God's goal...

Reading this week in the early chapters of Exodus, I've been struck by how many times we read the same phrase: Let my people go! Countless numbers of people are familiar with the story behind these words, but many would not be able to tell you the second half of the sentence. If you read closely, you'll discover that these well known words are nearly always followed by another, not so well known phrase: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. (For example in vs 1 and vs 20 of Exodus chapter 8.)

God wants His people to be free, but He has an even greater purpose for our lives than freedom: He wants us to be able to love and worship Him wholeheartedly without any hindrances. It's easy to focus on what the Israelites would be freed from (slavery in Egypt) and forget what they would be freed for: a loving, trusting, worshipful relationship with God. Even as we've just celebrated Easter, I realise that Christians today sometimes also have a tendency to focus on what Jesus freed us from (sin, death, addictions, selfish lifestyle, fear, etc) but to neglect what we were freed for:  a new life in close friendship with God.

In verse 25 of Exodus 8, Pharaoh tries to negotiate a compromise: he'll allow the people to worship, but he won't let them go; they'll have to meet with God while still in the context of their slavery in Egypt.  When Moses and Aaron refuse this compromise, Pharaoh is forced to concede a little more ground: he'll allow them to go to worship, but they mustn't go "too far away." (verse 28)

The enemy has lured many believers into the same sorts of compromise in the 21st century. Perhaps they're saved, but they're still slaves to bad habits or to destructive thought patterns like worry, rejection or self pity. Perhaps they've broken free of some shackles, but they haven't gone "'too far away" from their old slavery and haven't experienced the total freedom of a joyful relationship with Father God.  Like Pharaoh, the kingdom that once held us captive will always try to maintain at least a partial grip on our lives. But God's goal is for us to know complete freedom to worship Him, and Easter reminds us of the price that Jesus paid to make it possible for us.

Think back on your own life over the past week. How much time have you spent enjoying the freedom of chatting to God and worshipping Him without hindrance? With the Easter celebration still so near in our memories, let's tell God this week that we want to enter into His true goal for our lives.

Dealing with backlash

During the LDC (leadership development course) we have a few days where we teach on the topic of leadership timeline. This involves looking back at the timeline of your life and identifying the different processes that God has used to develop you as a disciple and as a leader: times when your obedience or your integrity was tested; times when you learned to hear God’s voice or to trust Him for financial provision.

One of the process items that every leader will experience at some time in life is called “leadership backlash.” This happens when the team or church faces difficult circumstances and there’s a reaction of blaming and complaining against the leader. I came across an example of this in my daily Bible reading this morning.

At the end of Exodus chapter 4, the people of Israel are convinced that Moses and Aaron have been sent by the Lord, and they start to praise God for the encouraging news that He is going to deliver them from their slavery in Egypt. If you remember the continuation of the story, however, after Moses and Aaron have spoken to Pharaoh (in Exodus chapter 5)  he punishes the Israelites by insisting they make the same number of bricks as before, but refusing to give them straw for the task. As a result of this harsh treatment, the people begin to grumble and complain against Moses and Aaron, saying, “This is your fault. May the Lord punish you for this.”

That’s what we call leadership backlash.  Leaders not only carry the consequences of a chosen course of action; they also sometimes bear the negative reaction of the people who had supposedly agreed to that course of action.

In KKI, a ministry that I’ve worked with over the past thirty years, we have a couple of ministry values that seem to reduce this backlash just a little. One is the value that we place on youth ownership - involving the young people in hearing from God and being part of the decision about what we’re going to do. Another is our strong belief that everyone can hear the voice of God, even the youngest child in the team.

I remember a situation in Southern Africa where we had a time of prayer with our team of children and teenagers, asking God what was on His heart for our outreach that day. There was a strong sense in the group that God was asking us to bless a slum community by working with local young people to clean up their neighbourhood and pick up litter from the beach next to their home-made shack dwellings. One of the teenagers felt God saying that it would be challenging, but it would demonstrate to the people that we were coming to serve them and not to judge them.

When the time for the project arrived, the weather had suddenly become incredibly hot and the beach area turned out to be a lot more dirty than we had realised. It was a situation ripe for leadership backlash, for children and teenagers to complain that this had been a stupid idea, and to grumble about having such a hard and disgusting job to do.

But no one said a negative word. Not only did no young person complain; they actually carried out the task with joyful energy and with loud songs of praise together. Because this job hadn’t been the leader’s idea; it had been God’s idea, and the young people themselves were the ones who had told us that. 

