A year for God

Then Came the morning

2012-01-25T06:21:00.000-08:00

A long night in a boat. The wind the rain, and the ocean were no match for us. Our group was made up of the best of Union Colleges IRR major and our mission was to brave a day and night on the ocean learning ocean survival. The location was a half mile off the little island of little corn island in Nicaragua. So what do I use to keep my head cool and covered? Oh ya...a Tilley T3, the bow was my spot though pretty much the whole adventure. Just one of many adventures I've had with it

The second picture is me with the only horse that people ride in Nicaragua, in the background you see the Rio WaWa, and on the other side of the river is Honduras.

My motivation for the next year

2011-12-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

Whether or not you win this thing, youhave to decide how you are going to walk out of here when its allsaid and done. Because the game is going to go on and there's onlyone rule you're need to know, there are no second chances, there'sonly this moment and the next moment. Every one of those moments is atest that you get to take one time and only one time. So if you seean opening tear into it, if you get a shot at victory, make damn sureyou take it, seize that moment, that moment is a cross roads whereeverything you want will collide with everything that stands in yourway. You've got momentum at your back, fear and doubt are thunderinglike a freight train straight at you and all you got, the only thingbetween making history and being history, the only thing, the onlything that you can count on any given moment is you. Its you versesthem, its you verses no, its you verses can't, its you verses nextyear, last year, statistics, excuses, you verses history, you versesthe odds, you verses second place, the clock is ticking, lets seewhat you got.

Genesis and family reunions

2011-07-13T13:23:00.000-07:00

Today I was reading Genesis 45 and 46, this is the culmination of a story of epic proportions. Favored son is sold into slavery, bought by a wealthy government official, accused of raping officials wife, thrown into prison, interpreted dreams, got out of prison, explained pharaohs dreams, exalted to second highest person in the land. If the story would have stayed right there, the story would still be a pretty epic representation of the American way, but it goes further, it has a hollywood twist. The same brothers that sold him into slavery come and want to buy food from him. Now we are set up for the perfect Hollywood revenge story, but it never comes, oh yes, he has a bit of fun with them, but in the end he tells his brothers the whole story, not only that, he gives then land and tells them to bring their whole family and most importantly, his father to live with him in Egypt. I was thinking about that family reunion that took place in both chapter 45 and 46. Both his brothers and his father thought he was for sure dead, it makes me think of the amazing family reunion that will happen when Jesus comes again, those that are dead and those that some think are dead will both, with those that are still alive, will be raised up to meet God in the air.

I guess this really is hit home because in a few short days I'll be heading to Yellowstone for our annual family reunion. It's three days of amazing family time. We'll get to meet new family members, commune with old ones and enjoy the time that we spend together. But just like Sabbath is a reminder of what its going to be like in heaven, so are the family reunions that we have on this earth, they point to the eternal family reunion that we will enjoy when the last trumpet sounds and we are all caught up to meet God in the air.

Lesson 1 (2 Boats; 2 Storms)

2010-08-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

The beginning of this story will seem very cliched, but keep reading, the lesson is worth it.

The story is told of 12 friends. They were amazing friends, they did nearly everything together. One day a man came to each of them and asked them to leave everything they and come and learn from him. Each accepted the call and followed him. They followed him for many months and one night got into a boat. These men, most of them, were accomplished seamen, they knew how to sail a boat. The man who brought them all together was asleep, it had apparently been a long day. In the middle of the night a squall came up. These hardened men fought against the storm until they had nothing left to give. They awoke their friend, the one who called all of them. They said “Master we are going to drown.” He then gets up and rebukes the storm and it ceases.

Now lets fast forward nearly 2000 years. A few more friends, a long way further West and probably a bit South as well. A group of friends, all called by God to be where they are. Brought far from their homes for the reason of instruction. Different boat, different group of friends, same God.

The night was late, the “fun” had worn off. We were tired of doing our chores. We were sitting in the boat after dark. A sound started, we weren't sure what to make of it, but soon we would. It was the storm. Not a figurative storm, a literal storm, a Caribbean Sea storm, not a Sea of Galilee storm. Somewhere around midnight, I was sitting watch in my position at the bow of the boat. The rain had stopped, but the wind hadn't. All of a sudden, the clouds split and I could see stars and the moon. I think I was the only one that was up and looking at it. All of a sudden the bible story came to my mind. There was only one change to it. Jesus wasn't there to rebuke the storm for us, but he was doing the same job. Jesus was holding the same position as he was in that boat long ago. Jesus was at the helm. He was keeping watch while all of us slept. It was as if he was saying, “I got this watch you guys, don't worry, you'll be safe.”

Did the waves eventually calm down, yes, it took time, but they did. Did we weather the storm without to much pain, yes. Did we learn the lesson, I hope we did. Far be it for me to tell anyone what lesson that they should have learned. We spent 3 months in Nicaragua and had plenty of lessons that we could have learned. This is just one thing that God spoke to me about. It just happened to be on a boat in a storm tossed sea, very similarly to that of what the disciples dealt with. For me it was just a affirmation of the lesson Jesus was hoping that his disciples would learn. “Where is your faith?” was the question, I hope that after this experience if Jesus wouldn't have to ask the same question, but its a good question to ponder for each and every one of us.

More lessons from Nicaragua to come...

Life...

2010-08-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

This journey has taken some time. I'm going to go back 2 years. Nearly before this blog was started. I took a trip. Those of you who have kept up with my blog know all about my time in Majuro and in the Marshall Islands. Those that served with me know the struggles, heartaches, and fun times that we all had. A journey that most didn't know i was taking was deciding what I wanted from my life.

I came to Union College completely sure that I wanted to do the IRR program and had decided on the pre-PA track to go into. The first few weeks of school actually made me go back and look at IRR, I love music, you guys know that and I almost changed my major to music at that point, but with much prayer and talking to friends and family I decided to stick with IRR. That decision was not an easy decision to make, nor would the next 5 years be the easiest of my life.

I got to the Marshall Islands and finally had time to re-evaluate where I was in my college career, I was at a crossroads and in that year I would have to decide what I was going to do. Really I had originally made my decision not to do nursing because my dad was a nurse and I didn't want to follow him completely. I realized that that decision was based upon the wrong constructs. That wasn't a good reason for my decision. So I was left with the choice, did I really want to be a PA because I was being called there, or was it because I didn't want to be a nurse because of my dad. Don't get me wrong, my dad is an amazing role model and an amazing nurse, but in my juvenile mind I didn't want to copy him.

I don't know that I need to get into all the things that made me decide, but by the end of my time in the Marshall Islands, I had decided that nursing was where I was being called, not PA. I came back with a few questions however, how do I make this calling that God had just made me privy to into reality. With some talking to my parents we decided that changing my major with only one year left of IRR wasn't probably the best idea, so I went ahead and finished out my IRR degree. (On a side note, I should have my REAL diploma in less than a month)

After deciding that I was going to finish my IRR degree first, then came the large task of finding, looking at, and applying to different nursing schools. I started making lists and looking at programs, schools, classes and such. Then the complication came along. NICARAGUA!!! You that have kept up know all about that too, but that tended to throw kinks in the chain for getting apps in and talking to school. I got back and realized that probably I would be looking at Spring or Fall of 2011 before getting in. I was cool with that, not exactly where I was planning, but hey, its all good. I started filling out applications and it took quite some time. I'm cheap. Alumni from union get free transcripts, so I wanted to wait until I got my last class for grad done before sending out my transcripts. Well, I had everything in for Kettering College of Medical Arts except my Union transcripts.

Somewhere around the same time as getting things sent into Kettering, I sent an email to Union College's nursing program. A month or more went by and I figured that might be a sign that that wasn't where I was supposed to go. I, however, decided I'd try sending the email once again. I'm pretty sure God guided my email to the very able hands of Stacie in the nursing dept. We emailed back and forth a few times and she said that I could apply and probably get in for the Spring 2011 class. I was pretty stoked about that. I sent in my application and kept in contact with Stacie. A week after my initial emails with her, she said that if I was in human anatomy (my last pre-req) and it finished durring SCC's summer session that I could be looked at for the Fall 2010 class. This news nearly made me bounce off the walls. I submitted the rest of my application and waited....the longest days of my life. Stacie said they would have to convene a special group to look at my application.

In the same time I got a call on July 2 from Kettering saying that I hadn't submitted everything for the application deadline so my application wasn't even going to be looked at. This was pretty frustrating, it had seemed so much like this is where God was calling me, but all I had to do was sit back and relax and I'd see the thrust of his will.

About 2 weeks after I finished submitting my application this thick envelope from Union College Nursing program came. I was kind of nervous. I opened it and it said "Dear Stephen Baker, we are proud to inform you that you have been provisionally accepted into the nursing program at Union College, congratulations..."

So, after having spent 5 years at Union, I'm preparing to spend another 3 years finishing out my BSN degree.

Second half of the semester

2010-03-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

After a well deserved meal, we headed back to move to the beach. Most of us were looking forward to the beach, it meant not being so hot and sweaty, and of course swimming. We had things that we had to get done while on the beach, but they seemed like more fun, catching fish with either fishing line or a spear, making a sand shelter, and things like that. Our first day on the beach most of us swam the whole day away, and ended up paying for that with pretty bad sunburns, I was no exception, I had bad burns too, I wasn’t too thrilled about the situation, but I knew full well that it was totally my fault. The next few days and nights were uncomfortable, but I survived.
The first day I was the first one to get a fish on a spear and one of the first ones to bring one in on fishing line to, thanks dad for teaching me to fish. It was a good thing someone got a fish early because we needed fish bait.

