Save The Beards

It's a sad, sad day for beards all over this campus. In a matter of hours, sinks everywhere will be covered in shaving cream and one month old facial hair. Not to worry though, no razor will be touching my face today. I have decided to grow my beard out for as long as I can stand it. I want to have a sweet picture of me with a gross beard that I can show my kids one day. That way they can see what they have to look forward to(or not look forward to) once they hit puberty. Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know what's going on. Happy End Of No Shave November!


Dan

P.S. The guys on this campus have obviously never read Leviticus 19:27.

Finally.

Well guys,

I have finally been surfing (and I use this term loosely) in Hawaii. We went to Children's Beach. As far as places to surf in Hawaii, this is second only to Pipeline. You could probably tell there are pretty intense waves from the name alone. Seriously, though, the waves were 2-3 ft. The waves were actually a little too small to learn on. But I ended up standing for 5 seconds and then I fell off. After a couple times of me waiting for waves, standing for 5 seconds, and falling. I paddled back in because it was getting late. It was a lot of fun just to paddle out and be in the ocean. My friend Davidson is supposed to take me out this week sometime. So, I'll let you know how that goes.
I am getting really pumped for outreach. We have started to learn Khmer(pronouned Ka-my), the language of Cambodia. Some words are:

" Jom rip sewer" - Hello (formal)
"Socks a bye" - How are you?
"Kin yum chimor Dan Gerding" - My name is Dan Gerding.

So that is just a little taste of the language. I spelled the words phonetically so you know how to say them.

This week our lectures are on laying down our rights. The speaker is Don Gilman. He is a brilliant guy who pastors a church in Taipei, Taiwan. He also works with the YWAM base in their School of Biblical Studies. I will tell you much more about his teaching the next time I blog. Here are a few things I got from the first 2 lectures:

• Is the life I am living, right now, worth Jesus dying for?
• To the extent we live like Christ, that is how much we really know Him.
• Maturity - passing up immediate pleasure for long-term gain

I hope these things hit you like they hit me. I will talk to you all soon.

Dan

No Shave Nowember Update

If you check my flickr page you may find some pictures of horribly disgusting facial hair. Check at your own risk.

I know...I know

Sorry that it took me this long to update the blog. These past few weeks have been a little crazy. So, unfortunately, I don't have any terribly exciting events to tell you about. However, I can tell you what I'm going to be doing on outreach. I will be leaving Kona on Dec. 18 headed for Bali. On our way to Bali we have a 1 and 1/2 day layover in Bangkok. So we should get to check out Bangkok a little bit. Once we get to Bali on the 21st, we'll meet up with Rus Alit, an Indonesian man who knows a lot about water storage, purification, and community development. He will basically be our boss for setting up the water supply system for a village of about 100 families. We'll be running over a mile of pipe for it! Pretty crazy. On Jan. 7, we leave for Cambodia. It will take us one day to get there because we are flying back into Thailand and driving across the Cambodian border to Battambang. Battambang is a large rural town of about 100,000 people. Once we are there we'll be helping out with "street children"(playing sports, teaching Bible studies, teaching english, playing music, and I'm sure other stuff too). We'll also be going to orphanages, the AIDS ward of a military hospital, and teaching at a youth center run by YWAM. We will also work with Dara, a local Khmer (Cambodian) man who teaches people basic gardening skills. We will do other stuff but this is everything that is planned so far.

A few statistics on Cambodia:

• 50% of pop. is under 18 (that's about 7.5 million people)
• 80% of pop. is under 30
• 95% Buddhist
• total population is about 15 million

Well, I'll talk to you all sooner than last time.

Dan

No Shave November

Today begins No Shave November, or as my Norwegian roommates say "No Shave Nowember." For those of you who don't know what that is, it's exactly that. Not shaving for the entire month . Each guy in my school is going to do it so it should be filled with incredibly gross "dirtstaches." It will be fun though. You can check my flickr page because I am going to do "before and after" pictures.

So, this week I found out I found out that I will be going to Bali, Indonesia for 2 weeks and after that I will finish out the remainder of the 3 months in Battambong, Cambodia. In Bali, we will be helping a village build a water storage tank and teaching them how to make pumps . While in Battambong, we will be helping out at orphanages and doing other stuff that I will let you know as soon as they tell me. Its cool to finally know exactly where I am going.

Last night was Halloween, as I'm sure all of you know. And the church that I am going to, Solid Rock Ministries, decided to have an event to reach out to the community. They have done this for the past couple of years. They take over a local gym and turn it into a life-size Candyland (the board game) maze. Look at my flickr page pictures I have some pictures of the event. It was a huge success. 2500 people from the community came.

This week, instead of lecture, we helped out in the community. Half of the week we did landscaping at a YWAM property called King's Mansion. I got to chop down elephant grass and papaya trees with a machete. From the machete alone my "man stock" went up several points. The other half of the week was helping to make and set up props for the Candyland event.

Now I have to get to bed. Sorry it took me couple of days to get to the blog. I am going to do my best to blog more often. Some weeks, I am seriously to busy to do everything I need to do. So, hopefully, this next week won't be too crazy. Until next time.

Dan