Melodies of an Adventurous Heart.

A Moment To Question.

2012-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

I started off today rushing to class, stressed thinking ofall I have to do, and strategically planning how I will get as muchaccomplished as possible before Sabbath hits quite early tomorrow afternoon. Ifound myself rather agitated throughout the morning, and realized that I wasdefinitely not the only one rushing. Everyone seemed to be running somewhere, and alas this is our culture.This is American culture, we’re supposed to be achievers, strivers, accomplishers….butof what?

If we could choose the type of life we wanted to live isthis what we would choose? Would we cram our schedules full, would we pour ourtime and energy into papers and assignments and extra curricular activities?

Is this really how we want to live? Is this how Jesus callsus to live?

What if we woke up in the morning and just took time to sit,think, read, and drink a cup of tea? What if we walked to class or to work,stopping to chat to friends and acquaintances along the way? What if we cookeddinner with family and friends every night taking the time to be thankful forour blessings, our food, and taking time to develop relationships? What if wemade people the priority?

Because Jesus madepeople a priority.

I seriouslystruggle with these questions some days. And well, today is one of them. Midterms are next week meaning that Ihave 3 tests and 2 papers. I knowI’ll make it through, get all the studying in, have my papers turned in ontime, but will I have spent time on the things that I care about most? Will Isit down with Alexandra Paulsen and seek to understand her heart on a deeperand more beautiful level? Will I snuggle up in a music room late into theevening pouring my heart out onto the black and white keys of a piano? Will Isip tea in the morning and watch the sun rise and leisurely have a wonderfulchat with Jesus? Will I attempt to put my dreams and thoughts into words andlyrics and then sing to someone's hurting heart? Will I let my creative side get the best of me and cook an experimentaldinner and deliver cookies to friends? Will I do yoga out on my balcony as the sun is gradually setting? Will I write letters to my kids in Pohnpei and remind them how much I love them?

Nope.

So Ican’t help but think…there has to be so much more than this.

Four Words.

2012-01-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

Four words for my today...

Alone

Disappointed

Small

Forgotten

Dear Jesus, if I could please choose four words for my tomorrow...

Full

Sunshine

Hope

Anticipation

Thanks. You're the best. Hugs.

A Love Affair

2012-01-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

I am saying goodbye to a four year long love affair. At first it was a love triangle, I was trapped between loyalty and love, and then it definitely turned into a full blown affair. My heart used to belong to Southern California where I was born and raised. The thing is, California treated me very well. I loved the beach sunsets, the sand, the warm weather, and couldn't really see myself living anywhere else...but then...then I met Washington. I was introduced to fall leaves, the joy of waking up to the first snow of winter, frosted trees, thick forests, chilled rivers, anticipation of spring and the colors that accompany it, a state that seemed to meet my adventurous heart with eager anticipation, challenging me to explore, to be free.

So dear Southern California, consider this a formal apology. I'm sorry, but I am now a Washington girl. I am no longer confused or torn, the triangle has been eliminated, my heart now belongs to the snowcapped mountains, coffee shops, evergreen forests, and fresh air of the NorthWest. So thank you for the good times, for a wonderful childhood, for sunny days at the beach, but....well....I guess what i'm trying to say is...how do I put this? It's not you it's me. I don't think I see this relationship going anywhere...and to be perfectly honest, I have kind of developed a huge crush on Washington. I hope this doesn't make things awkward between us, and I want you to know that I'd really love it if we could still be friends...

Cookies and Jesus.

2011-12-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

Today I was baking cookies for a friend when it suddenly occurred to me that I was not baking by myself. I suddenly felt like swirling around my kitchen, and my heart was filled with a subtle and calming joy accompanied by a simple realization. I never bake alone. I never run alone, I never study alone, I never sleep alone, Jesus is always right there with me. Singing in the middle of an ocean, frolicking around my kitchen, snuggled up in my bed at night, He is the greatest built in best friend a girl could have.

