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!