Aloha from Hawaii

When I started typing this update I wanted to go beyond the usual “Aloha from Hawaii” kind of thing. I mean seriously, they don’t even say ‘Aloha’ here much anyway. Sure some of the lecturers from Korea or where ever say it as a joke, but honestly it is a word not used much.
So here I am with the shockingly creative alternative:
ALOHA from Hawaii:
To all you guys freezing in Canada: yes, the weather is warm, the nature beautiful, and the waves high. It’s Christmas, and to be honest I miss the snow. But I’m not complaining. The stay in Hawaii was awesome and over way too fast. To say I loved it would be an understatement, I really really really really loved it here in Hawaii. There are just so many things to do here and so little time. On this campus alone is a soccer field, two ping-pong tables (which don’t get nearly enough use), a weight room (yeah!), tons of interesting people (all followers of Jesus), three computers, and an iPod Touch (all with dumb addicting FaceBook account), (and YES, I am trying to make good use of the excellent library.) I feel like getting up at 5 o’clock each morning to do everything I want to do.
That’s just the campus. There is a awesome little town called Kona right outside our campus (our school is called University of the Nations), and is RIGHT by the ocean. It has some amazing beaches: one nearby is the Kamehameha Hotel beach. (They have a forbidden temple that is KAPU to outsiders - long story short, I have now entered a forbidden ancient Hawaiian temple and got in a ton of trouble. Oops.)
We made several trips in a borrowed van around the island and visited a volcano, a lava tube, went snorkeling, surfing, and best of all went to a cliff called South Point (the Southernmost point of the US - look it up on a map) where I got to jump off a cliff. Seriously.
But that was the fun side of this trip. If this was a completely fun trip I would meet my friend’s expectations of super tan, bleached hair, etc. Most of this trip was spent in school. Here’s the catch; it was not the ordinary school. (Nothing is completely ordinary with YWAM). Brianna, Nicole, Alisha, Anneke and I all went in a school called Foundation School. Caleb was taken care of by a nanny. And my parents went to to Crossroads DTS.
These schools were not very academic at all (much to my dismay). But they taught things that were more important; things like relationship with God and others, hearing the voice of God, and teachings from the Bible. Every week we have speakers come in and teach on different subjects. There are topics like Hearing God’s Voice, Missions, the Bible, Forgiveness, Jesus, God the Father, Relationships, and others. We also learned Marine Biology. While I can’t say I learned a lot in the academic sense, I can say I learned a lot about life in general, and God in the specific. Especially in the area of people, I know I have changed. Let’s just say that I have not been socially active for a while. That changed a lot. (Perhaps it had something to do with eating lunch with several hundred other people.) 'Nuff said.
As of today, we have been here over two months. We are leaving in TWO DAYS for India on Outreach. It will be interesting. Everyone on our team will be serving, teaching, and preaching the Gospel to the people in the state of Karnataka. We are going three hours away from Bangalore (Karnataka’s capital city).

After spending two months in India, we are coming back to Hawaii for two weeks, then coming back to Canada for a while. We really don’t know what is happening after that but we want to be open to God's plans.

In closing I’d just like to thank the people who have been supporting us financially and praying for us.

Mahalo.
-Josh Kuperus