Country Kid Makes Good

If you are not a reader of the blog iLind.net, please check out my brother's posting for yesterday, Sep 28. It's an amazing story of a potential supermodel, daughter of their across-the-street neighbors.

You have to understand Ka'a'awa to appreciate this story. Ka'a'awa and Groveland have a lot in common. They are both tiny towns, both accurately described as COUNTRY. In Ka'a'awa it is barely 1.5 miles from the school at one end of town to the bend into Kahana Bay at the other. In a couple of spots the town in 5 blocks deep; in most it is no more than 2 blocks from the highway to the most distant row of houses. There is a small market -- or maybe it's just a 7/11 -- a post office, a gas station and a K-6 elementary school. There's a fire station and a couple of popular beach parks. It's maybe 15 miles to the vet (an important destination when you are caretaker for 8 cats), the nearest hospital, and a real grocery store. It's 25 miles from home to Honolulu. Those are very long distances on an island that encompasses only 604 square miles.

Out of curiosity, I plotted using Google Earth the land area the subdivision where I live in California would encompass if it were on Oahu. From my parents' home in Kahala, I'd be at Honolulu Harbor before I'd gotten as far as the Pine Mountain Lake airport -- 5+ miles. To travel the distance from the PML Main Gate to the very tip of McKinley Way, I'd have to go from home well into Manoa Valley above the University of Hawaii. The distance from the upper reaches of Breckenridge Rd. across Pine Mountain Lake to the compost dump above the campgrounds is equal to the distance from this house on Kealaolu Avenue to the back side of Diamond Head. In California, it's just a subdivision. On Oahu, its a very large hunk of the City of Honolulu. So you can see that driving the 25 miles from Ka'a'awa to Honolulu daily is, perceptually, like driving from Groveland to Modesto or Stockton. The 15 miles from Ka'a'awa to Kaneohe feels like driving from Groveland to Sonora, double the distance.

Anyway, the neighbor kid started modeling classes last year. Not much different from a lot of girls who are also starting their freshman year of high school. The rest of the story is really worth reading.

They had an 8.0 earthquake some 120 miles from American Samoa today, which generated a tidal wave advisory/watch in Hawaii. From 1:30 this afternoon to 7:00 tonight, folks were advised (with strong urging from Honolulu police) to stay out of the water. They could play on the beach, but not swim or surf. So far, there has been a 1' surf surge, but that's the extent of "damage".

Give thanks that the after effects of today's tsunami were no worse than they are. Send warm thoughts to Katelin, who at 15 is beginning to struggle with the demands of a real world, highly paid, high pressure job and the impact it is already having on her family. Will she give up fame and fortune to come home to Hawaii and be just another student at Kahuku High School, or will she become Keke, an international supermodel? What opportunities are there in your own life that could make a difference to you or to someone else? "Seek, and you will find ..."

Don't forget to pray!