John 11:35 – “Jesus wept.”

It is the shortest verse in the Bible, yet one of the most profound. “Jesus wept.” These two simple words capture a powerful truth about the heart of our Savior. In the midst of sorrow, pain, and grief, Jesus demonstrated deep compassion and shared in the suffering of those around Him. This moment took place at the tomb of His friend Lazarus, and though He knew He would raise him from the dead, Jesus did not rush to triumph over death. Instead, He paused to weep with those who mourned.

What does this tell us about Jesus? It reveals a Savior who is deeply acquainted with the human experience. He doesn’t stand apart from our struggles; He enters into them with us. Jesus was not indifferent to the grief of Mary, Martha, or the others present. His tears show us that it’s okay to grieve, to feel sorrow, and to be vulnerable in the face of hardship. 

We have a privilege of serving so many people, people who have faced incredible moments of loss, pain, and uncertainty. Sometimes, they might wonder if God sees their tears or understands their heartache. The answer, as shown in this passage, is a resounding yes. Jesus weeps with us. He is present in our sorrow and offers us comfort. He is not distant or detached but is deeply compassionate and involved in our lives, especially when we face times of distress.

We, as Christian’s, get to play an incredible role in our community, however as we are pushing through the days, accomplishing the goals, It can be so easy to simply see people as numbers and focusing on the work to be done, overlooking the human aspect of ministry. And while we should have a desire to serve as many as possible and steward resources well. We cannot forget to take time with people, to look them in the eyes, and treat them as significant. To cry with them, empathize with the hurt they are experiencing. To love them as Jesus loved; Not just by handing items out, but through embracing people in pain, and empathizing with those who are hurting. Jesus is not distant from pain, and as His hands and feet we shouldn’t be either. He weeps with us. 

And, just like Jesus knew the end of the story, and had a purpose in raising Lazarus from the dead, using a difficult moment to bring glory to Himself. We as Christian’s also know that He will bring healing and restoration, even in the most difficult of circumstances. But it’s ok to cry first.

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*This was a short devotional I shared, as I have been studying the character of Jesus. I had the opportunity to share this with the Good in the ‘Hood board recently, a non profit based in Minneapolis which I have had the privilege of serving on since 2013*

Property updates

This past month we have added some new animals to the property.

We have continued to incubate eggs and hatch chicks as we are trying to grow our flock so we can be totally self sustainable with our egg production, which would be a HUGE cost savings for our family. But we were also surprised this month with a baby pig. We awoke to the squealing as the kids were outside our window yelling “MOM! DAD! WE CAUGHT A PIGLET!!” Our early riser, Caden had chased a baby pig from in front of our house to all around the yard and eventually caught it. She was hungry, cold, and VERY cuddly. We are raising her with the intention of eating her once she’s bigger(we will see if that actually happens this time next year 🤣), but for now she is living her best life getting all the food and pets she can handle.

We have officially planted over a dozen banana trees, we now have dragon fruit in the ground, and are looking to clear some more space so we can get the mango trees planted. For every tree we have to build triangles to protect them from the wind, and make sure they have the proper spacing, as they work to get established roots.

The goats have been such a huge help as they have been helping us to keep the grass down. We move them all over the property and they constantly add a whole lot of laughs as the babies get a little more adventurous. Many people tried to convince us that goats are miserable but that is not our experience, we are so in love with these sweet babies.

We have been slowly working on building a pantry addition to the kitchen. This will hopefully help to mitigate the traffic jams we have in the kitchen as the baking days expand and give us more functionality in our day to day. It will also allow us to store more food when we have large groups come down to help for a week at a time

Planting Hope Ministries

We truly believe that the title non profit is a tool for us to be able to build the kingdom, so it can be hard to see where the ministry starts and stops. We believe that our lives should be a reflection of Christ and that ministry should be a natural extension of living a life that follows Jesus. If you are wanting details of why we are here in Hawaii and what God has called us to, I highly encourage you to check out our website for Planting Hope Ministries to learn more about what we are doing and why. We would love to have you partner with us!

Bulldozer

As we are building we continue to find that biggest needs to effectively continue with any major building projects, not just for current projects but future projects, is a large piece of equipment. Not having a larger piece of equipment has meant we are paused for much of our building until we can fully fund either renting a larger piece of equipment for each project or purchasing one.

The tractor we have been borrowing is not able to handle the load of digging and flattening the land which means we keep having to put money in to repairing it. Although, The tractor has served us well and is a big asset when it comes to road work, and helping with some of the mowing; we have been pushing it beyond its capabilities. After some research we are hoping to raise $50,000 for a bulldozer or an excavator. We are praying for people who feel called to support this specific project. If you would like to donate to our bulldozer fund click the link below

Mission trips

We are so excited to announce we have our first mission group that has committed to come to Hawaii this summer. They will be serving for 10 days helping with building projects and outreach events. We are also in conversation with several other individuals and churches who are prayerfully considering being apart of a mission trip to Hawaii. This is such a cool opportunity to be apart of laying the foundation work and helping to set up infrastructure for future ministry.

We are asking friends to pray, and reach out to their friends, family or church to see if they would be interested in doing a mission trip to Hawaii. We would work closely with you to build a trip that suits your team best in a way that would utilize your God given skills to build His kingdom in Hawaii. Check out Planting Hope Ministries mission trip info page

Support Raising

We are currently funded at about $800 a month, and have been so blessed by those who have given generous one time donations and partner with us monthly. We still have a goal of raising $10,000 of monthly support for the ministry. I am blown away every month and filled with gratitude towards those who feel called to support what God is doing here. But since we are not fully supported, we are praying and continuing to trust that God will call the right people to help us build here.