Our last night of coastline survival a huge storm blew in, it brought with it heavy winds and huge waves. None of us were too thrilled about it, our next course would take us right out in the middle of the waves. We spent most of Sabbath and Sabbath night trying to keep tents up. I quickly remembered what I had been taught about quartering your tent into the wind, in other words pointing the least sloped side into the wind. Most of the tents did really well, a few we had to move around to keep up, my bug hut did amazingly well, I was quite surprised that it performed as well as it did.

After we finished our ocean survival time we headed back to our “home base” in little corn, a quaint little place called “Carlito’s”. I would highly recommend it if you are planning a trip to the little corn island area. $20 a night and food is around $5 a meal. Getting there is probably the expensive part. The next 7 days kind of run together, it was our spring break week. It was a very unstructured week, one of the most frustrating and nice things at the same time. We were responsible for ourselves; we were actually aloud to be adults, a concept…...but a good thing.

I had a total of 4 dives throughout the week of spring break. My first dive was a night dive on a rock called turtle rock and true to the name, we saw a pair of turtles, I have never been that close to a turtle before, it was really amazing. I have to say I think the highlights to the spring break was the diving, all but one was really cool, the one that wasn’t really cool was just some random fish, nothing too big or exciting, I did get to work on my buoyancy control, which was very needed. Now I must say that I think I'm pretty decent at it now.

The trip back from Corn was, like it always is, eventful. I don't think we have ever taken a big trip where everything worked out the way it should have. This time some of our baggage never left Corn, they took our carry on baggage away, and they had 3 of our group switch flights, so their luggage didn't arrive on time either. I'd say it’s the curse of flying with a big group and tons of luggage, but I learned later on that it really isn't that.

I think the highlight of going to Port is going to pizza at the oasis. It never ceases to amaze me how much I love the pizza there. I think its just because its very special and we don't get it very often. We were all bummed that we couldn't have it before, so it was much better, a nice artery clogging meal, its soooooo oily, its terrible.

The next day we finally left Port to head to Francia much later than we wanted to, but WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS!!!! I think it took us about 5.5 hours which is a good time. Everything of course takes longer here, its just what it does. We got "home" at 12:15, a much better time than our last trip here, but still late. We were supposed to have class the next morning, but Jeff said get your stuff cleaned out and put away, so that’s what we did, I think most of us caught up on sleep too.

The short week was very short, we got back on Wednesday morning and SAU came in on Saturday morning, it was amazing having them here. I don't know how they got the gods to smile on them, but they made all their connecting flights and were able to get all their luggage on the same flights, I wish the gods would smile on our group sometime and allow all of our group and luggage to arrive on time together for once…….oh well, I guess we'll see about our trip out of here. Its not that I was getting tired of our group totally, but kind of yes, they brought a whole new dimension to the group here. I made some good friends of their group too. We took a group of them out to the Rio WaWa on Sabbath afternoon, it was quite fun, I didn't swim, but I did have fun showing people how to "shoot" rapids that had never done it before. You could tell a major difference between the IRR majors of UC and the nursing majors of SAU, it was kind of funny to be honest, but they had fun and we had fun, so it was good.

SAU was here for a week and did clinics everyday, so we couldn't do any of ours. That just meant that we had class all week. I wasn't to thrilled, but what it meant was that we are nearly done with one of our classes, this coming Friday we will be done with public health and the week after or so we will be done with travel and tropical health, you don't know how happy that makes all of us here feel. I don't know what we will do with the extra time when we don't have anything to do, but I'm sure we'll find something productive to do with our time. The other nice thing about having SAU here is the fact that we got to send letters back with them to friends. That is the nice thing about having any group come down here, its just a general courtesy that you take letters back and bring them down if you have collected any for the group down here.

I will put a warning at the beginning of this paragraph, if you have a weak stomach, please skip this paragraph. Yesterday was Sabbath and my body wasn't to thrilled with me. I apparently found some sort of GI bug and was throwing up and having diarrhea most of the day until my GI track was all cleared out. Now its been over 24 hours since anything has been in my gut, about 15 minutes ago I had my first Ritz cracker since my episodes yesterday and so far it seems ok. We'll see how it continues for the rest of the day.

Everyone this week is living for Thursday. Thursday four people from UC come to do OBGYN clinics. They'll be here for a while, but they are bringing stuff down for all of us. I'm hoping that 3rd time's the charm for getting my glasses out of not only the Nebraska, but the US as well. They will hopefully be bringing my glasses down, I've gone in my contacts for nearly 2 months straight, not what I like to do, but hey, I do what I need to do.

Today we were supposedly going to hike into Kapri, but we were able to drive the whole way, I was pretty excited about it, however I was kind of looking forward to a hike, but we wouldn't have had all the time to see patients. As it was we didn't get to see everyone that was there to be seen, we will be going back there our last week we are in country, either Tuesday or Thursday.

Friday and Sunday the group from UC did woman's clinics in the MENSA clinic, they had quite the turn out from what I hear, I of course wasn't there, but that’s what they tell me. Guys don't really get to help at all, I know a few of our girls have gotten to go in and assist with the operations, but other than that, I've gotten to set up their room a few times, but that’s the extent of my helping with the OBGYN clinics.

Monday and Tuesday were both clinic days for us. We restarted the rotation with heading back to Santa Claira. That was our first clinic we did down here and the first time we were there, we got swamped with patients, but this time we really didn't see that many people. That has kind of been a trend, I'm glad that is the case, some people are mad, but the less people we see means the less that are sick hopefully. In Santa Claira I worked with Jeff, I always like working with him, he's a teacher at heart and really reminds me of my dad, they have some similar mannerisms. The second clinic was back to Espiransa, that clinic is always fun, we have a clinic that has broken boards in the floor that are big enough to fall in and the Rio WaWa right next-door. At the end of the clinic day we always go swimming in the river, no everyone goes, but after a hot day in the clinic, its pretty much amazing.

We were supposed to have clinic on Wednesday too, but it ended up that we couldn't, so it was going to be a catch up day. I was doing a bit of relaxing when Jeff asked me if I wanted to go into Waspam and help with getting groceries. It sounded like an adventure, so I said yes. We got down to our clinic to pick up the doctor and realized they had someone with a hot appendix that needed transported to Waspam. It took some time to get him loaded up, but we finally got loaded up and on the road. Waspam is on the Hondurian boarder, and right on the Rio CoCo. It took us nearly 2.5 hours to get there. When we got there we dropped the guy off at the hospital and went to go get groceries. We picked up everything we needed and still had some time, so we went and searched out the internet café. After not having internet for nearly 3 weeks, its nice to catch up on everything. Email's from family and friends, comments on fb, emails to write, when you only get internet very infrequently, you learn not to take a ton of time on the internet, but thank you to all who sent me emails and notes on either email or fb. When we were ready to leave Waspam, we stopped at the hospital to see how the guy we had brought was doing. He had just come out of surgery, he had a ruptured appendix, and if we hadn't brought him, he would have died, it was pretty cool that we were at the right place to take him, and to save his life.

Yesterday was our last regular class period this semester. Not to brag to all of you guys that will continue to have school for the next 1.5 months, but our last final is today and when we get back to Union, we don't have any classes, we are all pretty psyched about it. I'm not totally sure I'm ready for the test, but I'll have to be if I'm going to get a good grade on it, it will be in about 4 hours. So plenty of time to brush up on the information.

Well, its getting to be about time for group worship. I'll give you guys a brief rundown on the next few weeks. On Sunday of next week we head back to Waspam, where I'll post this, to head up the Rio CoCo for the week. We spend Monday through Friday on the river doing clinics up at a village called Krinkrin. Friday we head back to Waspam for the night and head back here to Francia on Sabbath morning. We'll get to Francia sometime mid afternoon on Sabbath. Sunday will be our catch up/dry out day. Monday and Friday, I'm not sure, we don't have classes anymore, so not classes, but we'll find something. Tuesday and Thursday we'll be doing clinics, one at Kapri and maybe one at Wisconsin, Wednesday is project development, so we'll try to get everything we can done on the building before leaving. The Sunday (4 April) after that we are leaving very early from Francia to drive to Port, we'll get on a plane and head to Managua and get on a bus to go up to Leon. We'll spend Monday (5 April) in Leon volcano sledding. Tuesday (6 April) we head back to Managua for the next couple of days of recoup and shopping. On Thursday (8 April) at 7a we are sitting on an airplane heading to Houston, arriving there at 11:18a. At 3:00p we are sitting on another airplane heading to Omaha, arriving at 5:12p. Then I'll be back in Lincoln. I hope this just goes to show how close it really is. I love and miss you all.

Half one of Nicaragua

2010-02-23T10:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I thought I'd be updating this blog a lot more frequently, but finally during our spring break week I'm able to get time to gather my thoughts and make an update. For those asking the question whether or not i'm still alive, i'll say yes, for those wondering if i'm healthy I'll say yes other than the sunburn that I'm healing from, but thats a story that deserves to be told a bit later. So we'll see if I can start from the beginning, well, nearly the beginning and those who enjoy long reads can grab your favorite choice of drink and sit in a comfortable chair ;)

I think I updated when we were in Managua, so I'm not going to start there, our flight to Port was postponed and we got there a day late, we were planning on staying the night anyway, but hoping against all hope that we could drive out that day. It didn't happen, things over here are on a much slower schedule than we in the western world would like. After a day and a half in Port we finally hit the road at 6 pm. They had said we couldn't leave in the dark the night before, but I guess they changed their minds and let us leave. The trip to Francia is only 100 kliks (Km), but it took us nearly 8 hours to do it. We had a tie rod break on the way there and the second truck get stuck. Our truck is a 1948 Duce and a half. For those not privy to the military names, duce is 2 tons, so a duce and a half is 6000 lb. I know we haul more than that in it, which is probably why they break down, well that and the age of the vehicle. After the break down and the other truck getting stuck, we didn't make as good of time and we made it to Francia just before 3 am. We all just sunk into our beds and waited until morning to do much of anything. I woke up at about 11 and did not much of anything in the first few days, we were told that we could go to church, but most didn't, between the international travel, the intranational travel, and the duce ride. It took most of 2 days for all of us to get acclimated to the new weather, new abode and new schedule.

