Back in Washington

Back in Washington

The semester is over. Done. And I arrived back home in Washington on May 29th.

The whole last month in Kauai was a ton of fun. I built deeper friendships with people from the Bible College and the island, and got out to do lots of fun stuff. I went on some good hikes, went to some great beaches. Made some trips to Donkey's beach where the waves just manhandled us.

My friends Nick and John came out to visit for a week on April 23rd. They stayed on campus at the Bible College, and got the full experience. We went hiking at Hanakapia falls (a waterfall several hundred feet tall), we had bonfires four nights in a row, we enjoyed the Bible College talent show: it was a blast.

The talent show was actually really good. Much better than what you would expect from something called a talent show. There were some skits, some excellent singing, some really good and funny videos that students had made. And of course some sweet slam poetry.

The first weekend in May was the church's family camp, where people from the church take a weekend to hang out together and have a good time, along with Bible teaching. I hiked back to a beach on the trail to Hanakapia falls, but this time the tide was low and we found a sweet cave with openings to the ocean on both ends. It was fun playing around in the water where the waves came from both sides and met in the middle. The whole weekend was pretty great, I enjoyed being around some awesome people.

I taught another Wednesday night service, for the second and last time. Because the semester is over, not because I used Bruce Campbell in an illustration.

Finals week varied in intensity. Some people put a lot of effort into studying for it, others had an easier time (and lighter class load). And then we said goodbyes. I stuck around about a week and a half after most other people left, it was nice to have a week of intense, hardcore relaxation.

Since I got back, I've been spending some time seeing friends and family. I also went out to a camp for a work weekend, and made it over to a couple Mariners games. Saturday my dad got some sweet seats, about 6 rows behind home plate, in a special section where they have a buffet and all the food is included.

I was expecting the rest of the summer to be just as easy. Go out to camp for a few weeks, but other than that take things easy and look for a job this fall. But my plans changed: an opportunity jumped into my lap, and I actually started work today! Back at my old company, Airtight Games. It will be fun seeing where things go from here.

Spring Break

My family was in town for nearly two weeks, my parents got here on Sunday the 14th and my sister showed up with her family on Friday the 19th. It was a blast, we did lots of stuff around the island and I got to spend a lot of time with them. I got to do some stuff I haven't done before, too: visiting Maha'ulepu beach, Waimea canyon (the grand canyon of the Pacific!), golfing, kayaking the Wailua river up to Secret Falls. The time flew by, it was a full two weeks, I took several naps to recover once they left.

This week is Spring Break, which means meals aren't provided, just snacks. We've been making do, I've managed to get over to a house for dinner a few times. I didn't get much homework done while my family was here, so I've been using Spring Break to catch up.

This semester has proved to be harder for some of the students. A couple of returning students from last semester dropped out. (One might be coming back, I'm holding out hope.) I've still been growing steadily though. I realized that in all my focus on things like time management and goals, I was losing focus on the most important thing: a relationship with God. So I'm trying to get back to that, to really focus on getting closer to God. Another thing I realized has to do with guidance, I was sort of giving God options: "God, do you want me to do this, or take this other opportunity, or do this thing over here?" When really I should start from nothing and just say "God, what do you want me to do next?"

Only about 6 more weeks of the semester is left. It creeps up so fast!

Tsunami!

We had a tsunami warning on February 27th, from the earthquake in Chile. They woke us up at 4:30 am to warn us of the coming alarms and evacuation. The campus is not far above sea level, and everyone on the island was required to go to at least 65 feet elevation. It made for a hectic day, but fortunately it amounted to nothing, we couldn't see any difference in the water level from our vantage point near Kapaa.

I've been learning a lot about time management and goals lately. Pastor Bob taught on time management last week in Discipleship 102 class, and one thing that stood out to me was that if you discipline your time and set goals properly, it doesn't mean your friendships will suffer due to being busy with work, it actually means you will have more time to effectively invest in friendships.

This past Wednesday I taught at the church's Wednesday night Bible Study on Isaiah chapter 37. It was my turn, as part of the Homiletics class. I've taught some classes on programming before, but this was the first time doing something like this: I had 30-50 minutes to teach on the Bible for 50-100 people. I studied for 5 weeks, but I was still cramming this past week. I prayed a lot about it, what to teach on and asking for God's help. A few hours before the service I practiced a dry run, just delivering the message by myself in my tent, and it went terrible: I was disorganized, stumbling over my words and having trouble forming any coherent ideas. I prayed about it more, and by the time I got up to speak I was really nervous. But then once I actually got up to speak, everything clicked, and it all went smoothly! I can only give God credit for helping me out.