If 200 people pledged $50 a month we would be completely funded. 

What does financial support go towards? First, it goes to provide personal support for our family. As a family of 6 we have expenses and we are trusting God that as we build His kingdom He will provide for our family. The second part of that support will go towards providing building materials for various buildings and projects around the property. Currently we are working to build the worship and prayer center which will be a foundational building as we work towards building a Bible camp(which is multiple buildings), green houses(fencing, water tanks, structures), Sports field(lights, sprinkler system, bathroom facilities), and the A-frame discipleship homes.

If you would like to financially partner with us and what God is doing in Hawaii, either one time or on a monthly basis, click the button below to be taken to our Planting Hope Ministries Donate page.

Kelly’s Kitchen

When I was little I never imagined being a baker. Anything to do with the kitchen was so outside the realm of possibilities for me that I probably would have laughed a deep belly laugh if anyone even suggested I would be making 80 loaves of bread each week. God has such a way of creating possibilities when we relinquish our pre-conceived notions of what we think we can and can’t do, and just allow ourselves to be open to being a vessel that He can pour in to.

Whenever I get tired I remember the “why” He placed in my heart and there is so much joy and energy that comes from that place of God-given purpose.

We recently received an old Levi Strauss stone mill to use for our whole grains. This has been an incredible addition to our baking because it mills the grain so fast and much finer than the previous mill we were using. This has made for a better wheat bread.

One of my regular customers came by to buy a loaf of bread, a few weeks back and he told me “we need more Christian’s here! More people who love Jesus! You’re my favorite because I knew you were a Christian. You make it so obvious with what you wear, and your tent has a spirit of peace. I don’t know a lot of Christian’s here. Plus you make the best bread. But you need to start making cinnamon rolls because there’s big bucks to be made there.” Now I don’t know about the cinnamon rolls being added but I love that people see Jesus through me.

We had the incredible opportunity to support our local community this last month through the donation of several loaves of bread. OKK is a non profit group that supports our local community and runs the market. This past month, they hosted a clean up event and served breakfast to their volunteers. It was such an honor that we were able to support the work they did and were able to donate bread to bless those that work hard to better this local community.

Friday Youth Night

We love getting to partner with Purpose Ministries to reach the kids at this weekly event. We had a donation of bracelet materials and we have been teaching the kids how to braid together bracelets and keychains. We purchased chalk and bubbles and it has brought so much joy and creativity. The youth are going through scriptures and memorizing verses, then the teaching is bringing the New Testament to life by painting a verbal picture of the events that happened in order, finally the meal is an opportunity for fellowship, laughs and belly’s to be filled. It’s fun to see kids who want to be there. It’s fun to watch the kids grow and to see them apply the truths being taught.

One of the cool things that is a focus at these events is teaching, by example, how to honor each others and live a life that encourages them to serve like Jesus. One of the rules of the evening is little kids and girls eat first; this may seem like a silly rule, but it’s teaching the boys how to be men who lead from a place of serving. It’s exciting to see the adult men discipling the boys and the boys encouraging each other to step in to their role as men.

Project Nehemiah Hawaii

We have been given the opportunity to partner with the organization Project Nehemiah Hawaii. They are a very well known Christian ministry that is grass roots boots on the ground in the fight against human trafficking. They have resources through out Hawaii, and have the respect of many government officials. They have primarily worked on Oahu, but are working to pull together resources and bring further awareness of this issue on the big island. We are currently working with them to do a homeless outreach on May 5th, we will be putting together supply bags and going into the community to distribute and minister to the homeless here in Kau. We will also be working with them to put on an event this summer that will aim to bring the community together and shed light on the issues of Human trafficking, child abduction, domestic abuse, exploitation, and youth on drugs and alcohol.

We are currently looking for donations for giveaways at the event in August, and looking for donations of outreach supplies for creating homeless packs. If would like to learn more about this, or how you can support this outreach please email me at plantinghopeministry@gmail.com

Prayer requests

**We are looking for 100 people who will commit to pray with us and for us. We currently have 20 people who have committed to this role on our behalf. We firmly believe that everything we are doing here has to be rooted in Jesus and we want a team with us who will go to Him on our behalf and intentionally take time to pray with and for us. We send out separate emails and updates to that specific group.Thank you to those who have already said yes to partnering with us through prayer! If you are wanting to be apart of our prayer team please reach out to me via email: plantinghopeministries@gmail.com

-Pray that God would bring the right financial partners to join us. We threw out a big number asking for $10,000 a month in support. We received several one item donations, and have $800of on-going monthly support committed. We don’t know how God is gonna provide financially, but we are 100% trusting that He will. We felt very confident that He was telling us to trust Him, so we are praying that our personal needs will be taken care, and all funding will be taken care of for building materials, and land development moving forward. If you would like to financially support us click the button below! 

-Pray for a Bulldozer. We have been borrowing Gabes parents tractor, but the availability is limited, and the work that could be done, is a lot. We need bigger equipment to properly work the land.

-Please pray for continued health of our family, continued protection both physically and spiritually, wisdom and that God would continue to speak clearly to us so we can walk forward confidently.

-Please pray for our vehicle situation, we have two vehicles, one of which we finally got running after 9 months, and an older truck that we are pushing to it capacity. If you have followed us, you know our truck is especially critical to so much of what we do here, so we are praying that the Lord would sustain the vehicle, or help us find a replacement truck with in our budget.

-Pray for our outreach events, protection over volunteers, that the right connections and partnerships would be made and that the community would be blessed.

-Pray for the people we get to meet, that every interaction would be one that points people to Jesus and that we could love this community the way God loves them.