Update!!!

So...If any of you are wondering whether I am still alive and well, I am quite alive and quite well. Sorry I have not been blogging. So much has happened I am not even sure where to start, but I will attempt to fill you in on what I am doing.

I am sure some of you know this already, but on December 18th my team and I will be departing from Kona and flying to Tokyo, then to Taipei, then to Bangkok. I am not sure how long my layovers will be in these cities, but at least I will be able to say I've been to Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. By the time we get to Bangkok, I am sure I will be thoroughly jetlagged, having crossed the international date line and all. We will be staying there for a day to catch up on rest and hopefully get to visit a huge shopping mall there. From there we will fly to Bali, which is an island in Indonesia. This will be about 3 days of traveling so we will probably arrive in Bali sometime on the 21st. This will be my first Christmas away from family, just as I had my first Thanksgiving away from family yesterday. We will be spending 2 to 3 weeks in Bali, building a pipeline to carry water to a village of about 100 families for drinking, cooking,washing, etc. If any of you back at home could spare some funds to pay for materials for our pipeline, that would be a huge blessing. You can talk to my parents about that.

After our stay in Bali, we will be flying back to Bangkok and then driving, yes, DRIVING across the Thai/Cambodian border. I have heard that roads are kept up pretty well in Thailand, but apparently not in Cambodia. So...we will be driving through crazy, unpaved jungles (not that I know of any paved jungles) to get to a city in Northwest Cambodia called Battambang. There is a YWAM base here, but a DTS will be going on while we are in Battambang, so we will be staying in a house separate from the base. I am not sure about everything that we'll be doing, but we will probably be working with AIDS orphans in orphanages, people in hospitals, etc. Our main goal is to serve and be Jesus in any way we can.

My team leaders are Rob and Jenny Blakely, a couple in their forties from New Zealand with 4 kids (Rachel, Johanna, Jonathan, and Susanna) ages 7-17 or something like that. These parents have been kind enough to adopt 7 more kids (my classmates and I), so we'll be one big (hopefully happy) family. There are 3 guys: Seth( Washington state), Dan (Baltimore, Maryland) and I. Then we have 4 girls: Abigail(Scotland), Maggie(Missouri), Tina(North Carolina), and Patricia(Korea). Yes, we have 2 Dans on our team, which can get confusing, but when we are together, Patricia calls us "Dan Dan," which is apparently a type of Korean noodle.

I am extremely excited for outreach. It's crazy to think that I haven't even been here in Kona for 2 months yet, but I still have nearly a month left here and then 3 months outside the country. It seems like I've lived here forever. In 4 months, I'll be back home in Castro Valley (March 21st is my coming home day), and that seems like a long time. I love it here, but I must tell everyone that I miss them a lot. I love you guys and can't wait to see you and talk about life and what God has done in the past 6 months.

Well, I could go on blogging for a long time, but the lounge in which I am typing this is closing in 2 minutes, so I must bring this entry to a close, but I will try my best to blog again soon to tell you what my life is like here in Kona and to post some pictures.

Until then, thank you for your support and prayers.
Love you all.
Miss you all.