I'll summarize my main points from Isaiah 37:

1. Pray to God with humility and honesty. Don't hide anything from Him, lay out the whole situation.

2. God hates pride, but not because God is proud and thinks we infringe on His territory: In fact, God is loving and humble. He hates pride because it is the opposite of His perfect nature.

My family is coming for a visit next week, I'm looking forward to spending a week and a half with them.

Sky Shots

Week 4

Working long hours back home, it felt like the days were busy, but empty. Here there is not a huge workload, but every day feels full. There is always something to do, whether it is hanging out with people at camp, praying, getting involved with people at the church, or just spending some alone time with God.

Probably my favorite group outing so far was on Valentine's Day. The pastor had the students over for dinner and fun, he had a giant slip & slide set up, and a nice relaxing hot tub.

In sadder news, one of my tentmates left last week. He disappeared for a couple of nights, and once he came back he had decided that Bible College wasn't for him. He flew back to the mainland on Saturday.

Discipleship 102 is looking to be an interesting class. It could be called "leadership training": we break up into small groups twice a week and the students alternate on who leads the small group. On top of that, we are going through the book Spiritual Leadership by J Oswald Sanders, and the teachings have mostly been about leadership. And on top of that, the main homework in the class is to disciple a younger believer, taking them through a curriculum going over the basics of Christianity.

Last week in D102 we took a personality profile test. I met with our teacher (Pastor Bob) yesterday to go over my results, it was an insightful time. There wasn't anything really new, it was just a profile of my own personality and a lot of it I was already aware of, but it really confirmed what I have been learning and inspired me to grow faster. Basically I need to learn to communicate better with people, to share more openly rather than making it hard for people to get to know me. He picked a verse to share with me, 2 Tim 1:7, the same verse that I had picked for myself earlier this semester!

We've been setting traps in the kitchen area to catch some mice that have started roaming around. Some of the girls were upset when we killed one they had nicknamed "henry". We are starting to get flies around the food area again, soon we may be overwhelmed.

Kauai Ranch Photos

Campfire in the rain. It was pretty cold and wet the whole time.

Tents by the reservoir. I managed to avoid sleeping in a puddle.

I'm not a fan of horseback riding. I had a bad experience.

The tiny but delicious pineapple guava.

Warming our feet by the fire.

I think everyone had pruny feet by the end of the day.

Took the kayaks out exploring.

Back in Hawaii

I'm back at Kauai Bible College! I flew in Wednesday night, and was greeted at the airport by some familiar faces. I have been keeping busy since then, there are some changes this semester.

First of all, I'm in Tim Brown's tent, and I am a dorm steward. Tim has a knack for building things, his tent is the only guys tent with electricity, which he has hooked up to a solar power array. I didn't know what I was missing last semester! It's odd being dorm steward (in charge of the tent), since Tim is on his fourth semester and I'm only in my second.

This is the biggest semester the Bible College has ever had, despite Spring usually bringing a downswing on attendance. Most semesters don't see very many returning students, but this year only three students didn't come back! Combined with the incoming students, we are up to 26 students, and with staff there are 35 people staying on campus.

Student orientation brought up a changing focus for the Bible College: this semester they are emphasizing the context of the whole experience, rather than focusing mainly on content. The idea is that in the information age all the knowledge can be obtained without leaving home, so the Bible College should provide an experience. This includes things like constant fellowship with the other students, opportunities to serve, and even a new healthier meal plan this semester.

Friday night we joined with a local young adults group to go camping at the Kauai Ranch, a beautiful 4,500 acre property owned by a wealthy couple. Several movies have been shot there, including Jurassic Park and Tropic Thunder. Unfortunately it was cold, overcast, and rainy for us, and to top it off we didn't have any food due to fasting! It was a good time though, some people went horseback riding or took ATVs around the property, and I took a kayak to track down some pineapple guava. Saturday night was the best Chinese food I have ever tasted!

Sunday the weather turned hot and sunny again. I went to the beach and hung out with some of the students. Classes started today, but my first class is tomorrow. I'm signed up for four classes and debating whether or not to add an apologetics correspondence course. I'm taking homiletics, which means how to teach the Bible, and the big part of that class is actually teaching a large crowd of people on Wednesday nights! It sounds scary, but there probably aren't many places where I would get that opportunity.

