HOLLAH!

Whats up guys! This is Austin... Rhett will be joining in a sec. His explosive bowel movements have finally been tamed! Haha, he has turned out to be quite the cook! Brewing up all sorts of tasty meals. He cooks and I clean. Works for me! Thanks for the emails everybody. It costs money to use the internet here in Vava'u so we are trying to be thrifty with our usage. But Shauna and Fronky, thanks for the shout outs! You too rach! John, Rhett has been ravished like 5 1/2 times already since we got to Tonga! Haha! Half because I jumped in the 6th time and regulated on some Tongan sista's if you know what I mean. I may be a scronny "palangi" but watch out when rhett is getting ravished!

Ok, Well we gots a lot to say. First off, Monday night, before we left, the whole Uata family had a huge birthday celebration dinner for one of Naite's cousins Stephanie. She was turing 14, so the had the whole family over and we were invited (of course). The food was soooo GOOD! They had, sausage, and BBQ chicken, tortillas, salsa, salad, juice, chocolate cake, ice cream, SWORDFISH!, and even TAPATILLO! No choranchula...but it was still a treat. The two highlights of the night for me, other than the food, was first when the whole family started off the night singing a tongan hymn. It was soo cool. They sang so good, and harmonized like motab, and it was just a neat experiance all of us sitting out on the patio of this house in the middle of the Tongan jungle, surrounded by palm trees, and banana trees, and shrubbery of every kind, hearing this family sing. Wish you guys had my eyes and ears that night. The other experiance was talking with Naite's brother David. He is an extraordinay man. He has accomplished so much thus far in his life. He worked for Boeing in the states, and then was recruited to the vietnam government to do some work there. While he was there, he developed some online management system that ended up awarding him the technological invention of the year in vietnam. From there, he came to Tonga, and while the people have been trying to establish a democracy for 22 years, and been somewhat unsucessful, he comes and after 2 1/2 years, he'll have it accomplished. The reason why it was so neat for me, was because his whole focus in life is the love of Christ. Everything he does, he tries to revolve it around Christ, and His love. He is so giving and charitable. A good reminder to all of us.

Tuesday at like 4pm, we hopped onto the ferry that takes us to Vava'u. The ferry is a little different than I'm sure you imagine. The boat is like 200-300 feet long, and would in no way, meet the standards and requirements to even haul freight let alone passengers in America. There were probably 300-400 passangers, that all sat on top of this deck, covered in rust, with no covering except the small room that sat maybe 30 people, and the lower level that was already jammed full. The loud diesel engine exhaust coming out the top of the deck on both sides left a dull low rumble in the air. What we thought was a 14 hour cruise through the islands, was really a 17 hour rollercoaster! The swells were huge, rolling the boat back and forth all night! The best part was that while everybody else had to sit out in the element and smell the exhaust, Rhett and I had our own VIP suite! Haha, the Uata Family has a room with fans, and beds, and tables, that the family uses whenever they ride! And of course, we got hooked up! We felt kind of guilty because we had it so good! We even had our own bathroom and shower! It wasn't luxury compared to America, but compared to what everybody else had...it was great!