Christmas, please hurry up!

 “Ms. C! Ms. C!”

Alyanna and Haylee!

I look up from my lesson plan book that I am working on. JT is in front of me pointing across the gym.

“What is it JT?”

“Haylee cry!”

Does the crying ever stop?

I sigh, put down my notebook and walk over to Haylee who is hunched on the ground crying. After instructing the other kids to go play else where, I sit next to Haylee.

“Haylee what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer for a few seconds, but then points to Alain.

“Alain told me ew!”

“Did you try to kiss him again?”

She looks sheepishly at me and nods her head yes, trying to hold back a smile.

Jeroleen, soon to be at WWU with me!

“I don’t think he really likes that so maybe we should keep our lips to ourselves okay?”

“Oh Ms. C, you’re so funny!” she giggles and runs off to play.

My children never cease to amaze and amuse me. J Having to deal with kissing in Kindergarten definitely reminds me of when I chased boys around the playground!

 I still have at least one crier a day. One girl set a record of crying 5 times in one day! And I only have them from 8-noon! One of my girls, Yuree, has a harder time understanding and speaking English and is Philippino so she doesn’t speak Pohnpeian either. She is also not the easiest person to play with, but she is getting bullied a lot. It makes me sad how mean kids can be!

Christmas break is almost here! 5 more school days! J Prayers are needed as sickness is once again being passed around the SMs.

Kim shared a beautiful verse with us found in Psalms 61:1-2 MSG

“God, the one and only—
    I’ll wait as long as he says.
Everything I need comes from him,
    so why not?
He’s solid rock under my feet,
    breathing room for my soul,
An impregnable castle:
    I’m set for life.”

Hope you are having a joyful and snowy holiday season! I am quite jealous of the cold weather you are having. While you sit by fireplaces with blankets, I am sitting in front of a fan with shorts and a tank top. I can't believe it's this humid in winter! 

 Sorry for the terrible updates! Hopefully more exciting things will happen over break. J

Oh! Sunday is my first scuba diving lesson in the ocean! I am super excited but nervous at the same time! 

'Tis the Season!

Ah Christmas is in the air. Despite the lack of cold weather and snow, it still feels like Christmas time. We are playing lots of holiday music in the apartment and in my classroom and on Tuesday, Karyn and I spent part of the night transforming our apartment living room and kitchen into a winter wonderland. Friday, Karyn and I had cut stars, paper chains, and snowflakes galore. When Jen, Kim, and Denise had finally gone to bed, Karyn and I started to decorate the apartment. Karyn had made most of the decorations because she is really artsy so I was mostly the labor. J We hung paper snowflakes from the ceiling and stuck them to the cabinets, and put up other various decorations we either found in the closet or my mom had sent me. I had also received an 18” tree from Amazon that we decorated and put on the table. We were up until 1:00am, but it was totally worth it! Jen, Kim, and Denise were all surprised and it just put everyone in a more Christmasy mood!

Karyn made a portrait of each of us in the apartment!

I decorated my classroom on the 1^st of December to surprise my students. Oh they loved it! The snowflakes, and other glittery decorations surrounding the classroom had them staring for a long time. One of my students, Alyanna, is transferring to Guam on Wednesday. I’m really sad about that, but I think the class will do well without her. She’s the smartest in the class and she knows it! Everything that she does, everyone else wants to do. It’s really kind of annoying sometimes because I need the kids to be more independent.

I can’t believe it’s already December 7! Time is flying by! Two of the volunteers from PUC are leaving on the 18^th! I couldn’t even imagine leaving now. I love being here too much! Despite my hate for the humidity, I found that I am really enjoying myself here. Although teaching is still not something I really enjoy, I love being with my kids. They have become a lot more loving toward me the last couple of weeks. I get lots of hugs, lots of I love you’s, and lots of pictures drawn for me. One of my favorite students, the youngest in the class at the age of 4, loves to sit on my lap at recess and before class starts in the mornings. My high school kids have also taken a place in my heart. Jeroleen, Demi, and Reyonna made me Thanksgiving cards telling me how they were so thankful that I had come to Pohnpei and that I was a great teacher/best friend. J It made me really happy to read those cards! I keep them by my mirror along with all the other cards and letters my friends and family send me.

This girl right here, just makes my day everyday. :)
I wish she would come to WWU!