No pastor or Christian leader can completely avoid the sting of leadership backlash. But I wonder if it would happen less often if our teams and congregations all learned how to hear from God and make important ministry decisions in corporate obedience to His voice.

Nocturnal nebuliser… daybreak deliverance

Oooh, I was so sure that this bronchitis was much better, but it's been getting increasingly hard to breath again over the past two days. Whenever I lie down, I feel like I'm going to suffocate. Finally, my neighbours (one of whom used to have a family member on oxygen with a lung condition) persuaded me to go to the clinic last night and have it checked. Sure enough, the doctors were surprised to find my lung function seemed to be down at 30%. (That's not as bad as it sounds, as my underlying lung condition means that they function at just 54% all year round.) They put me on oxygen and on a nebuliser for a while, and did all the usual checks to make sure that the chest pain wasn't due to a heart problem. They confirmed that I should use both of the inhalers that the doctor in Scotland prescribed for me recently (so that I get enough air to breath and clear the phlegm from my lungs) but discovered that one of the inhalers had been causing a fungal infection and that's why my throat has been so incredibly sore again over the past few days. Finally they released me, sending me off to the all night pharmacy (an interesting experience, where you stand outside, putting your prescription and your money through a trap door, while a disembodied voice speaks to you from inside the pharmacy.)

All of this nighttime adventure, plus the fact that the clocks went forward this weekend, meant that I arrived home in the small hours of Easter Sunday morning. And it seems I was able to save a life on resurrection Sunday! When I arrived home from the clinic at 3 am, I found a little paralysed sparrow sitting on my upstairs terrace. Presumably it had fallen from somewhere and was paralaysed with fright. The three cats came and stood around it, staring (fascinated, but with no killer instinct) and the little bird didn't move, even when I picked it up and put it in a box. In the end, I put the box safely on my front balcony. The bird was still there when I looked out at 5 am, but was gone a couple of hours later. 

My neighbour claims that sparrows can't fly in the dark, and the little creature would have stayed motionless until sunrise on Easter morning. I didn't know if that was true or not, but I rather liked the imagery of being set free to fly when Easter Sunday dawns. (The wonders of Google have confirmed that most birds can fly at night, but usually choose not to, as many breeds don't see well in the dark and might risk injury.)

Update: if you're reading this on Tuesday 29th, I can report that I saw the doctor again yesterday. My throat is beginning to improve a little, but my breathing is still slightly challenging. There's a dry hacking cough in the mornings, which sometimes improves a little throughout the day.  They've given me a combination inhaler to replace the two I was using, and also a stronger antibiotic to clear my airways and sinuses. Hopefully my breathing will get back to normal fairly soon. (As this week's schedule mainly involves sitting in meetings and prayer times, I'd been expecting to be able to take part. … but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it for the start of the meetings tonight. We'll see if there's any improvement in the course of the coming days.) 

From desert to destiny

The first two chapters of Exodus have set the scene for one of the greatest escapes of all time, and chapter three is the moment where God will call a leader to see the people through those challenging times. We’re probably all familiar with the story of where Moses meets God at the burning bush, but I was struck this morning by a small phrase in the first verse of that chapter. Exodus 3: 1 tells us that Moses led the flock far into the wilderness until he came to Sinai, the mountain of the Lord.

Moses was God’s chosen leader to shepherd the people of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Promised Land. So what we see him doing at the beginning of this chapter is in line with his God-given gifting, but is only a shadow of his true destiny: he’s leading and caring for sheep instead of leading and caring for people.

All kinds of things can prevent us from stepping up to what God has for us in life. It could be fears or laziness that hold us back; it could be difficult circumstances or opposition from other people; it could be our own sin and disobedience. In Moses’ case, it was his deep sense of failure: he had tried once before to help the Hebrews and had failed badly, ending up killing a man.

When such things happen, they often catapult us into a wilderness journey. Moses had fled from Egypt and settled down in the desert of Midian; he even married and started a family there. And on this particular day, in Gen 3: 1, he goes even further into the wilderness, until he finds himelf at the place whre God’s presence dwells.

It’s easy for us to settle down, like Moses, in the dry desert place and get so used to it that it becomes our “norm” and we forget that it’s wilderness terrain. We may even have forgotten the failure, the disappointment, the unanswered prayer or the unconfessed sin that started us heading in that direction in the first place. Sometimes, like Moses, we need to venture far into the wilderness place before we’re truly ready to meet with God.

