It’s been a week since we arrived in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i.
We have been welcomed by the staff, into our new Ohana (which means ‘family’). The Ohana is all students of our class and the staff and all kids that came with their parents. We spend every day together in class and often our kids as well are included in class during sosial nights or worship time together.
Our Ohana has people of all ages from all corners of the earth, and they are all great and such a blessing to us!
The youngest is 18 month old Nathanael, not sure of the ages of our school leader, but they have grown kids, so I would say around 50 :-)
Most of the students in our Ohana are between 17-30. There are couples with children and a total of 13 kids.
With so many young, cool people, the kids have lots of uncles and aunties to look up to. The young ones are great to include the kids AND us ‘oldies’ ;-)We feel we really begin to know all of them and there’s love and respect for eachother within our Ohana.
All these people, we’re about 60 in our Ohana, come from different cultures and backgrounds, and all have their stories to tell. Some have given up basically everything to come out here, others have been ‘forced’ by their parents and are still looking for many answers, others have been in the mission field for years and maybe have a clear view of what they think their future will look like.
Some may be happy to finally leave mom&dad’s home and be independent, others might be homesick.
We’ve shared a lot already, people have really opened up and many tears have been shed already, bringing us all closer together.
We really feel this is our family and there is a reason why we all ended up in the same group together!
APAC Ohana, if you guys read this, you’re a blessing in our lives and we love you!