Campouts, Fires, and Sports

As soon as spring break ended life in Yap went back into overdrive.  For the past two weeks I have been with my students every day.  The first weekend after spring break was the much anticipated Pathfinder camp out.  Usually when we reach Friday, as much as we love our students, we collapse in our apartments after school and relish the silence.  Instead all the students stayed.  OK, not quite all, but about 90 5th-12th graders were here.  Each unit had to build a booth, the students made the out of coconut leaves. The girls tried teaching me now to weave the coconut branches to make the roofing.  They kept laughing at my work and said it looked funny, but I tried! Sabrina and I slept with the high school girls in the kindergarten room.  We cooked over a gas stove with them all weekend and lead them through different events.  Sleep was rare, but the loss was well worth it to spend time with my students.  I made pancakes for them Sabbath morning, they were quite impressed.  We had sabbath school outside under the trees.  We set up a long system of string with two destinations; heaven and hell.  The students were blind folded and put in a line.  They had a "good" and "bad angel giving them advise were to go and it was there job to figure out who to listen to.  The students had lots of fun and all the grades had a good conversation about the activity.  Later that day we took all the students on a long hike.  Their were students as far as I could see in front and behind.  I imagined it was kind of what the Israelites looked like leaving Egypt, we were moving equally slow too.  They took us through the jungle and into caves left by the Japanese from World War 2.  The hike ended at what we call "the canyon".  I got a few high school students to lead in a small sundown worship before we headed back to the school. The weekend was full of late nights and early mornings (only in Yap do students wake up at 4 am on a Sunday), flag steeling, marching, campfire cooking, and memories with my students I will never forget.  By Sunday everyone was exhausted, but the students left talking about next years camp out so I would call it a success.
As the week started everyone was still tired from what seemed like a week of work and monitoring students. We were all hoping for a quiet easy week, but of course that didn't happen.  Monday night the principal started trying to burn some excess greenery, one thing lead to another and we had a huge out of control fire.  Apparently the police came around 2 am and the whole hill was on fire, I slept through the whole thing completely oblivious! We thought it was out Tuesday morning but it was so hot out and it hadn't rained in so many days that the fire just kept smoldering.  Suddenly while I was sitting in my classroom during morning break I noticed smoke from the bushes right outside my classroom.  The students started yelling fire and running out to see.  All the bushes behind the high school were catching on fire, we aren't really sure where it came from.  We were told to keep teaching so I went from class to class watching flames several yards away from my window.  Finally the fire department came and worked all day to stop the fire.  The students attention was long gone and not much math was learned that day.  But as an answer to prayer it finally rained that night and we haven't had any problems since!
The last day of school this week was high school sports day.  The students have been asking about the event all year, it is a favorite.  We were divided into teams and assigned a group of students to lead.  I was in charge of the yellow team; so were threw on yellow shirts, painted our faces, and started the competitions.  We had a cross country run for them, relay races, a mini volleyball tournament, basketball, and several races.  It was a very hot day (in the 90s with over 80% humidity), so the usual.  Lots of the girls on my team kept pushing themselves too hard and would come close to passing out or couldn't breathe.  When we got to the 100 meter dash for the girls none of them could do it because of asthma and heart conditions so they said "Ms. will you run for us?! We need your help!". So there I was heading out to do the thing I always used to say I hate.  Good thing we have been exercising after school! :).  It was fun to to hear the students of all teams and grades shouting "Go Ms. Rychelle!".  They were even more shocked when I kept up with them.  It's one of those memories I will never forget.  We cheered for the rest of the games and had a potluck. To end the day we had some fun events including tug of war with a mud pit in the middle. Sophie and I were on the same team with a bunch of students, our team started to lose and before we knew it they all bailed on us! Instead of going in the mud pit the jumped to the side sending Sophie and I sailing into the pit! They found this quite funny, we tried to pull them in with us but they got away! The last event was a water fight, always a big hit.  Of course I got drenched again, several coolers were dumped on my head, but this time I got them back with some water balloons :). 
I keep thinking more and more about how soon all of this will be over and I just can't believe it. I'm ready to come home but I can't imagine leaving my students.  I want to push it out of my mind for now and stay in the moment, I want to remember everything and make the most of my last few weeks teaching them.  The seniors get out early so I only have 2 weeks and 2 days left teaching my class.  It seems like just yesterday I was scared to death to meet them and completely clueless how to teach them, and now it's almost over.  I ask for your prayers for my seniors.  They are so close to finishing but lots of them are having a hard time making the final push.  They have classes to make up and that they keep ignoring despite my reminders and unwise decisions they keep making.  I want more then anything to see all of them graduating on June 7th, but right now I don't know if that's going to happen. I found betel nut, lime, and cigarettes in two of my students bags on Friday.  These two students have had many infractions and have been given many chances this year for drinking, chewing, disrespect, and skipping class. According to the hand book they should have been expelled a while ago but they have been given lots of grace.  It kills me to think of them leaving so close to the end but I know if they aren't given the proper consequences the rest of the school will follow them and believe they can get away with it.  They will think it doesn't matter and their actions don't have consequences. I don't know what the right thing to do is, and I don't get to make the decision. The school board is meeting tomorrow to discuss it and I just pray for wisdom for them.  As much as I would hate to see them leave so close to the finish maybe they have to learn the hard way.  Please pray for my seniors and for the choices they make this last month before graduation and as they move on to college.