After almost three months of no breaks, we finally have some mini vacations! Lots of them actually. Last weekend was a four day weekend, and we have the next two fridays of for various FSM holidays. It was so nice to finally have a break! Sunday we went to help the seniors clean the trail again. Their weren't very many of them there but we got a lot done anyways. We ended up hiking the entire trail with our machetes clearing as we went. That is a mile and a half walk barefoot. The weather started really hot, about 89 degrees with 77% humidity, and then it started to pour on us! We have come to notice that whenever it gets really hot it is guaranteed to pour rain within the next hour and then clear off again. By the time we were done we were soaked to the bone and covered in dirt. But it was fun! I love doing stuff with the students outside of school. Monday we went to the beach! It has been so long since we have had a break at the beach so we were all really excited. We drove 15 minutes to John's beach and headed out with our snorkels. The tide was out again so we were able to walk all the way to the coral. I will never get used to how amazing the nature is out there. I see something new everytime! This time a HUGE puffer fish surprised me. It was a good foot and a half long and really big around. I didn't know they could get that big! Despite my liberal and repeated use of sunscreen, I got burnt. I guess that's not that bad considering in almost three months of living in the tropics I've only been burnt twice, I just have to use sunscreen like lotion every day!
Tuesday we started school again, and that came with some struggles. The kids weren't very focused after a nice break and honestly I wasn't either! It's weird how just a couple days extra away from something can make it so hard to get started again. I've discovered I need help teaching geometry. That is my biggest prayer request for school right now. I know algebra really well. It doesn't matter what question they ask I feel completely confident finding what they did wrong or explaining it from a different angle. Geometry though.. I understand geometry, but I haven't taken as many classes of it so explaining it is a whole new problem. Unlike algebra, I have a hard time figuring out new ways to teach it because I don't know it forward and backwards like the other math classes. Anyways, that's what I'm working on this weekend. The juniors are having a really hard time grasping how to make a proof, and I'm not sure how else to teach it. But I'm not going to move on until they get it. I'm going to find some new ways to go about teaching it before Monday. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas I am always open to hearing them!
The end of the school week was one of the best days since being here. We had an all school United Nations Day celebration on Friday. Each class chose a country to represent. We had presentations for each class, costumes, food, and decorations in the classroom. Their was a big parade of the countries, parents came, and every class presented on stage. It was so much fun! The seniors chose Samoa! We all dressed up, and they made leis in the morning. It's so cool to watch them make leis. It is really intricate. They braid grass together arranging the flowers in the braid. We had coconut limbs lining the walls, a huge constructions paper flag for Samoa, and lots of local food. For presentation they did the Samoan fire dance! They did so well, I was amazed. Five of them learned the hula dance that goes in the backround and perfomed it on stage, while two of the guys perfomed with the fire sticks. They take really long sticks with fire on both ends and twirl them around realy fast, throw them in the air, under their legs, you get the idea. I was a little nervous to let them use fire, but they did so well! All the classes did amazing. The kindergarten was adorable dressed in traditional Yapese clothes. Second grade did a cute Italian folk dance, third grade sang O Canada, fifth grade did a hawaiian dance, sixth grade danced the salsa! I was amazed by how well they all did, especially at the salsa! Seventh grade represented America, one of the students dressed up as Obama and delivered his state of the union address, it was cute! Eight grade did a skit they created about Greek mythology, it was really funny. Ninth grade did India and tenth grade Ireland; they didn't get quite as in to it, but I think they will next year seeing how much fun all the classes had. I was amazed by the juniors! They represented a small island I have never heard of. They got the whole class, 19 of them, doing a traditional hula dance. They were so good! The kids took my camera and I found all sorts of fun pictures on it at the end of the day. Everyone really enjoyed the event. I loved seeing all the students get excited and so involved with something. On a side note, only in Yap would their be moms coming to watch topless and it's no big deal. That is still kind of weird to get used to!