The church here is very healthy, making a real effort to do things Biblically. They are trying to give people chances for leadership and to get plugged in at the church, and to that end there are over twenty small groups going on. Pastor Bob has a desire to allow other people to teach on Sundays, giving him a chance to train up more people for leadership. The young adults group is also hoping to train up some leaders to go start new groups on other parts of the island. Even the kids in the youth group are stepping up, giving mini messages every week.

For me personally, I'm trying to grow in the areas of courage and self-discipline. Being a dorm steward and teaching via the homiletics course should help in these things. I picked a verse that exemplifies what I'd like to learn this semester:

For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. - 2 Timothy 1:7

Christmas Break

A lot has happened in the last couple of months. I'm posting this from the airport as I prepare to go back to Kauai.

The semester ended in December, we had a banquet and talent show on Friday the 11th to cap things off. I got back to the mainland on Thursday the 17th, a couple of students took the same flight and had a long layover so my mom and I took them out to Pike Place Market.

My sister and her family joined us at my parent's house for Christmas and New Year's. We celebrated my nephew's first birthday. He's walking now, it was fun being around him.

The week after Christmas my dad asked me to share what I learned from my Discipleship class with the Wednesday night meeting at church. That went pretty well, I talked about the importance of quiet times and spending time with God.

In January I flew to the midwest for a week. I spent 5 days with my grandparents in Iowa, then went to Chicago where I saw some friends and toured the city a bit. Then last weekend I went skiing at White Pass with a couple of friends.

Dark Void came out on Tuesday the 19th, but I haven't played the final release version yet. It's getting ripped apart in the reviews, hopefully the sales are still all right.

Of course, this is just briefly hitting some of the highlights of break. I filled my time visiting numerous friends, and hanging out with family. It was really quite busy. I'm glad for all the people I got to see and sorry that I missed a few.

What I'm Learning

Things I've been learning at Bible College, by class:

Romans:

We've covered about half of the book of Romans so far. Romans is written as a formal argument, almost like a legal document. It starts off by establishing that people are guilty of sin and don't deserve heaven, then introduces the grace of God that brings justification. Justification being a one time act of forgiving sins, so that sinners may be pardoned and permitted entrance to heaven. Then it continues on to the topic of sanctification, which is God continually at work in the Christian's life to purge sin and produce holiness.

Discipleship:

Discipleship is my favorite class. It's going over a bunch of basic Christian doctrine, in order to prepare us for discipling new believers. The topics covered include daily quiet times, prayer, fellowship, being Spirit-filled, witnessing, and Biblical reconciliation. Lots of good stuff, much of which I have heard at points before, but it has really helped me to have it presented in such a focused format.

One controversial subject that was brought up in this class was a teaching on forgiveness. According to the teacher, Pastor Bob, forgiveness in the Bible is only given to those who are repentant. For example, Jesus said that if someone sins against you and repents seventy times seven times, then you should forgive them seventy times seven. On the other hand, we are called to forgive others as we would wish God to forgive us, so it seems we should forgive unconditionally. I just brought it up because I thought it was an interesting point of discussion, and I'm not entirely sure what the answer is.

Hermeneutics (Inductive Bible Study):

This class is about how to study the Bible. There's a focus on preparing students to lead a small Bible Study. We pick a passage of scripture each week, do an outline, and go through the verses recording observations, interpretations, and applications. Then the class period is discussing what we got out of the text.

John:

Nothing special about the course requirements here, we're pretty much going straight through the book of John with insights from the teacher. I like the teacher, he's quite a character. He cracks jokes like "My wife is great, when she's humble." The book of John is also a great book, some recurring themes are the deity of Jesus, how the Jewish leaders tried to suppress and kill Him, and how His teachings were repeatedly misunderstood by the unbelieving Jews.

Genesis:

This is also teaching straight through the book of Genesis, although the homework is varied a bit from the standard (some papers and memorization). Many Christians believe that Genesis 1-11 are not literally true, but figurative in nature. These are the chapters that cover creation, the flood, and the tower of Babel (origin of languages). Interestingly, the percentage of Christians taking a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11 is higher if the Christians in question are scientists! The teacher for our class takes a literal interpretation.

Other:

We have a class called "Chuck Tracks" which is pastor Chuck Smith teaching straight through the entire Bible. This class takes all 4 semesters, so for my semester I am just going through the first half of the Old Testament. He likes to emphasize the importance of relying on God to work rather than trying to rely on ourselves.

I've also been doing a little studying on my own time when I get the chance. I've been reading through From God to Us, which is all about how we got the Bible and why Christians claim it is inspired.

