A Weekend in Paradise

Relaxing, breathtaking, and painful. Those are the three words I would use to describe my weekend on the island of Ahnt. On Friday, we headed to the beautiful ring of islands off of Pohnpei called Ahnt. The water was crystal clear, and different shades of blue and green that I can’t even describe to you. It was an hour-long boat ride to get to the island where we were camping. As we waited for Franky’s boat to arrive with our luggage, Kim immediately went to work of finding a coconut to eat. She soon found one and then proceeded to attempt to open it by throwing it at a cement block over and over again. She got one open after quite a few throws! She’s quite the resourceful woman! J It took us a fairly short amount of time to set up our hammocks and tarps. After that was taken care of, some of us went for a swim in the beautiful warm ocean.

Relaxing under the palm trees and blue skies

To avoid getting bit by mosquitos, I slept in a sweatshirt, and long pants tied at the bottom so they wouldn’t crawl up my leg. The only parts of me exposed were my face, hands and feet. All three parts got bit like crazy!! Since sleeping in hammocks is not something I am really used to, I slept fitfully that night. I rolled out of my hammock at 9:30 am and went straight to the water to swim. Our entire Sabbath consisted of swimming, eating coconuts, and laying on the beach either relaxing or reading. This was definitely a weekend we all needed! No sound of children running wild on the school campus, just the sound of crashing waves and the soft swaying of palm fronds.

At night we would lay out a tarp and lay out under the stars and full moon. The moon was almost too bright! We couldn’t see the stars very well but on Friday night, Amanda, Tony, Jen, and I were laying out on the tarp looking at the man on the moon. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I see a shooting star! I practically crawl on top of Amanda with excitement and point to the star that was falling from the sky. It was the longest shooting star I had ever seen! It lasted at least 5 seconds! Saturday night, I slept very well, only waking up once or twice. (I think it helped that I took Nyquil.) At 7:00 am, I was out of bed and changing to go swim. We didn’t leave until noon so I had plenty of time to relax on the beach and swim for a good while before leaving. Because the tide was out, the water was very shallow around the island. Karyn, Jen, and I spent a lot of time just sitting in the water, playing with the sand. On the way back, we stopped the boats and the mouth of the channel to go snorkeling for bit. The drop off was simply beautiful! The water was an unbelievable blue that my camera could just not capture. I can’t wait to get my scuba license! I’ll be able to see things at much closer level.

Crystal clear water

The boat ride back was so fun! I sat at the front of the boat with Karyn and going on the open ocean with our little fishing boat was quite the ride! Going over the waves reminded me of a roller coaster! Karyn and I definitely had the most fun, whooping and hollering when we went over a good wave. I have to say the boat ride brought me so much joy! I’m not really sure why, but going up and down on the waves made me laugh out loud with real happiness. Getting back to the apartment, we got to see what our sunburns looked like without the glaring sun. Even though I reapplied sunscreen several times throughout the day, my shoulders, legs, and face were all red. That’s the painful part of the weekend. Every little touch, made my shoulders and legs hurt. On Monday morning I shaved my legs. Oh my word. SUCH PAIN. PE time did not help when some of the boys patted me on the back. When I flinched, they said “Oh miss! Did you get sunburned??”

Please keep praying for all of us. There's always someone sick among the SMs no matter how hard we try to stay healthy.

Oh for the Love of Children

 I have recently started using a devotional called Uncommon Life, written by Tony Dungy. On Tuesday, I read something I found very relevant to my teaching life right now.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you. Whatever you say and do, in word or deed, do it all for the glory of God. Daily living. Each day, every day. Regardless of what you are called to do as an occupation.”

This year, God called me to be a teacher. I know as a student in elementary and high school, I always looked up to my teachers and this made me stop and think. What do my students see when they look up to me? Am I being a good example? Am I showing Christ through my actions and words? 90% of these kids aren’t even Adventist and don’t really know Jesus. Am I showing them who Christ is, or the opposite?  This worship really had me thinking about how I live my life. Just thought I would share that with you. J

It was SO nice to have Monday off. It was a really hot day so in the afternoon, some of us went swimming at what we now fondly call “Parasite Bay”.  It’s just a little swimming hole at a river. It’s only about a 10 minute drive so it’s pretty close. J I really did not want to start school again on Tuesday. My kids were quite crazy and couldn’t focus on their work, so I decided to give them more coloring to do. My mom sent me some cool coloring murals where each kid gets a page to color and when I put it altogether it creates a picture. The kids absolutely love it! That morning, I did a joint worship with Amanda’s 1^st graders in my classroom. Just as we were starting the worship part after singing, I saw my student Pria come to the door with her mother. She was crying hysterically and I went out to see what was wrong. Since Mrs. Jano has been sick, I’ve been taking the Kindergartners that were left after 12 o’clock to the office to wait for their parents. And Pria for some reason was terrified of going to the office again so she didn’t want to come to class. So I told her that she could stay with her sister in 5^th grade until her mom came and got her. That finally calmed her down.