We spent the next week or so cleaning up the clinic in Francia and getting things done on the hill (where we live). The UC building wasn't as finished as they had let on to believe, so we are in the bunk houses that the mission has for SM's. Most of us had minor diherea the first week of being there, our guts were getting a whole new set of flora and we were having oh so much fun with it.

The second week we actually started our normal schedule. Monday and friday are class days where we are quizzed and tested over jungle health care and public health, Tuesday's and Thursday's we leave the hill around 7:30 or 8 and head out to the various villages and work in clinics there and do village health care. We rotate through the different stations, receptions, vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So far in my rotations I've done all but reception. We work in teams of 3-4 in receptions, vitals, and pharmacy and in pairs for consultations. For consultations we work with either Jeff Joiner (our group leader and division chair), Dr. Lineres (sp), or Mrs. Lineres (Nurse).

So far we have been to 4 of the 9 villages we wanted to; we have been to St. Claira, Wisconsin, Espiransa, and TiCamp. In most of these villages we see anywhere from 20-30 families. That doesn't mean we've seen 20-30 people thought, sometimes the family includes all extended and cousins and everyone you call family regardless of whether or not they are family, but our usual is no more than 5 in each group to keep things going in the vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So on a good day we might see anywhere between 70 and 150 people. I don't think we've ever seen the latter, but in most villages we do max the village out, we see everyone there is to see.

Most of the complaints are due to worms and not drinking enough water. Everyone has a fever, everyone has pain, everyone has worms. Even if they don't say they have worms we still treat them for worms, one 400 mg tablet of Albendazol and nine 100 mg tablets of Mebendezol should cure them of worms for the next three months. The other major drug we give out by what seems like the case is Amoxicillin, we have it in 4 different forms for your taking pleasure......har har har. I've mixed up way more than I wanted to in my life, but hey down here, it still kills off most of what ails people. Some people remember times when Penicillin could do that, I don't, it would kill off me if I took it, but there was a time when it killed everything, UTI, URI and everything else.

Monday in addition to our classes we also have 2 fun white tablets that are such great tasting things, NOT!!!! Monday is Chloroquine day (for those that don't know, chloroquine is a drug for malaria). Chloroquine is a drug that is taken weekly starting a week before you leave and lasting 2-4 weeks after you get back. As Jeff told us, “the chances of you getting malaria is pretty high, chloroquine won't keep you from getting it, it will just diminish the effects of the illness.” So far I'm not sure whether any of us have contracted the illness, I don't think I have, and I hope I don't ever, its not a fun illness to have from what I've heard.

I left out what happens on Wednesday's. On Wednesday's we work on projects that need to be done, both in Francia and on the hill. We haven't been doing a lot for those, but we have only had 3 of those days, mostly we don't have enough jobs to do, so we don't do much, its just a catch up day, which seems to be needed every week.

The weeks kind of run together now, in Francia and going out to the villages is all we really do. Don't get me wrong, it is fun, and if I was writing this every night or so I'd probably have quite a bit more to say about it. So that much sums up the first 3 or so weeks that we've been here in Nicaragua, now the next part will be about our adventures going to and being on Little Corn Island.

We left bright and early on Sunday morning, in fact earlier than we had thought we were going to. It ended up being about 6 am when we left. When we left it wasn't raining, but not to long after we started out it started, we've gotten pretty used to the rain, its something that just happens, you get the bag out of your pack and cover it, you'll dry out eventually, most of us don't even put on rain coats. About an hour into our drive we all had breakfast, well all it was, we each had a grapefruit and a bit of bread, then later on we had crackers and chips. We were all amazed when the sun came out, we started to dry out and actually got warm. We were all ok with not eating much for breakfast or lunch for that matter, we knew that pizza was waiting for us when evening came in Francia. We got to Francia in record time, 4.75 hours, not the 8 it had taken the last time. We all got checked into our hotel, we pretty much fill up one hotel there, they are called the twins or thats what I call them, two separate hotels, but owned by the same person, the guys get the ocean, the girls get the wireless internet. I don't think its quite fair, but its ok, both are good places to stay. We all got loaded onto the duce and went over to the pizza place to find out that its owned by a Catholic family and its not open on Sunday's. We were all very bummed about that. We found another place, but it was way overpriced and not very good food, we ate there anyway, they kind of roll up the sidewalks at night there. After a very disappointing supper we all headed back to head to bed Monday morning was going to come very fast and early.

Monday morning was a quite early morning, we had to be at the airport by 7 am. The airplane that goes to Bluefields wasn't big enough to take our whole group, so half of us (the guys) ended up flying back through Managua. We got through check in and such and were pretty happy our dive gear bags didn't cost us any extra, that was a blessing in itself. So our trip was going to be from Port to Managua to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island, whereas the girls were going to go from Port to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island. Well we arrived in Managua and were on the ground just long enough to refuel the plane and to go back through security. Maybe a 15 minute turn around time. It was one of the shortest turnaround times I've ever experienced. We were told that the girls would arrive about the same time we did to Bluefields, but they ended up being 4 hours later than us.

When we arrived at Bluefields and realized that we were stuck there for quite some time we rechecked our bags so that we didn't have to carry them around the city looking for stuff. We found some lunch, it was amazing, a couple of us had “sandwich con amerillo cheese” (sandwich with yellow cheese), it was thee first yellow cheese we had seen since leaving the States. They have cheese down here, but its not so good, its sour and just gross. We went back to the airport and just waited for the girls to come in. We waited for what seemed like forever, but they finally came in. They were told that our flight would be in 45 minutes, so all of them went and scarfed food and came back. In all actuality we were waiting there for like 2 more hours. About 5 pm we finally got on an airplane to make the 35 minute flight out to Big Corn.

We arrived on Big Corn and made it through everything and headed down to the dock to get on the “panga” (little boat) that was going to take us to Little Corn. We waited for a while for the rest of our group. We found out soon that they weren't coming, apparently neither Big Corn neither Bluefields had runway lights, so they had to suspend the flights. This was just one of the fun things we had to deal with. So we left and headed to Little Corn. We got to Little Corn about 7, well after sundown, and lugged all our stuff over to the “resort” where we would be staying that night and the rest of our “spring break” week. We got there and a good meal was waiting for us and soft beds.

The next morning came and so did the rest of our group and the rest of our luggage. We were happy to see both believe me. When the rest of our group got there we searched around for a suitable place for our jungle survival course, we found one without to much trouble and got the whole group to that location.

The Jungle survival course was pretty fun. We got to build a shelter that one person could stay in, we got to prove that we could still make fire using our metal match, we got to break open coconuts without breaking open the nut and letting all the milk/water out, we got to build snares to try and catch things, but overall it was a very cool experience. Since it was a survival exercise we didn't get to eat anything we didn't find in the jungle, I mostly ate coconuts, some people boiled water and had crabs, but I figured that I know I could eat them but since they are “unclean” meat I didn't want to. I also ate a few, very sour, oranges, let me tell you, think the most sour lime you have ever eaten and then go about 10 steps further sour, thats about where these sit.

I can't finish this now, I need to get this uploaded before internet goes down again. I'll upload the rest later.

Love

SB

IRR Update - Feb 19, 2010

2010-02-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

A message from Linda Becker, VP for Student Services

Dear Parents of IRR Students in Nicaragua:

I have just returned from visiting the IRR Students on Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. They had just completed their jungle survival and their water raft survival exercises. They had great appetites and were pretty excited to complete their test and be on spring break. I took this picture and several others that we will post as soon as we can. As you can see they are all doing well!
We will let you know where more pictures are posted as soon as time permits.

Have a great day!

IRR Update - Feb 4, 2010

2010-02-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

We are just beginning our third week at the Tasba Raya Adventist Mission in Francia Sirpi, Nicaragua. Our dorm/school building continues to progress. They should start laying the second floor this week and then begin framing the second story. We have been busy - we have now had four outreach medical clinics the last two weeks. Two clinics were held in Francia and one each
in Santa Clara and Wisconsin. Students have been busy working with Dr. Linares and the two nurses. So far, our students have assisted with several minor surgical procedures, splinted a few broken limbs, given several injections, filled hundreds of prescriptions and have improved their Spanish and are learning Miskito. We have assisted in the stabilization and transport of a villager who was bitten by a bushmaster, the patient lived!

We are settling into our routine at the clinic and our classes. One more week in Francia and then we change locations as we transit to Little Corn Island for a week of Jungle, Ocean & Shoreline Survival training with Mike Lowe. That week will be followed by a week of spring break on Little Corn for relaxation, scuba diving & snorkeling, and maybe some deep sea fishing! At least there will be no homework! All students wish to tell their families hello and we love you all. We anxiously await reports from our fellow IRR students who are responding to the earthquake in Haiti - they remain in our prayers also.