The wilderness is not intended to be God’s final destination (or destiny) for any of us. Perhaps, like Moses, we’re called to go to a particular place or do a specific task. Perhaps we’re simply called to stay right where we are, and to live in such deep friendship with God that we make our neighbours, friends and family hungry for Jesus. Either way, the moment and the place where we embrace that calling is special and sacred. As God says to Moses in verse 5, “This is holy ground."

Have you met with God on holy ground? Have you embraced His holy calling on your life, or have you settled indefinitely in the wilderness place? During this Easter weekend where we celebrate the joy and power of the resurrection, let’s not settle for a desert experience, but let’s push on to the place where we can truly encounter God.

Sovereign foundations - seeing the hand of God

After reading the psalms during the month of March, I recently returned to the account of early Bible history and began reading daily in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Exodus picks up where the book of Genesis left off, except that almost four hundred years have passed since Jacob and his sons settled in Egypt to avoid a famine in their own country. The ruling Pharaoh has no memory of the crucial role that Joseph once played in saving Egypt from the famine, and he feels threatened by the sheer size of the Hebrew people. Afraid that they might one day rise up and wage war against Egypt, he keeps them in oppression and slavery, and even reaches the point where he tries to limit their numbers by killing off all the baby boys that are born.

The first two chapters of Exodus are the exhilerating account of how God protects and prepares the generation that is going to experience one of the greatest rescue operations of all time. Perhaps many Hebrew babies were drowned in the Nile river at that terrible time, but perhaps many others were saved, like Moses, by parents and midwives who respected God more than they respected the cruel directives of the Egyptian King. Not only was Moses’ life spared in an amazing way, God also engineered his circumstances to give him the very best training and equipping for the special role he would play in Israel’s history. Raised by his own parents from earliest childhood, Moses would have grown up learning about the amazing God of Israel. Then, given back to Pharaoh’s daughter and raised for the rest of his childhood and adolescence in the Egyptian palace, Moses would have learned everything he needed to know about Egyptian language and culture. The end result was a young man uniquely equipped to serve God by leading the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.

Have you ever taken time to look back and consider the unique ways that God prepared you for the things He was calling you to in life? It can be a fascinating experience that really opens your eyes to the amazing providence of God.

I remember, in the late 1980s, when I was working with teams of young people that used music and choreography to worship God and share the gospel, that I looked back at my life one day and was amazed to realise that my childhood experiences (even before I knew the Lord) of going to dancing lessons and working with youth theatre companies had given me a unique foundation of skills on which to build this area of ministry involvement.

When I moved to Spain some years ago, I was thankful that my youthful decision to study languages, linguistics and phonetics at university had prepared me to learn various different languages throughout my lifetime, and to actually enjoy adding Spanish as a sixth language in my later years of life.

More recently, when the University of the Nations asked me to be part of the faculty committee of the College of Education, I realised that my choice (in the early 1980s) to do post graduate studies in education had not only equipped me for various teaching related activites throughout my lifetime, but had also given me the qualifications needed to embrace this university role with integrity.

What about your life? What are the “sovereign foundations” that God built into your journey during childhood, adolescence or early adult years? Taking time to look back and see His hand in our lives will perhaps surprise us... and will hopefully fill us with thankfulness for His faithfulness from our earliest years.

Homeward bound...

Time has flown by, our two weeks in Hawaii are over and tonight I'll be heading back to Europe. Our leadership meetings went well and there were many encouragements (more about that in  my next newsletter) as well as one or two challenges - like the saga of my broken suitcase, and the fact that I came down with a bout of bronchitis. I'm hoping my lungs are sufficiently recovered that I can make my four flights without too much coughing. We had good times of worship and celebration with the broader YWAM family here on campus, including one night where they honoured us and celebrated the KKI 40th anniversary with us.

We were able to make some decisions about leadership structure and future steps, as well as to begin planning for the big events we are holding in Africa this summer. As this Hawaii trip draws to a close, my next step will be to find and book the plane tickets I need for going to the Ivory Coast and Senegal from July to September.

Amidst the many days of meetings, we also took a day and a half for relaxation. One day a group of us went to visit a Kona coffee farm, and another day we went for a picnic to a beautiful beach. Our meetings finished last night and the big exodus began today. Some have already left, and I'll be leaving this evening, flying from Kona to Seattle, then on to Amsterdam and Edinburgh. After a couple of days in Scotland, I'll fly back to Spain at the weekend. Thanks for your prayers.