My Princesses and Princes!

On Wednesday for art class, my kids made crowns because I told them that since God is our Father and a King, we are all princesses and princes. This definitely made the girls happy to hear that they are princesses! The picture we took is really cute! I really wish all my kids had been there that day!

This week went pretty well until today, Thursday. Today was definitely in the top 3 worst days of school so far. For some reason, my kids had the hardest time listening! Every time I started talking to instruct them in something, they would start talking to people across the room. Doing their worksheets with them in class, I would sit directly in front of them and tell them the answers and still not know what to do, despite my constant repeat on what to do and what the answer was.  I’ve gone over and over stuff I want them to learn and still the majority don’t seem to understand. The parents are expecting these kids to read and write and do math by the end of this year so I feel a lot of pressure. So many times today, I closed my eyes, and felt like crying. Instead, I prayed for patience and wisdom. I felt a lot calmer after those moments and tried my best to be more patient with my children. But my land they know how to test me! Starla has been very weepy in class the past couple of days and I finally found out why. Apparently her cousin left a couple of days ago and she is really sad about it. Today in worship, I kept seeing tears falling down her cheeks and after worship, I said “Starla come over here.” I was sitting on the ground and she just fell into my lap and leaned into me crying her eyes out. I rocked her back and forth for a while and then told her she could go to Tony’s classroom to see her brother for a bit. That calmed her down and when she came back after 30 minutes or so, she was fine the rest of the day. I gave her an extra sticker to help her mood a little bit. I was definitely not cut out for teaching though. Social work is definitely where I should be! 

Some of my boys like to pretend they're superheroes!

Danny’s 7^th grade class, who comes and reads with my class every Friday, asked me to teach them Romanian. So Danny and I made a deal that on Fridays, if he teaches my kids phonics, I would teach his kids Romanian. Good deal! They still believe that Danny and I are cousins! Today one of the girls came up to me and asked, “Miss! So tomorrow are you going to teach us romance?” “Wait what?? Oh you mean Romanian right?” “Oh yeah! Romanian!” Lots of giggling followed as the girls ran off. It definitely made me laugh. J

I am SO thankful that I have high school classes in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure I would go crazy with my Kindergartners all day! A girl named Jeroleen, who will be studying engineering at WWU this next year, just makes my day. She, Demi, and Ariel always know how to make laugh! Jer says I’m her favorite teacher and that just makes me so happy! Tomorrow we are going camping to a place called (pronounced) Ant. I’m not really sure how it’s spelled. I’m excited but not really. We never get any sleep on camping trips so we’ll see how this goes! I have a new hammock that won’t fall with me in it this time and a tarp to hang over Jen, Kim, and I.

Keep us in your prayers as we head out this weekend! I miss all of you back home!

Fair Fun!

I love having so many holidays! On Friday, since it was a holiday, we had a school fair. We were doing the fair to raise money for textbooks for next year. Each class did a booth and I did Candy Grams. This was always a popular booth back at my elementary school, Livingstone. Not so much here though. So I ended up just selling the candy and that made a lot more money! We made $2600 at the end of the day! Apparently they usually raise over $3,000 but it was a smaller crowd this year. :/ The fair went from 9am-2pm, but by the time we got everything cleared away, it was past 4. After people started leaving, Karyn and I went to Kim and Jen’s facepainting booth. Karyn painted Jen and I’s faces and Jen painted Karyn’s. They turned out quite fantastic! There was cotton candy, popcorn, icecream, and of course rice and chicken for sale. I was SO excited for the cotton candy and icecream! In the middle of the gym, the juniors had set up a cage "jail" where you could pay a dollar to put someone in there for 3 minutes. You could also handcuff two people together too. Karyn and I both put in money to handcuff Ellie and Roy together. :) 

We were supposed to go camping after the fair, but because of the typhoons hitting the islands around us, it was much too rainy. We never got hit by the typhoon, but Yap and Palau did. Everyone seems to be alright from what I’ve heard from those islands. I thank God that we didn’t get hit here in Pohnpei

Kim's drawing! I'm the girl in the long skirt. 

Sabbath was a good day. We didn’t have any outreach so I just relaxed and read a book that afternoon. We wanted to go out to eat that night at a place that sells fish burgers called South Park. When we got there though, they were having some type of party so we went to Arnold’s instead. I split the chicken burger with Ellie and it was DELICIOUS. I don’t know if I will eat chicken back in the States, but I’m enjoying the burgers here! J  Kim drew a great drawing on her napkin of all the people who came to the restaurant! She’s very talented. We have several people here that are quite talented in drawing!

