Photos

I realized a handful of you had never seen any of my photos before, so I suppose here is a completely random little pre-Hawaii sampling. :)



















Merry Christmas. :)

all the water in the ocean

We are now within two weeks of flying out, Lindsey arrives in Spokane in less than one week.
We're 2 and 3 on the waiting list.
I'm listening to the new Chiodos album, actually I'm listening to the song "If I Cut My Hair, Hawaii Will Sink." And frankly, it's how I feel right now. Oh the irony!
It's 35.8 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
Worthless information, but informative nonetheless.

YWAM Shootings...

Last night at around 12:30am, my good friend Dustin called me. Our friend Hanna, from Florida, is currently living at a YWAM base just outside of Denver Colorado, doing a School of Worship, and she had just called him. There was a shooting at her school - Dustin didn't know much because Hanna didn't know much because it had just happened.

At this point, at 2pm on Sunday afternoon, the shooter is still out - it's most likely him who pulled into a parking lot at a church in Colorado Springs this morning and shot 4 people, but it just happened a few hours ago and so I guess we can't know yet.

Here is YWAM's official statement, less than 20 hours after:

Dear YWAM family worldwide,

As some of you are already aware, the YWAM Denver (Arvada) Colorado center experienced a tragedy of great proportions in the early hours of Sunday morning, December 9, as two YWAM Denver staff members died at the hands of a lone gunman who entered one of their campus buildings. Two other staff members are currently at a local Denver hospital; one of them is in critical but stable condition. The four had just finished serving at a Christmas Banquet for YWAM staff and students. They were simply doing what they did so well: serve. Please pray for Peter and Linda Warren as they lead their staff of 127 through this tragedy, for staff and students, and the families of the staff who died and were injured.

The following report was compiled from various press sources and coordinated through YWAM’s International Chairman’s Office. Here is YWAM’s official press release on this tragedy, which we will update as we get more information.

Official Press Release:
--------------------------------------------------------------

A lone gunman entered a Youth With A Mission training center in the Denver, Colorado suburb of Arvada early Sunday morning, opening fire and hitting four members of the staff. All were taken to local hospitals and two later died of their injuries.

The two wounded remain in serious condition. The gunman has not yet been apprehended, and police are continuing their search for him.

The deceased have been identified as Tiffany Johnson, 26, from Minnesota, and Philip Crouse, 24, from Alaska. Both served as staff members at the Youth With A Mission Arvada campus. The third victim, Dan Griebenow, 24, has a bullet in his neck and is listed in critical but stable condition. The fourth victim Charlie Blanch, 22, suffered gunshot wounds to his legs.

Peter Warren, the Director of Youth with a Mission Denver says they had just finished a Christmas banquet when the suspect arrived and asked a 22-year-old woman from Minnesota if he could be housed for the evening. When she told him they could not house him, that's when, Warren says, the suspect opened fired with an automatic handgun, hitting four people. Police say they do not know whether the shooting was random or if there was a motive.

Warren says, "The young man – I don't know who he is; I don't think [the victims] knew him – but he must be going through a lot personally in his own life to do something like this. Our belief is that only God is the judge and our place is to forgive and that's a difficult thing to do, but really, I think it's the right thing to do," said Warren.

There are about 80 people living on the Arvada campus and they have been transported to the group's mountain campus near Golden, Colorado where they will stay while the murder investigation is processed at their residence. Warren says they are trying to deal with this situation as best as they can.

"There's no blueprint for this," said Warren. "You know, we're just going to be honest, we're going to pray with one another and cry with one another. These kids were like our kids, you know. It's just such a tragedy, but who knows what's going on in this young man's life."

Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is an international and interdenominational Christian movement with operating locations in 171 nations. Launched in 1960 as a means for young people to get involved in short-term missionary service, it now has over 16 000 staff working in 1180 centers and trains over 25 000 people each year to be involved in the organization’s primary goal – to know God and make Him known. YWAM is hugely varied in its approach, operating such ministries as drop-in centers for street children in South America; hospice care for AIDs victims in Africa; literacy and job creation programs throughout Asia; and is well known for its quick response and long-term commitment to global disasters, such as the 2006 tsunami.