Half way in Hawaii

Time is flying by and we're already half way through our  leadership meetings in Kona. One week is already behind us and a second week lies ahead. We've had some stimulating times of processing and prayer; I have the task of documenting the meetings, taking notes, collating feedback, etc, so there's been plenty to keep me busy. 
My first days here in the island were marred by baggage hassles. First, my luggage was delayed, leaving me without my stuff for three days. Then, when it finally arrived, I saw that my relatively new suitcase had been broken at the hinges. I'm hassling with the airline at the moment to get a new suitcase to replace the damaged one.

Last night, our meetings finished early. As it happened to be International Women's Day, a group of us went down to the village, to the Kona Inn Restaurant, to try their famous Kona Mud Pie - a coffee ice cream creation. The men paid for the women's slices of pie. The portions were so large that we only needed eight slices for seventeen of us.  It was fun to sit on the beachfront terrace, watching the waves breaking on the rocks and the palm trees blowing wildly in the wind. Those of us from more nocturnal nations (Spain, Hong Kong…) were surprised to discover that we'd got to the restaurant just in time: the kitchen closes and they stop taking food orders at 9 pm. (In Spain, many restaurants are only opening at 9 pm !)

Another full day of meetings lies before us, and we would value your prayers for things to be planned and decisions to be made that will affect the future of the ministry around the world. Thanks!

Safeguarding your inheritance

Since arriving in Hawaii last week, I've been meditating my way through the Old Testament book of psalms during my daily times of Bible reading. Right away in the second psalm is a verse that meant a lot to me during the 1980s and 1990s - the part where God says, "Ask of me, and I will give you nations for your inheritance." Those were decades where I was discovering that my life calling was international; that I was called "to the nations" and not just to one particular place of missionary service. So it wasn't too disconcerting when my life's journey led me to move from France to Austria, down to Africa for many years, and more recently to settle in Spain. I understood that I was called to a specific people group (the children and youth of this generation, and the leaders who serve them), a people group that exists in every nation of the world.

I've not travelled nearly as much as some other missionaries I know, but I have done my fair share of travelling to different parts of the world, either for the purpose of teaching in training courses or for taking young people on outreach. Travel always involves financial faith challenges, but there has been a sense of God's provision in confirmation of His calling me to the nations.

Over the past decade, as I've increasingly faced some health challenges and been aware of physical limitations, it's sometimes raised some questions about the wisdom of international travel. As a result of my arthritis, I find that long haul travel leaves me with increased pain and stiffness for a few days. More recently, I've discovered that the intense air conditioning in the plane often leaves me with a bout of bronchitis or pneumonia. It's made me weigh up every speaking invitation or outreach opportunity, asking myself, "Is it wise for me to make this trip? Will I be physically able to go on this outreach?"

Legitimate questions, no doubt, and yet they need to be balanced with our commitment to faith and obedience. If the Lord wants to give me the nations as my inheritance, surely I'm in danger of missing out on that, if I allow my own limitations to make me hesitate to travel. So I was encouraged this morning, when reading in Psalm 16, verses 5 - 6: Lord, You are my inheritance, and you make my portion secure. I can trust that even my own limitations are not going to rob me of the ministry or the fruitfulness that God has purposed for my life. Part of the key lies in my being able to make wise decisions, as it says in verse 7: I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me.

And perhaps the best promise of all is in verse 8: I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken for He is right beside me. 

What inheritance does God have for your life? And what personal limitations are threatening to steal that away from you? Whether it's your circumstances, your lack of finances, or some personal limitation, challenge, or weakness, none of those things will prevail as long as we remain in God's presence and draw daily on His wisdom for our lives. 

Day four of ILT

Click to enlarge photo

It's Sunday in Hawaii and we're on our fourth day of ILT meetings. We've had a rich time of remembering and thanking God for the fruit and blessings of the past four decades, and this afternoon we're moving on to a time of prayer for each other. We're around 25 leaders in the international leadership team but, as you'll see in the photo, we're a bigger group when you include families and helpers. Thanks for remembering us in prayer over the coming days.