Mud Volleyball!

Sunday was a great day for reading and sitting outside on the porch. It was a hot day so I had a fan on me and read for several hours. As it was nearing dusk, some of us went to go play volleyball in the mud. The net was still up from Friday and the field was nice and muddy from the everyday rain. We had a lot of fun slipping and sliding everywhere! We have tomorrow off because we didn’t actually get the day off on Friday. I’m really glad we have a long weekend. We can all use it!

Please keep praying for us over here. Amanda got sick with a fever on Friday and when you get the fever, you get the Hand-Foot-and Mouth disease right after. I was very fortunate to only get two sores on the bottom of my feet. People got them on their face, in their mouth, all over their feet and hands. I am very grateful that I only got the two.

Hope you all have a good week! J

Cold in the Tropics

Saturday started off with a pounding headache. I wasn’t too surprised since I had gone to bed late and had gotten woken up by our annoying kitten yowling outside Jen and I’s window. We all got ready for church and Roy, Danny, Pastor Tim, and I headed out to Kitti. It was a surprisingly cold day. I mean it was still about 78 degrees but it was raining off and on outside. Getting to the church, we found that the power was out. No big deal though. It was cold enough outside we could sit comfortably in church without fans. After Sabbath school though, while we were sitting in church, the power comes back on. Some people shut the windows, turned on the fans, and turned on the air conditioning! They rarely turn the AC on and today of all days, when we were cold, they blast it! Danny, Roy and I were SO COLD! I didn’t take off my windbreaker the whole service and I was still shivering!

Loving the ocean!

Pastor Tim spoke for church but I could not focus on what he was saying at all. The sides of my head felt like they were being hit with hammers and my teeth really started to ache. Then I knew what was going on. My wisdom teeth are still coming in and they were causing my head to hurt a lot. I tried some Ibuprofen and drinking a lot of water, but nothing helped. On the way back from church, I fell asleep with my head on Danny and felt a little better when we arrived back at the school. We had about an hour before we headed out to outreach. My group again went to Palikir to have a kids program. Only 4 kids showed up which was quite sad, but we still had fun! My headache was still going and I just felt awful. I had my head on Jen’s lap most of the time. When we got back, it was time to get ready to go to ReyRey’s birthday party at Cliff’s, a local restaurant. My face was feeling kind of warm so I decided to check my temperature. 99.8. Eh, still doable.

I got ready to go, but after a few minutes, I decided that I just could not do it. I was still super cold and went and put on sweatpants, a hoodie, the fuzzy socks Orangewood Academy sent me that I thought I would NEVER use, grabbed a blanket, and my zebra. I cuddled on the couch and watched a movie with Karyn and Kim. I was FREEZING. I never thought I would say that in Pohnpei, but I was! I didn’t take any medicine because I wanted to wait until I went to bed so I could take Nyquil. My fever got up to 102 but no higher like Danny’s had gotten. Sometime during the night, my fever went away and I felt a lot better. Sunday morning however, I had a worse headache then the day before. Any bit of light made my head throb. I had never had a headache so bad before! And I get a lot of headaches! That day was uneventful for me because I just sat in my dark bedroom. It was kind of depressing but my head felt better that way. Danny came and visited me and brought me an energy drink. The caffeine made my headache go almost completely away and I was able to fall asleep quickly that night. J Where would I be without such great friends?

Jen and Karyn, some amazing girls I don't know
what I will do without next year.

We had a big brunch at Kat’s house on Monday (we were observing the Sunday holiday of Independence Day on Monday so we had the day off) with a lot of delicious food. I really like going to her house and just spending time with everybody. Other than shopping, there really wasn’t anything else going on for me. I still felt pretty bleh so I stayed inside most of the day and did some craft preparation for my kids for the next day.

Starting the school week on a Tuesday definitely threw me off. Since elementary teachers get a free lunch everyday, I give my lunch to Roy everyday. I really don’t want spaghetti everyday so I get the chicken hot lunch for him and make my own lunch at the apartment. Everyday except for Mondays he comes and picks it up from my classroom so today when he came and got his lunch I asked, “Roy, why are you getting your lunch today? You never come on Mondays.” “Uhm Clarissa, it’s Tuesday.”

