Ten days on the leeward coast.

The church in Nānākuli became the home base for the trip. We spent a portion of the afternoon getting to know one another over games, and then we went on a prayer walk around the neighborhood. Afterwards, we headed back to the church for dinner and watched the sunset on the beach. In the evening, Pastor Joe Ong from Leeward Community Church joined us to share a sermon and kick off our trip.

We spent our second day learning more about Hawaiian culture and the history of the church on the island. We visited Kāneʻohe Congregational Church, one of the island’s earliest Christian churches. The pastor there is a direct descendant of the founding pastor who planted the church, and he taught us about the history of the church on the island.

After his sharing, we made leis and tried some traditional Hawaiian foods like poi (pounded taro root) and pork lau lau.

At the second-largest fishpond on the island, we did maintenance work and learned about the ʻāina (land) and the ecosystems around it. We started with kalo (taro), the staple carbohydrate in Hawaiʻi before rice and other grains were introduced. It can grow in soil, fresh water, brackish water, and salt water, and every part of the plant can be eaten. We mulched and weeded around the baby plants.

Then we moved to the pond itself. About a century ago, mangroves were introduced to catch nutrient-rich soil that was washing into the ocean because of poor agricultural practices. Their dense roots helped with erosion, but the trees became invasive and created new problems for the ecosystem. The forest has since been cut down, leaving only stumps and roots in the water. We put on boots, waded into the thick mud, and used heavy-duty clippers to cut the remaining roots and haul them back to shore.

After the work at the fishpond, we stopped by a local park to eat dinner, and one of the aunties from the church came by and taught us to dance hula.

Today we visited a transitional home community. These are places that provide temporary housing to help individuals and families regain their self-sufficiency. We started off the day handing out fliers for the following day's keiki reading event and doing prayer walks around the buildings. Along the way, we got to chat with a few of the families coming and going in the area.

After the fliers were handed out, we put on a slime event for the kids in the community. We sat at tables with the kids and chatted with them and their families as they played. Once we were done with the slime, we shared a meal of rice and kālua pork together and had some time to have more conversations with the families.

After the slime event, we headed to the beach near Pastor Abby's church, Waiʻanae Assembly of God. We spent about an hour picking up trash around that stretch of beach, then took some time to rest before dinner. After the cleanup we had a little time to jump into the waves, catch a couple of crabs, and cool down.

That night, Pastor Pete, his wife Liz, and their four children joined us for dinner. They shared their testimonies - how they met and how they ended up doing ministry together in Hawaiʻi. Pete preached on mentorship and finding people who can give good and godly counsel: don't do life alone; lean on the wisdom of those who have walked ahead of you. At the end we prayed over Pete and his family, their children, their church, and their ministry in Hawaiʻi.

We started the morning with Rob Douglas, the district superintendent, who preached on evaluating the health of your spiritual life and noticing indicators that you're drifting from God. The sermon was especially helpful for me and revealed some blind spots in my own faith.

Then we went to the college campus to meet Pastor Rick, who runs a ministry from there. He shared his testimony of incarceration and how God redeemed him, allowing him to start a flourishing ministry that supports low-income and currently or formerly incarcerated people with the gospel. After lunch we packed about 100 backpacks with school supplies, all purchased with funds raised by the Launch Collective team, to give away to children at the event.

Once the event started, I paired up with a local children's-book author. We read to the kids, sang songs together, and joined them for coloring, word searches, and games.

We started early at the Nānākuli church setting up a food drive. Each person on our team had a different role. We set up one lunch area where unhoused neighbors could walk in and receive a meal, and a drive-through where we loaded cars with food from the food bank. Some of us cooked and fed walk-ins, others directed traffic, packed bags and boxes, and loaded food into cars.

I spent the whole time packing bags full of fruits and vegetables. By the end we had distributed a full box truck of food, and served 125 families across 67 cars!

After tearing down the food drive setup, eating lunch, and taking a short break, we headed to Leeward Community Church for a worship night with their youth and young adults. We ate dinner with them and got to know them a bit. Our missions team is incredibly musically talented, so we were able to put a worship team together on the spot and spend the evening in beautiful worship.

We split our team of 19 into four groups to visit different churches on the island and get a sense of how church is done here. The groups visited Pastor Pete's church, Pastor Abby's church, Leeward Community Church, and Kāneʻohe Community Church. I got to visit Pastor Pete's church, then have lunch and fellowship with him afterward.

Pastor Pete invited us to his house to share a meal with his family and a couple he's discipling. We had a great time talking story (that's Pidgin for sharing and just having a good yap).

Our team met up at Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden to share testimonies and recap the day, hearing about each of the churches we had visited that morning. Then we headed back to the house for dinner and more testimony sharing.

At Pastor Abby's church in Waiʻanae, we helped with the manual labor for the shoe drive. We sorted 1,500 pairs of shoes by size, brand, and color, then set up a storefront in the parking lot beside the church. After we finished sorting, we ate lunch and listened to Pastor Abby share her testimony and journey of faith.

I can't share the whole thing, but she's like a modern-day Mother Teresa. She's fostered and raised over 50 children in vulnerable situations, endured abuse and difficult seasons in the church, and even moved into homeless encampments to better understand the people she serves. Through all of it, she has held tight to the Lord, who keeps providing day after day.

We started early making sandwiches for the shoe drive - 300 chicken salad and PB&J sandwiches to hand out with snacks to kids and parents. Then we headed to Pastor Abby's church and split into roles. Some helped register families, others measured kids' feet, handed out food, or walked individual kids to the shoes to help them pick and try on different pairs.

We distributed shoes from 10 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon. By the end, our team was sweaty and tired, but full of stories from the families who came out.

After the shoe drive we made time to visit Waimea Bay to relax and eat dinner. We got rained out and ended up at a nearby restaurant, but not before jumping off the big rock outcrop one by one.