quietness

Tour...

Sometimes God is quiet...

Random thoughts...

-everyone back home has been so helpful to me! I appreciate all the support I get! Here is a big shout out for C2E! Thanks for the ABC letters

Thank you to the most amazing tech teacher and her students for making ABC cards for my classrooms! UFO Elementary loves them!

happy students

Tour…happy students

 In the past 2 months I have noticed a huge change in my students and teachers.

Our new building was finished, and now we are working on getting new supplies and materials to complete our classrooms.

New chairs arrived by ship! (the students had been sitting on the floor...at least it was new clean tile floor).

(in case you wanted to know, the ship I took to the Mortlocks was this size-I know it was hard to tell in the posts I wrote about my ship adventures...just imagine being on the open ocean in that!)

In my first few months teaching was an adventure, learning how to teach with less. Using whatever I had on hand.

Having a new building, and chairs has boosted the morale of everyone at UFO Elementary. Materials are still few and far between but hopefully that will change in the near future (stay tuned…books should be arriving soon and I am working on a lesson plan project with DOE and the other PCVs in Chuuk)

Timing is never certain in Chuuk…so while waiting for the ship the students took me around and we had a photo shoot (lead by the students of course) and drank coconut and ate óót (this is the stage when an old coconut starts to sprout leaves to eventually turn into a new tree. If you open it up the inside has a soft center (like the consistency of a dry crunchy marshmallow) and it is very sweet and delicious).

Then the chairs arrived!

We had to carry the chairs from the dock to the school (I am not good on estimating distance but I would say it is at least ½ a mile possibly longer). It took us two days to carry all 100+ chairs.

We now have complete classrooms, and the students are excited to learn!

Random thoughts…

-8^th grade students can take entrance exams to test into private high schools on the main island…all of my 8^th graders passed! (I cannot take all the credit (I was their teacher for only 6 months) there were 2 PCVs before me Johnny and Ben-thanks for all your hard work!)

-If you donated to the solar lamp project, they arrived last month and the community loves them! Thank you to everyone who supported this project.
-My American family sent me an Easter egg hunt in a box! My siblings loved it! Richen was the winner, she found the most eggs.

-We got a new puppy! His name was first Pancake, then Tabasco, and finally Azunto (a popular song/dance in Chuuk right now)

schedule? what schedule?

Tour…routine or no routine? that is the question

“Be thankful for quiet days, when nothing special seems to be happening. Instead of being bored by the lack of action, use times of routine to seek My Face. Although this is an invisible transaction, it speaks volumes in spiritual realms. Moreover, you are richly blessed when you walk trustingly with Me through the routines of your day.” Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

I have a simple routine. Get up, shower, eat, go to school, teach, come home, relax, eat, shower, and go to bed.

My routine, however, is often get up, shower, eat, relax at home all day (school is cancelled often and either I go to school then come back-because no one showed up-or I do not even go because I already know it is cancelled…), eat, shower, and go to bed.

When I first arrived in Chuuk, this excessive amount of down time bothered me. I felt bored or anxious to do something. In America I always had something to do and a routine/plan for each day.

I now enjoy my days of having nothing to do. I never plan my day; I just go with the flow and do whatever comes my way.

Maybe I…

Read all day

Sit in our utt all day listening to Chuukese (trying to understand it!)

Play with my siblings or other village kids all day

Go swimming

Sit and stare off into space (actually I stare off into the ocean….)

Listen to music all day

Try to help around the house (I am still limited on what I can help my host mom with…)

Or maybe I do all of those things

My new routine is never having a routine…and I am okay with that because I know that Jesus is always leading me through my day. Whatever I happen to do is what He wants me to do. I have learned to recognize that and not think to myself I wish I would have done/I really needed to do such and such today…because every day is perfect in its own way, whether it is crazy busy or nice and quiet.

Let God plan your day/routine, you may never know where He is leading you but that is all part of the adventure.

the adventures of a ship ride

Tour…home

Is it a sign of feeling comfortable where I am, by longing for my sleeping pad bed and own bucket shower? I was so glad to be home after my time in the Mortlocks!

The ship ride home was an even better adventure than the one out to the Mortlocks. This time we boarded Nien Chuuk, in the rain…so before we even left I was already wet! 

This ship was crowded too, but not as bad. It was covered but one side was an open ‘door’ (remember these are not cruise liners!). I was the ‘lucky’ one and got the spot right next to the ‘door’. Again I had to lie down to subdue the seasickness. Since I was right next to the open ‘door’ I was hit by huge waves for about a third of the trip (I was so wet I mine as well have swam back home…). 

I was also right next to two baby pigs that would freak out occasionally and try to escape (at one point I thought they might bite my feet, do pigs even bite?). 
The best part of the trip…watching the crew catch a huge swordfish! And because of my ‘first class’ seat I was less than a foot away to witness the entire thing! (and when I say huge I mean it was longer than I am tall!). A few hours into the ride we stopped at some islands to drop off some people, so a spot on the other side of the ship opened up and I jumped at the chance to have a ‘dry’ seat (even though I no longer got soaked by waves I stayed wet the entire trip). In the morning I was able to see the sunrise, it was so beautiful! Total travel time 24 hours! (and yea again, I did not get sick!)

they only way to make it through a 24 ship ride is to laugh...

When my friends and I got back we treated ourselves to a hotel. A nice warm shower and soft bed to sleep in was nice after the long wet ship ride.

I am so glad to be home.