Despite all of these good things, we can still see the devil working hard to take us down. Yap really needs your prayers right now. We have lost Andrea for the next couple months. She is recovering well in Guam, but they are sending her back to the states until January. They said the danger is too high, she can't afford to be bit with a dengue carrying mosquito, so she can't come back until the rainy season is over. We are praying that no one else will get sick. We barely have enough staff to keep going. If someone is sick, we literally have no one to sub classes. The island is having an outbreak of dengue right now. Their have been over 100 cases of it. They have told us certain times to avoid being outside with the bugs. We are wearing bug spray all the time, and they are making some sort of mosquito repelant by burning coconut husks; but it is really hard to avoid mosquitos. We are praying for God's protection on this one.
Mangil e Sabado! I'm not sure if I spelled that right... but that is Yapese for Happy Sabbath! :)
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
A Walk in the Rain
Sometimes I like to walk slowly in the pouring rain and let it completely soak me. I don't know what is so therapeutic about it. Maybe it's the feeling of doing the exact opposite of what's expected. Instead of running through and avoiding the water I'm standing directly under it and letting it drench me. I don't shield myself with an umbrella or hide out until it's gone, I just walk straight through it. I feel like this week we were all walking in the rain. Problem after problem kept falling on us; but we didn't hide from them, or try to run through them, we just went along with it. The first couple days of the week were the hardest. Pam was packing and getting prepared to leave, we were all grading and trying to prepare to quarter grades, and no one was getting to sleep before midnight. The evangelistic meetings had just started too, so every night at 7 we walked to the chapel to lead music, prayer, or simply welcome the villagers. Tuesday night was hot and busy like the rest of the week but it had an even heavier cloud hanging over it. At midnight we all loaded the van and took Andrea and Pamela to the airport. Pamela was completely covered in leis. Their were at least three on her head, five around her neck, and more she was given in her suit case. We took pictures and put off leaving as long as possible. We finally had to say good bye, it was really hard; but the good news is we found out their is a very good chance she will return early next year! Natalie from Walla Walla is coming to fill her spot for a couple months but then she has to go and if Pamela is recovered she will come back! That made goodbye a little easier. We said goodbye to Andrea too but she will be back soon! She just needed to go to Guam to help her recover from dengue fever. On our way back from the airport, we left around 1:30 am, we were exhausted. Halfway back our car suddenly stopped. We were stranded. In the middle of a village, in the middle of the night, with no way to contact anyone. It was really scary! But we prayed and within 20 minutes the other school van behind us drove by and saw us. We were so relieved! School the next day was long though. I had 4 hours of sleep, a really sore throat, 5 classes of loud teenagers to teach. It had a bleak start, but in the end I started to see the upside to walking in the rain. You get to jump in the puddles! I know, a really weird comparison, but what I mean is no matter how hard things get their is always some point that you begin to see the blessing from it. Wednesday I was blessed by my students efforts to help me out. "Ms. voice hurts! Be quiet and listen to her!" "We can lead worship Ms, you can just sit" and "It's ok with us if you don't feel like talking about math today". Ok, maybe the last one wasn't trying to help me out, but it did make me smile. Thursday brought the biggest blessing of them all. Just the thought of it still makes me smile. If you rewind back to my birthday you might recall my class didn't really do anything special for me. I was kind of bummed but I got over it. Thursday, a month after my birthday, I was headed to close the room up for lunch when one of the senior girls asked "Ms. could you just stay down here for lunch?" I really wanted to eat but they begged me to go get Coby, the puppy, and come back. When I came back they stopped me before the door, blind folded me, and lead me in to the classroom. They walked me up to the desk and took off the blind fold. In front of me was a bright yellow cake that read "Ms. Rychelle you are 10 stars in our hearts" :). You see, I have a star system on the chalk board. When they do a good job cleaning, or they are exceptionally quiet during a lecture, or somehow behave well as a class, I give them a star. 10 stars = me making them a treat and a movie or game day. They handed me a belated birthday card they had all signed and a box of chocolates. They weren't prepared for my birthday when it actually happened, and they wanted to do it right, so they just decided to do it later lol. "This way it was more of a surprise!" :). It completely made my week. I loved reading their notes they wrote to me and seeing how excited they were to surprise me. I just love my seniors!
The rest of the week went quickly. We finally finished report cards and had parent teacher conferences. It went a lot better then I would have expected and it was nice to talk to their parents. I'm really excited to be in a new quarter. I learned SO much from last quarter and I know I can do a much better job as a teacher this quarter. We are enjoying our first break from school now. A four day weekend thanks to United Nations Day! It feels good to relax. I was surprised to be the pianist again at church, that always has rough patches but I am learning. We still have the meeting going too, and I am going to help the seniors clean the trail again Sunday. Life is never boring here!
