Toilets still clog in Hawaii

Yes, toilets still clog in Hawaii, and this is what I woke up to today. Thankfully, Dad coached me well, and after a walk to Safeway to buy a plunger, the commode is back in business. Literally.

Yesterday was wonderful and difficult all at the same time. We had our official intern orientation yesterday morning, which included breakfast at a Mexican restaurant and then discussing expectations on the beach for a few hours. Not a bad place for a meeting, I must say. Our mentor coordinators fixed us homemade lasagna and peach cobbler for lunch, and we talked about the intern mentor program. What a blessing we have in these coordinators! They have made us feel so welcomed and loved in the last week by feeding us, letting us watch movies at their houses, and showing us around the island. They truly love us and are excited to have us here and invest in our spiritual growth. We'll be paired with mentors in the next month or so. Really looking forward to that!

After lunch, I met with Christie, former intern for my position, and she showed me a bunch of office protocol. I certainly learned quite a bit, and am glad to have gotten so much done already, but I had hit the exhausted wall. Hard. A nap didn't happen, but resting at home last night helped. I feel better today, but I doubt I'm out of the transition woods yet.

My new roommate, Rachel, and I were both exhausted last night, but we had a great time sharing funny stories and trying to get our ceiling fan to work better without hitting our heads on it. She is from Ventura County, CA, and studied exercise science at Marshall University in West Virginia. She works in our Children's ministry, and has a heart of gold. She loves kids, and loves life, but certainly doesn't take herself too seriously. She's a mix of Mexican, French-Canadian, and something else. Yep, she's super tan already, and I'll never catch up to her. Dang it! She's had lots of roommates before, and this summer, she worked on staff at Hume Lake Christian camps. I think we'll get along well, and so far, she hasn't complained about my snoring. :)

Blessing of the day: Last night some of the interns wanted to have a praise session on the beach and look at the stars. Ended up not happening, but we're gonna try to do so tonight. But as we were gathering on our apartment, Len (young adult intern), suggested we try to have a time of fellowship and encouragement with just us interns on our next day off. He'd like to keep it up weekly, but that may take time to establish. Len had a rough upbringing and is hilarious, but he truly has a heart for leading people to God, and I was blessed to see his concern for our intern group's own bonding and well-being. He's married to Jo (worship intern) for 1 year now- they are great together.

Another blessing happened yesterday at breakfast. Upon hearing our group had just moved to the island and that we're interns at Hope Chapel, her advice for us was this: "Take care of each other. A lot of us don't have family on the island, so we need to take care of each other and form our own family." Wow. I was expecting advice for the best bars or beaches to go to, but nope. I don't know if she's a believer or not, but I feel like that was the Lord speaking through her. I love noticing His truth in surprising ways!