As I have grown in Jesus I have grown in myself. A slightly loaded statement I suppose…I never used to be able to be by myself, I hated it. But now I enjoy the quite moments away from friends, family, and acquaintances because I have discovered that they are moments filled with the greatest of company of all. These are the moments when I am the furthest from being alone. Jesus understands me, my silliness, my desires, my dreams, my longing for adventure and love like no one ever will. When I get frustrated with recipes and decide that I have much better ideas, or when I get unbelievably excited about how beautiful the littlest flower is, or when I continue to snuggle up to my stuffed animal Larz every night even though I am 22 years old I feel Jesus there, giggling, adoring, and smiling at me, with me….and it is simply amazing.

A law firm and a bakery.

2011-12-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

Practicality and my father are the bestest of friends. I feel like my father is constantly introducing us to one another, but the truth of the matter is practicality and I just don't get along very well. Yes, I have been known to be responsible, dependable, and even at times mature (one would assume that practicality would fit in quite nicely with the whole group), but though I have tried I can only accept him as an acquaintance.

Recently I have been asked by almost everyone I have run into what I will be doing next year after I have graduated. Jokingly I have begun stating that my big plan is to move to San Francisco to sing on street corners. Just about a week ago my father brought up this topic and suggested that I contemplate applying for law school. Being the proud parent that he is, he pointed out my dedicated drive to accomplishing whatever I put my mind to in life. Some days I wish this was a drive to be a doctor, a lawyer, someone prestigious and successful, someone that could be the bestest of friends with practicality. But what if it was the complete opposite? ...

I want to open a bakery, I want to sing, I want to be a missionary. Literally, I want to bake cakes and make up recipes for healthy cookies, I want to record music, I want to play soccer with little kids in the rain and sleep in a hut and ride a horse everywhere. How wonderfully ridiculous is that?

But wait...That's not how this whole thing is supposed to work is it? It's supposed to be college, then marriage, graduate school, a stable job, a cozy home, and then kids right? ...

Looks like I missed the memo...my dear friend impracticality must have forgotten to pass it on.

An invitation.

2011-12-16T22:53:00.000-08:00

I originally started blogging due to my year as a missionary over seas. I felt that I no longer had a reason to write upon my return to the states so simply stopped. But though I am living in Washington my heart still sings, my life is still filled with dancing late hours of the night and experimental cooking. I may not have 24 children to delight in everyday or gorgeous island sunsets to take my breath away, but I have beautiful friends to drink tea and eat bagels with, and frosted trees outside my window that fill my heart with childlike joy. Adventure is just as much in my heart now as it was a year and a half ago, and writing still seems to bring a peaceful quietness to my soul. I find Jesus through the pages of my prayer journal and through song lyrics that sing to my heart. So on this Christmas Sabbath evening I have decided to pick up the pen again so to speak and start writing once more. Consider yourself invited to a glimpse into my heart through writings, lyrics, and dreams of the daughter of the King. I invite you to dream, cry, laugh, and sing with me here. Blessings, Courtney Breann

A blog worthy weekend..

2010-03-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have been struggling with being sick the last few weeks and have also developed some strange stomach bug where I am randomly nauseous all the time. (Not fun! Going to the doctor about it tomorrow, pray we can figure out what it is!) This has affected my sleep significantly, and well what I’m trying to get at is, I was really tired and very happy it was finally Sabbath. However, the SM’s decided to take a trip to Kapinga that afternoon. There went my restful Sabbath. Kapinga is pretty much a little community that is about five minutes away from the school and twenty seconds away from our church. The first time I saw Kapinga I was speechless. Their houses are mostly little huts, clothes are strung out all over to dry, kids are walking along the street with dirty little faces and usually half naked etc. lets just say it is a culture shock compared to America. Anyway, I decided to join the group regardless of my tired mind and body, and I am so glad that I did! It was more rejuvenating than any nap could have ever been, maybe not physically but definitely emotionally. I played with the most precious children for about an hour and a half straight. Haha a group of the SM’s were cleaning boils and cuts, another group was singing with kids and telling a story, and I was running around doing ninja moves with about six little boys. It was great, haha I had a little flock that was unbelievably delighted with the thought of me chasing them, so there I was of course running around, tickling away, and swinging these little guys around. Just when I thought the trip couldn’t get any better I saw a little girl, and she saw me. I’m pretty sure my heart now belongs to a three year old… I still don’t know her name but I wish I could take her home! I officially had a Kapinga koala bear :) She wrapped her arms and legs around me and would not let go. She only wore a little pink skirt, no shirt or shoes, and an adorable smile I couldn’t say no to in a million years. I don’t think she understood English because she never responded to anything I said in words just merely smiled or hugged me tighter. If my heart wasn’t bubbling with enough joy, laughter, and love already, we left. This entailed about fifty kids racing after our truck all the way down the street. A good Sabbath afternoon indeed. :) God’s children are so precious and there are so many out there just dying to be loved. I wish I could love them all…

