Worth the Effort

Zach and Ariel!

In the words of Karyn, sickness is spreading like wildfire here among the SMs. Fevers, headaches, nausea, the list goes on. Jen is just getting over her fever, and now Danny has a fever of 104. Sunday was Danny, Jen, and I’s turn to do yard work around the school. Jen was still recovering from her fever and was too weak still to work so she was not able to come, so Danny and I worked. Danny was not feeling good at all so he had to stop part way through. It was very hot so I couldn’t blame him. I like working outside, I just don’t like it when it’s 80 degrees or more with 70% humidity! At 6, all of us went out to eat with Kat and the volunteers at this place called Nett Noodles. (Pronounced Netch) It was a restaurant owned by a Japanese man and his French wife. All the noodles were homemade and there was French inspired pizza and crepes. It was all so delicious! That night, I went to bed around 11:00 pm and woke up at 12:15am to find everyone awake in my apartment with Danny laying on our couch. He had Facebooked Karyn and Kim and told them that he was sick and had a fever. They helped him walk to our apartment since he could not do it on his own and Pastor Tim carried him part of the way and put him on our couch. We stayed up with him for a while and watched a movie with him. I ended up sleeping on the other side of couch so I could be there if he needed anything. I really didn’t get any sleep and when I got up the next morning, I felt like death.  

Part of our lovely group

I got up and got ready to start the new school week and I was quite disoriented. I had a mug full of hot coffee on the counter and I was trying to grab it and I accidently hit the side of it. It rocked back and forth for a second and before I could react, it fell on the floor, sending shattered ceramic and piping hot liquid everywhere. Ugh. What a great start to my day. Needless to say, I was exhausted throughout the whole day. In my second computer class, I was getting lulled to sleep by the sound of the keyboards clacking and the hum of the air conditioner. I made the mistake of putting my head down for a second and as I was dozing off, I heard a, “Miss. Miss C? Miss!” I quickly lifted my head up to see Ivana looking at me. “Miss I’m done.” I got up and got her score and made myself wake up by walking around. At PE, Roy made me go back to my apartment and sleep. I took a very brief nap and was awakened to go on the shopping trip. I checked on Danny later and he told me that he had had a fever of 104 when he had gone to the doctor. His body last night and today was super hot. It was shocking because even his head wasn’t that hot. I checked his temperature and it had gone down to 100.8. The antibiotics seemed to be helping.

On Sabbath, the school choir had their first performance at my church, Kitti. They sounded great! They sang two songs that I sang in choir in high school. We had a lot of youth for Sabbath school (Which us SMs are apparently in charge of now). A high school girl I teach named Lonie, who is not SDA came with us to Kitti. She’s not in choir or anything, but Kaylie invited her to come. Kaylie told me that one day during an English quiz, Lonie asks her, “Miss, why do you go to church on Saturday?” Wow! Isn’t that incredible?? Jessica, a very sweet high school girl I also teach, invited her to come to the high school vespers on Friday night (what a great example!) and Kaylie invited her to church. She came to both and she loved them both! She even came to outreach with us SMs to the hospital to sing.

I'm pretty sure these kids are NEVER still!

Sometimes, I forget why I’m here. Sometimes I forget that I’m not here just to teach, but to be an example. When I was colportuering, I was told that even if the whole time I was colportuering, I only helped bring one person to Christ, the whole summer was worth it. It was worth the effort. It was worth the sweaty days of walking in the sun, the rejection and cursing I got from so many doors, the long days. Even if I brought just one single soul, one single person to come to know Christ, all the stuff I went through would be worth it. Sometimes that’s hard to think of. So much work for one single person? Going through all the sickness, the heat, the hard days of teaching for one single person to come to know Christ? I have read somewhere either in a book by Ellen White or in the Bible that for every person we help bring to Christ, we get a jewel in our crown in Heaven. That is so cool!

I know I’m here for a reason and maybe I can help someone get to know Christ. Maybe it’s through my actions, my words, or even just becoming friends with the students. There are many students who go here who don’t even know who SDA people are or what they believe! In each class, there are only about 3 or 4 Adventists, if that. I know I only have one in my class of 13. When Jen was teaching 5^th grade, she had not one SDA kid in her class! I asked one of the parents of a Catholic student of mine why they sent their kid here instead of the Catholic school. They said they liked the atmosphere here better and the teachers at the other schools often times yelled at their students for not understanding something in class. I know my thoughts are kind of all over the place but, I hope you got my point. After hearing about Lonie from Kaylie, I think I realized a big reason why I am here in Pohnpei. God has some amazing things planned!

