The Story Continued, Part 3 ...Hello Hawaii!

(If you haven't read part 1 and 2 of this story you may want to scroll down and start from the beginning or you may get a little lost ;) The morning we left for Hawaii, I had a roller coaster of emotions all balled up inside of me. I was excited, because WE WERE GOING TO HAWAII!!!! But I was so sad to leave my kids, and nervous. I honestly had it in my head (even after all the confirmation) that we would to go to Hawaii, we wouldn't really get anymore confirmation while we were actually there, and that we would come back to our lives in Texas and resume life as usual. I really think I was in total denial...in fact, I know I was. I went to Kona looking for a "no." The truth is, I have never lived anywhere else. I have never been farther than a 20 min drive from my mom, dad, and brother, and I didn't care that it was Hawaii, I wanted the possibilty of the Lord calling us to live somewhere else away from them to just be a "no." On top of that, I didn't want my husband's farming business to suffer. Aaron has worked so hard from ground level to build it into what it is today. What were we to do with that? Sure moving to Hawaii and going where the Lord led sounded exciting and wonderful, but when it really came down to me thinking about it seriously, it was a lot to give up that I wasn't too sure if I could do. I was worried sick that I was going to hear a big yes from the Lord and not a no. Would I even have it in me to say yes back to Him? I was walking in fear. When we got to Hawaii, we were greeted by this cute couple, who I actually grew to love in the short time we were there. If you have ever met them, you would know this isn't a hard thing to do. This is Tom and Donna, whom I mentioned in the first post. They are friends and mentors to Misty and Brady.

Tom and Donna, although they had never met Aaron and I, welcomed us into their home along with Brady and Misty, fed us, loved on us, listened to us, spoke into our lives, and drove us half way around the island and back during our short visit. We were beyond blessed by them! The first thing we decided to do right away was visit a local farmer's market. The guys were in one car and the girls were in another and we were going to meet at the market. We, the girls, somehow got sidetracked and ended up at the YWAM base in the prayer room. This was our first day there, within our first couple hours of arriving, and we were in the prayer room. I think within 30 seconds of being in there, I started crying, because as we walked in, God's presence was so very much there. You could just feel Him right away, and I always cry a lot when I feel His presense; I can't help it. And on top of that, they were praying for families to be brought to Kona and for farmers and the farming ministry they have there. What are the odds of that? I thought to myself, "Well, here we go." Donna loves prayer and the prayer room, and she wanted us to get prayed over, so she went and got someone to pray for us. After she was done she brought someone else. She was so cute, she kept coming back and saying, just one more. I think 4 young girls ended up praying over us and one guy. It was so amazing seeing all these young people so passionate for Jesus. The last girl that prayed over us also spoke prophetically over both Misty and myself. What she said to me didn't really resonate within me, at the time. I think it was because, first off, I didn't feel worthy, and see myself in the way she was describing, and second, my heart hadn't accepted that we really were going to be there just yet. But when she finished praying and prophesying over me, it was Misty's turn, and everything was just so right on. She told Misty that she is a "friend of God." "She is a faithful intercessor and loves to pray." She said, "the Lord wants you to know the dreams that are in your heart, that you have had for so long, were put there by me for a purpose, and you have longed to see them fulfilled, and you are now in a season where those dreams will start to come into fruition." Misty and I both, at this point, were crying, because this girl didn't know us and she was saying things and calling out things that were deep in Misty's heart that only the Lord could have known, not this girl we had just then met. I love when God speaks through His people. It was so powerful! After a while we left and tried to meet up with the guys at the market, but they were done there, and when we told them about the prayer room, they wanted to go too. A couple of young men came over and prayed for them and one starts telling Brady that he was going to be seen as a father figure model for the youth there, and he sees opportunites for him pastoring and teaching the young generation there. Then he prays for Aaron and tells him..."The Lord wants you to plant your seeds in unfamiliar soil. He says if you do this, they will bear much fruit." Well, with Aaron being a farmer, he starts thinking literally about farming, like he's suppose to farm in Hawaii. But right when the guy finished, Tom told Aaron he felt right away that "the seeds" the Lord was talking about was our children. Brady also sensed that the Lord also meant our children. Of course, when I heard this, it got me right in the heart. If we were to move there and go through the DTS, I wanted it more for my children than for myself. Aaron and I both want to see our children passionately going after and experiencing God for themselves, and we want them to see us genuinely seeking Him passionately as well. Not just going to church every week and saying we love Jesus, but really living for Him and showing them we love Jesus. A really great thing about the Kona YWAM base, which makes them unique above all the others, is that they have a mini DTS for children called "Foundations School." Our kids will be getting discipleship training similar to ours. We will be trained in discipleship as a family and prepared to do our outreach as a family together. They also do some pretty amazing things for academics, like going to the beach to study marine biology, or taking a science field trip to the rain forest. How amazing is that for our kids? I was dreaming more for them while I was there than for myself at this point. (To Be Continued)