Later that night a group of us played basketball, I don’t think knock out has ever been so tiring or sweat inducing. Haha I was DRIPPING. Then Joel and I played one on one forever. I may not have won basketball that night but I certainly won the water fight afterwards, he was soaked :)

The next morning Joel, Amy, and I took the Youth out for a ride around the Island. We decided to stop at anything and everything “Pohnpeian”. Therefore we would randomly stop to take pictures with flowers, bridges, trash, random people, etc. We went down to the beach, went swimming in a river, Joel and I had a sword fight with bamboo we found, things like that :) I ate rice, coconut, and banana for lunch, a very island day. Then that night Joel and I played our third game of tennis. I’m not going to lie, he kind of dominated lol, but I just pretended like I let him on purpose just to infuriate him as much as possible ;) Although I may have lost one of our eleven games, I still managed to come out of the evening victorious. We made a bet on a rally at the end of our game and due to my victory I will me enjoying a free coconut in the very near future..

Now it’s our last week before spring break. I can’t WAIT! Barbie and I already have a list started of activities for the week. They include a multitude of fun festivities ranging from sleep (ah ha ha) to dance parties, to wakeboarding, to scuba diving, to mud football, to exploring waterfalls, and to renting scooters for a day, to more epic sleep. SO looking forward to it!!!! I don’t want to leave this island…I can’t believe I’m going to be on a plane heading home in two months…

Tennis. America vs. Australia

2010-03-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

So I have recently discovered Pohnpei’s tennis courts. For those of you picturing a beautiful green tennis floor that a tennis ball could actually bounce on, complete with a net and nicely drawn white boundary lines let me restate my previous statement. I have recently discovered Pohnpei’s loose dirt and gravel floor courts, complete with barely visible black tennis lines that are the wrong measurements and approximately 3/4ths of a net. Non-the-less it something one may hit a yellow tennis ball over and has recently provided much entertainment. One of the Australian SM’s Joel and I started playing this past week. For those of you who have had the privilege of witnessing my competitive side I have inherited from my father, you can imagine that I immediately was no longer playing a casual game of tennis for enjoyment, but competing to defend my country’s honor and dignity as a woman. Haha these matches have turned into approximately 90% smack talk and 10% tennis. I would also like to declare that the last two tennis outings have ended in a victory for the United States and all women who inhabit the beautiful country. Joel and I have to walk for about 10-15 minutes to reach the tennis courts. Usually these walks include chatter, laughter, and the occasional blow to the opponent’s country. I can say with a stifle of laughter that last night was a very quiet walk home. Apparently I know how to shut up Australians. :) After last night the stakes of our so called “friendly” games were raised. We have now started an official tennis tournament that will most likely last till the end of the year. The bet was made official last night. Whoever wins the best of eleven tennis matches will get to enjoy watching their opponent suffer much humilation. I’m going to win so let me just tell you what happens when Joel loses haha. Joel will have to take me out to dinner while wearing a t-shirt that reads in bold letters “American Girls Are Better” along with having to make a video wearing all red, white, and blue and holding an American flag proclaiming that America is better and then post it on his facebook for the entire world to see. Along with having to wear his “American Girls are Better” t-shirt once he is home in Australia for an entire day (with photo proof). This entire bet is switched for me, I would theoretically have to declare that Australia was better while wearing a t-shirt that says “Australian girls are better” etc. Clearly Australians aren’t very smart because Joel decided to add onto the bet even more. Saying that if he can beat me the next 5 matches in a row than I will have to wear my “Australian girls are better” t-shirt five days in a row. If I win the next three in a row (adding up to five in a row) however, then he has to wear his “American girls are better” t-shirt for the next five days straight. When will this boy learn? I’ll have to keep everyone updated on this heated tennis tournament. Poor Australia…I actually feel just a little bad… :)

Clubbing in Pohnpei!