IRR Update - Feb 2, 2010

2010-02-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

This is a note from Jeff that was sent on Tuesday:

Well we finally made it to Francia at 0300 Sabbath AM. Nice cool ride in the deuce at night. There was a lot to do in Port so we left late Friday afternoon. The duece only broke down one time, but they were able to get it going. The Milky Way was just jumping out of the night sky, very pretty.

Every one is safe, a few have started having some GI upset, but it appears to only be lasting a day or so. Our dorm is not finished yet so we will be doing quite a bit of construction work the first three weeks or longer. We are also painting the clinic in the village and doing lots of odd-jobs on the hill. we are hoping to have our first clinic Tuesday the 19th.

Everyone is working hard and spirits are high. The weather has been mild and no rain yet. We are still in the dry season - we need rain or we will be rationing showers - never good for a group. Everyone says Hello to their family and friends - keep us in your prayers.

Travel can be fun.......

2010-01-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

I have internet again......well maybe its still. We got all packed up this morning, checked out of the motel, over to the airport in plenty of time for our flight. We stood in line for hours waiting then got told eventually that our flight to port had been canceled because of strong winds. So we are back at the same motel again. its pretty nice, for the first time in quite some time I'm acting like a tourist in a tourist area......amazing I know. Our flight was rescheduled for 615 tomorrow morning, this means that we have to be up extremely early. Even earlier than I was up this morning.

Being back in this climate is sure amazing. I don't know if its the climate specifically or if its the "I know I really don't have any classes to weigh me down" mentality, but whatever it is I'm loving it. I don't know for sure, but it feels like the start of something coming back that I haven't felt since I left the Marshall Islands. Today has been really nice, after we found out that we weren't leaving today, we were given the day just to do what we wanted to. So far today I've eaten 2x, swam in the pool, sat by the pool, walked around the very nice compound here at the "resort", and now gotten on the internet. Its a pretty relaxing day, or I think so.

I know I'm not in a totally immersed scenario, but learning spanish, I'm learning is way easier when that is mostly what you hear. I have picked up and remembered quite a bit more spanish than I thought I remembered or knew, its really cool.

Well, I think I'm going to go for my next activity, a nap. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but it could be quite some time (3 weeks) before I get internet again.

Day of travel 1

2010-01-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, I didn't get to update this before now, but I thought I'd update now. We just arrived in Nicaragua, it was a bit arduous getting to the hotel, but we made it. The country from what I can tell is very beautiful, or the compound we are in right now is, maybe its that. So far everything is going really well. Tomorrow we fly back across the country to Puerto Cobezos then we take a 6-8 hour truck ride up to where we will be making our home for the next 3 months. I have to keep this short, I'll catch you guys up the next time I have internet.

The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

2010-01-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one,' but I think He

must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did. Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot
roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable. God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff. Oh, yeah, I just thought of one
more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the Battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me. After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats. Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead. Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again.
He went up to Heaven but will be back and then comes the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

This time last year....

2010-01-01T15:13:00.001-08:00

I was listening to a song the other day, it has become a favorite song over the years. Its done by Kenny G, it is Auld Lang Sine, but he adds some very famous pieces of speaches to it. It made me think.....what happened in the last year. For those that have been following this blog since its creations, you know what was happening last year. I was in the Marshall Islands, I've been back for nearly 8 months, there are parts of me that don't believe that it has been that long and others that say its been way longer. Some things, no matter how excting are starting to fade into the back of my mind, only by talking to fellow SM's do they come out. I've gotten to talk to a few of my fellow friends that went with me, its been amazing.

Today marks the first of January as you all know, but it also marks me being in the country only a few more weeks, in fact not even two weeks. My parent's don't like me talking about it, I understand it, I "just" got back, now I'm leaving.....its tough. Our instructor gave us time tables on when we sould have stuff done. I finally have "all" of my stuff together and packed up. I say "all" because I'm sure that I'll find more things that need to go in, but for now its done. I'm getting very excited about this trip, I'm hopeing that I'll find a piece of myself that seems to be missing since I came back from the Marshall Islands, hopefully I'll bring it back with me when I come back from Nicaragua. I just got done looking at the weather, it looks like its going to be about the same temperature as it was in the Marshall Islands, highs in the mid 80's, and something different than the Marshall's, lows in the mid 70's, it is a surprise, but I guess it is 14 degree's north instead of the 7 degrees that the Marshall's were, it will be a refreshment.

On Sunday I will be heading back to Union. We have 6 days to get conversational Spanish and Moskito down. We will be in the classroom for 4-5 hours a day learning the two languages. Then a weekend retreat, come back for one last day, then we fly the coup....figurativly of course. We will be leaving quite early Tuesday morning, not next, but the one after that. I'll update with times and places later, I don't know when we will first have internet when we get in country, but I'll update when I can.

Contemplation......

2009-12-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-18T01:10:00.001-08:00

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.....

2009-12-14T18:38:00.001-08:00

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.....

2009-12-13T12:42:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-08T03:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-06T11:18:00.000-08:00

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

2009-05-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-28T13:59:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-14T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

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.

Christmas in the Tropics

2008-12-26T23:59:00.000-08:00

This is kind of an update that I wrote about the whole year, its quite long, so have fun, sit back and see how my love was......

This is a long needed and over due update to my blog, for my faithful followers, sorry that it has taken me this long to get this caught up. To those of you who are just finding me, I’ll fill you in on what’s happening this year. I guess this will take the form of a “year in review.” I guess I’ll start from about a year ago.

I hailed in the new year as I usually do, sleeping right through it, I figure there is no reason to stay up that late because, there isn’t anyone to stay up with and it will come whether I want it to or not. Everyone that was home decided to turn in at about 10:00 and I might have stayed up until 10:30, but that was it. I was kind of savoring the “liberating” experiences of the past few months when my girlfriend at the time broke up with me.

At this point in time I was in the middle of signing up to become a Student Missionary. I had filled out the necessary paperwork and such. I had all my money to the college, at that point I was just waiting to see where God wanted me. Since I was enjoying this time of no serious relationships, I figured that I would extend it through my year abroad. I thought that would be a good idea. Union cautions against it, they don’t say you can’t go if you have a relationship, but they do say that it’s easier if you don’t have one.

Sticking to that theme, I wasn’t even looking for a relationship. Second semester started and my favorite job started, I was a teacher in the EMT program, I love that job and miss it greatly right now. I teach with about 15 other people and we all just do what is necessary to keep the head instructors sane.

At this point in life God decided to throw me a curve ball. He decided to let me work with a girl named Beth Cook, a very able and willing EMT that had transferred in that year from Washington State. I wasn’t sure how well we hit it off, but she seemed cool and very knowledgeable in the area we were teaching together. The next day break started and so I worked on an email to send to her thanking for her expertise and saying it was good to work with her. I worked for 3 days on it. I didn’t want to make any hit of me trying to flirt or go after her or anything, just a professional email. I’ve been known to flirt and its gotten me in trouble a few times.

I finally got it sent and within hours I had a response, I thought that kind of odd, people don’t usually respond that fast, but we exchanged real email addresses and started talking on IM. I remember the night well. We were talking and I was listening to songs on my computer, the song came up on my playlist, “Cosmic Cowboy,” by Berry McGuire. I thought she might like to hear it, so I sent it to her, she loved it. I thought that kind of odd, most people can’t relate to it.

I told my parents about this friend of mine, they just made playful jokes that she must be a good girl, if she likes those songs. I couldn’t really disagree. For the next month or so we just talked as we found time, not super often, but we did spend time together. One night I asked her what her plans were over Spring Break. She said she was going to go to Moab for Spring Break. I said, kind of in jest, well if it falls through you could come to my house for break. Not thinking much of it I just left it there. I didn’t think about it until Beth said that she was wondering if the offer still stood. I was frantic; I hadn’t asked my parents or anything. I told her I’d get back to her. I called my parents and told them the situation, and that I hadn’t really intended on her saying yes when I asked her, they understood and said yes. They were hesitant because my last ex had spent the last Spring Break with us and it wasn’t a good thing. I assured them that Beth wasn’t anything like my ex.

As the time got closer I was kind of getting excited, I still had my plan with God, but I didn’t know how Beth fit into this plan that I thought God had given me. Usually I didn’t have anyone ride with me, so I was used to quite for 7 hours other than the occasional call from home or to home telling them where I was at. This trip however would be different; we talked the whole 7.5 hours home nonstop. We talked about tons of different things, likes, dislikes, family, friends, past relationships, you name it. It was pretty cool, but as we got closer to home, Beth became quieter and quieter, she was kind of scared to meet my parents, there wasn’t anything I could do to change it either.

We finally made the last right turn and were home. There were big hugs waiting for both of us. My parents and Beth hit it off really well. Better than I had thought possible. We did all sorts of stuff over the break, we walked the dogs, we went to museums, we played games, watched movies, and most of all got to know each other.

I asked Beth one question important question…no not to marry me, you are jumping way to far ahead in the story….I asked her why my email had sparked that much interest, it didn’t have any spark in it, I made sure of it. What she said scared me, she said I know, that’s what made part of it. The other part was God was pointing her toward me for the past 3-4 months or so. That was her last test, and I guess without knowing it I passed with flying colors. That break to I got to meet one of Beth’s cousins, Mic. She was about to fly out to Washington I think, and she and her boyfriend Andrew met us at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. We had a ball of a time, it was so much fun.

