Raegan Jo

I just love you.

The missing piece

DTS ended Friday night, and Staffing began Monday morning! The weekend sandwiched in between was filled with sandy sunshine at the beach, cleaning the condo, and Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, my love.

The girls were up early preparing a yummy breakfast and wrapping gifts while daddy slept in. Raegan helped me make a sign to hang, and just as her daddy was waking up, she could not help but run in and announce the surprise! She made this card all by herself- it's hard to see, but she wrote "Dad" and chose soccer balls and prince-charming stickers on purpose. I love this photo- could be Jordan's funny smile, or maybe it's Anabelle's look, or both, but I just love it.

Danni.

She is the final piece to our family puzzle this summer, and we are already blown away by the fun and peace that she brings to our home. Anabelle can't stop smiling at her, and she even says her name, "Nanni!" which is just a bit ironic, since her main reason for traveling to Kona this summer will be nannying our girls. Don't even get me started on Raegan.

She currently has purple toes nails, and pink fingernails with sparkly flowers on each nail! They got to go swimming, paint nails, and watch a princess movie all in one day! Yesterday after dinner it starting raining, and we were reminded of the conversation we'd had earlier in the day about how weird rain is in Hawaii and how tempting it is to go play outside when it dumps. The sun shines, the rain pours, and then you're bound to see a glorious rainbow across the sky. And we did! Outside, drenched in our clothes, without our shoes, dancing and splashing, we enjoyed a big fat rainbow and a heavy shower! (My glasses were covered in raindrops)

With her princess pillow cases and sparkly personality, she's won our hearts yet again. I'm so very grateful. She won't know until years down the road what a gift this summer will be to our family.

My budding musician.

A few times in the last month I have caught Raegan pretending to be a choir director, and she was doing it again last night! With all her dolls/animals/soap dispensers lined up in a row, she sings her heart out, waves her arms, and inserts encouraging "sing it!"s here and there for pizazz. My heart is happy.

Sweet dreams.

We did it!!!

Fire & Fragrance teams poured back onto the campus last weekend by the van-fulls, and there was a definite buzz in the air! Our family pulled up to the airport as the Cambodia team arrived, and it was so FUN to run toward our friends and embrace their tired bodies after 46 hours of traveling home.

Welcome home my friends!

Friday night was GRADUATION!

When they handed me my certificate last night I pumped my fists and yelled "we DID it!" with such a joyous pride over my family. We are closer, stronger, more humble, more alive, more thankful, and more committed than ever to ministering this joy and hope to others!

Fire and Fragrance DTS was a blast! These crazy kids screamed until they were hoarse, cheering on their friends up front. Our school leaders were incredible~ look at them embracing each one of us, loving us individually, and pushing us forward into our calling.

So, what's next for this Boley crew? We've decided to stay and give our lives away to see the Kingdom of God advanced. What we know:

We will live in Kona, staffing schools and training young people in the ways of God.

We will travel, bringing the gospel to the nations.

And Raegan has been accepted to the U of Nations preschool in the fall!

Starting Monday morning we will join the staff for the first "School of the Circuit Riders" here on the Kona campus. We are so excited for this mini 5 week training course, beginning July 7th. And we will have one of my super star students from my teaching days back at Life Christian join us for the summer. Danni will be living with us and nannying our girls- like a really fun older sister!

Sweet slices of life

Well, I did it again.

I let way too much time go between telling my stories.

How will I ever catch up? (deep breath)

Our school is coming to an end next week! We had a conference call a couple of weeks ago with all of us- 100 people gathered around a dozen phones in countries all over the world- for the purpose of encouraging each other with testimonies. They broad cast the call in the prayer room here on base, so it was extra fun for us. I cannot wait to welcome home all of our teams from around the world and hear all of their stories.

As for us... Our family has been very busy here in Kona. Let me give you just a few sweet slices of ministry life these days:

On Tuesday evenings we joined the Call2All DTS community outreach. We buckled the whole family (Including our good friend Erin) into our car and followed the YWAM van to a neighborhood up the hill to meet people and spread the love of God. It was a simple act of encouraging the community we live in. Raegan LOVED it! She's so bold, so good at making friends, and such a joyful little girl.

I had a really blessed birthday on May 4th. I'm 29 now. The countdown has begun, and I only have 3 hundred and thirty something days left before I am in the next decade bracket! 30. Thirty. 30. Oh wow, that is just nuts. Let's focus on today: I'm 29. I'm in my twenties. Anyway, we started the day (nice and early as usual) at a coffee plantation overlooking the coffee fields and the ocean, called "Kona Joe." Raegan's middle name is Johanna, or Jo for short, so it's only obvious what we called her for the rest of the day...

After drinking the best latte I've had in a long time, we packed up the car to drive South for a day of outreach. About 90 minutes from the base lives a community of about 2,000 Marshallese people. Quick history lesson: In 1954, after the US military performed nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands, many of the people had to flee their radioactive homes, and a large group settled here, on the big island of Hawaii. Despite severe poverty, they are kind and welcoming, seemingly content with their simple life. Anabelle and Raegan played with the local children, running in the dirt without shoes on and sharing their individually-packaged costco snacks and sharp crayola crayons. It was like drinking a nice tall glass of perspective. Raegan had many questions on the way home, and continues to ask when we can go back and share with the children who don't have much.

amen.

³⁷ “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? ³⁹ When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

⁴⁰ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’"

Matthew 25-37-40

We stopped on our way home to snap a picture of this guy, perched on a fence along the road. Peacocks roam wild here in Hawaii. Amazing.

That's all for now.

Much love.