The Camping Trip, November 29

We just got back from a two night camping trip to an island in the chain of Majuro Islands. Half of it belongs to Dennis Yates, the head of the Wellness Center. We left Friday morning and drove 45 minutes to this industrial place. I'm not sure why we had to meet the boat there rather than the regular pier. Even though we were about 30 minutes late the boat was nowhere to be found. They made a phonecall and said it was at Laura Point heading this direction. While we were waiting we climbed all over some huge dump trucks and climbed up and down large piles of gravel. We found a piece of plywood and slid down on it. Since that was more or less Thanksgiving, we were excited to be playing in "snow" and it made us feel more at home.

Finally the boat arrived about 45 minutes later. Two of us held the boat so it wouldn't hit the rocks and we started loading it up. There was no real dock or pier. Everything I brought and most of Ben's stuff fit in my big backpack. The rest of the SMs don't know how to pack for a camping trip and we ended up with a ton of stuff. The boat was not very big and by the time we loaded it up with our stuff, it was riding low. Then we looked around for the boat driver and couldn't find him. This Marshallese guy, who was suppose to be our guide, showed up and told us there wasn't enough gas. We had brought 10 gallons. The boat driver said that it was only enough to get to the island and he would run out on the return trip. Ben's family owns a boat and he said that was BS. Furthermore, Dennis had already given the man 100 dollars for gas and it was nowhere to be found. We ended up waiting another 30 minutes for someone to arrive with more gas. When we arrived we had only used a little out of one tank and we had tons more.

The trip over was long because the waves in the middle of the lagoon were very large and the boat was so loaded down with people and stuff that we couldn't go fast. We bobbed around in the ocean for a really long time before we finally got to the other side. The island was so beautiful. Nice sandy beaches, coconut trees, blue, green water, etc. It was everything a paradise island would be. We spent the weekend snorkeling, walking on the beach, building all manner of rafts and huts, and laying in our hammocks. It was a great getaway. Saturday night we played Capture the Flag. It got boring really fast because each side had a very good defense. I was offense and I spent lots of time crawling on my belly. I got within 30 feet of the flag a bunch of times but they had so many defense people that none of us could get to it without getting tagged. Finally the other team got a point, but we were all very bored by that point. Furthermore, Zac was running down the beach being chased by Nikol when he failed to see a palm tree that was growing horizon at waist height. He hit it at full speed and did a flip. Today he can barely walk due to a bruised leg. In a couple days he'll be fine.

We had some nice worships and reflection times. It was a spiritual as well as fun weekend. It was very nice to have extra time to hang out with people. Rob went off by himself for a couple hours. Ben, Rudy and I went looking for him. We found him on the beach with his own fire. We sat and had a great spiritual conversation with him. A group of us guys sat around a fire on the beach one night and talked about right and wrong of stuff. We had some great conversations that we wouldn't have had here at Majuro due to distractions like movies, video games, books, vespers, etc that keep us busy in the evenings. It would get boring very fast if we were on that island all the time, but it was a nice getaway.

Kirsten

This morning I went to worship as usual. Some of the SMs got up early and went to breakfast at the wellness center. They came back looking depressed and said they had bad news. Jon said a Southern student on Yap was killed. I couldn't believe it and I was like, no. Then they said it was Kirsten Wolcott and gave me the printout of the news article. I was so shocked I was like, "You have to be kidding." It finally sank in and I was really depressed.

Let me go back to when I first met Kirsten. My brother and I went to a game night at Southern. Some people were hanging out at an apartment. Most of the people there were Outdoor Leadership majors. Wyntre, an OL major, brought her room mate Kirsten. We played Clue with several people and I was introduced to her. I remember thinking that she was really cute and seemed nice from the brief talking we did.

I didn't see her for a long while. Then I joined the Student Mission class right after Spring Break. I sat all over the room in that class because I always came in late and just grabbed whatever seat was empty. One day I was asking Lauren (who's in Majuro now) about something and Kirsten was sitting next to Lauren. So by accident I ended up sitting next to her. We remembered each other and both of us knew Wyntre. After that it wasn't an accident that I sat by her every class and I was better about being on time as well.

I thought she was really cute and I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out during finals week. To my surprise she said yes. We had a great time at IHOP and Rock City. The next day she left for summer vacation. We talked often on the phone after that and discovered we had a lot in common. We both liked the outdoors and loved God. Unfortunately, both of us were planning to go overseas to different places. Even so, she invited me to come see her in Virginia. I didn't need a second invitation and jumped on a plane.

