A Little Glimpse of Life

My days here at Surfing the Nations are pretty full of activity... twelve hours tends to be my normal work day lately. A little glimpse of the past week could go like this: Thursday morning I wake up to the sound of twelve other girls getting ready in our third floor, two room apartment. Thursdays are great because we have Feeding the Hungry but this Thursday was different because Cindy Bauer and I need to go to the Hawaii Food Bank to pick out food for the "free for all" Surfer's Church dinner. After a long day at the food bank, we finally get home and unload and strategically put away all the food we got. Friday morning I woke up in a panic because I have absolutely no idea how to cook let alone cook for 200 people. Saturday morning was beautiful, but that peaceful feeling was fleeting because the meal was happening tonight. Pounds and pounds of raw chicken was waiting for me in the Pantry... after five hours of cutting up chicken and re-making and re-creating and ever-simplifying the recipe, we get it all the oven. Nine pans of chicken, twenty-four jars of sauce, and ten long hours later, it was finished. Kind of... Now I had ten minutes to change and run down to announce the meal to all the guests. Everyone loved it and enjoyed the change of flavor. Successful Saturday night and now it was the weekend. Most people's weekends are Saturday/Sunday but here at STN we have Sunday/Monday off which is great. Sunday a few of us went to The Mission church near Sunset Beach and then crammed nine people into a five-person SUV and headed to the farmer's market despite the rain. A few hours and a few cups of coffee later, I was home. One amazing thing (among many) about living in community is always having someone to hang out with. So, I took full advantage of that blessing and we played a three hour epic game of Sardines (which is backwards Hide-n-Seek where one person hides and everyone counts and when you find them you hide with them and the last one to find them looses and has to hide). After watching a movie all squished around the tv, we decided that since our friend Zack had a car for Monday, we should take advantage of that and go on a sunrise hike. It's 5:30am and we're ready to go. Four hours and a million pictures later, we finish our hike. Seriously the most fun hike you could think of. After lots of sandy head stands later and a trip to Foodland for picnic supplies we got to eat a lunch of bread, peanut butter and bananas while overlooking Waimea's big waves from our very own secret beach. It was an epic day and ended with some broken Spanish conversation and a game of tag in the Walgreens next door. As we said fairwell to an amazing weekend, we looked ahead to what the week had in store for us... Teaching and prayer Tuesday. Local prayer and teaching surfing Wednesday. Thursday (today) I'm about to leave for Feeding the Hungry but instead of passing out the food this week, I'll be helping with the evangelism/prayer side of things and work with Surfer's Church and tonight I'll help out at "Jesus Saves" which is the youth church for kids in Wahiawa. I am loving everyday here. So much hard work but such a balance with blessings. Thank you for your prayers. Love you all.
-Rach