Aloha - e komo mai

Aloha! It's the well known Hawaiian greeting that doubles as hallo and goodbye. Like the Hebrew "shalom," the literal meaning of aloha is something along the lines of affection, peace, compassion and mercy. So it's not only a greeting, it's also a way of pronouncing a blessing.
Another phrase we've been hearing since arriving on the University of the Nations campus yesterday is: E komo mai! It means "welcome" or "come on in." In true Hawaiian style, we were welcomed last night with the placing of a beautiful floral lei around our necks. Mine just happened to colour coordinate beautifully with my T-shirt, and the lovely fragrance was all around me for the rest of the evening. Sadly, the flowers are dying now, but the sweet perfume still fills our bedroom.

This morning, after a time of worship and prayer together, our little group (25 ILT members, plus around 15 other family and friends) headed out in several vehicles. We went to some of the locations where the very first King's Kids children and teens heard from God and took steps of obedience, back in 1976. As those who had been there forty years ago relived some of the stories and testimonies of that time, we spoke out prayers of thankfulness for the way that God had led then, and over the four decades since then.

One of our legendary stories is of the very first KKI outreach experience, which happened right here in Kona. As the children learned to hear God's voice, and waited on Him in prayer, they received a variety of different impressions and Bible verses. One child had a scripture from the book of Isaiah; another had a picture of a green frog, and still another child saw a picture of a rainbow. In the end, the children prepared a musical programme to share the gospel, painted their own scenery (the rainbow) and made a papier maché frog which they painted green.

We all remember the story of how a summer storm made their performance a washout: the colours of the rainbow all ran into each other, the green frog became rather soggy in the torrential rain, and the children themselves looked like drowned rats. It felt like a disaster…. but not a single person in the audience left. Quite the opposite: several came forward, knelt down on the wet ground and gave their lives to God that day. It was the start of something that would multiply over the coming years, and we in KKI know the account as "the green frog story."

When we reached the location where it had all happened, and had taken time to pray, worship and thank God in that place, I surprised everyone by producing a mid-morning snack, and calling out, "Get your green frog chocolate bars here." In anticipation of hearing the story again, I had taken forty Freddo bars with me from the UK, and this produced a laugh from our very international team, most of whom weren't familiar with our British chocolate bar. Someone even asked me if I'd had the green frog bars specially made for our group. This afternoon, we'll continue our consideration of the ways God has led us and the lessons He has taught us over years of ministry with young people and families, before moving on over the weekend to consider the things He is saying to us for the future.

Back in Kona

Yesterday morning I once again took the commuter bus right across the big island - a three hour trip from Hilo to Kona, where I'll be staying for the next ten days on the University of the Nations campus. Based on my previous experience of the bus's air conditioning (the trip from Kona to Hilo had been like travelling in a refrigerated van!) I was wrapped up like an eskimo: pyjama trousers on underneath my trousers, and a blanket ready to wrap around me during the journey. As it turned out, however, this driver was a bit more moderate; the air conditioning was at a reasonable level, so a jumper and scarf were the only protection needed. Once again, it was interested to watch the landscape change - from lush green jungle-like vegetation in the east to dry lava-scattered fields in the west. Soon I was back in Kona where a friend picked me up and drove me to my accommodation at the university. I'm in kind of a student dormitory - a four bedded room with three good friends that I've known from many years of KKI in Africa and Asia.

Our group had been arriving over the previous twenty four hours and was already nearly twenty in number by the time I arrived. After lunch, there was a two hour break before our first meeting began, and so someone suggested going down to the beach for a quick swim. After Wednesday's swimming with sea turtles, I wasn't expecting any "wildlife" this time, so it was a surprise suddenly to spot a large fish, the same bright turquoise colour of my swimsuit.  I didn't have googles or snorkel to see it more closely, but I guess it was the Hawaiian uhu, or blue parrotfish. Beautiful!

After our quick swim, we headed back to campus, where we met over dinner and were honoured with a  lei welcome (they put a garland of fresh flowers around your neck.)  Thursday night is community worship on the campus, so we joined about a thousand others for that in the semi-open Ohana gathering place. Then, as night was falling, we connected briefly again as a KKI leadership team to look at our schedule for the coming days. This morning, we'll be going on a little tour, visiting the places where KKI began and had their early experiences of children hearing God's voice, back in  1976. It's good to remember God's faithfulness to us in the past. Much of the coming three or four days, however, will be given to times of prayer and seeking God's heart for the future, and especially for the next few years that lie ahead.

From walking to sitting...

