A Week of Adventure

We started our journey off with a 3 hour drive up the closest mountain to Ella, where we debriefed with the two ladies Charlene and Emily before their flight back home. 

We hiked around one waterfall 

And Kenai slept :)

Well all three boys did :)

Cody and Koda braved the cold water and went under the fall

Next we took the 5 hour van drive in the middle of the night to Colombo. We spent the day showing the girls the city and let them shop for souvenirs. Then we checked into our hotel and the kids were straight to the pool. The girls got to use the comfortable hotel room to take a warm shower (the first one of the month) and relax before leaving that night to the airport. 

Its always such a nice time as a family when we get that alone time as a family away from the day to day ministry/life. 

Next we headed towards home on a train.

We saw lots of beautiful jungle on our journey across island that you can only see by train. We went through many tea plantations. 

Half way across the island we stopped at a city called Kandy. We stayed one night in a room for rent at someone's house. 

The kids had fun in their grass yard with this cute little bridge, grass and a swing.

This is the famous temple in Kandy. 

Then we took our last train to Ella. 

Koda and Kenai loved the train! But it was a little longer than expected. It rained a lot of the ride, and due to the heavy rain, the train had problems and trees falling on the tracks. The 6 hour train ride took 10 hours. So here they are sleeping. We did a lot of that. Fun times, great adventures, and such nice family times growing closer and closer to each other. I love my fam!

Happy 5th Birthday Koda Bear!

Koda was so stoked when he saw his Rescue Bot Transformer he had been wanting since he was in America last time. We had bought it for him when we were there, and had to hold on to it for his b-day. It was so much fun getting it out of storage and surprising him with it!

Cody, Mike, and Chootie Patah did the face painting on all the kids. They loved it!

 

Koda got a Transformer one that daddy designed

The kids had a blast playing "Pin the tail on the Donkey" for the first time

Daddy made a cake for Koda - yummy chocolate!

And Mommy decorated the white board 

June STN Team Joins The Fun

The STN team joined us for teaching Sunday school on Sundays

The team also helped us out on Family night; prepping food, cooking, hanging out with locals and building friendships. We spent the night eating and competing on wii dance.

The team helped us out on Saturdays at Surf and Swim. It was pretty flat the month of June, but we had fun with the paddle board, playing relays and games....

 and Cody read the club boys a story from our kids little surfer book, which teaches names of surf tricks and lingo. (Special thanks to my mom and Aunt Kara for getting us this tent to provide shade at the HOT beach and thanks to the STN team for bringing it over from America).

 Our silly STN Surf Club boys, trying to get whiter :)

I took the team out to a village we call "Snake Village" (Kateputah) where we loved on them; we played games, gave a message and testimony and handed out clothes. 

Fun Blessing Some Locals

Niklas and Brenna made sure the STN team brought out a few necessities for their good friend Ajantha. 

 Siyam helped me present the gifts to Ajantha :)

I broke Babu's iPod accidentally by leaving it in the sun. So I wanted to bless him with a new one and had the team bring one out. My wonderful friend Vanessa, at STN Wahiawa, went out and bought it and sent it with the team. 

Needless to say, he was stoked :)

Loving on His Oikos

Cody continues building deeper friendships with his local friends. They enjoy fishing and surfing together and continue getting closer. 

Fishing Adventure of a Lifetime

Some of my Local friends took me to this offshore sunken ship that they always catch big fish on hook and line but most break off because they cut the line on all the scrap metal.   My first trip here I shot lots of fish but lost 3 giants due to having the wrong gear.   This time I was a little better prepared and new what to expect.  After several dives and some good grade fish I shot about a 15 pounder and as I was bringing it to the surface. I saw this Giant Jack coming after it so I dropped the fish "still attached to my spear" to keep its attrition, and yelled for Mike to go down cause their was a giant.  Mike made a perfect ninja decent and nailed his fish.  I knew from my previous 3 lost fish that I had better put another spear in him to make sure we didn't loose it, but my gun was unloaded with a fish on the end.  I quickly Grabbed Baboo's gun as it was too deep for him to go, however the 55' buoy line was not long enough so I went back up, took my fish off the spear, reloaded with out wrapping up my line and went down again to a thrashing beast and put a kill shot right on the sweet spot and he immediately went belly up. Wow what a battle and thrill and the fish just kept on coming.  I shot my first 2 dogfish tuna, Baboo shot the biggest grouper of his life, and even Siyam shot 2 great quality fish on his second time ever diving. We were all just amping but getting tired so we were all headed back to the boat when I spotted another Giant Jack.  He was far off and deep but I saw how curious these fish were acting so I went down to about 40 feet and just went neutral; he saw me and came in to have a look but turned around quickly. I stayed as still as I could and made some barking sounds like I had heard them make and sure enough he came right up to me, maybe 2 feet from the tip of my spear when I took my shot.  It was a good shot right behind the eye but I still went to the surface and yelled at mike to come put another spear in him. He was already in the boat but quickly jumped back in.  As he was getting set up to make his dive I was making dives to unwrap my spear line from the metal ship.  Mike went down and took his shot but the fish spun and snapped his 1/4 inch spear like it was a twig but still did the fish some damage.  He was now running out of steam and I was able to get ahold of him and stick my knife where it needed to go and the battle was over.  Wow, I was ecstatic to be at the surface with this 42 pound beast in my hands.  It was a long 2 hour windy and bumpy ride home but we were greeted at the beach by all our local friends that were waiting worried because of how windy it was.  All the fishing bosses started bidding and fighting over who was going to buy the fish because nobody has been catching fish lately, so we decided to just give it all away.  We brought it all back to the house and about 8 friends showed up to help clean and divide up the fish.  We fed 23 of our closest families and held a BBQ that we fed 50+ friends.  So much fun and to top it off getting to bless so many people, it doesn't get much better then that, for me.

                                     Check out this fun video I made of our diving adventure.

Annual Hindu Offering Day to Prepare for Their Fishing Season.

My surf / fishing friends invited me to go with them to make and present their offerings to their Hindu gods in preparation for their upcoming fishing season.  I know you might be thinking "Cody did WHAT!" but for them to invite me is an unheard of honoring privilege.  The time spent with them and all the things I learned about what they believe was super imperative to our relationships and my influence.  It's been awesome seeing what just good ol fashion time spent together does for building solid relationships.  

So The day started off at 6am as we all loaded in to the back of a u-haul Aka "sauna on wheels" and drove 2 hours to "one of the most "powerful temples."  I couldn't figure out why we were passing tons of temples but they said if they were going to have a good fishing season they had to go to this specific temple.  We spent the rest of the morning preparing the offering which consisted of hand grating 50+ coconuts, peeling and cutting bags and bags of fruit,  making a huge pan of milk rice, pitting 6lbs of dates, and making coconut milk.  I helped with all of this and even got to share my life story with one of the guys while we grated coconuts.  When it was time for them to go offer it to their gods they showed me great respect by telling me they understood even before I said I wouldn't be participating in the offering part of the day.  During this 2 hour period I took the opportunity to pray for each one of the boys specifically and by name.  I asked tons of questions that led into some great discussions about religion.  At the end of the day this was an awesome divine opportunity that broke down walls, erased rumors, and strengthened our friendships.