That weekend was awesome. We went to Jamestown where there is a model early American settlement. They live a large river and we played in the water there. She baby-sat two kids who were about 6 years old. I remember being struck by how good she was with them. She was loving and gentle, but directed them away from all harm. I could tell that she loved kids. She was an Elementary Education major in college and I could tell her life passion was working with kids. When I complemented her on it she said simply, "It's what I do." Her family was really nice and very close. I enjoyed talking with her two older brothers, Dad, who is a dentist, and her mom, who is a school teacher. They all welcomed me and saw to it that I had the best time possible. When their boat died, they borrowed an aunt's boat and we went wakeboarding. It was a very fun afternoon on the water.

We both thought that we could have a future together, but didn't want to do anything before the year overseas. I was hoping that after the year there could be something.

The next time I saw her was in Hawaii. She was excited to be going to Yap. Unlike me, she had taken the time to plan everything she would need along the trip. She was so organized and had everything together. One morning a bunch of the SMs got up at 5 am and we walked up Diamonds Head. It is the tallest place in Hawaii. I walked with her all the way up and we enjoyed chatting about our summer and what we would do in the islands. We jogged for awhile, which is something she enjoyed doing every morning. We hung out on the beach and in the shops of Honolulu on the afternoon off. I had a great time just hanging out with her. She was such a fun, happy person. She was always positive about everything. Her Virginia accent cracked me up and I made a little fun of her sometimes.

We had an SM dedication service the night before we all left. I sat next to her and on the bus ride back. She was an early morning person and it was late so she was tired. After we got off the bus I said goodbye, because I knew she wouldn't be up as early as us the next morning. (My group had to leave at 4 am.) I remember being very sad and wanting to cry, but I just said a simple goodbye and we left. I think I'll always remember what she was wearing and the way she looked that night.

Even though I only knew her a short time, I knew that she was an amazing person. She was a spiritual, solid, good person. She was also lots of fun. It's hard to believe she's gone. I feel for the whole Wolcott family. They are all so close and I can't imagine what they are going through. While I was in Virginia they were very protective of their little girl. She would call them before she left places and when she got there so they wouldn't worry. I'm very thankful for the time I was able to spend with Kirsten and wouldn't change anything. When I left her house in Virgina she got up at 4:30 am to take me to the airport. On the ride I told her, "I've looked a long time and I know that a girl as good as you doesn't come along very often. You're a better person than me." She just gave a little laugh and said, "I don't know if that's true."

This weekend, Nov. 16th

This weekend was quite fun. Sabbath was pretty normal. Saturday night we walked down to Payless for icecream like we always do Saturday night. It's nice break from the campus and we all talk and have a great time walking over. When a couple of the guys were walking over, Dennis, the head guy at the Wellness Center, offered for us to come over to the center and eat. We were super stoked and headed over. There were three huge pots of food. He had them left over from Diabetes Awareness Day. We dug in and ate a lot. Afterward, some people stayed and watched a movie on his projector. I went back and played some video games with some of the rest of the guys.

All was well until 4:30 am when it hit everyone. Evidently some of the soup had been sitting for too long and pretty much everyone got diarrhea. It was all good because it only lasted a couple hours until it cleaned us out. We were taking turns sitting on the toilet in our apartment.

Sunday, five of us went to the dive place. This dive instructor does odd jobs and has been certifying some people here. He found this boat that had been lost 8 years ago. It was sunk on the bottom and no one could find it. He drug it up close and was floating it with air bags. It was still completely under water. We spent two hours scraping barnacles off the bottom. It was hard work, but a nice change. We all got free dives out of it, so that was sweet. We still haven't taken them, but he said we could come any time and he'd give us equipment to dive. Normally a dive costs $25. Two hours of work works out to be $12.50 an hour, which isn't bad. Plus I haven't dove in four years and it was great to get back in.

Three Stories

I have collected three stories that I want to share. The first two come from Jeh. Paul and Chad are out their living it big. I wouldn't want to be in their place. They eat breadfruit, coconut, rice, and fish all the time. Paul is good at spear fishing and catches quite a bit.

The first story he was out spear fishing. For those that don't know what it is, he snorkels around with a big spear gun. It shoots out long spears and then you pull it back in with a fish on the end. Jeh is a very pretty island with deep reefs, lots of big fish, and big sharks. So he was out looking for fish and he found this big one. He started closing in on it and was about to shoot when something large knocked him out of the way. A large shark pushed past him and ate the fish he was about to shoot. I think he about pooped in his pants. I don't know what kind it was, but probably a Tiger Shark. Damien said he saw a 12 foot one when he was out there.