It's funny how sometimes you can read a Bible passage that you've read many times before, and something new suddenly stands out. I've been reading in the Psalms during my Hawaiian travels, and my attention was caught this week by the sequence of verbs in the very first psalm. Depending on your Bible translation, Psalm 1 says something like this:
Blessed is the person who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or sit in the company of mockers.

Walk, stand, sit. These verbs made me think that this is often the recipe for a person's sliding into compromise: first we kind of allow our steps to move in the wrong direction (walk), then we find that we don't pass on by but actually linger (stand) in the place of temptation or sin. And finally, we begin to settle (we sit) and the wrong attitude or behaviour becomes mores of a permanent way of life. As as example of that, I remember the testimony of a friend who told of his battle with pornography. He lived near the red light district of Amsterdam and his problem started when he allowed himself to walk past the sex shops and cast a furtive sideways glance. From there it became less subtle; he would occasionally stop/stand and look in the window. And before too many years had gone by, he found himself on the inside, sitting watching the X rated movies. It took a long struggle and much prayer before he could testify that God had freed him from that addiction.

His example is probably an obvious one, but the principle is true of any wrong thinking or behaviour - negativity, judgement, gossip and criticism, self pity, over-spending or over-eating, watching unhelpful stuff on TV…. If we begin to venture in that wrong direction, we might gradually find that we linger a while, and eventually realise with a shock that we've "settled" into a way of acting or a way of thinking that is not honouring to God. 

The Psalmist continues, in that well known first psalm, by reminding us that the Word of God will be our protection against such a slippery slide into compromise. Our meditating on the Bible will give us strong roots, like a healthy tree planted by fresh water,

Honus and hiking in Hilo, Hawaii

Rain was forecast for Hilo today, so I breathed a sigh of relief when I woke up this morning and saw the sun bravely trying to break through from behind the clouds. We are on the tropical side of the island, so rain was always a risk here, but my pre-bedtime prayer last night had been for a dry day if at all possible.

As I wandered into the kitchen at 7 am this morning, my hosts (a 73 year old grandmother who was obviously a hippie in her youth, and her son) arrived back from the fruit market with an enticing selection, including rambutan, longan (something like a litchi/lychee), papayas, avocados, chirimoya, local apple-bananas, oranges and other delicious fruit for breakfast.

"Let's go to the beach," they said, shortly after that. "There's a beautiful spot where we can swim with honus." (Honu is the Hawaiian word for the iconic sea turtle.) As I waded into the turquoise water, I looked around me, expecting to see little creatures about a foot long. Imagine my surprise when suddenly, next to my legs, was a large turtle of more than a metre in length. One of the turtles, whose distinct shell markings have caused the locals to nickname her Radar, is nearly four feet long. It was fun to swim among the rocks in the ocean and keep encounter-ing turtles who were also enjoying a swim. The water was slightly chilly, but there were warm volcanic currents that made it more bearable for swimming. And after we came out of the water, we could lie in the sunshine on the warm, black volcanic rocks to warm up again. We stopped at the farmers' market for a healthy lunch on the way home: a liquid lunch for me, as I had a smoothie of taro, banana and macadamia, followed an hour or so later by a fresh lilikoi (passion fruit/grenadilla) juice mixed with coconut milk.

My German friend was heading to the volcano park in the afternoon (a two hour bus trip, followed by a hike up to the rim of the volcano) but the potential of rain made me decide to stay in Hilo and walk just out of town  (about 40 minutes hike up a hill) to the famous Rainbow Falls. They're one of several falls in the Wailuku River. At 28 miles (45 km) long, it is Hawaii's longest river, which descends steeply from the volcanic mountains and joins the Pacific Ocean in Hilo. In the Hawaiian language, Wailuku means "waters of destruction," - partly because the sudden falls can be treacherous for swimmers, and partly because the currents could sweep bathers into underwater caves caused by the erosion of the volcanic lava rocks. So it's not a river for swimming, but it's very pretty if you like to admire waterfalls. I've long been a fan of falls; finding new ones to visit was one of the things I loved to do in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

It looked as if it would be more like "rain falls" than rainbow falls, as a slight drizzle began, and there no rays of sunshine to cause the famous rainbows above the water. But it didn't come to much, and I managed to walk home again safe and dry. The torrential rain only began once I was indoors again. My hosts tell me that typical weather for this side of the island would be rain in the morning and evening, and sun mainly in the afternoon; these two completely dry days were kind of unusual, they say, so I feel blessed to have escaped the usual tropical rain.

