Brown Bear

So, I'm working outside everyday, maintaining the fish ponds. Heather is working inside everyday cleaning bathrooms. As a result, I'm slowly evolving into a Maui brown bear, while Heather is more of a Kihei polar bear. I tell her this constantly. I have found throughout my years of experience that women really like it when you tell them that they are pale. It's truly amazing that I'm married, isn't it?

I really enjoy working outside each day, but I have to wade around in recycled water scrubbing out algae from the ponds. I got a cut on my toe the other day, and it blew up like Jim Brown's bunion in I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. I know that is a pretty little known movie reference, but if you saw it, you know how nasty.

Speaking of movies, I was somehow woman-handled into seeing Sex and the City 2 the other day. It was either that, or go see an action movie with Jake Gyllenhall. To me, the choices seemed about the same. Don't get me wrong, I think Jake is a pretty good actor- Donnie Darko is one of my favorites. I even liked him in Bubble Boy, for that matter, because I'm a nerd. But old Jake as a Persian superhero/thief/timetraveller/acrobat......Persian.....seemed a bit excessive. Unlike the old westerns, don't they try to actually use people from the ethnicity that they are playing. You know, like Tom Cruise in The Last Samarai. I'm glad that I could make Heather happy by finally going to see something she wanted to see, but I'm so sad that I had to waste $20 bucks on that el stinko. I don't have to tell you all how the movie went - boy trouble, lots of clothes, and Kim Cattrall hooks up. We got home, and I had to see how much it has made, and - to date - a quarter billion worldwide. That is billion, with a "b". I guess people just getting easier and easier to please. I did get to pick the next flick though, so we rented Book of Eli with Denzel. I had to get some marks on my man card, and figured a post apocalyptic, sword fighting Denzel would do the trick. Thanks, Denzel.

Swollen toes notwithstanding, things are going really clipping along well. The island is absolutely beautiful, but the weather is bizarre. The city of Kihei, where we live, gets 10 inches of rain a year, but drive a half hour, and it rains 400 inches a year. Makes for some pretty scenery, as you will see below.

Sweet.

This is the view from my buddy Richard's back porch. Sweet.


Things are going well so far. We are enjoying our time at Haggai quite a bit, and have stayed nice and busy. I've probably vacuumed and mopped one hectare of commercial grade carpet and tile. I have no idea how many rooms Heather has cleaned in the past week and a half. When I say clean, I mean real, real, real clean. We are talking clean the A/C vents with a toothbrush kind of clean. Heather is talking about us giving our house a deep clean like this when we get back to Texas. When you're talking about cleaning a house with a toothbrush, baby, there is no us. I'm out!

Some of you all have asked what we are doing here, and what kind of missionary work can be done in Hawaii. To quote my buddy Hobbs, "Maui, huh? That's struggling for Jesus." From its website "Haggai Institute was founded in 1969 to equip Asian, African and Latin American Christian leaders — who will train others — to reach their own people for Christ." In a nutshell, as a volunteer, we keep the place clean so that the men and women who participate can focus on learning more. The participants in this program are pretty incredible. It's pretty cool to see three ladies from Ghana, Phillippines and Brazil all sitting around a table having dinner together.

Here's some Hawaiian pics:
This is just a really big tree with a hot chick sitting under it.
On our trip up Mt. Haleakala, our van broke down.

Twice.

Sunset from our building.And, she's happy to be here.