Contemplation......

I was listening to an excerpt from a speech. I usually don't listen to close to speeches, they are usually very skewed and I don't like that, but this really struck me.

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here...It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This is part of a speech spoken by Abraham Lincoln. It was spoken at Gettysburg to honor the dead that gave "the last full measure of devotion" It really hit me. In a time that was so hard, a man tried his best to try and honor these men, he wasn't just speaking for his own men, I think he was talking about the men of both sides. I don't think that Lincoln wanted the war to happen at all and up on that podium looking out across the killing fields that had taken so many boy's lives, he had a great sadness in his heart.

I think then to what God would say. I don't know for sure, but it seems that there is evidence that he was a very Godly man. It seems like this speech might have been written by God, I can see that God would write very similar things. He might say something like this, "May you not forget the great cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, the cause of Jesus." Jesus took it one step further...He was able to guarantee that those that gave their life for him, "there would be a crown of righteousness waiting for them".

I tell all my friends this, I have no bigger wish than to see you all in heaven with me. Jesus wishes that more than I do..........

An adventure sooner than later?

I want to preclude this blog posting with its 3:00 am. You might ask what I'm doing up so early.....well I'll tell you. My body has this amazing system of after having slept 8 hours I wake up. Well last night I fell asleep at 7 pm. That makes for a very early morning. So thats why I'm writing a blog so early.

This is really the continuation of a story that started last summer. While I was traveling through Wyoming on my way to Yellowstone for our family reunion, I had a blow out. Now I've had blowouts before, not hard to deal with, but kind of frustrating. Wyoming however is desolate in places and the place I had the blowout was not any different. What made matters worse was the fact that it was 11:30 p.m. after a very long day. I finally hobbled my way into Casper, where I was going for the night, and got to bed. The next morning, I had to find a tire shop to replace my tire. I went to Big-O tires, where we bough the tires before and they were less then helpful. They finally gave me a "take off tire" in other words, a used tire that they had taken off another vehicle and sold it to me. I then continued my trip. I finally made it up to Yellowstone without any big trouble. After Yellowstone however I decided to make a trip to Idaho to visit a friend who was working there. About 20 from the Montana Idaho boarder I had another blowout. Same story all over again, except this time it was in the middle of the day. Let me tell you, I'm pretty good at changing tires. I got that one changed and continued to Coeur d'Alene Idaho. I then went through the same process again in trying to find a tire to replace my spare tire. This isn't the easiest thing to do either; my truck takes a very odd size of tire. After having found the right tire and having it replaced I headed up to see my friend. The next day when I was heading back to Cody Wyoming, my truck started having different problems. The whole truck was vibrating VERY badly. This was around the Bozeman Montana area. I thought that it must be a problem with my tires. The vibration was coming from what seemed like my front right tire, so I replaced that one with the spare at the first exit for Bozeman. I then got back on the interstate and it was still there. I got off at the next exit, and replaced the back left tire with the spare and got back on the interstate, still no dice. I got off at the last exit and changed my front left tire with the spare, and lo and behold, that was the problem it had a huge bulge in the tread. After that tire problem I made it the rest of the way home without much trouble. We replaced the two tires before I headed back to school.

Now you are probably asking what that has to do with anything. Well, on my trip home the other day I went to stop at a rest area and noticed my back left tire was flat. So right there in the rest area I changed my tire, it had a nice little crack in the side wall and was losing air really fast. I then put on the spare tire. Only to realize that it wasn’t full of air either, but it certainly had more air than the flat tire had. I drove up the road to the next exit that had a town and got off. I went to their filling station, but their air hose was broken, so I had to go to the next town and the next town. Finally I found a little town that had an operating air hose, and you know what, unlike most cities, these small towns have free air!!! I was so excited. I finally got back on the road and made it home in the longest trip ever, 10 hr to make a 7 hr trip. Not the most fun I’ve ever had on a trip home, but at least I know how to change my tire now.

Rejoice.....

I had kind of a hard week last week. I was reading one of my friends notes and ran across this.

What a week. I can't exactly say I'm sad to see it end. This week I struggled. This week I fought. This week I had fun. This week I messed up and missed opportunities. This week I searched, and this week I found. This week I studied, I stressed, and I prayed. And this week, I learned...

If things had been up to me, they would have turned out differently. But they're not. And they didn't. Yet as I sat praying and pondering the meaning and purpose of prayer, a verse jumped into my mind. The verse was this one: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," (Philippians 4:6-7).

Slowly, God began to bring my mind into focus. I had been praying and petitioning God, and I was confused as to why things weren't working out according to my requests. That's when He gently reminded me of this text and pointed out that maybe I was wrong in my thinking... See, the verse doesn't say, "present your requests to God, and everything will work out the way you want it to," or "present your requests to God and whatever you desire will come to pass." It doesn't even promise that everything will be made clear or that we'll understand why things happen the way they do. No, the promise is something greater. The promise is... peace. Peace that transcends all understanding. Peace that says, "It's okay that things don't seem to be working out. It's okay that I don't understand right now. Because I know the One who does... and I trust Him."

The things I was praying for, well, they'll pass away. Yes, they seem important now. And maybe they are... but the peace that comes from trusting in a God whose plan is perfect and whose wisdom is magnificent? Nothing else really compares. That's the kind of treasure that will last. And that's a reason to rejoice. No matter what.