Daily things that make me smile:
1) It's 85 degrees out with 70% humidity and their are 6 kids in my class wearing sweatshirts and beanies.
2) Kids wear socks with sandals all the time, apparently it's "cool" here. Haha...
3) I made the sophomores biscuits and gravy since we just finished studying the U.S. They thought it was the weirdest meal they had ever seen.
4) It's not that weird for a kid to forget to put shoes on to come to school, or to accidentally leave their shoes at school.
5) The item I have to confiscate the most is a ukelele.
6) We don't have an actual bell. It's this giant metal thing that whoever is in the office has to hit really hard throughout the day. So, our classes get out at random times because they tend to forget to ring it.
7) I have to write a list of students missing from my class on the chalkboard so when we switch classes the other teachers know who should be there. The kids keep writing in Coby, our puppy, as missing ever since I brought him to class.
8) The little first grader that insists on helping me carry my things even if it means he follows me carrying my water bottle.
9) The excuses I hear for why they don't have their homework or why they need to change seats. "Ms. I'm so hot, I really need to sit over their!" "You are sitting directly beneath the fan where you are right now...."
10) I honestly can't think of a 10th thing right now but I just couldn't leave it at 9. Have a nice week!
The rest of the week went quickly. We finally finished report cards and had parent teacher conferences. It went a lot better then I would have expected and it was nice to talk to their parents. I'm really excited to be in a new quarter. I learned SO much from last quarter and I know I can do a much better job as a teacher this quarter. We are enjoying our first break from school now. A four day weekend thanks to United Nations Day! It feels good to relax. I was surprised to be the pianist again at church, that always has rough patches but I am learning. We still have the meeting going too, and I am going to help the seniors clean the trail again Sunday. Life is never boring here!
Daily things that make me smile:
1) It's 85 degrees out with 70% humidity and their are 6 kids in my class wearing sweatshirts and beanies.
2) Kids wear socks with sandals all the time, apparently it's "cool" here. Haha...
3) I made the sophomores biscuits and gravy since we just finished studying the U.S. They thought it was the weirdest meal they had ever seen.
4) It's not that weird for a kid to forget to put shoes on to come to school, or to accidentally leave their shoes at school.
5) The item I have to confiscate the most is a ukelele.
6) We don't have an actual bell. It's this giant metal thing that whoever is in the office has to hit really hard throughout the day. So, our classes get out at random times because they tend to forget to ring it.
7) I have to write a list of students missing from my class on the chalkboard so when we switch classes the other teachers know who should be there. The kids keep writing in Coby, our puppy, as missing ever since I brought him to class.
8) The little first grader that insists on helping me carry my things even if it means he follows me carrying my water bottle.
9) The excuses I hear for why they don't have their homework or why they need to change seats. "Ms. I'm so hot, I really need to sit over their!" "You are sitting directly beneath the fan where you are right now...."
10) I honestly can't think of a 10th thing right now but I just couldn't leave it at 9. Have a nice week!
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Patience
I've never really thought of myself as particularly impatient, but it seems God decided I needed more patience. Everything here is a test or lesson on patience. I'm reminded of this as I try to type this blog. I pulled up the internet and waited 5 minutes for it to load the page, it wouldn't load so I tried a different browser. After refreshing the page 10 times I finally got to this page. This isn't an unusual thing, anything on the internet, especially skype, takes lots of patience. Going anywhere teaches patience too, due to island time. If you don't know what island time is it goes like this. If they honk the horn for us to get in the car for church at 8:30 we probably won't be leaving until at least 9. If we are supposed to have a meeting at 9, it probably won't start until 10 or 10:30. The only thing that opporates on "American Time" is school; the greatest test of patience of them all. After explaining the same problem on the board thuroughly over half the class will individually ask me to explain it again. Asking once for the freshmen to take a seat never works, and no matter how many reminders I give their is always someone who claims I never mentioned a test today. I speak and no one listens so I have to explain the same thing over and over again. Those of you reading this who are parents or teachers are probably laughing at me thinking, "Get used to it". These things have been building my patience for the last 10 weeks, but something new was added this week; patience with God.