2010-02-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Last night was….well, interesting. All I can say is, Filipinos now how to Party! Haha, last night was the second Filipino party I have attended since I’ve been here, and let me say, they are hilarious! I went because MJ had been practicing three dances for weeks and she was performing them last night. She was amazing of course! It was so cool! They did a rockin Michael Jackson dance! Anyway, for those of you who have not had the privilege of ever attending a Filipino party, there is ALWAYS karaoke involved! Haha and last night there ended up being some dancing as well! Lets just say that I never thought I’d find myself clubbing in Pohnpei. At the very end of the program they put on some music and Joy and I grabbed Barbie and Andrew (two of the SM guys that came last night) and started busting out the dance moves. For those of you who have not had the privilege of attending a Filipino party OR seeing me dance the night away I apologize for you are truly missing out. My dance moves include a wonderful collection of the lawn mower, the q-tip, the shopping cart, some Christian character choreography moves, and a few disco moves I learned from a workout DVD. Lol. Needless to say it was hilarious and so much fun! I was dancing with my student’s mom and one point in the evening. Enough said. Tonight is the valentine’s banquet for the high school. It is at the same place, a club called Flamingos (the only club on the island/place to hold big parties). Apparently they allow dancing at their banquets, so I have no idea how we are going to supervise over 200 high school students dancing about with raging hormones…that will be interesting. And let me tell you, these girls learn how to move their hips from about the age of 4 because of hula, so by the time they are 17…well ya. They’re good. So we’ll see how tonight goes!

Yearbook Letter

2010-02-13T16:06:00.001-08:00

So every year the teachers each write their kids a letter to go in the school’s yearbook. I know that you guys don’t exactly know my students so you may not quite understand most of this but I figured I’d post it anyway. :)

Dear superior fourth grade class,

My Indians, My Ninjas, My Masseuses! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! How am I ever going to live with you?! I’ll never forget Marion turning our rug into a dance floor and busting out the Michael Jackson moves, massages from master masseuse Julius, Zack break dancing and hanging out with me EVERY lunch quizzing me on Pohnpeian and making me laugh, JR ALWAYS annoying me and trying to fight me (Brat! Haha you know I love you!), my secret notes from Julien and Zara that I always find on my desk (I’m keeping them forever!), my cleaning girls Evon and Grace that are so cool and hang with me every day after school (my desk would be a mess if it wasn’t for you two!), Burt trying to rob the class while wearing a ski mask haha, Les’s amazing hugs everyday before he leaves, Marlin jumping out of his seat about to explode he was so excited because he had the answer to whatever question I was asking (thanks I always knew you were listening to me ramble on and on even if no one else was!), Ayaka always racing at the end of each day to tap the erasers, Yuichi always lighting up my day and filling it with giggles and hugs and arguing with me about who loved who more, Veronica always making me feel like a super famous rockstar, Wolphgang and his talent to make ANYTHING into a sword, Edgar sitting at his desk with his hands folded like the perfect student (Ya!), Briana watching me from the back of the classroom with a look that says, “Oh my goodness my teacher is crazy!!” , Leonito telling me all about the Phillipines (I feel like I’ve been there!), Makani running around with his pants pulled up and his shirt down so that he looked like he was naked! (Miss Nugent and I laughed EVERY time.), Loriann helping me lead out with worship songs in the morning with a big smile on her face even if everyone else was half asleep, Hart’s amazing drawings on almost every assignment he ever turned in, AJ scoring the greatest touchdown ever during our football game against Miss Nugent’s class (we won of course!), Sunshine saying “Miiiisssss!!!” unbelievably loud and then giggling when she realized I was going to strangle her, Daunte playing his imaginary drum during our rain dance…I could go on forever!