Another semester come and (almost) gone... and if this lesson is the only one I remember, then so be it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thank you Heidi for allowing me to reproduce this on my blog.

Fear.....

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~Maryanne Williamson

My Plan for Discipleship

Today I am stepping across the line. I'm tired of waffling and I'm finished with wavering; I've made my choice, the verdict is in and my decision is irrevocable. I'm going God's way. There's no turning back now!

I will live the rest of my life serving God's purposes with God's people on God's planet for God's glory. I will use my life to celebrate His presence, cultivate his character, participate in His family, demonstrate His love, and communicate His word.

Since my past has been forgiven and I have a purpose for living and a home awaiting in heaven,I refuse to waste any more time or energy on shallow living, petty thinking, trivial talking, thoughtless doing, useless regretting, hurtful resenting, or faithless worrying. Instead, I will magnify God, grow to maturity, serve in ministry, and fulfill my mission in the membership of His family.

Because this life is preparation forth the next, I will value worship over wealth, "we" over "me," character over comfort, service over status, and people over possessions, position, and pleasures. I know what matters most and I'll give it all I've got. I'll do the best I can with what I have for Jesus Christ today.

I won't be captivated by culture, manipulated by critics, motivate by praise, frustrated by problems debilitated by temptation or intimidated by the devil. I'll keep running my race with my eyes on the goal, not the sidelines or those running by me. When times get tough, and I get tired, I won't back up, back off, back down, back out or backslide. I'll just keep moving forward by God's grace. I'm Spirit-led, purpose-driven, and mission-focused so I cannot be bought, I will not be compromised, and I shall not quit until I finish the race.

I'm a trophy of God's amazing grace so I will be gracious to everyone, grateful for every day, and generous with everything that God entrusts to me.

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I say: "However, whenever wherever, and whatever you ask me to do, my answer in advance is yes!" Wherever you lead and whatever the cost, I'm ready. Anytime. Anywhere. Anyway. Whatever it takes Lord; Whatever it takes! I want to be used by you in such a way, that on the final day I'll hear you say, "Well done, thou good and faithful one. Come on in, and let the eternal party begin!"

May this be what I do everyday....

Adapted from a statement at a leadership conference in Phoenix

On the verge of a new adventure

I looked back and its nearly been 6 months since I've updated this blog. When I left off last time I was just finish an adventure that starte in August of 2008. I look back on the last six months, a lot has changed. I'm sitting in a room where believe me no AC is needed watching snow filter down from a very cold day. I think about how it was a year ago, I miss it at times, the simplicity of it, the carefree attitude, but realize that I'm not going to have that exact same experience again. Thanks to God and his infinite wisdom a lot of other things have changed over the course fo the summer and this first semester back at school.

School has changed. As I'm sure my fellow SM's can appreciate, school has become somewhat of a lonely place and sometimes dark place. There are however lights in the dark. Keeping up with my fellow SM's from last year has been one of the things that has kept me going in addition to my family. It seems that God brought a whole new set of friends into my life while I was gone and they are amazing, I wouldn't trade them for the world.

As I look back I'm forced to look forward too. This semester has probably been the hardest one to date. I don't think I was ready to get back in and start studying. Amazingly enough, probably God, my grades are pretty good.

As I look ahead I see one thing on the horizon. I see another adventure. For those that don't know or I haven't talked to recently, I'm going to be in Nicaragua next semester. To be gone again almost feels normal, to be back out of the country. I think when I left the Marshall Islands, I left a piece of me there. A piece that will never come back, but hopefully I can pick up when I leave the country again. I've heard soldiers coming back to the states, but never really coming back, I guess I feel that way at times.

In Nicaragua we will be doing a ton of different things, we will be doing Medical work in the villages, we will be taking classes in Ocean, shoreline, and underwater rescue, we will be doing some relief work and some community development work, we will also be having some fun. This time, instead of going by myself and not knowing anyone before we get there, I know everyone. We've been taking classes together for a long time and thats either good or very bad, I guess time will tell us that. One thing I know for sure is it will be a time when we will all become very close and hopefully become close to God as well.

As it kind of was when I was in the Marshall Islands, I will only have internet max of once a week, so I'll be updating my blog then, I'm sorry I won't be sending out personal emails to everyone, but I'll try to keep this as up to date a possible. Right now, we have approx. 38 days until we leave the country. I don't know if I'll update again before we leave or have my next update be from incountry.

For now, keep our whole group in your prayers. Also keep the SM's on the island of Yap in your prayers, one of our own was killed a few weeks ago, it has to be tough on them, the school family, the island family, SAU family and her personal family.