Please pray for all of us here as we go through this sickness phase! Our immune systems are suffering greatly. Riley seems to be getting better, thankfully and Danny seemed a little better the last time I checked in on him.

God Bless!

Manta Rays on Holiday

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

This is the verse that has kept me going since I became an SM. As some of you might know, I wasn’t planning on becoming a student missionary. I wanted to finish my schooling, and get my masters all in 5 years, non-stop. But apparently God had other plans for me. A couple of days ago, I broke down. I just couldn’t help it. I kept seeing pictures and posts made by my friends back in Walla Walla and I just wanted to be there with them! I miss my family, my friends, delicious food, cold weather, and so much more! I’m missing seeing my nieces and nephew grow up a whole year!

Haylee loves posing for the camera. :)

But, these past couple of days I have found so many things to be thankful for. Working with so many kids who don’t really know Jesus can be a huge blessing. For instance, Ellie, who teaches 4^th grade, answered many questions that the kids had about Jesus and the end times. Children have some very curious minds! There are so many kids that are curious about Christ and we are here to tell them about Him. Maybe some kids just need some love and we’re the only ones who show it to them.  

This week went by pretty fast I think. My kids seem to be learning their letter sounds quicker. Except for a few kids who don’t seem to know their alphabet still. I try to work with them but it is very hard to work with each and every child individually. So even though it’s second quarter, I STILL have parents coming to my classroom everyday. So I talked to Mrs. Jano, my TA and told her that I talked to Franky to talk to them and ask them to not come to class anymore. So Mrs. Jano solved the problem by telling the parents that starting this last Monday, they were allowed to be in the classroom, but they could not help their children in anyway. I was really grateful to Mrs. Jano because truthfully, it doesn’t really bother me that they were there, I just hate how their kids depended on their mothers for answers.

Saw this little guy while snorkeling!

So on Monday, the mothers that came, sat in the back of the classroom and didn’t talk to their kids. Goodness! It made a huge difference! I found the kids getting helped by their mothers didn’t really know as much as they should and seeing how their papers were always perfect, I could not tell what level they were at. Sometimes during class when I was helping those kids with their work, I would ask a question and they would look back at their mothers and speak to them in Pohnpeian. They would reply to them, “Ask Ms. C.” My quietest kid, EJ, always had his mother or grandmother coming to class. Ever since she has stopped coming, he has become a lot more outgoing! He has started to talk to other kids more and has started to play at recess more! He loves making animal noises while hiding nearby me at recess and I pretend to be puzzled by wondering where the cats and dogs were hiding. I love seeing his little face light up with delight and laugh! And I found that my student Yuree, who has a hard time in school, is a fantastic gymnast! She can do the splits both ways and can do a perfect cartwheel two handed AND one handed! These children find some way to surprise me everyday!  J

Lonie and Jessica!

The rest of the week went pretty well. It was a very hot week though. By 7:30 am, we were already sweating! Wednesday night we played volleyball. We had so much fun! We didn’t play very seriously and had some really funny moments. Thursday was United Nations Day (or as we heard in staff meeting, Imagination Day!), so we had the day off! It was a much needed day off! I slept peacefully until early the next morning around 6:00 am, I was rudely awakened by our kitten Lentil yowling right outside our window. And by right outside, I mean hanging on our window screen, meowing to be let in. After hushing him up, I dozed in and out until 8:30, when I got up to get ready to go snorkeling. Apparently after full moons, the place where we went snorkeling has a lot of manta rays. I was pretty excited to go! I couldn’t wait to see something other than fish in the water. We took a long boat ride out to the spot and the 7 of us that came hopped in. The water was a very pretty blue, but it was hard to see very deep. Before we hopped in the water, Franky told us, “Now remember, today it’s a holiday, so if there aren’t any manta rays, blame it on the holiday, not me.” And the manta rays were on holiday. We saw not a single one! We couldn’t see very deep at all so I don’t think that helped. We did see a lot of cool fish though. Tomorrow is no uniform day! I’m so tired of wearing polos that are way to big on me!