You guys have made me feel more loved than I ever thought was possible. From secret notes and letters, to hugs and tickle fights, to salsa dancing and football, to all laughing uncontrollably and falling out of our chairs in the middle of math class while I told silly stories! I can’t wait to play football with you in Heaven (we’ll definitely beat Miss Nugent’s class again!) and fight next to you in the battle against evil with the God of the universe on our side! I know you guys are ready! Don’t forget to wear the armor of the Lord every day! Always keep Jesus as your best friend no matter what comes your way, and He will ROCK your life! I can’t even begin to put into words how much I love the 24 of you. I hope I didn’t cry too much when I left…WAAAHHHH!!! :) I guess all that there is left to say is…I LIKE PIZZA!!!

How!

Love, Miss Breann :)

Haiti and Pancakes..

2010-02-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

I have been keeping my kids updated on Haiti. I recently blogged about my student Yuichi and how he wanted to give his birthday money, I forgot to mention another incident that highlighted the innocence and generous heart of a child. Before I share this little story with you, let me explain what we have been doing for Haiti over here. Our school started “Haiti boxes”. The idea was for each elementary class to create a box and fill it with as much donation money as possible. My kids immediately got into it, we are going on about our third week of fundraising and we have a little over $200. I am so proud of them! We will collect the money from all the classes at the end of this week and I am really excited. Also last weekend we held a Movie Night for the elementary kids in our chapel. It cost them $2 to get in and we showed the movie Bolt (awesome movie by the way!) on a big projector. Also we had a bakesale going on the whole time. It went great, we raised over $300 for Haiti that night! I was very happy with how it turned out. Ok, so now that I have caught you up on our Haiti fundraising events here’s the story…So the day my class started our Haiti box my girl Loriann came up to me. It was the end of the day so everyone was leaving and running around, and she says “Miss! Miss! I’m going to bring pancakes tomorrow ok?” I was like…what? Definitely not following her I said, “Um..ok, why sweetie?” she responded saying “For Haeitee Miss. For Haeitee.” I still wasn’t following her…she clearly read my clueless expression and continued, “I’m going to have my mom make pancakes for the people in Haiti, then we can mail them and they won’t be hungry anymore.” Once again my heart just about melted as realization hit me. I stifled laughter as I looked at her and replied, “Hmm that’s a really good idea, but do you think that the pancakes would last in the mail? Hati is really far away..” She paused in deep thought for a moment (it is still taking a large amount of self-control to not laugh at how adorable this situation is..). I somehow managed to keep my very serious face on as she finally came up with her answer that was accompanied by a pout, “No.” I leaned down to her and encouraged her, “Well maybe we can send them money so they can make their own pancakes. What do you think?” The pout disappeared from her face, “Ok Miss. I think that’s a good idea.” With that she bounced off with her little backpack. I went home feeling so full that day. Once again the heart of a child, it amazed me..

$10

2010-01-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

The selflessness of a child truly amazes me. This past week I have been talking to my children about Haiti. Although normally during worship they struggle to pay attention, I had all eyes glued to me. Every day I try to update them, and they never fail to bring up Haiti multiple times during prayer requests. I asked my children if they would be interested in starting a “Haiti Box” to help raise money. Then we could think of people to ask to donate, and maybe even have a few fundraisers. The kids were 100% for it. Later that day one of my younger boys came up to me, concern all over his face and said, “Miss, Miss I don’t know if I can bring $10” I was not quite following him and so he continued, “Well I thought I could bring $10 for Haiti because I am going to get $10 for my birthday, but my birthday is two months away…” my heart just about melted. It was such a precious moment. The concern in his eyes and the way his little forehead was all twisted. Not because he was contemplating whether or not to give his birthday money, oh no that decision was already made, but because he wouldn’t get his birthday money in time to give it away to the people of Haiti. In that moment I learned more from my 8 year old student than I could have taught him in weeks. Yuichi reminded me of the strength and simplicity of selflessness. As we grow in age and journey through our lives we strive to be great at something, to gain wisdom, to have security, but to have the selflessness of a child, now that is something to aspire to…

A memory both simple and profound.