MASH and Being an SM

I like watching MASH.  I liked watching MASH before I left the states, it's not something that has come just because I’ve been overseas.  I like the characters, I like the interaction of the characters, and I like the story line.  I think that everyone that has ever watched it has been able to relate with all the different characters at different times.  Something that I recently realized is I like it now for a different reason.  I can relate on a whole new level.  This cast of characters portrays people that are 10,000 miles away from home.  They are taken out of their homes, not by choice like me, but because they were drafted to do so.  Even though they are over in Korea for a different reason than I’m in the Marshall Islands, I find myself relating with them a lot.  All of us as SM’s came to the Marshall Islands to do a job, mine was to teach Science, but when I got here I got “schooled” in the art of adaptation.  I wasn’t only asked to teach science, I was asked to teach Calculus as well.  It wasn’t something I was intending on doing, but I did because I was required to do so.  All of us have ended up doing things that we didn’t intend on doing when we left the states, it's not just me.  One of the teachers went from teaching English to music to art and back to English.  I thankfully haven’t been switched around that much, but we all have had our times.  There are then the teachers that have gotten to go home early for whatever reasons.  I was watching a particular MASH episode and Honeycutt made an interesting observation, he said he “hated” the ones that got to go home early, because he was still there.  I know for sure I don’t hate the ones that have gotten to go home early, but at the same time I can totally understand what he meant.  The men and women of MASH 4077 were taken from their homes and were banded together to make a fully functional hospital, were put in the “worst” of circumstances and then were told that they had to perform sergery.  My friends and I here chose to leave our homes for 10 months, landed on a small speck in the middle of the pacific, were given jobs that most had never done, and were expected to teach students and hopefully show that God is real and working in us.  There is a lot that I don’t agree with that happens in MASH, but I keep coming back to it, not because of the bad things, but sometimes for commiseration, sometimes it feels like the characters there are the ones that understand. 

Now on a totally different subject, with my time coming very close to me coming home I’ve been very busy.  My students have been very “diligently” studying for their tests in an effort to get a good grade.  Tonight we say goodbye to another one of our teachers.  She is going home for work I think, but she is one of the ones that has been my friend all year so far.  It will be sad to see her leave, but at the same time, I’m excited that she gets to leave; it means that my time to leave is coming.  By the time that this gets posted and most of you read it, I’ll be under 10 days until I leave.  As the day comes closer and closer I realize that I have a lot to get done before I leave.  I also realize that I have to make a very fast transition to my summer, I don’t get a break, I just have to be there and start. 

I’m very excited that I’ll be getting to see my cousin’s graduation.  I was not going to get to go, but then when I changed my ticket I found out that I get to be there.  It will be a wonderful weekend, after not seeing any family in 10 months; I’ll get to see nearly all of my mom’s side of the family.  It will be a wonderful weekend, a very high weekend. 

This will be my 2^nd to last blog while I’m overseas.  The ones following the next one will be while I’m SMing again or when I’m back in school.  I’m going to keep it going since I will be gone second semester of this next school year. 

This week ended out with a bang so to speak.  Friday was our SA picnic.  We went out an island that is further out on the atoll, one that you can only get to by boat.  It seemed like it was going to be a frustrating day, the boat was late and things just started slow, but soon they got going good.  We got out there and had lunch then the students (25 of them) challenged the teachers (5 of us) to king of the dock.  That game went on for nearly two hours until all of us had been thrown into the water countless hundreds of times.  Near the end of the fun one of my fellow teachers went off and it looked like she had landed on a nail sticking out of the dock, but she came up without any blood to speak of so we kept on going.  About 20 minutes later one of the students came to me and said that that teacher needed my help, I thought it was a ploy to get me off the dock and so I was like “yeah right”.  They replied, no she cut her arm open.  My heart sank.  I swam the 30-40m back into the shore in record time.  When I got there I was surprised.  Expecting a little cut I didn’t expect the cut I saw.  It was nearly perfect, and went straight down to the muscle.  It was really clean, but you could see the skin layers, the sub-cutanious fat, and then the muscle under it.  I hadn’t taken any first aid stuff with me, neither had anyone else, so I patched it up as good as I could and told her that she would need stitches.  We got back to the “mainland” and went to the hospital and sure enough, 3 stitches later her arm looked “good as new” I guess not really, but kind of.  As for me in the whole thing, the worst that happened to me was a bad case of sunburn that still kind of hurts today, but I’m sure by tomorrow it will be feeling better

Only a bit more

There are exactly 2 weeks of school now.  The past week has been very interesting.  Have you ever got the idea that you were “holding back the tide”?  Well I can say without any reservation that trying to teach High School students for the last 3 weeks is nearly as hard as trying to hold back the tide.  Living on the ocean, that image is very engrained in my mind right now.  Everyone, the students, the teachers, and the faculty, are all ready to be done.  Last week we had another teacher leave to go back and get married, this next week we have one leaving to go to work, both had made arrangements to do so before they signed their contracts.  The only problem with those two teachers leaving is the fact that we are already shorthanded for teachers and this will only make us more so. 

There is one very interesting thing about being this close to being home.  It doesn’t seem like anyone can do anything to make someone else mad.  Everyone is just so happy to be this close to going home that they just don’t care about getting mad at people.  From experience, I’ve seen it the other way around, people getting more edgy being this close to being home, but I’m very glad that it is this way now, I hope that it stays this way until we all leave. 

Today was a very special Sabbath.  One of the church members, the president of the College of the Marshall Islands, invited us over to his house for lunch.  I went along for two reasons, first it's a meal that I don’t have to make for myself and secondly he is Filipino, they always have good food.  To all of our surprises, the food they served us was good old fashioned hay stacks.  That was something that none of us have had in nearly 10 months and all of us were very happy to see it and then to go ahead and eat them too.  Being full is something that doesn’t happen very often here, food is expensive and we don’t make very much money, so being full from lunch and it lasting a few hours is a wonderful feeling. 

When I was talking to my parents this last week, mom said something that seemed really sad at the time, but as I thought about it, it was very exciting.  Mom said that she had just sent my last box.  We live on stuff from home over here, so hearing that my last one was in the mail was kind of sad, but then I realized, that there isn’t much time left here.  After this posting I’ll have 2 more probably, maybe not even that.  With how slow the mail is here, I’ll get the box just before school ends. 