I’m glad it’s almost the weekend! We could all use some more rest.

Thank you for all your prayers and support! The encouragement I receive is always helpful and it’s amazing how many people I have out there supporting me this year. I love you all!

God Bless! 

In a Foreign Land

Teaching is definitely one of, if not the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I have so much admiration for my teachers from all my years as a student. I never realized just how hard it was to be one! Staff meetings, parent-teacher conferences, grading, lesson planning, the list goes on and on! By Wednesday, we had all turned in our grades and were ready to have our conferences the next day. However, for some strange reason or another, my report cards from Excel didn’t work out right. So I had to redo all the report cards and get them turned in. It took a while and was super tedious, but I finally got them done! They still didn’t turn out quite right but it was satisfactory. I just wish we could do hard copies instead! So much easier! Denise gave a great worship that night reading from Psalms 137:1-4 This is what it says:

Summer on the left, Reese on the right

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song. And those who plundered us requested mirth, Saying “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Denise explained that we are in a foreign land, and sometimes feel hopeless and sad, and don’t want to play our harps, but God will help us through it and we are here for a reason! We may not know the reason yet, but we will. Anyway I was really blessed by her worship! Oh also that morning, as I stepped out of my freezing cold shower, Karyn asks me: “So how was your first hot shower?” Uhm what? Hot shower? What are you talking about?? “Yeah didn’t you hear last night? We finally got hot water!” I had gone to sleep earlier than everyone else and had not heard the wonderful news! I almost jumped back in the shower to take a hot one but didn’t have time. But now we have hot water everyday! When I took my first one on Thursday, I almost started crying. Actually tears were there. I’ve missed a nice hot shower very much!

Thursday was a half day! This was only because we had parent-teacher conferences from 1-4 and 5-7. It was a long day! The thing is though, I don’t really understand why we keep such long hours when we only have a few parents come! I only four parents come, and none of the ones I actually needed to talk to!  A parent of one of my trouble students came by and asked if I had the report card. I told him no, you had to get it from the office and then come back. He said alright and left. 20 minutes later, I was wondering if the printer wasn’t working or something. It was 4 o’clock so I decided to head back to the apartment to make some dinner and on the way I stopped by the office. Apparently the father had just taken the report card and left! I specifically told him in letters home that I would like to talk to them about their daughter! They never stay to talk to me at school. Same with a mother of the student that has the hardest time learning. She really doesn’t seem to care about his learning or behavior! She avoids me like crazy! It’s really frustrating sometimes. After all the conferences were over, Franky had a huge pot full of delicious lentils and homemade bread for all the teachers! Oh it was so delicious! After stuffing myself to the max, the girls in my apartment watched a movie and went to bed. We really needed the chill time! Oh! Before snack time, I always have a prayer with my kids. That day, a girl named Reese raised her hand and said, "Teacher? Can I say the prayer today?" I don't think I have been prouder since getting here! I told her of course she could and she said a lovely prayer! 

Friday was very hot. I didn’t do too much teaching just because the kids deserved a little break I think! Danny, who teaches 7^th grade brought his class over to read with my kids for reading time. He has 13 kids, and so do I, so each kid has a buddy. Both classes seem to like it and near the end, one of 7^th grade boys wanted to read to the entire class. I’ve never seen my kids so attentive and the boy did a good job! When I got to my high school classes, I got asked by everybody where I was yesterday. Apparently Thursday went on the Friday schedule and I had my classes after all! I never got told and I was one classroom duty all week so I was never in staff worships to hear announcements! My kids never went to my classroom to get me either. Oh well! Friday afternoon, we were all dead. We were just so exhausted! But we managed to get ourselves up to go to Power Hour at 6:45. Power Hour is a Friday night vespers put on for elementary students. We had a lot of fun singing and Amanda narrated an improv story of Noah where all of SMs and volunteers acted it out. The kids seemed to really like it! J

Sabbath was beautiful and sunny! We all went to our own churches and Pastor Tim, our school chaplain spoke at Kitti where I was. Sabbath afternoon, I really didn’t do much. It was our Sabbath off and we were all just relaxing. I got to Skype Joni! Ahh I miss that girl! We had a good sundown worship where some of us read our favorite Bible verses, sang songs, and had some prayers. The gym opened up for gym night and I really didn’t feel like playing, so I went to Jen’s new classroom with her and helped her decorate. It was nice to get the room all nice and colorful! J Right now, we are listening to Christmas music in my apartment. I love it, but it makes me so sad knowing that I won’t be home for Christmas to spend it with my family. I have a feeling many tears will be shed in December.