Sometimes it seems perfectly clear what God wants for us. It's like it's lined up and everything is falling into place perfectly. Other times it seems impossible to figure out what He wants and where we are supposed to be. Even more confusing though is when it seems like you are doing exactly what He wants but you get shot down. That's what happened to Pam today. Pam is like family now. We have been living on Yap together for over 2 months. We share a room so we end up talking way too long every school night. Pam has to go home. She broke the news to us today and we all were crying within the next minute. Just like the rest of us, Pam loves it here. She loves the school, her 3rd grade kids, the church, and the island in general. She can't recover properly though, she is getting worse and the doctors here aren't qualified to figure out why. She leaves in two days and everyone is going to miss her. We haven't stopped praying though. The side of me that still needs more patience wants to know what's taking God so long. Why not just heal her? She is here where He sent her trying to do the job He sent her to do. Why not just heal her and let her stay? But, the other side that has been learning patience is beginning to see that things aren't always that easy. Sometimes you have to wait. More then anything we want Pam to stay. We will keep praying for a miracle; but I think this is one of those times we have to trust God. Even though it's not working out the way Pam hoped, He is in control and I know He has a plan; we just can't see it right now.
Back tracking a bit, this week went pretty good. I got up early Sunday to go barefoot through the jungle clearing a trail with machetes with my seniors. It's a class funraiser for them and turned out to be lots of fun! Using a machete is much harder then it looks though, "Ms! Swing it as hard as you can!". The school week was busy as it was the last week of the quarter. We had to have finals at the end of the week. Everyday their were numerous students making up tests, trying to make up work, and freaking out about the final. We enjoyed a lovely Canadian Thanksgiving in honor of Pam and Sophie on Monday. Come Tuesday Andrea was sick. It seems like the flu at first, but now we know it is Dengue fever. She really needs prayers for recovery! This meant we were short staffed again. We were all switching tasks and covering classes throughout the week. Everyone was relieved to make it to Friday. I was completely shocked to recieve every single final project in the sophomore class. I don't think I've ever gotten the same assignment from the whole class before! I had them create their own country for Geography, they did a really good job and I have a huge stack of new, funny, countries in my room. The seniors turned in their music projects as well. I put them in groups and had them put a song together and record it. I wasn't expecting much but they spent their lunch times for two weeks putting it together, way more then I asked them to do. They sound amazing! One of the groups even wrote their own song! I love seeing them get excited about something, I really want to do more with the things that really interest them.
I realize I haven't said much about the church in a while. The church keeps us just about as busy as the school. We plan and run vespers every friday night as well as the juniors/youth sabbath school before church. Sabbath school used to be really small, but today we had 16 kids! Eight of which where high schoolers who aren't members of the church. It is so exciting to see them coming to church :). We are involved in all sorts of other aspects of the church as well. At home you are usually asked to do something for church. Someone will call and request for you to do special music in three weeks or to lead worship, not here. Here you just find your name in the bulletin, it's always a surprise!Children story, praise team, special music, prayer, scripture reading, chorister; you name it, we do it. Not all of them every week though, they try to alternate. Today I was the pianist again, always an intersting experience. I think I'm finally figuring when I'm supposed to play everything! The big event with the church starts tonight. We will be having a 3 WEEK evangelistic meeting at both the church and the school. We are helping with both locations so we have a schedule alternating our jobs. I am not really sure how we are going to do the meetings, finish first quarter grades, plan and grade for school, and have a work bee for the school this Sunday... but I've seen God work out harder circumstances since we've been here so here it goes!
Prayer requests this week: Pam (of course), leaving is going to be one of the hardest things she's ever had to do. We are praying for healing for her, she has been sick way too long. For Andrea, Dengue fever can be really bad. We are praying she will be able to recover and the mosquitos won't spread it to the rest of us.
