Brand New Blog

David and I have a new blog... we wont be adding to this one anymore...

Check it out..

http://www.okiym.com/Blog/Welcome.html

Hume Lake & Shuri Castle

Last week we had two Hume Lake staff out here visiting Okinawa. Hume Lake is running our annual HS spring break trip, Shorebreak. David, Buddy and the guys were going to go out to Tokishiki Island to check out the site for the camp but the weather was bad so we had an afternoon to kill. Since we had some time we headed down to Naha and checked out Shuri Castle. It was impressive but its just not the same as castles in Europe. =) The best part was they give you this flier with a map of the castle. And as you go through the castle you can stamp your flier. If you get so many stamps kids can go get a prize. =) I lost my paper so I didn't get a prize. Well, also I am not 12.

Also, you take your shoes off when you go inside. They give you a bag for you to carry your shoes in. =)

How do you make sure your turkey tastes good?

You put 1/2 pound of butter on it! =) We had thanksgiving with some our volunteer staff, Ally, Paul, Michelle and our fellow Malachi friends Kate, and Heather. Ally made our lovely 25 pound turkey and she did put 1/2 pound of butter on it. It was so tasty! It was fun to all bring some thing. I even made a Pumpkin pecan pie. I wasn't sure if it would turn out but every one seemed to like it. Heather made these AMAZING smoked salmon stuffed mushrooms. After a very filling lunch we sat around watched a movie and even took naps. =) I think the most exciting thing that happened is Heather dropped Jello salad on Kate's dress. It was hilarious. Kate loved that she got to wear sweats for the rest of the day.

Okinawa D House

If you are interested in helping support the Okinawa D House click on the link below...



Information for Malachi D-House Information

Common Ground

Last week we got a box of Finger Blasters in the mail. None of the students here had played with them before, needless to say they were a big hit. I think David was the only one who shot two people in the eye! ;)

We have only been holding youth group for about a month. But both groups are growing and have such a great energy. David and I are really loving our students. David has been working with some of our High School students to start up a worship band. The newest member is Kendra who has an amazing voice and has such a heart for worship. She is one of the Chaplain's daughters here and is the only girl in an all boy band. :)

Funny things in Japan

here is some local signs here in Okinawa. Only in Japan!

David defies death. ;)

So last week David and I went to take pictures of all the bases we are currently working with. We were in the car all morning driving around. We passed by one of the parks I went to with some Jr. Highers last year and I told David he needed to see the "drop" slide. so we went and checked it out. Thought you might enjoy some pictures of this adventure. I laughed so hard when I saw David's face when he got to the top. The slide is unreal. No where in America would this be legal.

1st Volunteer Staff Mtg!

Last night we have some of our volunteer staff over for dinner. We played acouple rounds of boxing on our new Wii and enjoyed a tasty dinner. For David and I this was way exciting. We are only a couple weeks into youth group and we already have STAFF! What a blessing.

We are really looking forward to working with this group of people. We love them already.

Crawling in a dark cave! Fun?!

The other day, Dave & I went exploring with some of our Malachi friends. The first part of the day Chris, Dave, Heather and I went spelunking. What is that you might say? Well, basically it's crawling through caves. It was a lot of fun but we did get a bit dirty. We found bats, some nasty looking centipedes and some crazy, huge crab (Only Chris saw it).












After that adventure we went back to base, and picked up lovely Kate. We headed up to Nago and went to the famous Pineapple Park. Before Hawaii became big exporters of pineapples, apparently Okinawa supplied the world. Who knew?! We only paid 5 bucks and got to ride on these little carts and then try lots of samples of pineapple stuff. Pineapple cake, pineapple chocolate, pineapple candy, pineapple bread and tons of other stuff. It was crazy. But hey, we were full after leaving. =)

Camping on a beach...

So last weekend, David, Chris, Chandler (a HS student david's mentoring) and I went camping. It was raining the few days before we left and all day on Friday. We talked about not going but felt like we should give it a try anyways. We piled into our Surf and drove to the northern tip of the island. It rained the entire drive! We stopped for a late dinner at the tiny little hole in the wall place. The owner is from Peru and would love to offer anyone cow heart. YUM! After eating dinner with out eating any heart we drove to the beach. Just so you know, it was POURING rain as we at dinner. We got to the beach and the rain stopped. Although very winding we set up our tents and enjoyed the full moon.

