Sunday, May 31, 2009

Saturday Night

Last night, we drove down to Shipwreck's Beach and then hiked up to a cliff that overlooks the ocean and the beach below. After that, we headed down to the harbor to catch another sunset. If you look closely at the 2nd picture, you can see a group of people congregated on the beach. It's a wedding, the third or fourth one we've seen down at this beach in the last 10 days.




Friday, May 29, 2009

Coming to An End

Being in the ministry has allowed me to travel to a lot of different places over the last half a dozen years. I've been to San Diego, San Francisco, Belgrade, Montana, Salem, Oregon, Springfield, Missouri, Sioux Center, Iowa, Smithers, British Columbia, Edmonton, Calgary, Chicago, and probably others I can't remember right now. This has also allowed my family to travel with me at times, often at very little cost to us. Of all the places we've traveled, the island of Kauai is far and away the most beautiful. And we have been privileged to come here not just once, but three times in the last 19 months. It's also been a privilege to preach at one of the newest URC church plants, the Kauai Reformation Church. Speaking of which, please continue to pray for this work, as they seek to establish a confessionally Reformed church on this island. They are all very excited to have their new minister, Rev. Derrick Vander Meulen, arriving around July 1st.

Well, all of this to say that we've really enjoyed our time here the last couple of weeks. However, at this point, we are all ready to come home. We miss our house, our beds, and our church family. We're also somewhat tired of sand, salt water, everything being wet all the time, and expensive groceries. And so we're all looking forward to getting on the plane Monday and getting home Monday night.

Here are a few pictures from our last couple of days: sunset, Polihale Beach (hands-down the best beach on the island), dinner at a local restaurant tonight for Mem's b-day.





Friday, May 22, 2009

Kauai 2009: Day 5

Here are some of our pictures from today. The first 3 pictures are from Hanalei Beach on the north end of the island. Interestingly, as we were eating breakfast this morning, we saw on the national news that Hanalei Beach was just voted the number 1 beach in all of America. Ironic that we saw that on the same day that we were planning on going there. The last picture is from Tunnels Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches on the island.




Thursday, May 21, 2009

Kauai 2009: Days 1-4

I thought that I would post some of the pictures I took with my iPhone here in Kauai. Most of our time has been spent in some form of water: Pools, boogie boarding, floating in the ocean, going down the water slide at our hotel, etc. It's been very refreshing and extremely relaxing.

Here's the picture right outside of our hotel room at the Hyatt. This is where we stayed our first 2 nights, before moving onto the condo that the Kauai church provides for all visiting ministers.


Here's the 150' slide at the Hyatt. We must have gone down this thing at least 20 times each.


This morning, we went to Mahaulepa, one of the beaches that is kind of a "local knowledge" kind of place. Beautiful spot. We sat in our beach chairs for a couple of hours while the girls swam in the ocean.


Tonight, we grabbed at Pizza in Koloa Town and went down to Shipwreck's Beach for the sunset.


Wednesday, May 13, 2009

This Sunday (May 17th)

Morning Service

Songs
#17 (Red hymnal)...tune of "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken"
#94 (Blue hymnal)
#540 (Red hymnal)
#442 (Blue hymnal)
#231 (Blue hymnal)

Sermon
1 John 2:7-11: "Brotherly Love"

Evening Service

Songs
#500 (Red hymnal)
#260 (Blue hymnal)
#226 (Blue hymnal)
#280 (Blue hymnal)

Sermon
1 Kings 17:1-7: "An Antidote for Anxiety"

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

This Sunday (May 10th)

Morning Service

Songs
#184 (Blue hymnal)
"How Deep the Father's Love"
#170 (Blue hymnal)
#446 (Blue hymnal)
#299 (Blue hymnal)

Sermon
1 John 2:3-6: "The Fruit of Salvation"

Evening Service

Songs
#301 (Blue hymnal)
#16 (Blue hymnal)
#609 (Red hymnal)
#5 (Red hymnal)

Sermon
Isaiah 40:12-31:  "Almighty God, Faithful Father"