Sometimes it seems perfectly clear what God wants for us. It's like it's lined up and everything is falling into place perfectly. Other times it seems impossible to figure out what He wants and where we are supposed to be. Even more confusing though is when it seems like you are doing exactly what He wants but you get shot down. That's what happened to Pam today. Pam is like family now. We have been living on Yap together for over 2 months. We share a room so we end up talking way too long every school night. Pam has to go home. She broke the news to us today and we all were crying within the next minute. Just like the rest of us, Pam loves it here. She loves the school, her 3rd grade kids, the church, and the island in general. She can't recover properly though, she is getting worse and the doctors here aren't qualified to figure out why. She leaves in two days and everyone is going to miss her. We haven't stopped praying though. The side of me that still needs more patience wants to know what's taking God so long. Why not just heal her? She is here where He sent her trying to do the job He sent her to do. Why not just heal her and let her stay? But, the other side that has been learning patience is beginning to see that things aren't always that easy. Sometimes you have to wait. More then anything we want Pam to stay. We will keep praying for a miracle; but I think this is one of those times we have to trust God. Even though it's not working out the way Pam hoped, He is in control and I know He has a plan; we just can't see it right now.
Back tracking a bit, this week went pretty good. I got up early Sunday to go barefoot through the jungle clearing a trail with machetes with my seniors. It's a class funraiser for them and turned out to be lots of fun! Using a machete is much harder then it looks though, "Ms! Swing it as hard as you can!". The school week was busy as it was the last week of the quarter. We had to have finals at the end of the week. Everyday their were numerous students making up tests, trying to make up work, and freaking out about the final. We enjoyed a lovely Canadian Thanksgiving in honor of Pam and Sophie on Monday. Come Tuesday Andrea was sick. It seems like the flu at first, but now we know it is Dengue fever. She really needs prayers for recovery! This meant we were short staffed again. We were all switching tasks and covering classes throughout the week. Everyone was relieved to make it to Friday. I was completely shocked to recieve every single final project in the sophomore class. I don't think I've ever gotten the same assignment from the whole class before! I had them create their own country for Geography, they did a really good job and I have a huge stack of new, funny, countries in my room. The seniors turned in their music projects as well. I put them in groups and had them put a song together and record it. I wasn't expecting much but they spent their lunch times for two weeks putting it together, way more then I asked them to do. They sound amazing! One of the groups even wrote their own song! I love seeing them get excited about something, I really want to do more with the things that really interest them.
I realize I haven't said much about the church in a while. The church keeps us just about as busy as the school. We plan and run vespers every friday night as well as the juniors/youth sabbath school before church. Sabbath school used to be really small, but today we had 16 kids! Eight of which where high schoolers who aren't members of the church. It is so exciting to see them coming to church :). We are involved in all sorts of other aspects of the church as well. At home you are usually asked to do something for church. Someone will call and request for you to do special music in three weeks or to lead worship, not here. Here you just find your name in the bulletin, it's always a surprise!Children story, praise team, special music, prayer, scripture reading, chorister; you name it, we do it. Not all of them every week though, they try to alternate. Today I was the pianist again, always an intersting experience. I think I'm finally figuring when I'm supposed to play everything! The big event with the church starts tonight. We will be having a 3 WEEK evangelistic meeting at both the church and the school. We are helping with both locations so we have a schedule alternating our jobs. I am not really sure how we are going to do the meetings, finish first quarter grades, plan and grade for school, and have a work bee for the school this Sunday... but I've seen God work out harder circumstances since we've been here so here it goes!
Prayer requests this week: Pam (of course), leaving is going to be one of the hardest things she's ever had to do. We are praying for healing for her, she has been sick way too long. For Andrea, Dengue fever can be really bad. We are praying she will be able to recover and the mosquitos won't spread it to the rest of us.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Shaken
Week 9 has been a very diverse week. It started with the excitement of picking up Pam and Andrea from the aiport! We were so excited to see them again! We really missed them, the apartment seemed empty without Pam. They brought us a bag of taco bell too! I have never in my life been so excited to eat a taco bell burrito. Sad news followed quickly though, Pam isn't actually recovered. She is doing a little better but still has a long ways to go. They ended up finding three infections! One from knicking other organs when they took out her appendix, and one from meds they gave her that should no longer be in use. The third one was not their fault, but suffice to say we are all hoping to avoid a confrontation with Yap Memorial Hospital; or as google fondly names it "Yap Murder Hospital". She seems to have improved a bit this week though. Please keep her in your prayers!