YWAM International Chairman Lynn Green released this statement: "We feel a deep sense of loss today and we grieve with the families and those who were very close friends of the victims. Our surviving students and staff are being well cared for and we have total confidence in those who are responsible for the training program in Arvada to care for those who have been subjected to this assault.

"Those who lost their lives had dedicated themselves to serve and we feel the sorrow of their absence. Yet we take comfort from the assurance of everlasting life for those who follow Christ in loving service to others.

"It is a great tragedy that our culture seems to produce so many deeply troubled people who express their frustration in violence. We forgive the assailant and we rededicate ourselves to serving young people in the hope that we might bring healing to other needy youth."

Please be praying, so much. Please know these are my friends friends and regardless, this is my family.

So much love- K

Home

I am sitting at my parents home.
It's about, roughly, 26.3 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
And of course, doing as I do, it's midnight and a quarter.

Lindsey and I sit at number 4 and 5 on the waiting list for this School of Photography I in Kona, Hawaii. She initially began at 14 and I a few months later, at 9, so we've moved down a handful in recent weeks which has been utterly encouraging. She brought up yesterday that in five weeks exactly we'll be flying to Kona... which would mean now, it's four weeks six days. Or wait - it's past midnight, so four weeks five days. Who's counting when math is so easy? That sarcasm didn't fit, and yet I put it right there anyhow.


Three more weeks left of work.
I like my job and I have been blessed by it in the past 3 years and love the relationships with the people there, but it is time for something new. Life was getting dry and low until we purchased those one way plane tickets to Hawaii. Dang I hate sitting still. I don't like to let the ball stop rolling, particularly once it begins and is gaining momentum. As a snowball rolls down a hill and gains mass and volume, once it ceases to roll any further - good luck getting it to budge. Those things are heavy. I confess - well, perhaps it is no confession, but at the risk of seeming wanton I will tell you that being back in Pullman for longer than 3 months was not my intention. It felt like the ball and stopped. And as the months went by, it felt as though the snow in this ball began to melt, and wet snow is heavier than powdery snow. And wet snow somehow introduces fear, that the ball, will somehow never actually roll again. But seeing as I've been here for nearly 8 months, it would seem obvious that Someone wanted something else...

Eight months is not a long time. At all. It's a fraction and it has flown.
Over a year ago I left on my endeavor to Australia. Over a year ago.
Some of you have watched with waxing anticipation your college graduations, summer vacations, snowboarding lessons, music tours and returned trips to foreign lands. ["The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns", though Hamlet spoke of an other place than say, Germany or Queensland. ] All in these past eight months. And look how they have come? Look what you have done, with joy!

With joy we shall have and with joy I have become satisfied - for I was not alway so during this time - with where I have been these past eight months. Savoring family and friendships and rest - and even, being still, and praise God's grace, with hesitation being still to know that He truly is.

And though I do not know if I will for certain, guaranteed or your money back, be in Hawaii for longer than it takes to buy return tickets, I am okay.
Overwhelming moments come, but the past 4 months of uncertainty of whether or not Hawaii would happen, have been peaceful. Have been still and void of anxiety.

If I get in? Praise God!
If I don't? Praise God all the more! For if that is the case, I will certainly be on my knees, for I do not know in any clarity what would be instead.

But I suppose there are ideas of things to happen, and we shall see what transpires from all of this.

And now it is one am.

I'm going to bed.

-K

[For some clarity - my friend Lindsey (TX) and I have been accepted into this photography school offered by University of the Nations in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii - however it is the only school of it's kind in the world and therefore there is a lot of demand for it. We have been accepted, but are on the waiting list. They do not, however, cut off acceptance or the chance of it until the first day of class (January 4th). Therefore Lindsey and I have purchased one way plane tickets to Kona for January 2nd. If we get in between now and the first day of class, then yay! Otherwise, I suppose we will have a nice vacation in the midst of a very cold winter, and will probably come back to the continental US, and will pray - a lot - because we do not know what else God will/would have us do at this time.]