I don’t know what they call it for a person my age, but the term for the actual medical disorder is Alzheimer’s.  I know that I don’t have Alzheimer’s, but I had a very forgetful moment a few weeks ago.  Union made some new rules pertaining to living on campus and being older.  The rule states that anyone over 22 can live in a room by themselves and pay for there being 2 people in the room, among other things.  I was thinking about it and was kind of sad, I didn’t know if the administration would let me, my birthday is in October.  I then realized that I don’t turn 22 in October, I turn 23 in October.  I was slightly frustrated that I didn’t remember how old I am, but there isn’t anything here to remind me of my age, other than the students not remembering anything from the 80’s-early 90’s.  Thankfully I remembered and it's not such a big deal.  

Excitement of what's left

Tonight I was sitting in vespers listening intently to the speaker talk.  She has talked many times here and usually she is very redundant, but I try to pay as much attention as I can.  She used a verse that got me to thinking.  She used Ecclesiastes 12:1, it's a very memorable verse, it says, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them".  At this point I kind of got lost in thought.  I got slightly nostalgic and started to remember back in time, to “better” times easier times.  Back to high school and the things I’ve been taught about God throughout my life.  Remember your creator in the days of your youth before the hard times hit, that’s the essence of what the verse says.  I realized that even if I didn’t like some of the teachers that have taught me about God, I still learned about God, and then I started to take my learning into my own hands.  The things that I learned when life was “easy” prepared me for the struggles of what life is like in the “real” world.  I’ve been seeing this now that I’m out and on my own.  “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth; before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them", it says a lot for my parents, for my teachers and for the Holy Spirit.  Among other things, this year has done a lot for my faith as it deals with me.  It has forced me to step out from under the wonderful security of a Godly home to make my own Godly home, I have realized how hard it is, and have gained a whole new insight on what it must be like to be a parent in the regard of providing a Godly environment. 

At the end of her talk, she asked when you go home, remember what you have learned here and change your life accordingly.  That got me to thinking too.  I came up with the idea that her statement was based on a preface that I’m not sure was correct, at least not for everyone.  I think the preface she based it upon is that there was something wrong with your life before you came here, but I don’t know about everyone else, but I think my life was pretty good before I left, there is always room for growth, but other than that, I’m not sure, something that is going to require more thought.  Personally, I’m very much looking forward to doing a lot of the things I did before I left.  Things like lunch at Jo and Terrill’s on Sabbath, spending time with Beth, talking with old friends, talking to my parents, seeing one more sunset over the Rockies, and spending time with family to name just a few.

Excitement has been building this week.  This week brought three very special days in the process of coming home.  The first day was Monday the 27th; it was the one month until I come home.  The second day came 2 days later on Wednesday; it marked the 4 week/28 days mark.  The third day is tomorrow, Sabbath, which marks the 25 day countdown that will happen.  The next few weeks will fly by I know, sooner than I know it I’ll be heading to the airport to bid farewell to the island that has been my “home” for the past 10 months nearly.  I’ll remember the words of my Uncle Larry when he told me, “Go, do your time, and do as much as you can, then after that’s done, be ready to come home.” 

Next week is our week of prayer.  All the high school teachers were asked to speak, even given “scripts” of what to say, they are using a week of prayer schedule called “why”.  The particular day I picked was Thursday.  I didn’t pick it because it was late in the week, I didn’t pick it for its contents per se, I didn’t even read it before hand, the title caught me.  The title is “the quite shout.”  Being a fan of Simon and Garfunkel’s song “sounds of silence” might have had some sort of a draw toward this title or maybe it was the fact that silence used correctly can say more than anything, either way, I guess it doesn’t matter how I got it, the important thing is that was the one I chose.  The story centers on the life of Mary Magdalene.  Her stories in the bible are among my favorite, it shows such a great side of Jesus’ compassion.  The talk is supposed to open with the story of Jesus saving her from a stoning, I love this story, Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you either, go and sin no more.”  Wow, it makes you look at your life and ask yourself, how many times Jesus/God has said that to you, probably more times than I wish to remember.  The first time we see Jesus and Mary is of course important, but I think more than that first story is, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.  The rest of the story goes to prove that Jesus forgives us, but then he doesn’t leave us, he lives, and works with us the rest of our lives.  

Down to 4 week now

There is a line from a movie that particularly made sense today.  The line comes from the movie Batman Begins.  The truth about the movie is that it has some very profound thoughts mixed around with a lot of other things.  The line comes from Ras al goul (sp) and says something like this: “Criminals rely on society’s forgiveness of crimes.”  Now granted this line in my analogy isn’t talking about criminals the same context that the movie was used, but the thought is still the same.  Students rely on the forgiveness of administrations for punishment.  As I’ve been teaching this  year I’ve seen one thing after another that has proved that in some cases the teachers and in others the administration slips up in the punishment of students.  Both teachers and administration get tired of punishing the same problem with the same punishment and that is where students tend to see that they can continue doing what they are going to do.  I think this might be coming to light just because of the fact that the school year is nearly over and we are all tired, teachers, students, and administration.  The other part is the fact that here, most all of us are going to be going home in the next 2 months, teachers and administration alike.