Monday was Andreas birthday so we worked all day to give her a surprise party. A rather difficult task considering she lives in the apartment right next to us, but we attempted anyways. We had each apartment make a funny video for her and compiled them together. It was a lot of fun! She really enjoyed it. Everyone stayed in our apartment to watch Megamind. We used a school projector to watch it on our wall, not a bad substitute for a TV :).
Though we haven't had as many challenges with students coming drunk this week, a new challenge came. I had 4 girls completely skip the second half of the day. It was the 4 students who really couldn't afford to miss any more then they already had. It was so frustrating! I'm doing all I can to try and help these girls graduate, but it's like they aren't even trying. They had to be suspended the next day making them miss even more school. I was able to talk with each one the next day though, I hope it helped. I really want them to understand how important it is to come and keep up with the class in order to graduate high school. The day wasn't all bad though. At one point I turned around in Micronesia History to see one of the boys wearing the girls uniform skirt! I couldn't help but laugh and ask, "What are you doing?!" he replied, "Oh! Sorry Ms.!" and proceded to tuck in his shirt as required for the boys uniform. It doesn't matter how tired I am, or how low my patience is drained, they always do something that just makes me smile and forget the bad parts of the day.
Wednesday brought boxes! I have never been so excited to recieve a box before. Every time is more exciting then christmas and your birthday put together. Each time we get something in a shipment you can hear all four of us scream and race towards the packages. The highlights were the extra math curriculum my parents bought for me and the peanut butter M&M's; my all time favorite candy! I'm really excited for the math books, I got full solutions manuals and worksheet books for all my classes. The extra resouces will be so helpful! It is really tiring to create math problems every night.
The most exciting day of the week came on Thursday; and it wasn't just because I got all the seniors singing "Let Us Come Together" with handmotions during devotions :). At 5:37 pm Yap became the epicenter of a 5.8 earthquake! We had just gotten back from our town trip and we were unloading all our groceries. All of a sudden everything began to shake, the deck from our apartment was swaying back and forth and those indoors watched many of our things falling off the shelves. I've been in earthquakes before, bigger ones even, but the fact that we are on a 4 by 16 mile island make it a whole lot scarier. It didn't last too long though, and it definitely added excitement to our day! Four aftershocks followed it all the way through Friday morning.
Life continued despite the unsteady ground. Friday morning wasn't a normal school day for me. The seniors needed to take a college placement test at the College of Micronesia in the morning. Not all of them could get rides back to the school after the test. So I drove to the test to meet them there with Lorraine. We got them into the right room and then left to run errands for the school while they were tested. It's kind of fun driving in Yap, no matter where we are driving it feels like we are on backroads. We got back in time to pick up three of the students who needed a ride. They were quick to ask, "Ms. you have a license!?" and shout "We're gonna die!" as I drove away :). It was really reassuring to hear them say "Ms. the math part was easy, it was mostly about quadratics like you just taught us". I've been wondering recently if I'm actually helping them understand the things they need to know. It was really reassuring to see that God is definitley guiding what I teach and helping me to teach them what they need to know.
The grand finale to our week came in the package of a puppy we have named Coby. One of the third graders brought him in to Sophie and said that if we didn't take him they would have to put him on the street like the rest of the litter. He was tiny and adorable and so pathetic looking! So... we obviously adopted him! The campus already has a couple resident dogs so one more doesn't really make a difference. It's just more work for us, especially right now. He is so tiny, sick, and coated in fleas. We have tried everything to clean him and get him nourished. He already looks a little better. I think he will make a wonderful addition to our apartment :).
Even with all the random things making each day unique here in Yap, I've started to notice my new habits. I don't like habits. Some habits are good, and make life easier. But lots of habits just stop you from really thinking about what you are doing. I don't want worship or devotional time to become habit. I don't want teaching to become habit. I want to really be thinking about them and completely involved in them every time; not just floating through it becomes I've done it so many times. That is my challenge for this next week, starting tomorrow. We have this habit of sitting together in the same pew every Sabbath. So tomorrow I think I'll try and sit somewhere else, next to some members or visitors and make myself try something new. I was really excited to see some of my students at church last week, hopefully I will see them again!
(I apologize for the disorganized thoughts above. I have so much to share and so little brain power left to share it!)
