First and most importantly, I want to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful niece, Haley who turns 1 year old today!  I can't ask for a better gift than her.  From the first time I held her she has been a blessing to me and our family.  She is beautiful and I can't wait to see the person she grows to be.  I wish I could be there to help celebrate the big day, but obviously I can't.  Happy Birthday Haley, I love you!

Things are going pretty good out here in Hawaii. It is hard to believe that I have already been here for 6 weeks, and that in less than two months I will be heading to Alaska for three weeks!  I know I am where God wants me right now, but I also can't deny that I miss my family and friends from home very much!  Next week I will be assisting at a youth camp, by being a counselor.  So no school for Tavita, and I get to have fun the whole week to! 
     Last night we had a Bible Study and we studied Genesis 1-3.  So often when we study creation we focus on the scientific facts and details.  While it is not wrong to study these details, we must also remember to pull out life applications first from the scriptures.  Our lives are greatly affected by what we believe about creation.  On each day of creation God concluded the day by saying, "It is good."  With all of creation God spoke each creation into existence.  But when God created man, He did not just speak man into existence.  God took the dust of the earth, and formed man from the dust of the earth.  He than breathed into man the breath of life.  The air that God breathed became the air that man would live on. (Genesis 2:7)  God took His time creating man, making us exactly as we ought to be.  We are no mistake.  Genesis 1:27 says that we are created in Gods image.  How does this statement effect our lives? By being created in God's image it means that we physcially look as God does.  If you were presented with a paper towel and a ten dollar bill, which would you want? Of course we would want the money, because it has value.  It has value because the government has placed seals on the money that say it has worth.  In the same way, when God created man, He placed His seal on man.  He claimed us, and by His seal it means we have value and worth.  Many religions have statues for the gods they worship.  (Hindus, Buddhists, etc.) If Christians were to create a statue of God what would it look like?  Since man is created in Gods image, man would be a perfect representation of a statue of God.  By stating this, we must observe our own lives. If people were to view us as statues of God, would we be representing God as He would want us to?  When we claim that we are Christians, there must be an obvious life change between us and the rest of the world.  While it is sometimes hard, God has called us to represent His image to the world.  This is a huge responsibility to our lives.  God has a plan and calling on each of our lives, but we can not begin to move in that direction until we start to strive to show the image of God to those around us.