DTS Students In Kona, I'm Still In The Office!

  This week our DTS students are at the YWAM base in Kona (on the Big Island), attending "The Gathering".  The Gathering is a time each winter when all of the DTS schools conducted in Hawaii get together for a week to learn and worship together.  
  
  The Kona base is a little different than our Maui base.  First of all, there are over 1,000 people who live there full time.  Maui has about 40 full time staff.  The Kona base is actually a renovated resort, so it's quite a bit bigger than our three houses, and a lot nicer!  Although I definitely prefer our little family, it is really cool to see so many people from around the world in one place.  It feels like the United Nations or something, everyone is speaking different languages (there's an entire school in Korean there!) and it's just a massive melting pot of missionaries.


the Kona base is diverse and has a lot more native Hawaiians than the Maui base.


This is probably the nicest YWAM base in the world, I mean really, a resort?!?


  While the DTS students have been having their fun in Kona, I've been doing a lot of work on our new website.  We have most of the pages up with some content on them, but we still have to decide the layout for the index page, pus all of our pictures on and do all our own custom graphics so it really looks like our own.  I think it's going to be really cool once we get everything done, but we still have a lot of work to do.


The index page and colors will be different, but this is more or less the style of our new website.


  As far as Hawaiian culture, I'm going with some more food this week.  The other night, I was down in Paia with some friends when an uncle down the street brought us some tako for us to grill.  

  Ok, so let me explain that last sentence.  In Hawaii, everone is either your uncle (older male),  auntie (older female), cuz/brah (someone your own age) or keiki (children).  Calling someone uncle or auntie is kind of like saying ma'am or sir, just a little bit of formality and a mark of respect towards your elders.  

  Tako is octopus.  He'e is the Hawaiian word, but for some reason or another, most people here use the Japanese Tako (Be careful if you order something like Mexican tacos on Hawaii, you might not be expecting octopus tentacles with salsa on them!).  Anyway, we soaked it in some salt water for a few minutes to get the slime off, then threw the whole octopus on the grill.  It cooks quick, like fish, and turns a dark purple when its ready.  It has a chewy texture and kind of sticks to the roof of your mouth, but didn't taste that fishy, probably because it had just been caught an hour before.  Yum!


Tako means good local seafood!

2 comments:

  1. blessedjourney said...:

    did you cut the head off before grilling?

  1. BCF said...:

    Nope, you grill the whole thing, then cut off the parts you want to eat.