2010-01-13T04:14:00.000-08:00

This is a story I wrote for Walla Walla about my mission experience! I think its going to be in a mission story book or something... anyway! sorry I haven't blogged in eight hundred years :)

A Memory Both Simple and Profound

Yesterday I returned from my two week Christmas vacation in Hawaii, only to be met by 24 screaming fourth graders who all decided to jump into my arms at once. Next thing I new my two chubby twin boys were smooshing letters into my hand they had written me while I was gone, welcoming me back and telling me how much they had missed me.

The next morning there were two more letters waiting for me on my desk, my heart just about melted as I read the beautiful broken grammar of one of the letters, “Miss Breann is the best and great teacher on the Earth. Dear Miss Breann you are the greatest teacher. And you’re the best friend ever. Thank you for being my friend. And thank you for being my teacher. We love you so so much Miss Breann.”

Today, like most days, has ended with me collapsing on my dirty couch exhausted. However unlike previous days, as I collapse on this disgusting couch I reflect on my day in a new light. In a light that could only be provided by the One who brought me to this very couch, this tiny island most people have never heard of, and to a classroom of twenty four hyperactive children. For when I look back on today I no longer think of the frustrating math class where my children looked at me like I was speaking French, the aching feeling in my swollen feet from standing for so long, the seemingly never ending papers that still need grading, or the permanent sweat layer that drenched my skin. I remember Him. I remember the random salsa dance lesson I had with my kids during lunch time, the back massage that two of my boys gave me just to show me they love me, the game of tag during recess that ended in uncontrollable giggles and me being attacked and tickled by seven of my students, the piggy back race to the classroom that I lost, having my boys all pick me up and tell me they were going to kidnap me so we could all go camping together, the scribbled message at the bottom of a math assignment that simply said, “Thank you so much Miss Breann”, the hilarious Michael Jackson impersonation performed by two of my boys, and the long embrace of a child at the end of the day as he said, “Miss I’m never letting you go, we love you so so much!”.

In Jesus’ divine light, twenty four rambunctious children have taught me something more valuable than I
could ever teach them, something that I could have never learned sitting in a classroom finishing up my college degree. Through fits of giggles, little bear hugs, secret hidden notes, and pictures colored with the utmost care, I have learned how to be loved. And because of this, every day I have learned a little more of how to truly love in return.

Thanksgiving is over..

2009-11-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

And Thanksgiving is OVER! Oh my. Oh my! I don’t know what Joy and I were thinking with the entire thanksgiving feast day, it was soo much work!! But our kids absolutely loved it, so it was worth it. :) haha they were fascinated by cranberry sauce. They kept saying, “Miss? Miss? Is this cranberry?” haha it was really cute. Oh, and the Indian and and pilgrim thing went great! The kids looked so adorable sitting with their little Indian and pilgrim hats around a table eating together! To start the day the pilgrims traveled to “America” (our classroom) and Squanto was the only one who could talk to them (duh! Everyone else could obviously only speak in Indian gibberish). Then we played thanksgiving games, such as Indian Indian pilgrim (instead of duck, duck goose), I read them an indian legend, my class performed their indian rain dance, we had a pilgrim and indian skit, my indians showed everyone their indian names and explained what it meant in English (they drew their names and decorated them on colored paper), then the pilgrims sang a thankful song and the feast began! Joy and I put the desks in my room together to make two long big tables, we decorated them with table settings the pilgrims made, got out all of our cookings and were finally ready! It was literally like a week worth of work in one day haha but worth it..

Now it’s Christmas time! We started decorating my classroom today! I’ll definitely be taking pictures soon! :) I have been CRAZY busy this last week and a half there is SO much I want to blog about from running a 5 k, to directing a christmas play, to having a spa day with my kids lol hopefully I will be able to soon! But as for now I must go, there is always something that needs to be done! Miss all my family and friends. Xoxo.

A thought on the death of a fellow missionary..

2009-11-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

I have began this blog about six times, and some how my fingers have found the back space bar each time. I honestly do not know where to begin. The array of emotions myself and so many others have experienced throughout this past week is remarkable…

Satan is working SO hard right now, I know however, that my God is working harder. The murder of Kirsten Wolcott has been something extremely hard to grasp, accept, and understand. I am assuming that most of you have heard the horrific news, but if not I regret to inform you of the incident.. A fellow student missionary, from Southern Adventist University, who was teaching on the island of Yap (an island that is also part of the FSM just like Pohnpei) was murdered last week. I have heard varying details, but what I do know for sure is that they found her body, and it is unbelievably terrible. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think this sunk in nearly as much as it should have at first. I think I was in shock, so life continued on in a normal fashion for a couple days.