It was after that week that felt that it was Gods plan that we should persue a relationship together. We didn’t know exactly how it was going to work, but we decided that as long as we both kept God #1 we would be ok with it.

The second toughest day of the year or so I thought came about 3 months later when I said goodbye for what we knew would be quite some time. I don’t think either of us realized how long it would be or how hard it would be. Beth headed to North Platte to do her open water cirtification and I was heading home to spend a few days of break before heading to LE for the summer.

The 2 months of LE seemed to go extremely fast, the communication between Beth and I was kind of difficult, we did our best, but our schedules didn’t mesh that well, once a week was about max, but we learned to deal with it and dare I say thrive on it. Soon enough the summer was done. The stories of the summer are totally amazing and need to be told, but in another place and another time.

The hardest day I had ever had was when my parents dropped me off at the airport. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the next time I would see my parents, I’d be a very changed man, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Some would have a hard time recognizing me later on. The first leg of the trip wasn’t to bad, I sat next to a very nice older couple who go from Illinois to Texas every year, they used to drive, but got to old for that so started flying, we talked most of the way to Dallas, so it didn’t give me much of a chance to think. The second leg of the trip did however give me time to think, we were in bound into Hawai’i and that is a longer flight. The “fun” of the trip was still on me though, so I didn’t feel it yet. It wasn’t until I landed and called my parents to tell them that I had a safe trip that I realized how far from home I was.

WE spent the better part of 3 days in Hawai’i and most of that time was in meetings and activities that were supposed to “help” us when we got to our schools, I’m not so sure it helped, but it’s a nice thing to think. The thing that made it seem less like half way around the world was Pastor Rich and a few of my friends that were there. It kind of just felt like just being at some sort of Union event.

I didn’t realize it during the summer, but only being able to talk to Beth once a week really worked out to our advantage, it made the transition to the school year were we only get to talk once a week also a lot easier.

Soon enough the 3 days were over and we were having to wake up at 2 am just to catch our flight to the islands. We boarding our plane and taking off. That flight was a bit of a slap in the face by reality, I was leaving some of my friends, but I still had a few with me.

Our island is the first island that is stopped on, so my flight was shorter than the rest of the groups. I’m not sure that reality was really working at that point, I was in a jet lagged state and all I wanted to do was sleep. But like a good traveler I adjusted to the new time zone and went to bed in the new time zone. The next morning reality hit me again when I realized that communication with the mainland would be very tough. I talk to my parents very often normally, but here…….not so much. I did make brief contact to say that I was here safely. The next few days were spent in getting classroom, lesson plans, and appt set up. I was also working on getting communications up and running better.

Teachers are always told that the first day of class is the most vital day; it will tell you what the rest of the year will be. So the first morning I walked into my classroom with an Iron Fist. By the end of the first day I was feeling pretty good. It wasn’t the easiest day, but it wasn’t the Hellish day that some of my esteemed collogues said they had, so I thought this is going to be pretty easy. I’m not so sure now that easy is the right word, but for me, teaching defiantly isn’t the hard part.

Having been pretty closely tied to teaching my whole life I’ve picked up skills and resources. Having taught in many different levels has given me some experience. This isn’t to say that I know everything about teaching, but I think I have a good grasp on it.

I would learn in the later months that teaching wasn’t my hard part, it was friends here. I don’t make friends that easily. It takes a lot and it’s usually easier for me to make friends that are girls. I leaned a big lesson during the summer that I had to be especially careful about how I treated girls lest they get the wrong idea. Knowing that I made myself very distant for a long time until I felt comfortable that no one was going to “jump” me, and get me in trouble with relationships. As I would later tell my mom, “Beth is THE priority; I won’t let anyone get in the way of that.”

There are way too many stories to tell from the first 5 months of my life here in Majuro that I’ll tell as I get time.

I’m writing this at the end of the first 5 months; just too kind of chronicle the first half. I know from experience that the second half goes faster than the first, and I hope that continues to hold true. I think most of the teachers here are ready to head home for some time of rest, but we all know that we have 5 more months. As for me, I have 7 more months before I go home. I fly straight to Denver for my summer LE job again. Then I get some time at home. But Denver is 1/10^th of the distance I am right now and certainly in the Verizon network.

I guess that’s what I’ve got for now. I’ll add more when the end of second semester comes I guess.

Has it really been a month?

2008-11-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

I have noticed something very frustrating; it's been a long time since I’ve been able to update my blog. This isn’t for lack of trying to, but the internet connection here isn’t the greatest and it just makes it very hard. I’ve been sending emails to some of the people I have time to do, so I think I’ll just take excerpts from them and post here. I hope all of you are doing well.

So I had just about the coolest experience that I’ve had since I got here. It happened on Friday. Every Friday there is a bake sale for one of the graduating classes. This past week it was the kindergarten class, they have to “pay” for their graduation. I let my class out a bit early so that they could go and buy; mostly it was just sugary stuff so I of course didn’t buy anything. I cam back to the appt. to change after school so that I could go run so errands before Sabbath, when I went back by one of the teachers was like come over here and buy something. I had already eaten lunch, so really wasn’t hungry, but those little kindergartners are so cute, so I was like ok, fine. They had some banana bread so I was like how much is it? They said it was $1.50 so I walked back to the appt., and I grabbed a $10 bill. I had fully intended on just buying one, but they were like if you buy 3 then you get a free drink, I don’t know why I did, I wasn’t thirsty, but I did it, I also said something else that kind of surprised me, I said keep the change, I paid with $10 and my stuff didn’t cost more than $4.50. They were stunned and I walked off. I then started to wonder what I was going to do with 3 loaves of fresh banana bread. I saw one of my fellow teachers that I don’t get along with very well and threw one to him. I then saw 3 of my students sitting in the grass and they didn’t have food, so I went over and I gave them 2 loaves to share. I left feeling really good, I walked back toward my classroom and they stopped me again and said that since I’d paid “so” much they wanted to give me one more loaf. I then told them that I hadn’t bought them to eat, I bought them because it was a good cause, I’d just given all 3 loaves away and if I was given another one I’d do the same thing again. I left them stunned again. It was pretty much the coolest thing I know.

I hope this experience blesses you as much as it blessed me when it happened to me. I know that it was God working through my actions. I didn’t want to buy, I didn’t need to buy, for sure didn’t need to leave them the change, but I did all of that, I can only say it was because of God. I don’t know of any way other than that to describe it.

So we heard someone speak from the Diabetes center here, the statistics were alarming. 35% of those that are 15 have diabetes, and once you get to 35, you have a greater chance of having diabetes than you don’t. It's pretty sad, most all the diabetes here is type 2, so as you know it's preventable, but no one cares. That’s the even sadder thing.

Yesterday I had someone from the accreditation team sit in on one of my classes, it was kind of odd, we were just working on homework, so he sat and watched us work on it, at the end he had a couple questions then he left. This, so far, is the easiest accreditation I’ve been through. They are so laid back it's not even funny, they didn’t even ask to see my lesson plans or my grade book. That is usually SOP, but hey I’m not complaining, if they would have asked, they wouldn’t have found anything to exciting, just that I’m exactly where I should be and everything is up to date and entered.

The above has been kind of an excerpt from what I’ve been doing for the last little bit. Now I’m going to add what I’ve been doing recently. Things have been going really good, I have absolutely no complaints. I was asked by one of my friends back at school if I at all regret coming here, and I have to say no I really don’t. As hard as it is being away from family and friends, I know that God has blessed me far beyond my imagination could ever say.

I was saddened as most of you were by the news that 4 young men died in a car accident. They were all students of PUC. As you know, I don’t attend PUC, but it hits us all that they died. One of the teachers here was good friends with all of them, so she is taking it pretty hard. I looked at the comments that have been left on the PUC website and it was amazing the support that everyone, not just PUC students are giving them. There were students, faculty, and divisions that were all stopping by to give condolences. It was really touching. Even though we are “rival” colleges, it's nice to know that in everyone’s time of need that the other colleges are there to give support.

Well, I should probably wrap this up; I’ll update this when I can. I hope you guys are all doing well, and I really apologize to my loyal readers for not getting this updated any sooner.

It's been a while

2008-10-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

Well I just looked, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog. I’m sorry about that; I’ve been kind of busy. There has been a lot going on and I haven’t been able to keep up with everything very well. This last week was the beginning of second quarter, which meant that grades were due, most of my collogues had a hard time with it, I had been keeping up with it pretty well, so I didn’t have much trouble with it.

As I’ve been able to look back on the last quarter, I’ve seen myself grow a bit. The following is a list of the things I’ve learned both from teaching and from just being over here in Majuro.

Job descriptions are only good as long as you are doing said job, description can change as soon as you are done with that job.
For every student that says that they don’t understand, there is one that doesn’t say anything that really doesn’t understand.
All it takes is one funny comment for the whole class to crack up in a serious moment.
When a teacher says that they have to wake up early to grade, they are probably telling the truth.
When you want to, you can come up with one thing worse than you just went through.
A package from home can make the worst day seem like it was nothing.
Expecting a package from home and not getting it can make the best day turn into a bad day.
Anything that you want to come faster will arrive about the time you forget about it coming.
Waves look a lot smaller and tame when you are on the beach than when you are in the water.
With God you can come up with a worship talk in less than 5 minutes.
You need to have 3 things to look forward to, one in the near future, one a bit further off, and one a long way off. The challenge is keeping the 3 in balance.
The only thing keeping you from spending more time with God is: YOU.
The berries are always sweeter on the other side of the mountain, but it has nothing to do with the taste.
When you think you have your students figured out they throw you a curve ball that you either have to adjust and hit or strike out on.
One way to help keep students occupied is to throw them curve balls; you’ll find out fast what they know by doing so.
Going to be early and waking up early, might not make you healthy, wealthy, or wise, but it does have other things going for it.
If you can’t learn from other people’s mistakes and you can’t learn from your own mistakes, you’ll probably make the mistake again.
In a classroom you will have a huge dichotomy, you will have the loud student that gets everything done correctly and you will have the quite student that does the same.
Asking yourself what your students would do might be a bit scary, but asking how Jesus would teach something gives immense amounts of insight.
God uses quite times to re-teach you lessons that you were to busy to hear the first time.
Sermons don’t always come from a pastor or a pulpit; they can come from where ever God thinks is the right time and place.
Alone time is worth its weight in gold.
There is a difference between surviving and thriving even though they are only 2 letters different.
You are never to busy to pray.
And one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn; “This is the Marshall Islands, it doesn’t matter how I would do it in the States, I’m not in the states.”