Have a Happy Sabbath all of you! Please keep praying for Riley! 

Lots of Changes!

 Everyone was busy with grading on Sunday. Final grades were due on Tuesday and people were entering in last minute grades. All morning, I spent moving my stuff into Jen’s room. The boys helped me move my bed and dresser and after moving clothes and whatnot, it was all done! The room looks great and the wall that my bed is against is the same blue as the walls of my room back home! The zebra sheets make it look a lot like home. J That afternoon, some of us SMs and the volunteers from PUC went to the ocean to go swimming for a little bit. I wasn’t going to go because I had so much to do, but Karyn convinced me otherwise and I’m really glad she did! The water was perfect for cooling us off and it was nice to just get out of the house.

The photo doesn't even do sunset justice!
That is the high school building!

Monday was a busy day for everybody. Not only were grades due the next day, but we also had staff meeting and our food shopping trip. Every time we go to Palm Terrace (the grocery store) I cross my fingers, hoping for tomatoes and lettuce. But alas, there was none on Monday. There actually hasn’t been in a very long time! I miss having a spinach salad everyday! L But I’ve quit eating pasta and started eating less rice and bread because those are the things I’ve been eating a lot of since coming here!

The bananas here are delicious, but once they ripen, they go bad in a matter of a day or two! So I always have to eat them really fast or freeze them.

Tuesday was crazy but fairly good day! My kids have been doing A LOT better on their letter sounds and especially a few kids I’m very proud of because before, I had to work with them through every little bit of the assignments, but now, they’re doing more on their own! And the whole class is doing better in their handwriting. In math class, their workbooks taught them about cubes, cones, and spheres. The poor children had the hardest time saying “sphere” but hey it’s a hard word! After school and tutoring, Tony, Jen and I went to the three Ace stores to get a couple things. As soon as we got back, ran with my laptop to the office to enter in my grades for high school. I was hurrying because in 20 minutes, we were leaving to go to Kat and John’s house for curry night. Kat and John had been SMs here before and later on moved here when they were married. They’re an amazing couple of people and have a very cute boy named Ky. The volunteers live in the apartment below the house. The house is still under construction upstairs, but it’s still very nice! I didn’t really want to leave because it felt so much more homey there! No bugs crawling on the couch cushions, nicer kitchen appliances, windows. Ahhh it was so nice! The curry and Asian salad were fantastic as well and John surprised us with a cheese cake! CHEESECAKE! I was beyond excited! And to top it all off, he added some Nutella on top. Oh it was heavenly. After such a great meal, I had a hard time moving!

Oh little Pria. She's always telling me:
"Teacher see? See??"

I am starting to feel more and more at home here in Pohnpei. I’ve finally settled in, and my friends here feel like my family. Sure, we’re all still going to have a couple breakdowns this year, but I think it will be a little easier for us all. Caleb said something that really hadn’t occurred to me yet. We’re probably never going to see our students again after this year. Woah! That’s quite depressing… I’ve grown quite attached to my children!!

So things are getting switched around starting Monday. So since Riley is gone till after Christmas, Chauncey (Jonathan) is getting switched from teaching 2^nd grade to 6^th with Brooke, Jen, will take his class, 5^th grade will combine and Tony will be teaching them, then 4^th grade is getting combined because the local 4^th grade teacher is getting let go (or demoted) and Riley will either be helping teach 4^th or 5^th grade when he gets back. Whew! So much craziness! Hopefully it will all work out!

I also talked to Franky today about the parents in my classroom. I still have at least 3 show up everyday. It's not that I don't like them, they are just not helping their children learn on their own. They're pretty much doing the work for the kids and answering the questions for them. They're helpful in the classroom, but are hindering the learning of the students. I hope they don't take all this offensively. 