So Paul was catching fish. They had a cat that they brought to Jeh to eat the rats that live there. They cooked up some fish and decided to share it with their pet cat. Before they ate any they threw some to the cat. It started eating it and then looked up really strange. It jumped around for a minute and then fell over. It looked dead, so they tried to do CPR on it. Finally, it woke back up, but didn't move for several days. The fish they had caught was a poisonous fish. One lady on the island had eat it years ago and was still paralyzed from the waist down. Even doctors in Hawaii couldn't cure her. If Paul or Chad had eaten it that would have been the end of their teaching career. God was really looking out for them.

The last story happened on Friday. Coach Zac, Jon, the seventh grade teacher, and I were sitting watching the kids play for PE. We were talking among ourselves and not paying to much attention. Some guys came running over and started yelling, "They're fighting, they're fighting!" I looked over and saw one kid (Mathus) leaning over another one(Ariel). Ariel was sitting on a bench. The Mathus was punching for all he was worth. I was the first one to make it over there and grabbed Mathus behind the arms and tore him off. I pushed him away and he turned as if to punch me. He saw it was me and stopped. When I turned around I thought Ariel was going to be bloody the way Mathus was laying into him. Fortunately, he must have been blocking pretty good with his hands because he only had a small black eye. Zac and Jon drug him off to the office and he got suspended for a week. It was a good thing that it wasn't one of my large eighth graders because I wouldn't have been able to budge them. There are even two seventh graders that outweigh me by a lot. If it was one of the bigger kids, it would have taken two of us to pull them apart.

Quick Week, 11/13

Well, Friday the 13th is suppose to be unlucky, but it went alright. All week we've been having Week of Prayer. Every morning we had songs and special music and then one of the SMs would share a message. At the end we would get in a circle and say a prayer with our class. The boys and girls wouldn't hold each other's hands, so the circle was usually broken in one or two places. Crazy kids. I got a blessing from the meetings. The SMs put some good thought into the messages and singing with the kids is fun because they get so into and sing really LOUD. I also liked it because I didn't have to teach for the first period. Can't argue with that. Next week I'm back to teach again. But I don't mind.

This week we were studying verbs in English class. I assigned some stuff out of the book about tenses of verbs. The kids did great on it. The next day I told them to write a fake diary or journal using the four tenses we studied. One kid completed the assignment correctly. They wrote stuff, but it only had two tenses. Marshallese is a very simple language and they only have three tenses. They don't change the verb in tenses either. They just put a word in front that means past, future or present. I went back the next day and told them all to do the assignment over and gave them some extra instruction. They complained a lot about it, but they really need this. When we started out with verbs I told them this was really important for them. They wanted to know why and I said, "I see your writing, you do this wrong all the time." They can pick it out of a book and tell you what the right tense is, but they can't use it correctly in a written sentence, or a spoken one for that matter. I've gotta figure out how to teach them this. Obviously the standard stuff hasn't worked. They can do the book work but it hasn't helped them write better.

I found out recently that a large percentage of the students in our school can't pay for school. This is a problem because the school is going deeper and deeper into debt to the whole island because the budget isn't balancing. Basically, if these kids had been paying the last several years, we wouldn't be so far into debt. Lots of things are really expensive out here, power being one of them. This doesn't make it easy to balance a budget. Some of the kid's parents can pay, but don't because they haven't been made to pay the last few years. The principal is going to get on their cases. On the other hand, their are some kids who want a Christian education and just can't afford it. I really believe the quality of education here is much better than the public schools. The kids in the public schools tend to be low class, troubled, and come from broken homes, or no homes at all. Even in my class so many of my kids live with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, or are just straight up adopted. Many kids are had out of wedlock here and the parents have no money to raise them because they are kids themselves. One of my students dropped out of school because she is pregnant. She's 14 years old in 8th grade.

We are all looking for financial support for worthy poor students who want a Christian education and take their classes seriously. We are carefully going over the students to find ones that people from the US could sponsor. If you are reading this and want to help sponsor someone, you can let me know at icemanvr6@gmail.com . I don't know the details yet, I don't even think the principal has fleshed everything out. I do know that tuition is $75 a month for elementary and $90 for high school. Any help is appreciated. On the outer islands we're having the same issue, but tuition is much cheaper. A year's tuition is $250 on Jeh or Woja. A donation goes a long ways out there. I'll post a blog sometime about how they are doing on Jeh and Woja. There are some really exciting stories coming to us from there, but I'm out of space so I'll save it for another blog.

