My Missions Adventure: Goodbye Kona, hello St. Croix

Greetings from St. Croix, Virgin Islands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Sunset in the Caribbean :)

Ok, lets just say wow, wow and wow. I have been in St. Croix for 2 days-ish now and LOVE it. But first...let me back up to the last week of DTS in Kona before I begin to inform you about this island I am now on.

The weekend before our outreach teams began to leave we had this fancy banquet dinner called "LoveFeast" in our classroom. It was a jumble of delicious food, fancy dresses, Christmas music, more delicious food, honoring our leaders and staff, lots of pictures and good fellowship. It was a ton of fun, and such a blessing to be able to have a nice dinner to relax, reflect and have fun. My team wrote a song about our outreach leaders, Melissa and Josh, to the song "Party in the USA" (lyrics changed of course) and sang it to them at the LoveFeast. Good times. :) Someday maybe we will record it and you will all get to hear it...or maybe not. :) Enjoy the pics!

Our classroom set up for the LoveFeast

The U.S. Virgin Islands family photo! :)

All Dressed for LoveFeast!

Our Delicious dinner! nam, nam, nam

Mindy and I

Kelli and I

Hannah and I

Rachael and I

The last week before I left Kona was one of the most emotional weeks I've ever had. Ending classes, work duties, small groups, etc was alright and I was honestly ready to be done and move on to outreach. Then came saying goodbye to those whom I've lived with and learned with or 3 months. It's amazing how close you can become with strangers after just 3 months...3 months of living together, crying together, growing in our faith, laughing together, celebrating holidays and birthdays, going on adventures and discovering your purpose in Christ....3 months of becoming a family.

One of the last pictures of Rachael and I before we both left..we had a relaxing movie night with roommates

My roommate Rachael was the first to leave and thats when the tears started...and continued to when I left 2 days later. My roommates and I found ourselves laughing and crying off and on during these hard days of saying goodbye...as Madisen also left the next morning after Rachael and then me. I hold on to the hope of seeing my compassion family in March, but sadly my roommates Staci, Amber, Amy and Kathryn will not be there when I return to Kona because they are in a different DTS. :( But I will for sure be planning a nice long road-trip to visit them all as I love them and will miss them all so much.