This whole ranting came to be because of the HS teacher that is leaving today decided that she didn’t care what she did today, so let students stay in her classroom even when the class period was over.  When I asked the administration if they wanted more names of students that didn’t arrive at classes because of being in that particular teacher’s classroom they said, “There are already so many students on that list.”  Yes, I know there probably are, but where is our consistency?   

I know I’m a math teacher, but I didn’t realize until yesterday that 4 comes before 5.  I’ve been counting down until I get to come home.  I guess maybe it has been so long in coming that now that it's here, I can’t quite believe that it's here.  Now that there is only a month of school left and only a few days more than that until I come home, I’m realizing that my time is limited.  I guess that realization comes with sadness and happiness.  Don’t worry, I will be totally psyched when I climb the stairs from the tarmac to the airplane, (yes, you walk across the tarmac to get on the plane here) but I have to admit now that I’ll have some sadness as well.  I’m not sure the sadness will come right away, I have this feeling that it will come when I have some time to think about it in my elongated layover in HI.  That is where it will finally hit me that I’m done, when I have time to think.  Or if it doesn’t happen then, it might not happen until I have some alone time sometime in the summer.  I don’t know when it will come along, but it will.  I have some good news though; one of my senior students might be attending Union in the fall, so I might have a slight reminder of what it was like with him there.  I’m really hoping he gets accepted.  

Tough Week

Today in one of my classes, I had my students just working on an assignment.  I was working on grades while they were working.  I’ve been posting grades so that I don’t have to keep a running tally of who has missing work.  The students themselves can do that, I thought it would take some stress out of my job.  I’m not sure whether it will or not.  While I was working diligently on my grades, one of my students, Xiaofeng, came up and asked if she could ask me a question.  I always laugh to myself about that, they just did, but I said sure.  She then proceeded to not ask a direct question, she asked an indirect question, which started like this.  I’m 20 years old this year and only in 10^th grade.  I was thinking, where this is going, maybe I should tell her I’m already dating someone, but didn’t say anything.  She went on to say I really want to be a senior this next year, what do you think I need to work on to get to be a senior.  As with all Chinese students, they need work on English.  I told her that, and we planned on how she can do that well.  We talked for the better part of the class period about English and how to learn English better.  I was kind of curious about why she came to me, but it became evident as we continued talking.  The reason she came to me is I’m the teacher that took time to teach her and get her up to speed in my class when she first came to school.  She told me that she really trusted me and didn’t mind talking to me.  There are times that I think that I’m not doing anything here, other than the obvious, teaching science, but then from time to time, God reminds me that I’m doing a job for him here. 

 

I got something from UC yesterday.  One thing I got was a sheet of crazy quotes; I thought I’d share some with you:

·         A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

·         “We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: how much clean air do we need?”

·         “Once you accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy”

·         “I love deadlines, I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by”

·         “USA Today came out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75% of the population.”

·         “Lack of brains hinders research”

·         “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were ever supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.” –Ms. Alabama, in the 1994 Ms. Universe contest when asked if she wanted to live forever.

·         “’And now the sequence of events in no particular order”

·         “The world is more like it is now then it ever has before”

I really like the last one, but then the one from our Ms. Universe is pretty good too.  They say kids say the darnest things, but I think celebrities say the stupidest things. 

 

I think I’ve learned a new lesson.  The sad part is that it has taken me 9 months of teaching to learn.  I’ve learned what teaching actually is.  It's not so much instilling as much knowledge as you can so that students can pass a test.  We as teachers do want to instill knowledge, but I think more than instilling knowledge I want to teach students how to teach them to do it for themselves.  You know the story, give a man a fish feed him for a day; teach him to fish, feed him for a lifetime.   

 

From what I’ve heard we are about to become more pressed for teachers.  From what I’ve heard one is being transferred to another island, another one is going home because the other one is being transferred.  They have been getting involved in a way that is against the rules here.  So we will be down two more teachers it sounds like next week, 2 weeks later we have one more leave, and a week after that we have another one leave, so by the time it's all said and done we will have had 7 teachers go home over the course of the year.  Some have been medical, some have been slightly selfish, and others were negotiated when they signed their contracts.  It kind of makes me wish I would have negotiated a sooner date when I signed my contract, but I guess I’ll be home as soon as I can. 

 

From what I’ve been told, the dry season is officially over, it lasted about 2.5 months.  I guess the fact that it has been raining every day for like 2 hours over the course of the day is the reason why the dry season is over.  The rain couldn’t have come at a better time either.  All the water on the island is gotten from rain water and we were getting low.  God has been amazing at keeping the water here so that we haven’t had to ration water.  Just about the time that it seems like we are going to have to ration water, we get a really good gulley washer that fills our tanks up again, and we are out of the red.  Its amazing being over here, we rely on God so much more just for the things we need here, food, water, sleep.  There have been a couple of times where the island has nearly run out of food, you go to the store and all you see is bare shelves, it's kind of disconcerting.   But luckily God brings another boat to refill the island and we make it through the time. 

 

Ok, this is an internal correction.  The teacher that I thought was going to go to Chuuk is just going home as is her “boyfriend”.  I don’t know all the reasons and all, but that is what’s happening.  Regardless of where they were going, the result doesn’t change, we are still down 2 more teachers.

