Finishing Up

(Pictures by Benjamin Blass)

To think almost three months is up blows my mind. My time here has been exactly what I needed to recover from LA and the 2 months of down time i had before I arrived here. God is so good. I find it hard to imagine living here for long due to the fact that you always are having to say goodbyes to great friends. Philippe, my swiss roommate left last night and it was hard to see him go. People filter in and out of here so frequently its almost madness for you brain to handle it. There are no people left from when i first arrived, but a few remain who showed up a few weeks after myself. Its sad to see so many of these wonderful people head back to their countries but also exciting to see who else you'll meet and knowing in your heart that if you travel to any of these countries they'd welcome you as a brother in a second.

I have had the privilege of experiencing many wonderful things on this island. I had one of the best surf days I could have asked for a week ago. Me and my friend Quintin went out to Lymans and found only one surfer out in the water with perfect 4-6ft beginner waves... I don't think you realize the profoundness of this. Lymans is always, and i mean ALWAYS packed. Usually there are a minimum of 15 people out there. It was amazing. The guy out there left shortly too, so it was just me and Q, with perfect waves, longboards, and an excellent sunset. It was also the first time I didn't get cold cause i had a rashguard so pretty much the best day ever. If only ever day was like that I'd perfect surfing in no time.

This last weekend I went camping for the first time to a beauitful place called Pololu Valley with some of the mission builders. It was such a fantastic memory building trip. There were 10 of us 8 guys 2 girls. One girl is a model from Finland who had never done any sort of hiking in her life. She came wearing fake nails and a miniskirt! Ha ha oh man that was funny. We hiked over into the next valley and found the original trail had been washed out so more than half the way down into this valley was using ropes to get down because it was so steep. Fortunately Silvia (our model) loved every second of it. Once we got down into the valley the trail seemed only to go back up the other side and not down to the beach we had seen so we treked down a stream till we got to our private beach. It was so sweet. Our own small private "booey beach" for all you who know what i mean. We scouted the area found the best place to make camp then just enjoyed the rest of the day. That night we made our fire a ways off from our sleeping location and when the rains started we hustled back to our camp to find one tent blow across the creek (still dry thankfully) and the tarp we'd found ripped and shredded. Ha ha o how i love stuff like that. My tent of course was perfectly fine where id left it. With the wind ripping through our camp and the rain pouring we made best we could and called it a night. The next morning we had to have one of the rental cars back before 10 and still had to hike out and drive back 2 hours. So we split into 2 groups and my group raced back to return the car in time. Overall another excellent adventure.







Another journey I got to go on was to Southpoint which has some excellent cliff/ cave jumping spots and and Greensands beach which we discovered was the perfect body surfing beach.





As far as trying to figure out what i do next and where I'll go from here I've left doors open for the time being but don't know where exactly the Lord will lead me. I accepted UCSC's invitation to join them in the fall but am not sure that'll actually come about. There have been many difficulties meeting deadlines for financial aid and such so I don't know if I'll have the funds necessary to attend. Its not a dead end yet and God could totally open wide the doors no matter the situation, I just don't have a feeling of clarity at this time. There are a few other options that have come to my attention so I am praying about those things as well. Thinking about returning to the mainland soon makes me sad that I will be leaving all this behind. That thought has been put in the back of my mind so as not to think of it. I just don't want to get caught up in the mundane, ordinary, money oriented lifestyle again. Trying to hear what God is saying to me has been difficult. Am I supposed to be involved with hands on missions, or be part of the home church to send others out? I think its the first of the two but have mixed opinions and thoughts.