our need and was kind enough to put us in to several vacation rentals until our permanent place was ready. In other words, we had to move into a total of 5 places before we finally had our own mailing address. A huge Mahalo to our new landlord Bill Newcomb for all he has done for us!

For those of you who want our physical address:

77-113 Kaiupoho Pl
Kailua Kona, HI 96740

Getting our long-term housing established wasn’t as complicated as procuring transportation but it was close! It was a 4 day road trip from Arkansas to California with our family of 5. We decided to take our van west so we could ship it to from Oakland, California to The Big Island. It is a 2+ week process for the freight liner to reach the island and have the van ready for pick up so we decided to rent a temporary vehicle until our van arrived. A local (Cynthia) who rented us a Jeep Cherokee was extremely kind but she was off the island vacationing in New York. Day #1 in Kona renting the Jeep, it had a flat. Fortunately it had a donut spare so I drove it to the tire shop of Cynthia’s choosing to find out it needed hundreds of dollars of front end work, 2 tires, and an alignment. Cynthia gladly agreed to pay for the work but it was day #2 and we were still without a vehicle. Day #3 arrived and we are back on the road with a “semi” repaired Jeep except for the shop noticed a radiator leak and Cynthia scheduled to have it repaired along with the brakes. Day #6 was radiator repair day for the Jeep but this time we didn’t want to be without wheels so we rented another vehicle from a different individual named Dylan who was also extremely kind. We went from a mid size SUV to stuffing a family of 5 into a little 4-door Toyota Corolla. Fortunately it was only for a couple days and we were glad to return the sardine can to Dylan and get back into the Jeep on day #8. A little side note about the Jeep: it had been rear ended prior to us renting and it was hit right where the handle was for the hatchback. This of course required several minutes to pop open the hatchback by reaching within the panel and pulling cables and then rigging a bungee cord to hold it all open. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried! Day #13 of renting the Jeep and we had to return it to Cynthia because another customer had reserved it. We presumed the van would be ready to be picked up by then but we were wrong. I called Dylan to try and get the Corolla again but it was also reserved to someone else. All Dylan had was a manual 2-door Pontiac Sunfire and due to availability from the IronMan event, we had to take it. Day #14 and the Corolla sardine can was as spacious as a school bus compared to the little Sunfire. Day #15 and the van is ready to be picked up in Hilo which is right about a 2 hour drive. We loaded up in the Sunfire and flew over to the other side of the island and HALLELUJAH we were back in our van!

I realize that I might have bored you to death if you have even made it this far yet. This blog is a little bit long-winded but we really didn’t want to call anybody back home or upload a blog until things leveled out and settled down. To be honest, the last 2+ weeks Amie, Skyllar, Cadyn, Brynlee, and I have made it through some pretty tough transitions! It is as though God is truly preparing us for the mission field. A simple example is air conditioning. I am not exaggerating when I inform you that Hawaii doesn’t believe in A/C. Sure there is A/C at Walmart, Target, K-Mart, Costco etc. but everywhere we have stayed has not had A/C. Keep in mind that Kona is as hot as back home in AR/OK/TX area with just as extreme humidity. The main difference is, we are used to 4 seasons and Hawaii only has one which is “tropical”. Other transitions that we have pushed through is moving 5 times and renting 3 different cars before we got into our van. Nothing has come easy for us in Hawaii and it has been the total opposite of a vacation. Even the day we arrived at paradise, I had the worst eczema breakout that I ever had in my 19 years of battling it. After about 10 days of hardly any sleep, I was able to contain the flair up with medicine and am back to normal now (thank God)! It has been tough and it is blatantly obvious the enemy doesn’t want us here training at YWAM. Amie and I both agreed that most people in our situation would have given up and bought tickets to go back home. Then again, Amie and I are both stubborn and bull-headed! The both of us never even considered quitting. God has given us courage and strengthened our girls through this mission on so many occasions. He has met every provision long before we arrived in Hawaii and has given us confidence that He will continue to do the same for us in the future. Nevertheless, our mission has already begun long ago …and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ ~Philippians‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬~

Amie’s first day of training is today in the GoMidwife program at The University Of The Nations. Our three girls have their first day of Foundation School at the campus as well. My training doesn’t begin for another 90 days so I will be volunteering at the YWAM campus between now and when the sustainable technology courses begin. I will also be looking for employment outside of the University, hopefully in the tourist industry. We have been planning for this day for quite some time and it almost seems surreal that this day is upon us. If you would like to look at more information about YWAM or Gomidwife then check out their websites at:

UofN Kona

Gomidwife

I want to be totally transparent with those who are following our journey. Our Grace Bible Church family has poured an abundant amount of prayer and time into our mission. They have fallen in love with our vision and have been behind us since the planning phase! Our GBC family showed a tremendous amount of love and support at our last fundraiser hosted at Glen and Barbie Gowdy’s home. GBC allowed us to sell our T-shirts at the church on more than one occasion. Collectively, our Grace Bible Church family are responsible for the majority of monthly support. The Light of Glory Full Gospel Church has also chosen to answer the call of financially supporting us when they read our article in the Pulse. There are a few other individuals supporting us monthly from Colorado to California but we currently don’t have enough to sustain living costs for the full 6 months of training in Kona.
I told a good friend back home that our budget is about $9,000 in the red ($1,5000/month). Sharing my concerns with him, he recommended to make that request known. I am doing that now within this blog. Asking people to give is always awkward for not only the one asking but also for the one being asked. It is the most awkward part about being a missionary but it is our reality and a life that Amie and I have chosen. However, we will not be able to sustain our efforts unless people choose to answer the call of giving towards our Kingdom cause. Even $25 per month would be greatly appreciated and we currently have people who are paying that amount every month. A collective example is 7 or 8 people giving $25 or $50 per month would pay for the sustainable living training that I will be taking in January.

Prayers would be much appreciated for me to get a good paying job that won’t interfere with training and volunteering projects.

Beautiful Feet (BF) is our mission sending agency and they have made giving towards our cause extremely easy. Unlike so many agencies, BF does NOT charge an administration fee so 100% of all the money given goes directly into an account that we draw out of once a month. Also, all donations are 501(C)(3) tax deductible.

If you would like to give by writing a check then make it out to ‘Beautiful Feet’ and in the memo line put ‘0321’ (that is our account number). The mailing address is:

Beautiful Feet
3720 Hiwassee Road
Choctaw‎ OK‎ 73020

Another way to give is electronically through the BF website:

Donate

Go to the donate page and locate ‘0321- Nate & Amie’ under individual support and then choose how you would like to give.

If you have questions about our budget, Beautiful Feet, our training at the University Of The Nations, or future plans, or anything then please feel free to call me at 479-234-0510. Please keep in mind that there is a 5 hour time difference between Arkansas time zone and Hawaii so if you would rather email then my address is:

[email protected]

MAHALO and Aloha from an active volcano in the middle of the pacific halfway to Asia!

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