Then yesterday it hit me. I was entirely upset. This girl had been living a life ridiculously similar to mine these last three months. Dealing with the same struggles I faced as a new teacher, going to the island grocery store for the first time, receiving her first package from home, going running, experiencing exotic island fruits for the first time, falling in love with her students, having her fist wave of homesickness, discovering God in a new way, facing some bug or insect invasion, being overwhelmed with lesson plans, having her breath taken away from the beauty that surrounds us at these islands, and so much more. And to have her life taken in such a horrific way?

Earlier that day my kids made cards for the Wolcott family. It was absolutely adorable and heart warming. I had to fight tears from coming to my eyes in class. These fourth graders who had never met “Miss Wolcott” or any one of her family members were writing things like, “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott, we love your family so so much and will be praying for you every day.” or one girl who just lost a sister a few weeks ago said, “I hope Miss Wolcott is with my sister in heaven, we love you.” I told my kids that I would write some comforting bible texts on the board, and if they wanted to they could add one to their card. There was one verse however that I could not bring myself to write up on my dusty chalkboard. Hebrews 13:5 “Never will I leave you, Never will I forsake you.” How could I send that text to the parents of a missionary child who was just murdered? Where was God for Kirsten huh? It was simply appalling to me.

I decided to take my frustrations out on the track, questioning God with each stride. I just couldn’t grasp my mind around it. I felt like yelling, “GOD! SHE GAVE HER LIFE COMPLETELY TO YOU FOR A YEAR! WHERE WERE YOU?!?!” I replayed Hebrews 13:5 over in my mind again and again, and then it occurred to me. He was there the ENTIRE time. He was there while everything was happening, however appalling, terrible and horrific it was. He did not leave Kirsten, He did not forsake her, because He promised her that He would not. And God cannot lie because it would be a complete contradiction of Himself, of His word. For He is truth, His word is truth, and He is His word (John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” ).

Just as my mind will never fully grasp the greatness of God until I stand before Him with a song in my heart and on my lips, my human mind cannot even come close to grasping the horrors of sin in this world. Until the time when I can understand both, I chose to follow the Truth. I chose to follow a Promise.

Yes, It is easy to be angry. Anger does not require faith. Anger does not require trust. Anger does not require love. But Hope does. This is what I pray we can all chose in this time. Jesus come soon, and until you do, guard our hearts and minds with Your peace, a peace that transcends all understanding.

Kisses, Karaoke, and Strange Green Substances..

