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The last two days have been absolutely amazing. Yesterday we spent most of the day on the south side of the island with many of the new friends that we've made here in Anahola. A family of the church took us to a beach where we were able to boogie board and snorkle and then they hosted us for dinner at a house that over looks the beach where we were able to see one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. After the sun went down we all sat around on the grass field near the beach and ended our night by singing songs and telling our testimonies to each other while we listened to the waves crash on the shore.
Today we started our day with 11 people from the team learning to surf from a company founded by a world renown surfer we all met earlier this week who grew up in Anahola. After that our team ran down to Kauai Christian Academy where we did some landscaping and helped them get ready for the school to start up again next week. We are headed in to Lihue this evening for dinner with a couple from the church.
We are all having a great time and not a half an hour has gone by where someone has said that they either want to come back or stay here. But as we near the end of our trip we realize that we are about to have to say goodbye to our friends here. However, I hope that it will not be a long goodbye and that this trip has been just the beginning of long and fruitful friendships. The Lord has blessed our team so much and I can only pray that He has blessed those here in Anahola as much as He has blessed us.
Please pray that we are able to finish our trip strong as we have one more full day in Anahola and that our team will truly embrace what God has been teaching us this entire trip.
Thank you all and we love you so much
The Anahola Missions Team
Head over to Brian's blog to see some pics of the last couple days...
-Brian
If you'd like to see some pictures from the last couple days, click here.
Thanks for supporting the team!
Grace,
Brian
Last night was slightly eventful for our team here in Anahola. After our third night of VBS we had our family time and shortly after that Austin gave us all a bit of a scare. He came inside after some quite time with God and began to hyperventilate and then breifly lost consciousness. We ended up taking a ride in an aid car to the hospital in Lihue where he was checked out and finally released with no more complications. Today we all woke up a little later than normal due to the late night activities and spent most of the day relaxing at the church and recovering from some over exposure to the sun.
Tonight is our last night of VBS and Malyssa will be teaching on the subject of working for God in all that we do. Please pray that we will be able to finish this portion of our ministry here strong and that we will be able reach any kids that come to join us.
Please keep our team in continued prayer that there will be no more medical complications and that we will be able to continue to minister to all that we come in contact yet.
Also, please keep Matt in continued prayer as well as his leg is still bothering him but he seems to be doing better day by day.
Thank you all for your support,
The Anahola Missions Team
The Lord is at work in Anahola! We had another great night of VBS with even more kids who have been coming. Thank you all for your continued prayers. Today our main goal is to continue with the outreach to the community. The team is down at the park playing ultimate frisbee right now and this afternoon we will be meeting more people down at a beach that we haven't been to yet while we do some body surfing. Please keep our outreach time in your prayers that God would bring the people that need to hear His Word, and that we would have the boldness to step out of ourselves and share Him with them. Last night, during family time, I asked if there was any person who the Lord had laid on the hearts of our team to keep in specific prayer and the list of names came pouring out. We left that time with some specific prayer for those people and the encouragement that a list like that can never be too long.
Please continue to pray for our team as we continue to outreach. Pray for our boldness and willingness to listen when God prompts us in whatever way He chooses.
Pray for Libby and Ana tonight as they are teaching the VBS lesson focusing on the sacrifice that Christ made so that we may have true life.
Pray for the community of Anahola and for the relationships that we have already built and those that are yet to come.
And finally, there are a couple of our team members that are feeling a little under the weather. Please pray for health for them and that it does not spead to anyone new.
Specifically pray for Matt Wayson. He pulled his calf muscle the other day and it has been hurting him the past couple of days. Pray that the paid will ease and that he will not be discouraged or down about this. He woke up today saying that it felt a little better than it did yesterday so please pray that his recovery continues.
Our thought and prayers are with you (especially you Dan Stickney, we love you and are praying for you)
The Anahola Missions Team.
Well we are few days in now and have been able to establish a sort of routine for what the rest of our week is going to look like. Some amazing answers to prayer have already been evident within our time here. Our group has been much more rested the last two days and the demeanor of the group has been much more energetic.
A couple things that have been exciting to see was that last night's VBS was a great kick off for the week. We had many kids show up and according to the pastor of the church only about half of them were from the church while the other half were from the community and simply showed up because they heard about it one way or the other. And the other thing that was amazing was that our family here in Anahola is growing by the day.
Each night we have what we call family time, which is time for us to decompress from the day and encourage each other for things that we have noticed throughout the day/week. Last night we had a few others join us for our family time. One was a young man from Anahola named August. He rode a bus from Lihue, about a 30 minute ride, simple to come and hang out with us becaue we came to his door during one of our canvassing times and invited him to join us. Another was a kid fromt the VBS time named Joey who is energetic and a great addition to our crew. And the other was Sarah, Jimmy's daughter. All these have become members of our "family" as of yesterday and we continue to have Samuel, Jimmy's son, and Jimmy and Terri, Jimmy's wife, who have been here from the beginning. We cannot express our gratitude for the amazing blessing that they have all been to us.
