This year has been a pretty crazy adventure for our family. We found out last December that Cliff was hired at a hospital on the island of Oahu. So we decided to take the opportunity and walk through the open doors as long as they stayed open and to not shove them open if they started to close… because we didn’t want to look back on our lives and say, “What if…?”
We moved here with our carry on luggage and 18 boxes of stuff after having sold or given away almost everything we owned. We spent the first 5 or 6 months putting our new home together primarily with things from garage sales, Craig’s List, and thrift stores. We also threw ourselves into church hunting, getting to know our neighbors, signing the kids up for AWANA and sports activities, and a few other things. Every day we are feeling more and more connected, and I am starting to recognize neighbors and friends in stores and other places now, which is fun!
It has been very different here than in Oregon on many levels. The temperature has been a challenge for me (Cliff LOVES it), but I and the kids have never showered so much in our lives! The many bugs have caused a little paranoia and several habit changes in our home. We don’t have windows, only screens, which is just a different way of living. And the culture has many different subsets that have been fun discovering. We have also learned quite a few different Hawaiian words and phrases.
Cliff wanted me to tell you, “We did a lot of stuff this year.” Yes, we have, but I wanted to tell you that he is a “seize the day” kind of guy. Almost weekly he wakes one or two of the kids early, takes them to get a warm drink and goes out to the beach to watch the sunrise or takes them out on the kayak for an early morning ride to a nearby island. And last night we went to enjoy the glow of the full moon on the ocean while the kids did cartwheels in the sand. He has mostly been enjoying his job, now that he is on days (since August) and he has picked up a per diem job at another hospital as well. We are very thankful for both of these options. Cliff is also co-leading a group of people from our gospel community group from a small church plant that we plugged in to.
I have been networking, looking for places to get involved and serve, and trying to balance living in a tropical land of fun, with actual life like laundry and school. It’s tough to sit inside and do school or house work when we are only 3 miles from the beach. I’ve met some wonderful people from around the world living here, and I am very thankful for the opportunity to experience it this place and these people even though we often miss everyone back in Oregon. Besides setting up our home, making new friends and exploring the beautiful island, I also joined a community garden soon after we arrived and I am learning by trial and error and from my helpful and experienced fellow gardeners who have come from around the world. It’s been frustrating and rewarding and very satisfying when I have success and can harvest something! Also we joined a weekly homeschool co-op that has been great for all of us.
Mason, 12, has developed several new skills since arriving. He enjoys early morning walks and photography sessions filming the gorgeous birds and plants here. He then makes documentaries and movies with them and his brother and sisters. He’s been using apps and special effects to make them exciting. Mason makes friends easily and has connected with a few guys from the community through various groups we are apart of, which has been good, because he is one of the two oldest kids in our church and there are few kids his age for him to play with. He has also started painting on canvases. We all followed his lead and we now have a huge wall of colorful art that has been really fun to work on. Mason played flag and tackle football this year and was privileged to play in the Aloha stadium twice! During one game he caught a pass and ran in for a touchdown! He has been diligently practicing his Kendama which is a wooden toy craze that has swept the island… Mason’s a fun and creative kid.
Kaiah has been kind of timid this year in making friends. She really misses a couple of friends back in Oregon and keeps in touch with them faithfully via e-mail and face time. She has become a fast swimmer, LOVES to snorkel, is skilled at maneuvering a kayak, and is doing great in school. She has a very funny personality… totally sarcastic (I wonder who she gets that from) and is a merciless tease, which keeps me on my toes. She is such a smart little gal, that we have races to see who can count or guess the carbs for her meals first. She usually wins! And she has been taking more responsibility for managing her Type 1 Diabetes. She and Mason are now the same height and look like twins which is a question I am frequently asked.
Cambria, 7, is still her little sweet self. She is slowly coming out of her princess phase and entering into an animal loving, nurturing one. For the first few months every night she would cry because she missed our cat Anners, who we had to leave back in Oregon. I finally decided to ask our landlords if they would reconsider the pet policy and they agreed! A couple of months ago, I was given the pick of a litter of 5 week old kittens and we chose 2 girls. This has completely delighted Bria. She is enamored with them and sometime “loves” them a little too much! She has also discovered a love for gymnastics and tree climbing, though she does not enjoy swimming in the ocean. Funny girl. Cambria is a delightful kid.
Lochlan just turned 5. He is just so funny! When he’s happy, he’s very, very happy. When he’s mad, watch out! When he’s curious, he does not stop asking questions until he’s satisfied…. no I’m not kidding. He won’t stop. And when he has energy, which is 90% of the time, he is jumping, climbing, yelling, whacking, exploring, talking, talking, talking, talking, poking, crashing… Though Locke is extremely intelligent, he has been a little on the slow side in regards to learning and has a 15 second attention span, so we bribed him to learn his letters, their sounds, and write them all legibly, with a viewing of Star Wars 4. He already knows the whole story line and all the character’s names from books. He is almost there! Every day he learns or writes something new we feel like we’re witnessing a small miracle. It’s too hard to completely describe our little buddy except that he has humbled us, stretched us, made us laugh till we cry, and delighted our souls. Everyone loves Locke (and his hair). Hawaii has been a great place for him. He can run and climb and swim and surf. He’s a fun active little kid :)
This adventure has stretched our family in many ways and we are still learning a lot. God has blessed our family with some new and exciting situations that are growing our faith since moving here and, in some ways, we are still attempting to figure out what He has for us. We don’t know what the future holds, but for now we are enjoying this beautiful island and the people on it. It looks like we will most likely be back to visit Oregon in July. But we love visitors (hint hint)!
Though it is still 80 degrees here and it feels nothing like the Christmases we have previously known, we are still celebrating God’s gift to us in sending his Son. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
Love,
Cliff, Becky, Mason, Kaiah, Cambria, and Lochlan
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