milo: Lastly

Hello friends. To finally finish off on Kauai - The only other thing to add to that trip, that I can think of/remember, is that last couple of days hiking, and camping on the beach. OH WAIT. I'm forgetting the farm. OH MY GOODNESS, the FARM! If I remember correctly, this is how it worked: when we arrived on Kauai, our big group of interns split into two groups of about 20, including leaders. Group Alpha, and group Omega (my group). We stayed on totally different parts of the island. We stayed, as I've said, at a church - sleeping on the floor. Throughout the week we met up with the other team a time or two and we gathered that they'd been staying at some gorgeous farm, with nice bunk beds, baby animals and fruit trees everywhere. "Cool," we thought, we were glad for them. Cool does not begin to describe the glorious beauty of this place. We all stayed at our set locations for the week, except for the one night up in the mountains at Hale Koa, and two nights camping on the beach, in Anini. Friday night, our 3rd to last night on Kauai, Alpha was camping - so we got to steal a night at the farm. It was insane. A couple named Eric and Linda have acquired a huge chunk of farmland on the island. They've built a large home in the middle of the property. You enter the house into the huge living room, open to the kitchen on the left, and the large covered balcony straight ahead, through some glass doors. A high ceiling and lovely wood interior and simple, sleek design make the place feel like a rural palace. Three bedrooms/units branch off hallways that extend from both ends of the building. There's a large downstairs as well, but I left without exploring it. The property is breathtakingly phenomenal. The vast fields surrounding the place are full of lambs (with babies being born almost every day while we were there), mini donkeys, and horses. Fruit trees were easily found almost anywhere you went. Grapefruit, starfruit, guava, passion fruit, bananas - they had it all. If you ever want to go somewhere and experience the heaviest douse of beauty in God's creation - hit up Eric and Linda. They've made the place completely self-sustaining. It runs completely on solar power and draws from its own well. It's 100% off the grid. What was this fantastic place created for you wonder? Well, Eric and Linda don't live in the building I just described, they actually live in a little home somewhere else on the property, hidden in the vastness. They created the farm to host group, kind of like us. Their heart for the place is to host groups of underprivileged youth to give them an experience outside of their familiar environment and introduce them to the love of Jesus. They want kids to know that they can have anything in life, that they don't have to stay where they are forever and that there's a million opportunities out there, and that God is the giver of all good things. Growing up on a tiny island, I know what it's like to feel like you can never get off of it. Like you're stuck and this is all there is. Totally not true, but being removed helps break through that. That's what these fine folks are trying to provide.

Our one, glorious, night spent on the farm was just that. We had barely any time to take it all in, but we didn't need more than that. When we met up with the other team later that day or the next, I forget, we raved about the place with them. They were so reserved though, we didn't get it. After going at it some more, we realized they had been so worried that once we saw where they had been privileged to stay this whole time we'd be furious that we'd been sleeping on the hard floor of a church while they'd been living in luxury. Not so. In fact, our group had talked about it. Looking back on our humble little accommodations, we decided we wouldn't have traded it for all 10 days on the farm. It wasn't the nicest (it was actually kind of gross), or most convenient, but we made the most of it and had a total blast at that place.Our group bonded there. We were happy and satisfied. Besides, they chose the locations for the groups at random. They could have just as easily ended up with our spot.

The very morning after arriving at the farm, we left it for the Na Poli coast, and camping on the beach after that. We packed our snacks and headed in for an 8 mile hike. WHAT! I don't hike 8 miles, but I did. In FLIP-FLOPS. It really wasn't the worst - it was pure delight. 4 miles in to a gorgeous waterfall, and 4 miles back out. We stopped along the way at a beach where some 30 or so people have died in the gnarly waves. The current's all wild, so the water's just churning you up if you're brave, or stupid, enough to enter it. Naturally a few of our guys ventured in. Thankfully they all made it out - eventually. This place was incredible. Everything about it was pretty, exotic, colorful, breathtaking, unfamiliar and fun.

We camped at Anini, on the beach the last two nights and it was great. We had prayer and worship on the beach each night. We did things during the day, too, but I forget them. The most memorable part of that leg of the trip, anyone will say, was the prank. To this day no one knows who did it for sure - but one morning, the boys in one tent woke up to a bag of poop hanging over them from the ceiling. Needless to say, it was quite a popular topic of conversation for the rest of the time in Kauai and STN...

The last day, we met up with Alpha, cleaned out all of the cars and headed to the airport. Wahiawa bound.