Another interesting point that was touched on in both the Sunday sermons and the Discipleship class was that of a Sabbath day. The pastor here believes that the Sabbath should still be observed, not according to strict rules about what times and actions are acceptable, but rather setting aside one day a week to relax and spend time with God. We put this into practice in the Discipleship class, setting aside a few hours one Saturday to go on a 3 hour prayer retreat. Since the point was relaxing and enjoying time with God we weren't required to force ourselves to pray for all that time, we were encouraged to come prepared with a devotional book or a sermon we wanted to listen to. It was a good thing, and something I think I'd like to work in to my weekly routine.

Discussion: Bible Prophecy

"No unconditional prophecy of the Bible about events to the present day has gone unfilled. Hundreds of predictions, some of them given hundreds of years in advance, have been literally fulfilled."

- Geisler & Nix, From God to Us

In my mind, prophecy is the most convincing evidence for the authenticity of the Bible. If the claim above is true, it seems like almost incontrovertible evidence. This thread is the place to discuss it.

Note that if the Bible is really inspired by God, then we can expect 100% accuracy. If it can be shown that even a single prophecy went unfulfilled, it would have huge ramifications.

An Open-Minded Faith

A brief statement of faith:

I believe that God exists, that He created the universe and He cares about people. I believe that the Bible is true, the divinely inspired word of God. Therefore, I will try to live my life according to what the Bible teaches.

This is something I've believed for a long time, but the Bible College experience has helped solidify it for me. I hope that going forward it will be a bigger part of my life.

Since I do not have perfect knowledge I cannot make a claim to know with 100% certainty that this is true, instead I take it on faith backed up by evidence from the small portion of knowledge that I do have. I also have faith that if I challenge and examine my beliefs, then they will stand up to scrutiny. Therefore I would love to hear from anyone who disagrees with me, to test my theory that my beliefs hold fast against criticism. I'd like to call this "open-minded faith".

For starters, there's one thing that's been on my mind that I'd like to hear more about:

Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

So according to the Bible, the existence of God should be evident from creation. I'd like to hear more people's thoughts on this, to see if they agree with it or not.

Shenanigans in Pictures

Here are a few pictures of various happenings that I found funny. You can see the tents that are our living quarters in the background of a few shots.

Tim plays with a mousetrap:

Jimmy vacuums angry wasps in midair:

Some of the guys returning from "work projects":

Steve teaching a baby bird how to fly:

Some other happenings that I don't have pictures of:

• Epic battles: 2 centipedes versus giant cane spider versus 6 dewinged wasps.


• Leftover tortillas and pancakes make for good frisbees.


• Cheese slices stick to people quite easily. So do geckos, but the girls don't appreciate that.

The First Few Weeks

Over 2 weeks have passed since my last update, and a lot has happened in that time. I'll try to fill in the highlights here.

We go to the beach nearly every day, the closest one is only a mile away, and a nice beach is just a short car ride. We often go jump in the waves to clean ourselves off, especially at the beach that has a public shower to rinse off with. The water here on campus is a bit sulfuric, it smells like rotten eggs.

The weekend 2 weeks ago I got to explore the island a bit, there is a water reservoir that is a big lake you can jump in. There's a platform in the water about 15 feet high that you can jump off of. I tried to do a front flip and smacked my back on the water, that didn't feel good.

That Sunday I went to a beach called "Rock Quarry". It's only rocky on one side of the beach, the other side of the beach has some relatively tame waves, and there is a rivermouth so you can go swimming in the calm fresh water if you want. One of the guys from church brought some surfboards and gave me an intro to surfing. I'm not any good, I got tossed of a few times and didn't catch any waves.

Labor day weekend we went camping on the west side that Friday night. I showed up early to help gather firewood, and got to watch the sunset over the pacific. It flashes green for just a moment as it goes over the horizon. I brought my hammock to sleep in, but most of the people just slept on the sand in a blanket or sleeping bag. It was a full moon, one of the brightest nights I've seen, huge visibility. There were plenty of locals camping out on the beach playing loud music. One of the guys had a pretty big crab crawl into his sleeping bag, that was a nasty surprise. In the morning we could see people hunting goats up in the cliffs, there were gunshots.

That Monday I went to a beach called "Tunnels". That is a good snorkeling area, there is a reef right next to the shore and one farther out you can swim to. I saw a sea turtle and some cool tropical fish.