I love Fridays because they’re short, and I only have my Kindergartners for about two hours. Danny teaches my kids for half an hour on Fridays and I go to teach his 7^th graders Romanian during that time. I always have one or two kids crying when I leave for that time or for when I go to teach my high school classes. A lot of my kids have started crying a lot lately which is really starting to get frustrating. They cry for no reason and so recently I decided to stop giving them as much sympathy. I tell them that they’re fine, give them a hug, and give them something to do. It  seems to work pretty well so far! But today, Danny stops by my classroom at the end of the day, before we go out to the playground and all the kids run up to give him high fives because they were excited to see him. Seeing that he had disrupted my class, Danny says, “Okay kids! Let’s all go back to our seats!” and starts counting down from 5. But Yuree and Haylee somehow got caught together while running and both hit the concrete ground. They both started crying hysterically and just could not stop for a while. Finally I got them to calm down and we all went out to recess until school was out. Poor Danny felt so bad! We had Power Hour, the elementary vespers here at school tonight. It’s always fun singing songs with the kids and coloring with them. At 6:30, there were still two high school boys waiting to be picked up by their parents. I asked Jade if they wanted some granola bars that my mom had just sent me. He said, “Sure Miss! I don’t know what that is but yes please!” So I get them some granola bars and Jade asks, “Miss, why are you so nice??” I give away candy and snacks to kids who stay for a long time after school on Fridays because I have a lot and they’re hungry! And somehow Jade is always there to receive the snacks. J Haha! After Power Hour, the PUC volunteers came up to our apartment and we had cake and hot chocolate. Today, I had homemade pumpkin chocolate chip muffins sent to me all the way from College Place by Carolyn! They were so good! I feel so loved! J

Our lovely class Christmas tree! 

My sister sent me a mini Christmas tree with little ornaments and the kids had fun decorating it in class today. I ask them,

“Class is it ok to touch the tree?”

“NO MS. C!”

“But you can look at it! Kapeesh?”

“KAPEESH!”

I definitely taught my kids to reply with kapeesh and the hand sign. It’s different than what other classes do and they always respond to it.

We found out that Riley is not coming back to Pohnpei because he is not recovering quickly enough. Please keep praying for him! I also ask that you keep me in your prayers. My wisdom teeth are coming in and giving me many headaches and my knee has also been very swollen the past couple of days and makes standing quite painful as well. I feel like I’m falling apart!

Sabbath Mwahu! (Happy Sabbath!)

Giving Thanks-Pohnpeian Style

K and 1st joint worship!

I can’t believe it’s already Thanksgiving! I don’t think it feels like it because we are stuck in a summer that lasts all year round. This especially warm, Thanksgiving day was festive in the elementary school classrooms. It was a half-day and the teachers in the lower grades spent most of the day doing various Thanksgiving crafts. I did not have much time to plan because I had been working on mid term grades for my computer classes the night before. Plus I got some fantastic packages from my parents, sister, and Scott and Megan so that kept me occupied for a while. J

Ellie, Caleb, and Kim preaching at Kolonia

Right now my family is all gathered at my house in beautiful Oregon, getting ready to feast on a huge traditional Thanksgiving dinner of mashed potatoes, turkey, dinner roast, stuffing, yams, pumpkin pie, and of course, the traditional turkey shaped ice cream cake. The weather is cold enough for a sweater or jacket, and there is a fire in the wood stove, keeping our house nice and cozy.

On the other side of the world, there’s me, sweating in this ridiculous humidity and sitting in front a fan instead of a fireplace. Our dinner menu consisted of fish, turkey, potato salad, local fruit, and of course rice, which we shared with about 90 other people. The girl SMs were in charge of making dessert so we made pies, cakes, cookies, and muffins. It took all afternoon but the end results were quite delicious!

Favorite Student! :)

Even though I miss my family and I would love to be at home enjoying this holiday with them, there is no place I would rather be than right here in Pohnpei, Micronesia. I am here with some amazing people that I consider my family and I am so thankful that I get to share this special day with them. I think the thing I am most thankful for this year, is being here in Pohnpei. Even though I came here quite unwillingly, I am so thankful that God put me here. I love my children no matter how much they may frustrate each and every day, I love the people I work with, and the people and churches here are so welcoming and loving toward us. Being here made me realize how blessed I really am. I’m healthy, have loving family and friends, I go to an Adventist university, and I have everything I could ever need! God is so good! I have 6 months left here on this island. It feels like a long time but it’s been going by quickly.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you back home! I hope all of you have as blessed a day as I have had.

