Hawaiian Mission Academy

Greetings from Honolulu!!

On the plane. Daniel is far left and going to Chuuk, Bradly is in the middle and is going to Majuro (in the Marshall Islands)


Walked about 2 miles from HMA down a busy street downtown to visit a nice beach and huge park next to Waikiki (Ale Moena) and then visited the huge shopping mall (the largest in Honolulu) and purchased myself some Coconut Tea!!


Jalisa (Going to Pohnpei to teach Elementary) Suzie (Going to Saipan to help with little kids program) and Me!



This is upstairs in the classrooms at HMA. We are sleeping in these and they have provided us with some mats.

Beautiful view of O'ahu!

The flight was about 6 hours long and the time passed by very quickly! The flight attendant gave us a movie watching device for free (usually $14) and I watched "Blind Side." We landed and the five of us on the Portland flight met with Jeanne and drove in her husbands rented van to HMA. We passed by Pearl Harbor and the beach and downtown Honolulu. It is so busy here! I am the newbie as most people here have been to Hawaii before but this is a totally new experience for me. What shocked me most was the BLUE blue ocean!! So clear and warm compared to my cold northwest ocean. The beach we went to was man made since the 70s or something, but tomorrow we have the option of going to either Waikiki or Diamondhead. I am not sure what I will do yet, maybe neither. Many of us have been up 24+ hours and are so exhausted. We did not have much downtime today and I led out worship with other girls from Walla Walla (including a fellow ICantori singer who played the piano who is headed for Yap!). We had our first meeting with our Principal from Pohnpei and he seems very nice! We will learn more about teaching etc, in the days to come but ultimately most information will be gained once we actually arrive at Pohnpei and get finalized at orientation.

Love you all! It is nice to have such an "Americanized" western break between home and Pohnpei. Seeing malls and home depots are kind of comforting. But it is so weird for all of us to realize we will not be going home for 10 months. We are have butterflies in our stomachs but are so tired at this point that we can't even think about being nervous or homesick. There is air-conditioning in this room, meaning I will sleep like a baby.

Pray for all the moms and dads tonight sad to see their kids go off into the corners of the world. All heading out to help and spread some of God's love and message all over the Pacific.