These are just a short sample of the things I’ve learned while I’ve been over here, as time goes by, I’ll continue adding to the list, and see what I have by the time my time is done here.

A week ago I was running and I slipped on a little puddle of water and went down. When it was all said and done, I had a pretty badly scraped knee and a bruise about 8x5in on my left thigh. It took about 3 days, but I finally got back the ability to move both more than about 6 inches. Now they are doing much better. You know how hard it is for things to scab over when they never dry out? Here nothing dries out, it took 3.5 days for my knee to scab over, it was kind of frustrating, but hey, its life.

You have to chuckle at your students occasionally. I have one student that asks to pray every other class period. His prayer is always; “GOD IS GREAT AND GOD IS GOOD, NOW I THANK YOU FOR THIS DAY……..AMEN.” He nearly screams it at the top of his lungs, not exactly the way I’d like him to pray sometimes, but God is the one who is receiving the prayer not me, and I’m sure he likes it just as good as the prayers I pray.

I’m sorry this has taken so long to get updated. I’ll try and do a better job at updating it now. I have been keeping on updating my pictures too. Check them out too. Have a great week and weekend.

Stephen Baker

Another Year Older

2008-10-11T12:07:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm a little late with this posting, the last week has been anything but easy. I don't know if it was the full moon, change in tides, or just the students wanting to test our patience, but they did a good job at running all the teachers up the walls. When Friday afternoon finally came around, all any of us wanted to do was sleep. Me personally though I couldn't. I had to prepare for Vespers, I was the speaker. I was going to do something amazing, but decided to show a movie instead. It is a talk given by Louie Gigleo, he is an amateur astronomer and he mainly proves the existence of God by showing different stars. Its pretty cool, I always like seeing it.

Yesterday was a pretty special day, for two reasons really, first, I got to talk to my parents, that was pretty cool. The second thing was that it was my birthday yesterday. It was a very uneventful birthday, which is the way I like it, I'm not particularly a party person, I like to hang out in the background. I got a movie from my parents, so I watched it before bed, and then went to bed, that was about the extent of my extracurricular activities. I know, not to exciting, but hey, its all good, I like having nice quite days.

It was pretty much exciting, I got two packages from my family this last week and two packages from Union College, so this week was the most packages I've gotten at once or anything. It was really cool to get stuff from home, but equally cool to read about everything that was going on back at good old union.

Well, I need to get busy on grading and all, I hope all of you guys are doing well and keeping out of trouble, I sure try. I'll update again the week probably.

Oh, so I posted new pictures on my picture blog, if you guys want to go check that out, the web address is:http://picasaweb.google.com/stbaker1986/BloggerPictures?authkey=sjU7ZMfxyYE#

Holidays and tests

2008-10-01T23:03:00.000-07:00

This week has been pretty good. Last week we had friday off because of Manit day. I don't really know what its about, but its a day off of school, so I wasn't going to argue. This week has been marked with tests. Two test in one day, and then the other two were spread out over two days. Tests are another thing teachers look forward to, it is a time when the whole classroom is silent for fear of getting a zero on a test. Oh the manipulative powers that teachers have. The hard part comes with grading tests. When you have like 32 students in two classes that have the same test, it becomes a chore to actually grade them, but that's what sunday is ment for I've come to realize to catch up on grading and such.

I was kind of frustrated today, I was in the middle of proctoring a test and the principle comes and asks me if he can have 4 of the students that are taking the test. I immediately said no, but then he told me that it was because of a funeral here on the island of one of the students grandparents. Its nice and frustrating at the same time that the families are so close. The not so nice part about it is the fact that one funeral can shut down the school, and has a few times in the past, especially if it is someone affiliated with the school or a parent/grandparent.

I got the privalige of having the talk for worship the other night. I don't know if you have ever heard the song "cosmic cowboy" by Berry McGuire, but I told that story in first person. It was pretty cool, we have some people in our group that it really reached out to. For those that don't know the song, these are the lyrics:

I met a cosmic cowboy, ridin’ a starry range

He’s a supernatural cowboy, an’ He’s dressed up kinda’ strange

At first I didn’t see Him, bein’ out there on the run

But that ol’ hat that He was wearin’, shinin’ brighter than the sun

An’ when my eyes adjusted, to the flashin’ of His smile

I saw His invitation, sayin’ come on Barry we’ll go ridin’ for a while

We rode along together, for more than half a day

Right out through the changin’ weather, the sky was all turnin’ grey

Chilly winds were blowin’, the cold was cuttin’ deep

Then it started snowin’, an’ the trail was gettin’ steep

I was just about to turn around, head on back down the way we came

When somehow, without a sound, I heard Him call my name

Lookin’ up I saw we was high up on this ridge

He took me by my arm, an’ led me right over to the edge

I was so scared I couldn’t find a single word to say

I mean there’s ten thousand feet of empty air an’ it’s just about an inch away

But a million miles was out beyond the wavin’ of His hand

An’ I was lookin’ through His eyes, right into another land

He said, “This is my Father’s ranch, just as far as you can see

He made it out of nothin’, every branch an’ every tree

Made the stars an’ all the mountains, the rivers an’ the streams

Made the oceans an’ the fountains, an’ the valley of your dreams

That’s right, I know that place you been lookin’ for, that place you long to be

Truth is I’m the only door, you’re gonna have to pass right through me”

Then bendin’ back I tipped my hat to look Him in the eye

He just smiled an’ gave me confidence, sayin’ “Go ahead an’ try”

Well, it was now or never, an’ I knew I had to start

So I took my first step an’ I went fallin’ deep into His heart

First thing that I noticed comin’ out inside

Was all my fears were washed away, He’s teachin’ me I can fly

Yeah, there’s a cosmic cowboy, an He’s ridin’ a starry range

He’s a supernatural ploughboy, an’ He is dressed up kinda’ strange

At first I didn’t even see Him bein’ out there on the run

But that ol’ hat that He was wearin, shinin’ brighter than the sun

An’ when my eyes adjusted, to the flashin’ of His smile

I saw His invitation, sayin’, “come on Barry, we’ll go ridin’ for a while”

Cowboy, of the light, shootin’ rainbows through the nigh

He’s my Cowboy, of the light, shooting His rainbows

Golden rainbows, eternal rainbows through the night

Its kind of a powerful song that I really like, It touches different people in different ways, but those that grew up in the mountains or in the country can sure feel it in a really good way.

Well, Its about time for me to run. I hope you all that are reading this are doing well. I'm doing well. I ask for your prayers and I thank you for them in advance.

Yet another fun filled, action packed week here in the Marshall Islands

2008-09-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today is a holiday here on the island, I'm not exactly sure as to what its for, I asked some of my students, but none of them could give me a straight answer, just its a holiday, duh.......I knew that already, oh well, its a day I don't have to teach. It didn't stop me from getting up very early. I've been getting up at about 4:30 for the past 2 or so weeks. I really don't care though, I feel fully rested and fine, so its all good. I also go to bed around 8:30, so really its a full 8 hours of sleep.

I was amazed this morning when I read an email from my dad. I wasn't so much amazed that he sent me an email, but I was surprised at something he said. He said that he'd see me in just 255 days. I hadn't been thinking about how long it was until I actually come home, but that really doesn't seem like that long. I know when I think about it in months, it does, but just 255 days, not to bad, but then at the same time, it is kind of a long time. There is part of me that says that I've been here long enough to experience what missions is like and now I'm ready to go home, but there is another part of me that is so thrilled that God is using me to help out over here, and why would I want to go home any earlier than God has plans for me to go home. I guess its kind of a constant struggle, especially when you know that your family and friends are having so much fun back at home. It can get really tough, but then you just have to remember that you are doing good here too.

I'm working on getting some pictures posted to picasa, so that you guys that keep up with my blog, you will be able to see some pictures as well.

Well, I should probably get going on other things now. I hope all of you are doing well.

This is the link for my blog pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/stbaker1986/BloggerPictures?authkey=sjU7ZMfxyYE#

Priorities, you have to have priorities

2008-09-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

Something that being a Student Missionary has taught me this far is to analyze where I put my priorities. In the states it seems like there is more time to do things, but maybe thats just because I'm a student there, here I'm a teacher, and have to be a "responsible adult." I'm still not quite sure what that means, but hey I'm not getting in trouble, so I guess I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I figure as long as I do what I'm told and put my spin on it, its ok.