Sabbath again

Well it's nice to have another Sabbath. I was looking back at this week and really saw how God was encouraging in the little things.

After our day from hell a lot of the SMs were really bummed. I wasn't depressed, but I woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat. I didn't want to talk all day with a sore throat so I sent Mitch in as a sub. He works in maintenance and helps out wherever he is needed. I slept most of the morning and took some medicine so I felt better at lunch time. I cooked for everyone in the apartment and then took over my class for the afternoon.

When I got there two different girls came up and told me they missed me and was glad I was back. It made me feel so special.

The next day I was eating lunch in the apartment next door. One of the guys look out the window and said someone was looking for me. I came out and a group of the girls in my class were at my apartment. I went over to see what was up. They handed me a tray of food and said they had it left over and wanted me to have it. What was even cooler is that usually it's just hot dogs and rice or chicken and rice. But recently the wellness center started making vegetarian stuff for ort cafeteria. The kids knew that I am a vegetarian and so they brought me this vegetarian meal. It was really good too.

Even though we've had a rough time with some disappointments God is looking out for us and encouraging us with little things. On Friday a group from Southern sent us a bunch of stuff. It was so exciting to get stuff from friends at school. The letters they sent to tell us what is going on was as exciting as the stuff they sent.

The Day From Hell

Today Murphy pretty much was crowned king. This was the craziest day we've ever had. It all started with PE. Wednesday morning my class goes straight from chapel to PE. I make it over there along with all the girls in my class and there is a distinct lack of males running around causing trouble. I went looking for them and found all the guys in my class plus some 7th graders sitting under a palm tree. Didn't really surprise me. I sent them to Coach and told him to punish them for hanging out. He threatens to send them to the office and several openly laugh at him. "Send us to the office," they said, "They don't do anything to us anyway." This highlights a huge lack of discipline coming from higher up. The principal is gone this week so it is their misfortune to deal with John-Dale, who had some backbone in this area. He put them to work for a couple hours.

They came back to my class and all was well for awhile. At lunch the guys who live next do come out ready to kill someone. All of their money from their wallets was stolen from the apartment. These guys had been working right next to the apartment and could see the door was open. All the guys in my class got shaken down but the two people who were most suspect were no where to be found. One of them showed back up, but no one would say a word. Finally, we got a kid who isn't in with the crowd to say that after we pressured them they came out and said to each other it was Johnny, the only kid not there. I find it unlikely he'll come back to school after that. The whole apartment is about ready to beat him up on sight.

The day only got worse. We went out surfing, hoping for a stress reliever. Some big sets were rolling in and I jumped on a couple double overhead waves. They were some steep, hard, drops with long sections ending in closeouts. Damien caught one and when it closed out I saw him swimming. This is not good because he should be paddling on his board. About half an hour later he comes back out and told me his leash broke. It happens, but not often. Zac was out on my big fish because he damaged his board a few days ago. I caught my wave of the day and it took me forever to get back out because of the huge sets rolling in. When I finally caught up with the rest of the crew Zac was not there. They said his (my) leash broke and he went in chasing my board. It ended up on the rocks beat to crap with a fin broken off. We'll see if it's fixable. That's two leashes snapping in one day. Then it got even worse. I was paddling around trying to catch 5 and 6 foot (Hawaiian, which means 10-12 foot faces) waves. I looked up and saw this giant braking outside of me. Later Cameron told me it was easily 8 foot Hawaiian (16 foot face) triple overhead. I duck dove as deep as possible but it sucked me up. Tony was inside of me and got worked really bad. I popped up after the wave went over and saw him holding half his board. I realized that this whitewater is scary enough with a good board under you and he's only got half a board. Plus he'll need help looking so I started paddling in. With a whole board under me I was able to make it in on a rough, rocky section of shore with crashing waves. He freaked out because he was being swept around the point. I stayed close and made sure he was ok. I directed him around some rocks and helped him out. Some locals had already found the other half of his board on shore. We probably won't be able to put it back together.

I've never seen so many people so depressed. Damien had been sucked over the falls on a big one he was trying to paddle into and hit his head on his board. We think he may have gotten a concussion because he saw stars for a few moments. Ben was pissed after snorkeling around and fighting the currents for a long time. Obviously Tony is depressed about his board. Everyone else in the apartment is upset about the stolen money. We'll bounce back, but it will be a rough week for sure. Today was just one of those days. Tomorrow has to be better.