Saturday a family from church had the guys from Bible College over, they fed us and took us to the beach. On the way back the truck ran out of gas, and we had to wait for someone to bring us some extra. Then it started to rain as we pulled away, the guy in the back of the truck wanted to switch vehicles but the driver didn't give him enough time and he got soaked. Once we got back to their house they gave us free shirts and fed us again, then we watched a movie. (Joseph)

The campus is located at the bottom of a hill on church property. The church meets in a big tent on top of the hill, and we walk up their for classes. The tents are split into two groups, one for the guys and one for the girls. The girls have electricity from a generator, but they pay the price by being close to a rooster that keeps them up all night. One of these days I'll put up a post about classes and what I'm learning.

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 3/3)

So I knew that I was going to quit my job to attend Bible College, but I didn't know where. One night I went Soul Dancing in Seattle. I was planning on meeting a friend there, but he showed up late, so I introduced myself to a few girls and ended up talking with them for about 2 hours. They were telling me how they liked to take vacations in Kauai, they go every year. I hadn't heard of it before, I didn't even know it was an island in Hawaii.

Fast forward a week. I'm at work, and I go for a little walk to get away for a bit. I walk and pray for 20 minutes or so. I get back to the office with a brilliant idea: "Hey, I should search for blogs from students that have gone to Bible College, to see what their experiences were."

Top Google search result for "Bible College Blog"? Kauai Bible College Blog.

There's a connection there: I had been praying about where to go, I just heard about Kauai a week before, and now I find out there's a Bible College there. A pretty loose connection I admit, but I decided it was enough.

Our Director of Work Projects

We have some interesting characters here at the Bible College:

Wky Kauai Bible College? (Part 2/3)

It's January 2009. I already know I'm going to quit my job after our project ends in the summer. I don't know what I'm going to do after that; I've been praying for guidance, and Bible College is one option I've thought about.

After church one day I went out for lunch with a few friends. Some of them had been to Bible College before and were talking about their experiences. At one point, someone turns to me and says "Jonathon, you should go to Bible College!"

Now, this was just a random comment that flowed from the context of the conversation. Still, it was something I had been praying about, and it's not exactly something you hear everyday, so I couldn't get it out of my head even though I figured it didn't mean anything. I went home and prayed about it, and I asked for God to make it really clear whether or not He actually wanted me to go to Bible College.

Later that night I went to a service at Mars Hill Church in Ballard. After the service I got talking with a guy sitting next to me and we ended up grabbing some dinner. It turns out that he had gone to a Bible College in California, so I asked him about it and as he was answering he looked at me and said "Dude, you should go."

So on the same day, two different people both told me I should go to Bible College. It's moments like these when I just have to step back and say "OK God, I got it. I got the message." That was when I knew I was going to Bible College, but I didn't know where.

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 1/3)

Why Kauai Bible College? (Part 1/3)

Last summer I went through a period where I was not walking closely with God, and I wrestled with questions about my faith. Questions like "Why would a good God send people to hell?" and "Do I really believe in God, or have I just been indoctrinated by my upbringing?". Eventually I worked through some of these issues and decided that yes, I do believe in God, and I want to serve Him.

But it wasn't until one night in October or November that I finally sat down and had a really good quiet time with God. I was reading in Ruth, and the verses right at the beginning jumped out at me:

Ruth 1:1-2

Now it came about in the days when the judges governed, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the land of Moab with his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife, Naomi; and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem in Judah. Now they entered the land of Moab and remained there.

Elimelech moves his family away from Israel into the land of Moab. Moab in the Bible is Israel's bitter enemy. So it seems that Elimelech went off on his own, rather than being where God wanted him to be.

As I was reading this, I just felt convicted that I was not where God wanted me to be. So I decided to quit my job. I would stay on until the end of the project, and then move on to wherever God wanted me to go. I started toying with the idea of attending Bible College, but at this point it was just as likely that I would spend some time travelling or working on my own projects at home.

Arrival

(I wrote this on Friday, but I only had 1 hour of internet access and couldn't get it posted up in time, so here it is now.)

My flight arrived at 7:40 pm local time, 10:40 pm PST. There were no hula dancers greeting us, just a regular small town airport. It was already dark out, but the temperature was comfortable for shorts and a T shirt.

The Dean of Men picked me up at the airport and took me to the campus. It's on the same property as the church, just down a hill. We got there just after the Wednesday night Bible Study ended, I met a few people and hitched a ride to a beach bonfire. Both of the vehicles I rode in that night had a broken door.

There are 3 people in my tent including me. The girl's tents have electricity from a generator, but the men aren't so lucky. Still, it's a nice tent, we have bunk beds and carpet.