6 week mark

I got an interesting call today.  It wasn’t necessarily interesting because of the person who called, but because of the content of the conversation.  When I came over here I was told that I should write this blog to keep everyone back at home updated on what’s happening in my life.  Up until this morning, I didn’t know that anyone other than just a few people read it.  As those of you know that read this blog on a regular basis, I’m coming home earlier than expected.  This change in flights was prompted by a few things, but one major thing it allows me to do is attend my cousins HS graduation.  I had thought that by posting it here it wouldn’t make that much of a difference, but the call I got this morning told me that apparently there are more people that read my blog than I thought.  I had intended on keeping my coming home early as a surprise to a few people, mostly my family that would be at the graduation, but as I got to thinking about it I was wondering if I shouldn’t tell my aunt and uncle about it so that I didn’t in any way steal my cousin’s thunder.  So my mom took it upon herself to call my aunt.  Well my aunt enthusiastically told my mom that she already knew and it was all good.  My mom was somewhat surprised and asked how, well, the phrase “you heard it here first folks” is pretty correct, apparently my aunt is just another one of my faithful followers. 

 

I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who has been following my blog.  I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to update it as often as I’d like to, but I do it when I can.  I look forward to the time when I can tell you all stories fact to face of how God has worked on me and through me. 

 

I look forward to seeing you all when I get back to civilization.  I hope you are all doing well.  

Another week down

Last week was a particularly fun week.  The week seemed long until I got to Thursday.  When Thursday got here I was excited for two reasons, first it was a half day because of parent teacher conferences, and secondly it was because I was going to go take pictures of the island MCI (Mass Casualty Incident).  We went out to the airport and got ready; I got out my camera and started taking pictures.  I was listening to what the leaders were saying, because I like being involved, but I knew that I wasn’t going to get to be involved, it was not my program, so I had consoled myself that I was going to just take pictures.  As I was walking around I was confronted by a guy aptly named Chief.  He asked me what I was doing and what my expertise was.  I told him I was a EMT and trained in Hazardous Materials.  He then asked me if I would be willing to evaluate the event.  I asked him what area he wanted me to evaluate; he told me triage, ambulance operations, and hospital operations.  I was excited, I was hoping I could somehow help out, but ended up getting an unrestricted pass to the airport for the drill.  I got to evaluate how the system worked and got to have fun telling what I thought.  I got to ride to the hospital in an ambulance with lights and siren blaring. 

 

Being from the main land where we do things a lot different, I was quite reticent about how they did things over here, but after seeing it first hand how everyone works together, my mind is set at ease for how they work over here.  Really it's not any different than we work in he states, maybe they have different equipment, but the same thought and planning goes into their drills and SOP’s that we do in the states, so overall I’d give their Emergency personnel a very good grade. 

 

For all those who know anything about how they do school over here, we are just now finally on break for spring break.  It's very late, I don’t know for sure why it is so late, but with only about 1.5 months of school left we are taking a week off, it couldn’t have come soon enough, this break was needed very much for both the teachers and the students.  The students have been testing all of our nerves.  I think it's the adding of it being near break to it being near summer.  Really it feels like summer is just around the corner, and I guess for some of you it is.  I half envy you guys, but at the same time I wouldn’t give up my position here for anything, well, maybe I should say it would take a lot. 

 

This week had some rather exciting things too though, on Wednesday it passed the 2 month mark for when I get to come home.  There is a story around that that I need to tell.  We have 3 snow days built into the schedule.  Yes, they are called snow days.  So they are now seeing that we aren’t going to be using them for snow or anything else for that matter and now the school moved graduation back.  I was scheduled to leave the night of graduation, 1 June, but when they moved it I was thinking about changing my ticket.  I talked to my vice-principle and he said it shouldn’t be a problem.  I went to Continental and asked how much it would cost, expecting it to be like $100 or so, but they said that it was free, to that I was very thankful.  They also told me something that was less than thrilling, they said that I couldn’t change my ending airport.  When I made my return trip reservations they said that I should be able to change it to Denver since that is where I’m working this summer.  They informed me now that I had to fly back to Chicago, well that’s about 1200 miles from where I need to be, so I ended up having to change my tickets to 27 May so that I can get back to Chicago and then drive out to CO.  There is a silver lining to this problem, just like normal.  Since I having to leave that early means that I get to attend my cousin’s graduation in Laramie.  I’m pretty excited about that.  It also means that I’ll be getting to see a lot of my family a lot sooner than I had thought I would.  You don’t know how good that sounds to someone who has been 12000 miles away from family and those I love. 

 

 

Stars

Its 8:00, later than I usually stay up, but I was captivated by the stars.  I know at home we don’t see them all that clear, but here they are great.  I was walking back to the appt, when I noticed them.  I just kind of had to stand in awe of them.  Some bible verses came to mind about the stars and the heavens, but that’s not what hit me.  What hit me was not so much about the stars themselves, but about music.  The hymns we sing, the praise songs we sing are being sung straight to God.  The writers know that and so should we, but somewhere between the repetitions of singing them I seem to have forgotten to whom I sing.  I’ve forgotten that the God I’m singing to created the heavens and all that in them is.  Sometimes we sing the songs so flippantly, so arrogantly, so disrespectfully that I don’t think that God would have us sing to him at all.  It's not just praise music, I’ve seen it and probably done it in hymns and praise music.  As Louis Gigleo would say we need to re-right size God.  I think sometime we forget that, God isn’t our size; he has a canvas the size of the sky that he paints on.  Well, that’s my ah-ha moment for right now, it came from God to me and I hope it touches you too.