Another thing this experience so far has taught me is the importance of solitude. Right now I'm alone in the room, which is amazing. I'm listening to Rich Mullins, and very comfortable. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't take quite a bit of solo time. People ask me why I'd want to, I reply why wouldn't you want to? Its kind of interesting, they go on Marshallese time here, which is "you start when you start, not at a time." I used to think this would be terrible for me and I'd hate it, but I've come to realize that I'm not going to change them, and they aren't going to change me, so I'll just bring a good book and be there up to 45 minutes early and just read, more alone time usually. It has also allowed me to read more of the bible. I'm reading so many new things, or re-reading so many "new" things. Its amazing that God can re-teach you the same lesson multiple times through the same story, or a new lesson through the same story. Its like how did I forget this or how did I not see this before?

Well, It think my laptop battery is about to die, so I should probably bid adu. I hope you all are having a good weekend back stateside.

Well, its been over a week......

2008-09-16T23:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, so its been over two almost, I've been kept so busy this past few weeks. This week is the school Student week of prayer. The topic has been Hero's of faith, following the chapter in Hebrews about faith. It has been interesting watching how the students react to hearing such things. Most of the islanders are christian, but few are really christian. I dare to say that few SDA's are true christians, but not to get onto that tangent, it has really been cool.

We have finally settled out for the long haul. We as teachers finally have most of the same students every week, and mostly everyday. Its kind of an unknown novelty that I hadn't ever thought that a teacher thought about, but I do on a regular basis. I'm also getting to see a whole new side of students, and getting to experience it first hand. My teachers told me when I was in grade school and high school that they had seen it all and that we weren't even scratching the surface of what students before have done to try and cheat and disobey the rules. Well, I followed the rules, which around here makes me a teachers pet, but thats because following the rules just because they are the rules is an anomaly. I'm sure my students think they are being very sneaky and all, but just like my teachers told me, I've seen it before and its not new. I just can't get that through to them, they don't listen all that well to reason. But Mr. Baker, I'm not chewing gum.........chew.......chew.......chew....... You get the point, they try to lie to coverup the most odious things. Oh well, every school has such things, I think its inherent to teaching and being around students.

There is a line from a very funny movie I like. The main character is being blamed of stealing millions of dollars from the US government, when he is asked about it he so coothfully says, "All I wanted was an honest weeks wages for an honest days work." That seems to be the philosophy of all my students, they want the grades really bad, but don't want to dish out the work to do them, and its not like we as teachers sit and mischievously say, who can we fail today either, we do try and make it so everyone can pass. Alas, even with our help, some don't even try. Probably one of the most frustrating things I've learned as a teacher. I've also come up with the top 10 things you as a teacher might say:

If its as good a copy as any copy machine can do, your probably looking at someone's feeble attempt to cheat.
If you are looking out the window, you probably aren't taking to good of notes, are you?
Doesn't it make it hard to find the right figure when you are in the wrong chapter?
Just because one student does it, it doesn't make it right, they will get in trouble too!
Don't be sorry, just don't do it again. (applies to anything from talking in class to chewing gum in class)
The key to getting a question right on a test/quiz/homework is answering the question.
If you don't turn your homework in, you don't have a grade for it......amazing how that works.
When it says, "what do you think" I want to know what you think, not what the book says.
There is a 99.8% chance that if you come to class late, you have missed material, you will need it in the future.
And my all time favorite: Student asks, is this important? Would I take time to say something that's important?

For those of you who keep up with this blog that are teachers, I'm sure you can relate to this, especially if you teach in the islands. I know I'm not the first teacher to say these, and won't be the last, so I dedicate this list to all you, my fellow teachers who have towed the rope, who are towing the rope, and who will tow the rope of teaching.

So this last sunday, we went to a private island and spent the whole day there. The one really cool attraction was a sunken WWII airplane. At low tide, you could easily swim down to it, it was about 10ft under the water. At high tide however, it was like 20 ft down. I went during low tide, and had a great time exploring the wreck, I wish I had SCUBA stuff to aid in my explorations. We all got pretty sunburned, but now mine is pretty much gone, I can still feel it when I take a hot shower, but hey, it was worth every minute of it.

Oh, for those of you who aren't from UC, I have some news. My team of IRR students were deployed to do Search and Rescue stuff in texas in leu of the hurricane that just went through. They left 7p Sabbath the 13 I believe and they will be back the following weekend. Please keep them in your prayers as they are down there. Not only is it the team that I have trained with my whole college career, its my girlfriend as well.

Well, I should wrap this up and get it posted, so you guys can know what I'm doing. I hope to talk to all of you guys soon. Take care.

Another week, now one month plus

2008-09-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it doesn't quite seem possible that it has really been a month since I left the states. Its not like it seems like its been less, but its kind of hard to imagine that I'm 1/10 of the way done with my missionary experience in Majuro. Things have been really going well. Just like any classroom, there are problems, but that comes with the territory alas. I guess I still live under the LE motto "Do your best, God will do the rest, and you will be blessed" I've spent a month doing my best, God has been doing the rest, and not only I, but others have been blessed.

Yesterday night we went to our first funeral. I didn't know the man personally, but around here, that really doesn't matter much. If you know people who know them you are pretty much required to go. It was a beautiful service I'm sure, but it was all in marshallese. I'm not to fluent yet in marshallese, so it was just alot of sitting on the floor and listening to alot of people talk. Thats another thing, everyone who knew the person talks, if your important and you didn't know him you talk, you get the hang of what I'm saying. You pay a $1 and get free food though, its kind of different, it can go for weeks to. They seal the coffin and watch it for weeks sometimes........I don't quite understand it, but its not mine to understand.

Its kind of sad, its been a few days since I've been able to swim, and right now is the best time. 2 times a month, we get really high and really low tides. They are fun to swim in, you get out past the breakers and you are riding waves, which is a really fun thing, then you get to see what its like not on the reef. I haven't been out because I'm still trying to get well, for the most part I feel really good, but my nose is still clogged occasionally, which is kind of frustrating.

So this sunday the church is having a get-together on one of the islands that you have to take a boat to get to, I'm pretty excited about going. I'm hoping that we get to have some swimming time on a nice sandy beach, at the school we have coral, not sand, which coral is nice, but not nice to run on.

This week I had two classes that had tests, its amazing how some students that you think are going to do really well don't, and ones that you don't think are listening to you are actually doing well. I know I shouldn't be surprised at this anymore, but it sure amazes me still. So for now, the internet doesn't work at the school, we have to go to a resort and buy some food to use the internet, which I guess it is a small price to pay for having some communication with family and friends. Well, I should probably get working on other things now.

The end of another week

2008-08-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

This week was really awesome. We were challenged at the start of the week to look for the small things and see how they touched us. Well this week I did see the small things. Monday was really cool. When was the last time you got in front of 60 yelling 1-2nd graders and telling a kids story. If that doesn't start your engine, you need a replacement. There is nothing you can say that would be wrong. I was being cheered for every word I said, which at the start seemed really frustrating, but if I could get my High schoolers to have even half that much energy when I taught about anything I'm supposed to teach them about it would be amazing.

I got this from my coligue's blog, Emily who is in Ebeye.

1. Power is a privilege, NOT a right.
2. Fresh water (and drinking water) is a luxury.
3. You can kill big roaches with flip-flops.
4. When it rains it pours, literally.
5. Little geckos on the wall are “cute”.
6. Pizza, or what they call pizza and what we think pizza is are totally different.
7. Teachers talk about their students with other teachers. (Who knew?)
8. It’s hard to teach students who don’t really care if they pass high school, much less go to college.
9. Fresh fruits and vegetables are like gold!
10. Food costs twice as much here.
11. Rain can come through the ceiling during a rainstorm, even if there is a floor above you.
12. Rain makes everyone antsy.
13. “I want to go back to Union again…” (I miss it SOOO much!)
14. Most students at the school can sing and harmonize very well—they sound amazing!!
15. Sending emails and MySpace messages between people just isn’t the same as seeing them. L
16. Air Conditioning is a HUGE blessing, but so is a good ocean breeze on a really hot day.
17. To have a textbook for a class: good. To have a teacher’s manual: great. To have enough textbooks for students: amazing. To have a teacher’s manual and enough books for students: priceless. (Appreciate what you have!)
18. The taxis (small trucks) that drive around and are sometimes safe, sometimes not.
19. Kids that live a few blocks away from school will take a taxi to school. (Now that’s lazy.)
20. Cold showers are somewhat refreshing.
21. I REALLY miss my family and friends at home.

I changed it slightly for how it is in Majuro not ebeye, but the jist is still the same. For all of you who I'm sure want to send me an actual letter or note, you don't have a clue as to how to do that, but you won't have that excuse for long.

My address is:
Stephen baker
P.O. Box I SDA Mission
Majuro, Marshall Islands 96960

Well, I should probably get offline, its nearly sabbath. So with that, I wish all of you guys back stateside a happy sabbath and a good weekend.

The end of week two

2008-08-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I've come to the conclusion that I'm only going to be updating this about every week. I can only sporadically get onto this site. Its kind of frustrating, but alas what can be done.

My week went fairly well, I have no big complaints except for the fact that my family is all heading up to Yellowstone for our annual family reunion. I don't get to go this year, just like I haven't gotten to go for the past 3 years, its kind of frustrating, but oh well, thats ok. I don't know what the plans for tomorrow are yet, SS, church, and lunch are always good guesses though. Other than that though.........its up to what is going on tomorrow.