The sky cleared up and you could walk along the beach with out any flashlights. Its was beautiful. The next morning we woke up to clear skies and dry rock for climbing. David and the boys did great climbing. Chandler was a beast. =) It was so much fun to just be outside all day. The wind was still pretty strong but it kept us from getting eaten by bugs and kept us cool.

All in all it was a great time. David and I really needed to get away for the night as well. And we had been planning on going camping for months so it was about time. =)

Enjoy some of our shots.

www.okiym.com

So after hours of work, we now have a youth ministry website! yea!

I encourage you to check it out. David did such a great job.

www.okiym.com

Escape 2008!

This weekend was full of activity just like Junior High Students like it. We were able to play on the beach, play night games, spend time in the Word together and just hang out together. David and I had 5 students from Lester Middle School. This was our first "High Tide" retreat. Good times.

Pinky?

So we are now owners of two cars.  And one of them is pink! ha ha. It's a little Japanese car and its great. It has AC, is manual and has wonderful gas mileage. We are loving it. We got a great deal on it too! God is so good. 

David's Driving!

After almost three months of not driving, David can finally drive. As of an hour ago we got his license.

yup, he can now drive some where with out me. Poor boy has had to rely on me to take him everywhere.


This is a day of much rejoicing. =)

Whale Sharks

This past Saturday David and I were invited to go on a whale shark dive with one of his friends from Colorado, Jon. Although it was a little expensive David and I decided it was one of those once in a life time opportunity. It was amazing. We took about a five minute boat ride straight off of the coast. There is a very large net where the two whale sharks are kept. It serves as a research facility. They help pay for it by charging for the dives.
The whale sharks move like typical sharks but they only eat plankton. =) So I felt pretty safe. They were kind a like large cows, but more graceful. I would highly recommend this to anyone if they have a chance.

Staff Conference

This past week we had our Malachi asia staff conf. We stayed at a miltary recreation/resort place called Okuma. It's about a two hour drive north from our apt. The excitement heading into the week was a typhoon passing by us. Our first few days at Okuma it did nothing but rain. It was beautiful. The wind and rain was so powerful! How great is our God. Our last full day there the sun came out and the water was beautiful. David and I headed up to Cape Hedo (the northern most point on island) for the afternoon. We even found some routes for ROCK CLIMBING! =)

David and I really enjoyed getting to know our team more. Our speaker, Adam came and spoke on faith. God used him to remind us all where our passions truly should lie, in Christ alone. Even as David and I head into this new ministry we need to remember this, our confidence must be in Christ.

Lets start at the begining...

One of the fun things about starting a whole new youth program/youth group is the dreaming part. Dave and I have been enjoying praying and dreaming together about where to go with this whole thing. Usually stuff like this is not very fun for me (Andrea) but there is such a peace about being here and I find my heart so excited about starting something new.

Last week we spent time networking at the schools. This was wonderful. David and I picked out names for the Lester M.S. group and the Kubasaki H.S. group, High Tide and Common Ground. Check out the flyers David made, aren't they awesome?



This week we put our bid in for the contract, which closes this coming Tuesday. And then tonight we went to a youth group at Foster Chapel and the Kubasaki High School football game. We got to connect with a couple students, which was encouraging. It was a wonderful opportunity to just watch students and pray.

Home Sweet Home

A couple people have asked about our apt. Here are a couple recent pictures. As you can see we use every bit of space. =) Most of the pictures are just of our living room/kitchen.

Two months down, and many more to go...

On the 16th David and I went out to dinner for our two month anniversary. We didn't do anything on our first month so we decided to go out for month two. We went to the lovely Macaroni Grill on Foster. And we had the best waiter, this is not the norm on a military facility. =) But seriously he was great, we never had a half empty glass.

We loved celebrating our two months but its more fun to think how many more we have ahead of us...

Hanging out with MS students

This week Dave and I are covering for Chris while he is on vacation. On Tuesday we got to hang out with students during youth lounge and then run youth group. It was fun to see some of the students who I worked with last year and meet some new ones. We get to see many of them again today for youth lounge and Bible Study!

Thought you might enjoy some of these pictures!