This brings my two days in Hilo to an end, and tomorrow morning I'll be catching the bus back to Kona again. Watch this space for news of our leadership meetings over the coming weeks. And thanks for your prayers.

Happy in Hilo...

Well, with the lost luggage saga now behind me, it is time at last to enjoy a couple of days holiday. I left the house bright and early this morning (dark and early, to be more exact) and walked down to Kona pier to catch the bus to the other side of the island. My cultural experience of the day was sitting on the seawall at 6 am, eating a taro pie and drinking my morning coffee while watching the fishermen bringing in their catch, seeing the sun rise, and chatting with a Hawaiian rancher who was waiting for his daily commute to Waimea. The bus arrived at 6.30, and daylight was just breaking as we set out on our trip.

It was a three hour bus ride to the other side of the island. For the first half of the trip, the road was bordered by dry fields of black volcanic lava, yellow grass and the occasional cactus. After we passed the ranch country of Waimea and had a toilet break in the historic old town of Honoka'a, we started our descent to the rainy side of the island, and the scenery changed completely, becoming lush green with lots more trees and tropical vegetation: coconut palms, giant ferns, elephant grass, mango, banana and papaya trees.

Click to enlarge photos

The bus trip gave me my first experience of being "too young." The three hour journey from Kona to Hilo cost the princely sum of two dollars, but if I had been 60 or over, it would have cost me only one dollar!! Most of the public transport here seems to be for the same price of $2 - whether you ride the bus or trolley for twenty minutes or for two hours.

Soon we were in Hilo, which is also a quaint looking old town. I was met at the bus by my hosts and taken to my accommodation. A German lady had also just arrived to stay for a couple of days, so we've been walking around town a bit this morning, and now in the afternoon we're going to jump on one of the local buses that drives all around the Hilo area for an hour or so. I'm beginning to feel as if I'm on holiday.

An eventful few days...

Well, I'm in Hawaii at the time of writing this, but my trip here was not without adventure. The drama began when I arrived at Edinburgh airport at 4 am on Friday morning. When I got to the check-in desk, I discovered that I didn't have the right visa for entry to the U.S. Then began a race against the clock to get the visa in time to be allowed to board the flight. I did get the visa in the end (but not before being diverted by one of those scam websites that takes money from your credit card and acts as an intermediary in the visa process. They sent me a second visa after I had already arrived in the United States.) In the end, I missed my flight to Amsterdam, and the airline re-routed me via Paris, where I had rather a long wait, and had to phone back to the UK to cancel my credit card.

The flights themselves were pleasant and uneventful, but the re-routing meant that I had less than an hour's transfer time in Seattle - barely enough time to go through immigration and customs, and re-check my suitcase for the onward flight to Hawaii. I arrived in Kona late that evening, only to discover that my suitcase hadn't made it, and would only arrive the next day. Two days later, I was still waiting for the airline to deliver my suitcase. Despite the fact that they told me it had arrived on Sunday morning, it seemed unusually difficult for them to work out the delivery. I got rather tired of spending my evenings indoors, sitting up beyond midnight and waiting for the suitcase to arrive. And I had to make my way to Walmart to buy pyjamas, underwear, toothbrush and other essential items in the meantime.

After numerous phone calls with the airline, my case was finally delivered to me just a couple of hours ago!! Just in time for me to drop it off with friends, before I head across to spend two days on the other side of the island.

Although a lot of my time in Kona was wasted shopping for clothing and waiting around for the case to be delivered, I still managed to find time to take a pleasant walk along the beach and ride all around the town in the (one and only) trolley bus - the only public transport in the town. It gave me a good idea of what the place is like, and I'll be coming back here again for our KKI leadership meetings that begin on Thursday.

Over the next two days, however,  I'll be heading right across to the other side of the island to visit the town of Hilo. If you look at the map above, you'll see Kailua Kona on the west side of the island, and Hilo on the east. It's a long and meandering bus journey between the two. I'll catch the bus at 6.30  tomorrow morning, and only arrive in Hilo around 10 o'clock. But they say it's a cultural experience to take the commuter bus :-) and a good way to see the inland areas of the island. I'll sleep two nights in Hilo, and then make the same bus journey back to Kona again on Thursday morning. I'm trusting that my days in Hilo will be relaxing and less eventful than the past four days have been.

That's all from me for now. I'll post more news when I can.