Now you can play your Christmas music without anyone complaining! ;)

The Devil Himself

I’ve never seen anyone with demons before, but on Sabbath night, we encountered not only one, but two people who were being mind controlled by the devil.

Saturday night, all the high school and SA officers got together at the school to spend the night for the officer retreat. We had dinner and then went to the gym to play some games. Roy and I were at the gym when Avalon comes in and tells us that we need to get everybody into the computer lab. So we usher the kids to the lab and we found Pastor Tim with a few students inside. Pastor Tim explained that Arty had been seeing a spirit follow him around and telling Arty to follow him. So we all held hands in a circle and started praying for him. Arty was sitting down on a chair but as we started to near the end of the circle of prayers, he started shouting saying, “No! You can’t take me! I won’t let you! Stay away from me!” and started to climb up on the desks with the computers. Pastor Tim was the last person to pray and as he was praying, Arty suddenly collapsed and fainted, hitting the hard tile floor and at that moment, we saw a freshman girl named Joselyn book it out the door.

The next thing I know, I heard Kim yelling for someone to come help. So I ran out the door and followed Joselyn up the stairs to the chapel. She was thrashing around on the ground and some girls were trying to comfort her and calm her down. I helped hold her down, along with Avalon and later, Mrs. Edward. She kept clawing at her neck because she felt Satan chocking her. She would calm down, then begin thrashing again. She kept screaming, “No! I won’t come with you, you freak! Let go of my mother! No! Don’t burn her! Take me instead! PLEASE! Take me instead! Don’t touch my mother!”  We kept telling her that her mother was fine and at a point when she had called down, she asked to call her. So we got her a phone and dialed her mother, but there was no answer because she was probably already asleep. I helped Joselyn down the stairs back to the computer lab so that we could pray for her. When we got down there, Roy and I tried to set her down on the ground. But Joselyn said, “No! Not on the ground! He’ll come up from the ground and take me!” So we let her sit on the desks of the computers. But she suddenly started to thrash very hard. We sat her down on the chair and Roy held her legs down with all his weight and I held her down by her shoulders. Joselyn is about 5’1” and I weigh at least 30 lbs more than her I’m sure. She literally lifted me AND Roy off the ground. I said, “Joselyn! It’s okay! Satan can’t hurt you.” “MISS. I can see him right there!” she replied pointing ahead of her. “Let me go so I can kill him.” She finally calmed down and we carried her and laid her on the ground with a pillow.

There was about five of us holding her down and we definitely needed all five of us to keep her from getting up off the ground and running. I had one of her legs and Roy the other, and it took all of our weight to hold even her legs down. Everyone stood in a circle holding hands around Joselyn and we prayed and sang for a good two hours. The prayers were constant. Finally, she calmed for a while when we were singing and her mom came in. We let her go and she ran to her mother. The demon was gone. Praise God. We all had a prayer in a circle after that. I went up to Joselyn and told her that I loved her and gave her a big long hug. She told me she loved me too and that she was sorry. I really wonder how much she remembers from that experience. Joselyn decided to stay here even though Arty went home. Afterwards she was happily playing basketball, like there was nothing wrong.

Truthfully, I have never been more scared in my life. Seeing Joselyn’s eyes going wild, hearing her yell and tell Satan to go away, I was scared. I don’t know how God gave me the courage to do what I did. I was so shaky after that and as we were praying, I could feel the chills go up and down my bones. I have never felt anything like that before in my life. I was drenched in sweat from holding down a struggling girl for 2 hours. I hugged Roy for a good while after that because I just needed to be held. I can’t believe some people don’t believe in God and demons. I could see the terrified faces of the high school boys that I teach. They looked at me with frightened eyes and just didn’t know what to do or how to react. I hope this night affected a lot of the kids. I know it affected me. I was scared that someone else was going to be possessed after Joselyn and we were all so exhausted as it was. Sunday morning I woke up sore and bruised from the night. We were all exhausted because we had all gotten about 3 hours of sleep. My apartment couldn’t go to sleep until 3 am because quite frankly, we were kind of scared. We prayed a lot though and talking about how God amazing is really helped us with our fear. God is real. God is our protector. God is all powerful. We could feel God’s presence in the room when we were praying. There were probably hundreds, if not thousands of angels crammed into that little computer lab. I will never forget that night. Keep Pohnpei in your prayers.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,  neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39