Please keep our team and those of Anahola in your prayers this week. Pray that we continue to have positive relationship with them and that we can see everyone through God's eyes.
This afternoon we have the opportunity to be a part of Tubular Tuesday which is an event centered around boogie boarding that is put on by the church every week. Pray that we will be bold in reaching out and that we will start the relationships that will continue on throughout the week and on into the future. Thank you all for your prayers so far. And please continue to pray for us that we will be intentional in our outreach opportunities and that we will be bold in our willingness to reach out and step out of our comfort zones with everyone we meet.
Please keep the VBS program in your prayers as well and pray that the rest of the week will go just as well if not better than the first day. God is truly answering prayers and leading all of us.
Thanks again,
The Anahola Mission Team (growing by the number everyday 
)
A quick post to let everyone know that things went very well today, Mike will be able to post from Starbucks tomorrow morning (Tuesday), but wasn't able to get a blog written tonight because of how busy things got tonight.
I posted on my blog if you'd like to click here to read and see some pics, otherwise Mike should have one up later today.
Also, don't hesitate to comment on these blogs with words of encouragement, Scriptures, and even your prayer for the team. Mike will read them to the team.
Grace,
Brian
Today was another amazing day in Anahola! We began our day by joining the Anahola Baptist Church for their morning worship service and heard a great message on what it means and takes to be a cheerful giver. We hope that as this week continues that we will take those words to heart and truly give of our time, talents and whatever else the Lord calls us to give. After lunch we went out and finished canvassing the area of Anahola that we began yesterday. We then took some time to unwind and went to the beach for a couple hours and enjoyed spending some time enjoying God’s creation. The scenery is beautiful. This evening we helped set up and tear down for a free movie event that was put on some locals with a movie that featured a world renown surfer that was born and raised right here in Anahola. As we served we got the opportunity to meet so many local people who showed up for the movie screening and were widely accepted despite being obvious outsiders. We began this event with a time of prayer and it was then that we received my most treasured blessing so far. The women who hosted the event sang the doxology for us in Hawaiian and it was absolutely beautiful. We cannot begin to express the amazing blessings that have been given to us so far and I know that the Lord will continue to bless us and the people of Anahola this week.
I would like to thank you all for your prayers. They are much needed and definitely being heard and answered. We would like to ask for your continued prayer for several of our team members. Some of them have been hurting from bumps and bruises that they got from swimming down at the beach and others are suffering from a large amount of bug bites. And finally we ask that you keep our level of energy and love in prayer as well. We are all experiencing jet lag and a bit of exhaustion from long days and short nights but we are still extremely excited to see how the Lord is going to continue to use us as the week continues.
Please be in prayer for us tomorrow as it is the first day of VBS. Pray for a great start and that God will bring both kids that know Him and those that don’t. Pray a special blessing over Kylara and Daniel as they are teaching the first day and will be the ones to truly set the pace for our lessons. Pray for Jimmy, Brian and I as we are the emcees for the week and pray for all the leaders that they will connect with the kids and simply show them the love that God has. Our team is already seeing the Anaholan people through God’s eyes of Love and it is so exciting to see. I can’t wait to tell you all about it when we get home but for now please continue to pray. God bless and we love you all.
Anahola Mission Team
P.S. Brian (of Youthmark) is also posting about the trip and includes some other pictures; you can access that blog by clicking here.
Hello Prayer partners for LHCF, my name is Brian Aaby, I sort-of run the ship at Youthmark. It is my great privilege to be serving alongside LHCF this week!
There will be times I will be the delivery system for Mike and team to get the blog posted (no internet at the church).
In addition to the blog here, I'd invite you to click here to read about the trip from my perspective! We truly appreciate and need your prayers. Your comments, prayers, encouraging Scriptures, etc. are all welcome in the little section below (view/add comment).
I've already posted a couple posts about the trip and have some pics up as well!
Grace,
Brian
We have successfully arrived in Anahola, Kauai! And, we are already falling in love with the people here. We spent the afternoon canvassing the town and we have met so many amazing people. Jimmy Johnson, Anahola Baptist's youth pastor, has been so gracious and loving to our group. Jimmy's son, Samuel, has already become another member of our group and we are extremely excited to continue to add more and more every day. We are all excited to be here and can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us. We are all experiencing exhaustion however and could greatly use your prayers for our team and for those here in Anahola. Today we met several people that we will hopefully be getting to know even better as the week goes on.
Please pray for Darren, a young man we met this afternoon. He seemed to be excited about the opportunity to hang out with us and spend time playing games with us in the evenings.
Please pray for Nathan. Nathan is in his late teens and said that he is going to be joining us for an outreach that the church is hosting tomorrow evening where we will be screening a surfing movie.
Please pray for all the others that we have met and are still going to meet. The one common statement that our group has continued to make is noting just how friendly everyone here is. It is so evident that God has us here for a reason and we can't wait to continue to discover what that is.
Thank you all so much for your prayers so far and your continued prayer. You truly are the 17th missionary of our team and we can't wait to continue to add more to the team. Thank you again and God bless.
Living Hope Team