The showers have cold water, but it's not too bad because of the climate. It feels brisk and refreshing, definitely wakes you up in the morning. They painted the pipes black so the water will warm up during the day. The first time I took a shower I was bombarded with a high pressure jet stream of water, afterwards I noticed that all the other stalls actually had shower heads installed.

We use outhouses for the bathrooms. The ones next to the guy's tents don't flush properly, so we can only pee in them. Unfortunately I didn't realize this at first...

The weather is beautiful. Sunny, partly cloudy, frequent breezes. It's rained several times since I got here, all just quick showers. It gets hot during the day, but the clouds and breezes keep it from getting too bad.

Most of the students were here by Wednesday night, except for a few who read the wrong section of the website and came in on Thursday. One of the guys in my tent misread the start date and showed up 10 days early!

We had orientation Thursday and today. Thursday afternoon we went to the beach for a few hours. It was nice: big waves, warm water (very salty!), beautiful beach.

They posted the class list, I signed up today. First semester students have a list of required classes: Genesis, Romans, Hermeneutics, and Discipleship. Plus the Wednesday morning prayer meeting and Wednesday evening Bible Study are required for all students, along with "Chuck Tracks". For the Chuck Tracks we listen to 6 hours of audio each week, it's Chuck Smith teaching through the Bible from start to finish and takes 4 semesters to finish. On top of the required classes I'm taking John and the Pastoral Epistles.

Classes officially start on Monday!

Almost There

The last few weeks before I go have been busy and hectic. But in a good way. Aside from packing, moving out, and finishing up other errands, I've been trying to see friends and family as much as I can. I appreciated seeing everyone I was able to, but naming them all would take too much time so I'll just pick out a few highlights.

Friday the 7th was my last day of work, and they took me out to play whirlyball. Whirlyball is a sport, with rules similar to basketball, but you use wiffleballs and you have special rackets to catch and throw. And everyone is in a bumper car. My team lost every game, so they switched me to the team that hadn't lost yet, and then we lost.

Sunday the 9th I went to a show in Seattle called 7 Strangers. It's a live action spoof of reality TV shows. It's set in a huge mansion where 7 people act out their characters and the various fights and drama that happens, and the audience just wander around the house and observe whatever action they happen to stumble across. I enjoyed it, it was definitely a novel approach to improv theatre.

Wednesday the 12th I had a court date to fight a speeding ticket, so I made a beach trip out of it. The skies cleared up and we saw some awesome shooting stars, it was the second best time of the year to watch them. There were some huge ones, a few of them lasted close to a second and left trails across the sky. Then we built a huge bonfire. Not a normal bonfire; a huge one. The kind where you can't stand closer than five feet away because it's too hot.

I went back a week and a half later and built a fire at the same spot, but this time the tide was not friendly. It came up far higher than we were expecting and flooded us out.

Friday night the 14th I went camping at Lake Wenatchee, and again watched the stars. There weren't as many shooting stars this time, but the sky was still beautiful away from the city lights. I spent the night in a hammock rather than a tent, and despite being a little chilly I got more sleep than I would have on the hard ground. I'm definitely bringing that hammock to Hawaii.

And since then there was a going away party, a campfire, I moved out, visited friends and family... like I said, keeping busy. I fly out tomorrow, it's coming up so fast!

Introduction

That first post was mostly a test, I'll try to fill in a little about me here.

Since 2007 I've been a programmer at Airtight Games in Redmond, WA. I was working on Dark Void, which is shaping up to be a fun game when it comes out early next year. The work was challenging and interesting, I liked my coworkers and my boss, and overall it was a good experience apart from working too many hours.

But now I'm moving on! I'm headed out to Kauai Bible College, in Kapaa, Hawaii, on the island of Kauai. I wanted to get away from things for a while so I could focus on God and study the Bible.

I've never visited Hawaii, and I don't know anyone who lives there, although I know a few people who come from Hawaii. Here's a few tidbits I've managed to gather:

• Kauai is the 4th largest Hawaiian island, and is inhabited by over 60,000 people.*
• Kauai is known for being laid back and having beautiful scenery. Many movies have done filming there, such as Jurassic Park.
• Kauai Bible College is affiliated with Calvary Chapel, and from what I hear has about 30 students.
• I'll be staying in tents.
• The meal plan provides 18 meals a week.
• They eat lots of spam in Hawaii.

My flight leaves on August 26th, and I'll be coming back for Christmas break on December 16th. I'll do my best to keep this blog updated consistently.