Happy and Sad

This I guess is another week down and one more closer to the time when I go home.  This week holds some pretty cool things hopefully.  I know at the end of the week I’ll be saying goodbye to the 3^rd quarter and saying hello to the 4^th quarter.  That means that there is only 49 days of school left, a week of vacation, then HOME……well really not home, but I hear that I might actually get to see all my immediate family at the airport.  I had thought that I wouldn’t, but that could make anyone’s day.  Even though I’ll be severely jetlagged at that point, I’ll be very grateful to see everyone. 

 

This week has certainly started out much better than last week, although, I have a strain of the flu virus.  Kind of frustrating, but hey, what can I do?  I will say that being this far from home is tough to be sick.  When you don’t have mom to take care of you, you have to do a lot to keep well.(I know mom, you are feeling bad about that)  It's all good though, you brought me up well enough to know how to take care of myself to get myself well again. 

 

Today is the funeral of the student that died last week.  I don’t know exactly what to expect by it, but hey, it gets me out of a few hours of classes, which I have to say I’m not to sad about it. 

 

One of my fellow teachers said to me at the beginning of the year that they weren’t sure whether or going to funerals of people we didn’t know was very good.  Now that I’ve been to one that is of someone I knew, I think I’d much rather go to one that I really didn’t know the person.  Whereas the funeral is much different than in the states, they are interesting over here.  My student didn’t look anything like him, which I’m sure is because they couldn’t get him to look right after him hanging himself.  Honestly I hope it is the last funeral that I have to go to in quite some time; they certainly aren’t the most fun use of my time. 

 

The last few weeks have been very tension filled; I hope that for the next few weeks it cools down for a while.  Although another one of our teachers is leaving this next Monday, health reasons as well I guess.  I guess I should start getting used to it by now, from now on, when the end of April hits we will slowly start loosing them.  So long as we don’t loose any more students, that is the important thing. 

 

Well this blog takes me to two very big days of my life.  First is Beth and my one year anniversary.  Kind of hard to believe, but it is true.  The second event is the start of 4^th quarter.  The beginning of the end, the tail end, the closing, there are many names for it, but the meaning is still the same, me being home and sooner and sooner than it has been. 

 

I’m not exactly sure how many days it is now, but I know it should be somewhere into the 70’s now.  I know that it is right around 10 weeks, which would be exactly 70, but I know that I’m not leaving on the last day of classes; I’m waiting a half a week for graduation.  I guess I should say I’m hopefully waiting for graduation.  I’m waiting assuming that it happens on time.  IF it is late, then I’m not going to be there for the end, I’ll only be there for the beginning.  I guess I’ll have to wait and see what is going to happen. 

A few more notes of sadness

Well, I just got my blog updated again and what do you know, more things happen.  Today is Sunday and usually Sunday’s are met with joyous singing, but this Sunday isn’t really. 

 

Over the next few days and weeks, everyone will be forced to deal with the following situations in their own way.  The way in which they deal with them will depict how the year ends for them.

 

The first thing that makes it not a good day is the fact that one of our teachers learned this morning that she wouldn’t be able to finish out the year here, about 1.5 months ago she got the normal rounds of pink eye.  It's not that uncommon to get when you are an elementary teacher, but none the less she got it.  Right off the bat it was bad, she was down for nearly 3 weeks with it, but when she went into the doctor the last time he told her that there were abrasions on the eye that Herpes simplex had gotten into.  They had thought that the normal regimens of antibiotics would cure her of it, but they haven’t.  She was told that she probably should go home to get it taken care of.  At this stage in the game going home means not coming back either, it's just too late.  Her roommate and appt. mates are taking it really hard, and to be quite honest, I am not keen on the idea either, she is one of my good friends here, but being in the medical field I know what just days and weeks can mean in treatment. 

 

The other thing that happened today is something that very few teachers really have to deal with in the states, but seems to be rampant here.  Many teachers attend the funerals of their students, but this next week I will be attending the funeral of a freshman named Ernib committed suicide last night late.  I really didn’t know anything bad was going on in his life, but apparently there was.  All of you who read this blog, will you pleas keep this students family in your prayers, I can’t imagine what it must be like to loose a son in such a tragic way. 

 

I can only hope that the way I handle these situations will allow me to be able to thrive in them. 

 

I’m sorry my update really hasn’t brought any joy, believe me, I haven’t had any in writing it, but I know that God has a plan in everything that happens. 

 

I guess one very exciting thing is, if nothing happens, I will be returning home in 3 months.  I’ll try to keep updating this blog as often as I can.

 

In His Service,

 

Stephen Baker, Majuro

A much needed update

Dear Reader

 

I realize it has been nearly forever since I’ve updated my blog, for that I’m eternally sorry.  I promised at the beginning of the blog that I would do my best to keep it up and I think the last blog I put up was saying I wouldn’t be able to post as often.  Well now I’m looking at the middle of February and I haven’t posted since the beginning of January.  I really don’t have much of a good excuse and it’s certainly not because I haven’t done anything in the past 6 weeks.  So I’ll try to start from the beginning. 

 

Just after Christmas some friends and I decided to go island hopping.   This is a very fun sport and you do it when the tide is out.  You see how many islands you can walk out to without getting caught by the tide and have to swim back in.  We were on our first island and one of the other teachers, April, decided to chase a gecko around a tree and slipped on the coral rock and sliced her knee open.  She was bleeding pretty good and decided to forgo her trip, she went promptly to the hospital and got 4 stitches in it and stayed off her leg for quite some time. 

