Hello everyone.
I arrived in Kona safely. I began seeing familiar faces in the Oahu Airport. This quarter is pretty big, with over 250 students. Some classes are large, with over 70 students. My class is quite the opposite, with only 6 students. All the students in my class are from my DTS, except for one girl who is a staff kid.
Although we haven't had an official class meeting yet, we have visited our class room. Its up secluded a bit from the rest of the campus, and there are five rooms along with a kitchen and a bathroom: A classroom, a study room, a music room, an art room with brown paper all over the walls where we can draw whatever we feel like, and a resting room with couches and a bed. It is a peaceful and cool place, and I will probably spend a majority of my time there practicing singing and guitar.
During the opening ceremony last night, they had me carry the flag for Papua New Guinea (as there are students here from papua, but they didn't want to carry their flag). Kind of awkward, but fun.
I sold my HUGE camera, and I will be using the money for a Canon 7d. The stock lense that comes with the camera only goes down to 28. I am hoping to get my hands on a super wide lense for outreach (to fit as much of Switzerland and Egypt as I can in each shot.)
I have 5 room mates. My friend Adam from Indonesia, and four people who are new to me. Vincent from France and Micha from Switzerland are in the English as a second language program, and will be doing DTS's later this year. Rick from China is in the School of Illustration.
I am doing well. I have to admit when I arrived, it was quite surreal being back, and seeing old friends. I felt unsure of whether or not I was doing the right thing coming back. The feeling lasted until Friday morning. At that point, we had worship time on campus. They were having a welcoming ceremony, and then they spoke about the fact that this was YWAM's 50th year, and Biblically the 50th year is the year of Jubilee, the year when what is established and normal stops, and things change.
During my DTS worship times, people were very conservative in the beginning. later in the DTS, people started to lose their comfort zones and really reach out to God like they never had. It took months of DTS studies though.
The first day here, God was already working like in those last days of lecture phase. As I worshipped, God touched me, and all doubt about what I am doing was removed. The doubts about whether it's wise to be here with only about 1/3 the funds, the doubts about whether I am wasting my time with music, the doubts about everything were gone.
Today will be a day of rest. We start classes on monday, and I will update again about exactly what our schedule will be like.
I love all you guys,
Alden