Oh shoot. Well I need to remember that the rest of today! At 12, I got online to Skype my parents during my lunch break and as soon as I told my parents to get on, the power went out. AGAIN. This has happened while trying to talk to my parents several times before already! Frustrated, I sat and ate my still half frozen veggies and rice (the microwave had gotten stopped in the middle of heating my lunch) I took my time because I had a 50 minute lunch break and I got to the computer lab 5 minutes early to find everyone already there. Strange. Usually some people were late. I went into the classroom, wrote the assignment on the board and by the time I had taken a couple people’s scores down, one of the students from my next class came in. I looked at my watch. “Josh why are you so early?” Then it hit me. “IT’S TUESDAY! Class get your stuff together and go! You’re dismissed! I’ll give you all 100% today on your assignments! Why on Earth didn’t you guys tell me I was 15 minutes late for class today??” The reason I was so late for class was because every Monday I have a 50 minute lunch compared to my other days when it’s only 30 minutes and thinking it was Monday, I stayed for an extra 15 minutes in my apartment…. And my kids said nothing! So I wrote on my hand TODAY IS TUESDAY. Haven’t had trouble since. J

This man right here, such a great brother. :) 

Walking back to the apartment after class today, my skirt got so soaked it was sticking to my legs as I walked. It was POURING! Apparently we’re in the rainy season, which we are very grateful for because it brings down the humidity by a lot!  Every Tuesday, we get together at the Edwards house to have dinner together. Different people are in charge each week of the meal and our apartment took on spaghetti night. We met in our apartment because the Edwards were attending to an emergency. Danny made some fantastic garlic bread that would have made any Romanian happy. Nice and strong! ;) It’s fun getting altogether as a group once a week.

Riley is going through some serious stuff right now and I ask that you continue to pray for him! Also a friend of Karyn’s back home is going through heart surgery. Lots of prayers needed! Thank you everyone! J

(By the way the pictures I posted in this entry aren’t recent. They’re just some ones I really like!)

November??

 I can’t believe it’s November already! I’ve been here for 3 months now. I feel like it’s gone by really fast, but slow at the same time. There hasn’t been anything major happening around here. The biggest event that happened this week was probably Halloween night. Apparently people like to come trick-or-treating at the SM apartments. So the girls apartments bought a pretty large bag of Dum-Dums and decorated our porch with a fall garlands and orange lights. We all ran around trying to figure out quick costumes with the things we had in the house. Karyn, Jen, and Ellie were cats, Kim a fox, Denise a fairy, Brooke an African Princess, and Kaylie and I were Greeks. Simple white sheet and a headband did the trick! We had thought that the trick-or-treaters would just be some of our students. My word. There were SO many kids!! They were literally coming by the truck full!

 

We ran out of candy within the first hour and a half. We had lollipops and lots of candy corn that we had to add to the tub, Tony was handing out candy and so was Danny, but we STILL ran out super fast. We started getting kids at about 7:00pm and had to ask Franky to shut the gate at 9:00 so no more people would come in. Kim, Denise, and I had even made a huge batch of cookies to give out to kids once the candy ran out. The cookies seemed to go even faster than the candy. We would have bought more candy at the stores, but when each bag costs $20, you don’t really want to.

Our little Lentil is quickly growing into a full sized cat. He loves to chase his own tail around the house! One thing that we are thankful for is the fact that he chases cockroaches. Often times, he chases them, I kill them with my flip flop, and then he eats them. Really gross, but it gets the roaches gone!

On Tuesday, my TA didn’t come into school. She usually does lunch stuff for me so when she didn’t show up, I was trying to take lunch orders and teach phonics at the same time. I went to the office later to ask where Mrs. Jano was. Apparently her doctor told her to stay at home and rest for 3 days. She is very anemic and was very weak. She had been pale and tired at school so I was not surprised. Despite her absence, I got along fine without her.

Yuree, a Kindergarten student of mine who I have to constantly reprimand and help her with her work because she won’t focus or she doesn’t understand the English, loves to give me hugs. Today after school, she held up her arms to me to be picked up. I picked her up and she wrapped her arms around me neck, her legs around me waist, laid down her head on my shoulder and said in her limited English, “I like you.” My heart melted and I hugged her even tighter and said, “I like you too Yuree.” Words can’t even describe the emotions I felt right then. I love these children SO much and I can’t even imagine leaving them at the end of this mission trip. I’m really glad I’m going to be a social worker. I don’t think I could ever be a teacher, but as a social worker I’ll get to work with kids who really need help.

Ryan Johnson, who is a former student of the school here in Pohnpei, is at Walla Walla University now, going into his 3^rd year. He posted a video made by WWU on kids who were taught by student missionaries and how they were affected by them. I had no idea what the kids thought of us and now I know that they really love and appreciate us. Who cares if it’s hot here and that we’re constantly sweating? We’re making a difference in some kids’ lives and that’s what matters. If you would like to see the video, and I encourage you to all watch it, it’s on my Facebook.

People are still getting sick over here. I’m still untouched by the sickness going around thank goodness. Keep praying for all of us as we go through homesickness, stress, and physical sickness.