Today the High Schoolers picked faculty sponsors, I was told by 2 of my senior classes that they were going to vote for me. I told them I would do it if they wanted me to, but it seems like just one more thing that I have on my plate. I'm already teaching and preparing for 5 classes that have students of varying levels of English able to be spoken. Any teacher that thinks they are really good at teaching should come to a place where they don't know the native language and see how they do. Its not that I have just one foreign language either. I have like 7 in any class period. I have a rule in class that says that they can't speak in any other language than english, but its really hard to enforce, seeings as though some are translating for me.

I hope that the weeks continue to go the way they have been. If they do, I'll continue to love teaching. I know I'll have ups and downs throughout this year, but I also know that with God's help I'll make it through them unscathed for the most part. So far I am, and I have no scars from swimming either. Our vice-principle on the other hand got bounced off the very sharp reef yesterday while surfing, I'm glad I had better fortune than he did. I nearly did get bounced off the reef. I was snorkeling and I looked up into the face of a 8 foot wave about 10 feet off of me, about to break, I dove as fast as I could and missed it, when I came up for air, there was another 8 foot wave about 5 feet away from me, I nearly didn't get to breathe, but I made it through that too.

Well, I'm coming to the end of my time on the computer. Its almost the Sabbath here, so I hope I have a great sabbath, and I hope you all do as well. I miss all of you guys.

SB

Its been a while

2008-08-13T21:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated this blog, sorry about that. While I was in Hawaii, they had this site blocked, so I couldn’t update it. The last few weeks have been very hard and very frustrating. I haven’t started classes yet, but I’m getting there, we start classes in 2 days. I’ve gotten part of my lesson plans done, and it wasn’t to hard to do, the harder part will be doing the weekly lesson plans.

When we touched down on Majuro, we were accosted by 90% humidity. The thing that made it worse was that there was no wind. The nice thing about where the school is located is there is always a breeze. It’s getting to the point that we as a group don’t even notice the humidity any more. The 12 hour days are really nice too, it allows for more sleep at night. So far for the time I’ve been here I’ve gotten no less than 9.5 hours of sleep every night. I doubt that I’ll get that much sleep while school is going, but its been nice so far.

So far the communications on this atoll are not so great, but I’m working on getting them up better. Right now I only have occasional internet and I get to use the Satellite Phone sometimes. The last few days we have been sitting through 5-7 hours of meetings everyday. It’s been kind of frustrating, for those of us that don’t do well not moving for hours upon end…….its all good I guess though, we all need to know this in the end.

Well, I should probably get back to listening to the lecture that I’m supposed to be listening to. I’ll try to keep this blog updated as much as I can.
SB

The End Of Summer LE

2008-07-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Well, the end of the 2 months of Summer LE has come. Its kind of bitter sweet sorrow to see some of the people go, but its also a good thing. God blessed this summer with more in sales than even our boss predicted, he has been right for the past 19 summers, but this summer he was 60% to low. It was amazing to see how God worked through all the students this summer.

Now I'm heading home for a few short days before heading to the islands for the year. I think I'm ready most days, but then there are days that I'm pretty sure that I'm not ready. I know that God will help me through all that I need to, but there is still some doubt. In just a week and a half I'll know the full extent of what I'm up against, and I'm not sure whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing. It will probably be a good thing, I think most of the apprehension has come from not knowing what to expect, I like to have plans and back-up plans in case something goes wrong with my first plan, but not knowing what to expect, has kind of thrown kinks in that.

After some car trouble, I finally got to my sister's appartment just this afternoon, about 12 hours later than I was expecting to. That is a long story that I don't want to get into, but I'm finally away from work, and it feels wonderful. Today is my day off, then Tomorrow I drive home to pack for the islands and see everyone before I leave. Well, I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to post this and take a nap.

Two Weeks Left

2008-07-11T15:38:00.001-07:00

Well, its been quite some time since I've done any amount of updating to this blog. I haven't had internet for a while, so I've not been able to update. As of now, we have had quite the summer, there has been drama and all, like usual, but its mostly been worked through.

These towns that we are about to work are the hardest of the summer. We are starting with Green River, and for those of you who know what the Green river ordinance is, it is a law that dictates how people can sell stuff door to door, like we are doing. God will bless I know, but it sure seems like its going to be hard.

Its less than a month til' I leave for the islands. I'm kind of happy about it, and kind of sad about it. I'm not exactly ready for it, but who is? I think its something that you are only ready for when you come back.

Well, its time for supper, and I'm hungry, so I'll try to update a few more times before I leave for the islands. We shall see how many times.

Nearly half way through summer

2008-06-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Wow, well, this week has been going really well. God has been blessing majorly. The first day here, sunday, I had to go back to where the books were stored to get more books, my students ran me out of books. That is a very hard thing to do. I carry 2-3 cases of all the books we sell. The rest of the week almost fell in suit. I was nearly out of books ever day before going to school and ending for the day. My boss is haveing to run down to Loveland to grab more books this weekend so that we don't run out of books before the week is out next week. We are heading to Sheridan next.

This weekend is great. I'm heading to Cody to visit family. My boss gave me the weekend off, including sunday, which most students don't get off. But, I was lucky enough to get it off too, I'm going to see my family up there, the ones that I won't see for quite some time. I'm prety psyched about it.

Everyone please keep all of the LE's in prayers, this is a ministry that all the students see the great controversy played out on a day to day basis.

Most of the way through Cheyenne

2008-06-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, well, from the last time I've updated this alot has happened. We have covered most of the city of Cheyenne, and probably will be heading over to Laramie tomorrow, just so that we have enough territory to last us the time we are here. We are leaving for Casper on friday morning, I'm very excited for this move. There is a very special place in my heart for the city of Casper. Casper is were I spend most of my growing up years. Going back is always fun.

I know that God will bless just as much, if not more, in Casper then he has here in Cheyenne. He has been blessing the students left and right, with both sales and really cool experiences that you can't help but know that they were from God.

One of our students, Natasha, was the first one to leave a whole loaf. Now for those of you who don't know the LE terminology, a whole loaf is all the books that a student carries. Usually a cause of great excitement and this time was no exception. I've been surprised that there havn't been any more than that one I don't think, last summer by the end of the first two weeks we had quite a few already. But then again, Wyoming is a totally different beast than Colorado.

For those of you who don't keep up with Beth, she is doing well, doing the IRR training in Colorado. She has successfully completed her Swiftwater technician and Advanced. She also survived her solo experience in pretty good form from what I've heard. The IRR program is just starting to come to a close, it ends on Thursday night. She will be driving to Denver and flying out on the red-eye back home.

Well, I think that is all the new news that is news or something from my side. Hope you all are having a good summer.

Start of Literature Evangelism

2008-06-02T19:36:00.001-07:00

Today was the first day of Literature Evangelism. Today was orientation, we have quite a few new students, so we had to go over alot of the things that we normally might not have had to go over as much. Tomorrow all the "old" students will go out with me, which will be fun. The first day of the summer is always a blast, it kind of sets the stage for what is going to happen the rest of the summer. We have a pretty young group this summer, which is a nice change of pace. There are only 9 "old" students working this summer out of 23, so its alot of new people.

I'm so happy to be in Wyoming again, the afternoon thundershowers are amazing. We had one today that is still going, its been 3 or 4 hours now. There is no need for an explanation for why alot of people call this state Gods Country. It is so beautiful now, so green and beautiful. Words can't quite do justice for the beauty of the thunderheads stacked against the mountains with the sun just reaching through. I have visions of Heaven looking like that.

Pray for all of us as we get ready to impact people for God here in Cheyenne.

Leaving Home Now........

2008-05-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well, after getting my room spotless, packing up all my stuff, and getting the truck loaded, it is now time for me to say goodbye to home once again. It never gets any easier, even though I've done it many times, but I know that in 2 months I'll be coming back to see my parents before I leave to go overseas for SM. This summer is going to be a very cool summer. My first summer doing Literature Evangelism was in Wyoming, and now I'm back for a second summer there, and quite possibly my last summer doing literature evangelism. Wyoming is a particularly fun summer because it is a smaller group that we work with, so we get to be much more of a family. This summer we are working Wyoming much different than normal, but thats okay, we are starting in Cheyenne, and ending in Green River.

For those of you who don't know, my parents are thinking about moving, and we now have the house here in Illinois for sale. They are hoping to move back closer to home (wyoming). I have to say that I'm glad that they are moving closer to home, it means that I get to live closer to home too. If you guys want to it would be much appreciated if you would pray for my family as we try to sell the house here and for our deciphering of where God wants us to go.

Well its time for me to run now................I'll try to keep you guys updated as to where I'm at, and what's happening in my life.

The start......

2008-05-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this blog for my family and friends that I wont' get to talk to a lot over the next year or so. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to be spending a year on the atoll of Majuro in the Marshall Islands. I'm going there to teach high school Science. More specifically I'll be teaching physical science, biology, chemistry, and physics.

This dream to go as a student missionary started a year or two ago when I felt moved by God to volunteer to do this. Some things made it so that I couldn't go this last school year, and I'm very thankful for that fact now that I can look back on it. I do occasionally wonder what my life would be like if I would have gone this last school year, but I know I wasn't ready to give a year of my life at that point, so now I'm going to be going.

This summer I'm going to be doing Literature Evangelism once again. This summer I'm going to be again in Wyoming, its kind of fun, thats where I started doing summer programs at, so it should be a lot of fun.

As of right now, I'll be leaving for the islands about the 2nd of Aug. I don't know for sure, and when I leave Hawaii, I won't have cell service, so thats not a very good way to get ahold of me. In fact, I'm really not sure yet the best way to get ahold of me while I'm over there. I'll get back to you on that later, when I have more of a clue. I'll try to keep up with this blog as much as I can.