We just returned from a mission trip to Hawaii, yes Hawaii. Jesus said, "Go into all the world!" and Hawaii is as much part of the world as any other place. It is not just a vacation destination but a place that desperately needs the Gospel. We ministered over there with "Surfing the Nations," and "Christian Surfers North Shore" where we preached, taught, testified, prayed, and ministered with and had many powerful and extraordinary divine appointments too. It all came about in a very interesting way for us to go over and we had a very powerful and blessed time of ministry and fellowship the whole way through.

God's leading to go to Hawaii!

Over the past few years our friend and renowned missionary Mel Tari, author of Like a Mighty Wind (a book about the Indonesian revival), had been encouraging us to connect and minister with Tom Bauer and his ministry "Surfing the Nations" over in Hawaii. With the seed planted in our heart from Mel and a connection made with Tom via telephone, we began to pray and wait on the Lord’s timing regarding this.

While leaving the beach one day after a surf in Southern California, I walked past an unusual sight, a group of Hawaiians having a Luau and playing some Hawaiian music on the beach. As I stopped to take in the unusual event, the Holy Spirit struck me with His power and impressed upon my heart that, "Now is the time, get ready to go minister over in Hawaii."

With God's guidance confirmed again in other ways after this, and with little time to prepare, we made plans to fly over in faith, trusting that God would do some powerful things. And God did even more than we expected in our venture over there. We connected with the Surfing the Nations (STN) people as well as others in a blessed way (many of the STN missionaries/students are from Sweden where we have ministered a lot in the past) and the Lord moved gloriously the whole way through, blessing and filling those there with His wonderful presence.

In fact, we had some great ministry right on the famed North Shore, as we ended up being the invited speakers for the "Christian Surfers North Shore Fellowship" over a weekend and had a very blessed time ministering and sharing some "Holy Ghost Surf Stories." "Talking Story" is a big part of Hawaiian culture and so some of these wild divine appointment stories we have had while traveling and surfing and ministering fit right in with the local style.

On another note, it’s interesting to see how God uses some of the things that we think are so small and insignificant to do big things sometimes. Since we were going from the South Shore out to the North Shore on our own to minister at Christian Surfers and had only two extra spots in our car, we thought: "Let's pray about who we should have come with us." As we prayed, two girls who were part of STN walked by right then. It turned out that one of the girls had an issue with the other and so they had never really spent time together. And yet here they both were, stuck in a long car ride, and going with us where we were ministering, they ended up spending a considerable time together. Then, during the Christian Surfers' meeting as well as the other meetings at STN, the Spirit moved powerfully which led to a healing and a beautiful reconciliation, which was testified about at one of the last meetings we conducted. God uses everything, even our seemingly small requests about who should ride in the car with us, for good.

The following week we were kept busy with a number of consecutive teaching sessions and ministry which was great as it gave us the opportunity to teach systematically and extensively by laying down a solid foundation from the Scriptures of the understanding of the New Covenant in Christ and His finished work on the Cross and Justification by Faith through Grace. It is always so important to lay that solid foundation when the opportunity is given. We expounded how this is the central focus of the New Testament and what brought about the Reformation from Luther and others and that which has renewed the Church throughout history again and again. From this we were able to segue into Paul's teaching in his epistles where he first lays down the foundation of justification by grace through faith and then goes from there to the life lived out by the Power of the Holy Spirit.

It was a blessing to have so much time and freedom to teach extensively and to be able to Scripturally demonstrate that the Spirit-filled life is not some Charismatic fringe extreme (as it is so misrepresented to be today by so many) but truly the biblical focus and goal for the New Testament, born-again believer in Christ. God confirmed the teaching of His Word with power from on high as the students/missionaries there were filled and empowered, ministered to and equipped to be His witnesses out to the nations of the world that need His word and salvation so desperately. We received numerous testimonies of lives touched and changed by what the Lord wrought while we were there.

At another evening community outreach college meeting we again witnessed the powerful hand of God moving. We showed some video of surfing and ministering in Europe, talked some "Holy Ghost Surf Stories" and during the prayer time witnessed again the power of God. A young man from the community who came accepted Christ into his heart and was then powerfully ministered to, and hearing the Word of God opened his heart in faith and was immediately filled with the Holy Spirit and received the gift of tongues as we prayed for him. He was one of a number of others who were powerfully touched there too. It was like witnessing the book of Acts in action. Glory to God!!