 

New Years was ok, I felt that it was more of a milestone than really a holiday.  I did however do what I normally do, sleep the New Year in.  That has been my tradition for many years, why let a good thing like that go?  The next big thing to happen was school starting. 

 

School starting was a big excitement and some anxiety on my part.  I had asked the administration to be able to keep my senior Calculus class, I really loved working with them and I just didn’t want to loose them.  They told me that I would probably loose them because I needed to open up another section of biology.  I told them to do what they thought was necessary.  They decided that I could keep my calculus class, give up my free period and give me biology too.  What it really boils down to is I have a lot of classes to keep up with.  I go for 7 straight periods on Friday’s without a break and go for almost 5 without a break on weekdays. 

 

The next thing of excitement was announced in our staff worship.  A Pilipino lady was deathly in need of some blood, she is anemic.  Unlike the states, you have to find your own donors for blood here.  It isn’t too hard for Marshallese people, they all have the same blood, but this lady was B+.  I have B+ blood, so I went down and had my blood typed and within 13 hours of hearing about the need I was giving blood to a very thankful lady and her family.  At the time I didn’t get to meet the lady, she was in intensive care, but later about a month later to be exact, she came around the school to thank me personally.  That is one thing you don’t get in the states when you donate blood, you usually don’t know who it goes too. 

 

A few days after that another very special day came.  Our Chaplin from UC decided to do the island hopper and come and visit all of us in the islands.  Our island was the last one, but I was super excited, he brought with him my new computer and just a familiar old face.  The 2.5 days that he was here was busy with teaching, talking, and transferring data from the computer he was taking back with him.  It seemed like sooner than I wanted, he was heading back toward Hawaii and leaving me back alone again. 

 

Another very exciting day came just the next week.  I figured that I needed to think about booking my tickets home, so I talked to the principle and he said ya, go for it.  I went down to the ticket place and told them what I wanted and they started to work on it.  I wanted to leave on 1 June and get to Denver ASAP.  They said ya, you are on the flight at 8:00 PM evening of the 1^st.  But then the bad news came, they couldn’t get me out of Hawaii until August.  I was very confused, but we finally got it worked out and I have my tickets booked.  I will be coming home on 1 June and arriving in Denver on 2 June at 1022 AM.  It is really nice to have a specific day to look forward too.  I can’t tell you how nice it feels.  I know it is still quite a way off, but by the time this is posted it will be 98 days until I’m back stateside. 

 

The weeks of January seemed to fly bye and stand still at the same time, there were 5 weeks in January, so it seemed like it would never end, but February is going really fast.  It is exactly 4 weeks start to finish. 

 

This month has gone pretty well so far.  There was only one major hiccup; I got a virus on my computer that ended up being a boot sector virus, so my computer wouldn’t even start up.  With reformatting my computer I lost some very valuable information, but I guess what is done is done and I now know to keep more backups.  My computer is now back up totally and working fine again. 

 

Teaching as those of you who have been teachers is sometimes really cool and sometimes very frustrating.  I had a really cool experience today however.  I was working with a new student; she came in really late and totally in mid stride.  We are working on Organic Chemistry in the class that she is in.  She didn’t know anything about it, but now with some help is doing quite well.  It’s amazing to see student learning and excelling in things that they didn’t think they could do.  Well, I guess I’m done for now, my bell just rang and I need to go teach my 2^nd class of biology. 

 

Well an unexpected turn of events allowed me to write during a class period that I wouldn’t normally have off.  Our seniors are taking some sort of entrance test for the local “college” so much as it is, I don’t even know if they are a full 2 year college. 

 

It’s amazing how much we do here.  Now that I’m no the tail side of the school year, I can see so much that we as teachers have done, sometimes if you just look at the here and now you don’t see anything that you are doing, but on the other hand when you look at the past 7 months nearly, you see a great work that we as teachers have done.  Since we are on the tail end you get to see a lot of different things that you don’t normally see.  I wish I had time to talk about what all was happening here, but alas I don’t. 

 

I’ll tell one more funny story before I save this and get it ready to be posted on my blog.  Sabbath afternoon we were all just kind of relaxing when we see two police officers.  They were running off across the “lawn.”  Police don’t usually come on campus, but this time they did.  We all kind of just watched them.  We were very curious as to what was going on. (so was half the island so it seemed)  It turned out that there was a kid that had gotten drunk that they were going after.  He decided that they probably wouldn’t chase him into the ocean so that’s where he headed.  A few of us were waiting for him to pass out and drown, but he never did, he just worked his way down the coast walking in the ocean, the police, as far as we know, never set foot in the water, it was just kind of funny.  This is the first time that I’ve seen a police chase really be a spectator sport. 

 

Well this update takes me up to the 3 month mark.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen in the last 3 months, but as you’ve been reading, I’ve had some pretty cool adventures.  I have no doubt that the last 3 months will be just as fun filled and action packed as the first 7 months have been. 

 

Well, this is long and I should probably get this ready to post.  I hope all you are having good years.  I know I am.  Take care.

 

In His Service,

 

Stephen Baker

Sadness

A note of sadness for all my loyal readers.  Our school decided to drop internet service.  I'll drop blog updates as much as I can, but it won't be very often.