Monday was Andreas birthday so we worked all day to give her a surprise party. A rather difficult task considering she lives in the apartment right next to us, but we attempted anyways. We had each apartment make a funny video for her and compiled them together. It was a lot of fun! She really enjoyed it. Everyone stayed in our apartment to watch Megamind. We used a school projector to watch it on our wall, not a bad substitute for a TV :).
Though we haven't had as many challenges with students coming drunk this week, a new challenge came. I had 4 girls completely skip the second half of the day. It was the 4 students who really couldn't afford to miss any more then they already had. It was so frustrating! I'm doing all I can to try and help these girls graduate, but it's like they aren't even trying. They had to be suspended the next day making them miss even more school. I was able to talk with each one the next day though, I hope it helped. I really want them to understand how important it is to come and keep up with the class in order to graduate high school. The day wasn't all bad though. At one point I turned around in Micronesia History to see one of the boys wearing the girls uniform skirt! I couldn't help but laugh and ask, "What are you doing?!" he replied, "Oh! Sorry Ms.!" and proceded to tuck in his shirt as required for the boys uniform. It doesn't matter how tired I am, or how low my patience is drained, they always do something that just makes me smile and forget the bad parts of the day.
Wednesday brought boxes! I have never been so excited to recieve a box before. Every time is more exciting then christmas and your birthday put together. Each time we get something in a shipment you can hear all four of us scream and race towards the packages. The highlights were the extra math curriculum my parents bought for me and the peanut butter M&M's; my all time favorite candy! I'm really excited for the math books, I got full solutions manuals and worksheet books for all my classes. The extra resouces will be so helpful! It is really tiring to create math problems every night.
The most exciting day of the week came on Thursday; and it wasn't just because I got all the seniors singing "Let Us Come Together" with handmotions during devotions :). At 5:37 pm Yap became the epicenter of a 5.8 earthquake! We had just gotten back from our town trip and we were unloading all our groceries. All of a sudden everything began to shake, the deck from our apartment was swaying back and forth and those indoors watched many of our things falling off the shelves. I've been in earthquakes before, bigger ones even, but the fact that we are on a 4 by 16 mile island make it a whole lot scarier. It didn't last too long though, and it definitely added excitement to our day! Four aftershocks followed it all the way through Friday morning.
Life continued despite the unsteady ground. Friday morning wasn't a normal school day for me. The seniors needed to take a college placement test at the College of Micronesia in the morning. Not all of them could get rides back to the school after the test. So I drove to the test to meet them there with Lorraine. We got them into the right room and then left to run errands for the school while they were tested. It's kind of fun driving in Yap, no matter where we are driving it feels like we are on backroads. We got back in time to pick up three of the students who needed a ride. They were quick to ask, "Ms. you have a license!?" and shout "We're gonna die!" as I drove away :). It was really reassuring to hear them say "Ms. the math part was easy, it was mostly about quadratics like you just taught us". I've been wondering recently if I'm actually helping them understand the things they need to know. It was really reassuring to see that God is definitley guiding what I teach and helping me to teach them what they need to know.
The grand finale to our week came in the package of a puppy we have named Coby. One of the third graders brought him in to Sophie and said that if we didn't take him they would have to put him on the street like the rest of the litter. He was tiny and adorable and so pathetic looking! So... we obviously adopted him! The campus already has a couple resident dogs so one more doesn't really make a difference. It's just more work for us, especially right now. He is so tiny, sick, and coated in fleas. We have tried everything to clean him and get him nourished. He already looks a little better. I think he will make a wonderful addition to our apartment :).
Even with all the random things making each day unique here in Yap, I've started to notice my new habits. I don't like habits. Some habits are good, and make life easier. But lots of habits just stop you from really thinking about what you are doing. I don't want worship or devotional time to become habit. I don't want teaching to become habit. I want to really be thinking about them and completely involved in them every time; not just floating through it becomes I've done it so many times. That is my challenge for this next week, starting tomorrow. We have this habit of sitting together in the same pew every Sabbath. So tomorrow I think I'll try and sit somewhere else, next to some members or visitors and make myself try something new. I was really excited to see some of my students at church last week, hopefully I will see them again!
(I apologize for the disorganized thoughts above. I have so much to share and so little brain power left to share it!)
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