This post isn’t a post to complain. Please don’t receive it that way. I like to be positive all the time, sometimes to a fault. We are extremely happy that we’ve followed God’s heart to the University of the Nations and feel like we are on a huge adventure. All is well and we are excited to be here, looking forward to the time when we have beds to sleep in and are settled into more of a routine. But, I do want to provide a small bit of reality about what it is like to move to Hawaii as missionaries.
It’s interesting. We moved on Thursday of last week to the Big Island of Hawaii, Kailua-Kona to be exact. We are volunteer staff at the University of the Nations, the largest YWAM missions base in the world. We don’t receive any compensation as YWAM staff. Many people have commented, jokingly, of course, that we are going on a big vacation, that Hawaii doesn’t count as missions, or that they are jealous. Reality is often very different than what is imagined.
Since we’ve been here the vog has been as thick as we’ve ever seen it. I linked to Wikipedia’s definition above, and here is an excerpt from that entry:
Vog is created when volcanic gases (specifically oxides of sulfur) react with sunlight, oxygen and moisture. It is made up of a mixture of gases and aerosols, which makes it hard to study and potentially more dangerous than either on their own. Although vog has not been as extensively studied as it could be, it has been found that most of the aerosols are acidic and of a size where they can remain in the lungs where they can damage the lungs and impair function. People who have been exposed to vog report headaches, breathing difficulties (including inducing asthma attacks), flu-like symptoms, and general lethargy. These effects are especially pronounced with children. Most studies of vog have been in areas where vog is present, and not of the effects of vog itself (in controlled conditions).
In Hawaii, vog mostly affects the Kona coast on the west side of the Island of Hawai?i, where the prevailing trade winds blow the vog to the southwest and wind patterns then blow it north up the Kona-Kohala coast. Prolonged periods of southerly Kona winds, however, can cause vog to affect the eastern side of the Island on rare occasions, and affect the entire state as well.
What it means to us is that we can’t even see the top of the mountain that Kona sits at the base of because of the thick gray smoggy clouds that pervade everywhere. And the sky has not been blue yet, even though it’s not cloudy.
We also find that any residue of food left anywhere quickly becomes a party of ants, geckos, and other “critters” as Hawaii is very good at producing both greenery and insects.
We have a church we love here. Living Stones. But we wonder how people would feel about going to a church with porta-potties. Sunday’s service was amazing. We loved hearing about learning to see as Jesus saw. Do consider how often the gospels note the fact that “Jesus saw” or “Jesus noticed.”
Most significantly, of course, in this reality check is what we’ve left behind. Our entire friendship and family base. We will miss so many people so very much. We left a huge, beautiful house and what we knew for most of our 30+ years of life. We now are in Hawaii, but we are starting from ground zero, without paychecks, depending on others’ prayers and financial blessings to make it through each day. Most things are 50-100% more expensive here, and we feel like all we’ve done since we’ve arrived, in this transition time without being fully moved in, is spend money.
We spent weeks prior to departure going through all of our stuff, acquired throughout nearly 15 years of marriage, throwing it away, selling “prized” things for 25 cents at two different moving sales, giving it away, or putting it in a box to ship it, finding what few breakables we shipped broken upon arrival. We also spent weeks saying goodbye to people as it seemed everytime we saw someone in those last few weeks we realized it might be the last time we would see them.
We could not do it but for the fact that we believe God asked us to do so and that He will provide for us what we need. Please pray for us and cheer us on. We do have a beautiful home here with an extra bedroom that we’ve rented for 6 months and would love to have you come and stay with us anytime. You seriously would be amazed at how beautiful the house is, how beautiful of a view we have, and how God delivered us to it.
God is infinitely good and faithful and we are so blessed to get to be on His mission. We cannot wait to see all the dreams He has in store for us.