Hey if any of you guys have printed pictures of me with you that you would like to send me to put up on my wall I would love to get some! It would make it feel a lot more homey in my room! J My kids also love looking at pictures of my friends and family.

Have a fantastic day all of you! Keep all of us SMs in your prayers!

Sunshine, Ocean, and Basketball!

Nalap!

Done with finals! The high schoolers were all relived to finally be done. I gave my  PE final and let’s just say, a lot of boys don’t know how to study! I even left some of the answers on the board after explaining them and some people STILL got them wrong! Ridiculous. Twice a year, after finals, there is a huge basketball tournament for the high school. It started at 4pm and ended at around 10! It was a competition between classes. In the end, senior boys and senior girls won and the SM/staff teams played the winners. Us girls played the first half and of course, dominated. J The boys played the second half but they only had a few people and had to have some students play with them, so they didn’t do as well. I had SO much fun playing though! I haven't played much basketball since my knee surgery and it just felt fantastic! The SMs are going to try to start playing basketball at least once a week now. 

Loaded up trucks!

Friday, I took the day off and went to the high school picnic. Since my Kindergarten class didn’t go any where for their picnic, I decided I wanted to go with the high schoolers. Besides a lot of kids asked me if I was going to go! Couldn’t disappoint them now could I? ;) So my TA taught my class and after staff worship, I went to the hut to wait for the trucks to get loaded up so we could go. I got in the truck that Roy was driving and we loaded up to the max. We found though, that there were a lot more people than we were expecting. The school had fixed the old red fire truck we have, but it wasn’t starting for some reason. We waited… and waited… and waited for TWO hours before we were able to leave. Getting to the dock where we would load up on the boats to head to Nalap, was pretty sketchy. We could only get up the hills with the truck in 2^nd gear and the engine was making such a loud noise, I thought it would explode. Finally, we got to the dock and 5 boat trips later, everyone was on the tiny island. By that time, it was 11:30 and people were hungry! So while Franky and Pastor Tim started cooking the chicken, we all played some volleyball. It was a really hot day and everyone was soon pretty sweaty. I didn’t go swimming right away but after we ate, everyone went. For lunch there was barbequed chicken, rice, and ketchup. So I had rice and ketchup for lunch. Not the most satisfying thing ever, but hey I was hungry. The kids thought it was so strange that Kaylie, Caleb, and I are vegetarian. They asked my how we survive! Haha! Franky felt bad for us and chopped up a coconut or two for us to eat with the rice.

Singing at Palikir! 

Swimming on that hot day was super nice! There was a giant ring in the water for people to sit/stand/hang on to and we played all sorts of games on there. I’m really glad I teach both kindergarten and high school. I like being able to know both elementary and high school people. We started to head back at 3:30 and I was on the last boat to get out of there. We drove back over and down the hills again, with lots and lots of people on the back (I was quite concerned with the safety of the kids but I guess they’re really used to this) and by the time we got back to the school, it was 6pm. Four hours late! An hour later, we had a bonfire vespers for high school and Ellie did a great job talking for it. J

We just all happened to wear green tonight!

Thank you God for Sabbaths! I get to wake up an hour later than usual, and enjoy my day off without teaching children! Trust me I love my children, I just need my break! Roy, Danny, Jen, and I went to Kitti where the new pastor spoke. He spoke in Pohnpeian but we got a summary at the end in English. All four of us were SO tired today though. We started to fall asleep a little bit in church. On the way back to the school, I fell asleep in the car. I don’t usually sleep in cars but I guess I was so tired I just fell right asleep! Danny, Tony, Jen and I had a joint lunch and an hour later, we all went for outreach. My group went to Palikir where we sat in their hut church and sang songs for the kids and told them stories and did some coloring with them. I think they really enjoyed it! I know I did! When we got back to the school, we still had a few hours until gym night so we invited all the girls that were waiting for the gym night to start up to our apartment and we cooked a huge meal and dessert for them. It was fun to hang out with them and talk! Definitely a good girl’s night. J

Thanks for all the encouragement I’ve gotten from so many of you! Things are going a lot better and I’m really starting to enjoy my stay here more and more!

God has some amazing things planned for me!