2009-11-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

So we had the school fair yesterday. It was SO fun! I was kind of worried about it because it wasn’t very organized, but it turned out great! The fourth graders made a kissing booth and it was adorable! I personally think our booth looked the best (it was covered with hearts and checkered red and pink papers the kids decorated that said things like “kiss me” on them), but then there is a huge possibility that my opinion is very biased. :) I turned into Miss Breann the make-up artist and with my oh so limited artistic and make-up abilities covered four of my boys and three girls with lipstick and hearts all over their faces. They looked soo cute! A customer would come to our booth pay fifty cents to have that special someone kissed, and then an eager 4th grade kisser covered in melting makeup would race off to find their next love victim. Haha then that person could come to our booth and pay fifty cents to find out who kissed them (we had a top secret love book with the names in it of course). It ended up being really cute. I think my favorite booth (besides ours OF COURSE) might have been the “love connection” booth. Haha you could pay to have two people handcuffed for like ten minutes. It was great. Definitely had some good laughs over that one! Then there was jail. Of course. Joy got sent to jail like eight times and I just kept laughing at her. It was great. Then at the end of the day the high school kids put like six of us sm’s in the jail. We thought this was fairly normal until suddenly water balloons started splattering everywhere. Next thing I knew an entire trashcan of water was being thrown on us innocent jailbirds. Once this happened every child felt it their responsibility to dump as much water as possible on their beloved teachers. After about the fourth bucket of water, twenty water balloons, and ten water bottles I escaped by crawling through some of the mesh and forcing the door open. This led to a jail wide prisoner escape and a huge water fight. Then to top it all off, it started raining outside. I was DRIPPING wet. I swear I had no idea who half of these children were haha I was yelling, “I don’t even KNOW you!!! Who are you?!?!? What have I ever done to you?!?!” and the kids were just laughing and spraying me more. One time I turned around just in time to see a child throw an old ice cream bucket straight at my face. Just as this was happening I thought, “that’s not water..that’s green..” During this moment I should have been thinking, “I should probably close my eyes because a liquid is being spewn in my face” unfortunately my previous inquires of the green substance ended up being true. For whatever was thrown at my face was indeed not water. This was confirmed by my eyes stinging for the next two minutes. I was in the heat of battle, however, and could not take the time to feel sorry for myself, or question what exactly this green substance was. Needless to say it was an eventful day :)
On a completely unrelated note, Asians LOVE karaoke. I’ve always known this, but not at all to this extent. Haha! A couple nights ago a group of us went to this resteraunt called coco marina that is right on the water and pretty much just a hut. There aren’t walls or anything. If that isn’t awesome enough, they had live karaoke going. Lets just say that I ROCKED some mamma mia soundtrack with the help of three back up dancers! :) I also made Andrew (another sm here) sing grease with me, and desperately missed my brother (no one rocks grease like the crook children, we’re pretty much an unstoppable team). The best part of the night however was when MJ (in previous blogs I have referred to her as Joy my favorite Filipino but since there are two Joys I’ve decided to call her MJ so no one gets confused!) started BELTING out “I will Survive” by Aretha Franklin. Oh. my word. Those Filipinos do NOT mess around when it comes to karaoke. I was laughing uncontrollably in between my soul filled back up singing and disco dance moves. It was great. :)
I absolutely love MJ and her family. I’ve been spending a lot of time with them lately and have enjoyed it so much. It’s really nice. I feel like I have some family here. Some days I just want family time, so I go hang out with them and play with Hailey, MJ’s adorable little girl. :) Well I’m going to go fry up some delicious eggplant I just bought. I have actually been cooking here. And the crazy thing is…I can actually kind of cook! I’m surprised with myself, and a little proud I’m not going to lie haha. Oh! and I received some fall decorations and leaves in the mail and was SOO excited! Hurray for seasons! Thank you for all your prayers and packages and love. :)

kissing booths and pumpkin pancakes..

2009-11-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

It has officially been WAY too long since I have blogged. I am getting so used to living here! Some of the things that happen I don’t even think about blogging about now cuz they are normal to me haha. Well for one thing the school fair is tomorrow! My class is doing the kissing booth. We just set it up and it is soo cute! I’ll have to take pictures :) you pay fifty cents and one of my kids goes and gives someone a kiss for you, and then they can pay fifty cents if they want to find out who kissed them. They are all really excited about it! also the Christmas pagent is coming up and my friend joy and I volunteered to be in charge of it. We ended up deciding to write it from scratch. Lol I don’t know exactly WHAT we were thinking. But it is coming a long! I have been needing a creative outlet, and this is the perfect thing! Slightly stressful, um YES. But fun as well. We’re making it a news report, and it is going to be hilarious I’m not going to lie! Hopefully we can finish writing it this week so we can start having auditions (this is for pre-school through 12 grade by the way. Ya. I know. I’m crazy.) THEN we have to start practices and get the set going and costumes and everything. Which I won’t be working on cuz I’ll be holding the practices and directing and what not. But I still have to organize. Anyway, so we’ll see how that goes! I’ll have to find a way to record it so I can show everyone at home :)

The last few weeks I’ve had a lot of fun with my kids. We made spiders for Haloween and pumpkins, and haloween night SO many tricker treaters came to our apartment! We were raiding our pantry for ANYTHING to give them. Lol all of our candy from home was handed out, granola bars, fruit snacks, haha but it was worth it. A few weeks ago I showed up to class and my kids kept saying that I looked like a rock star. I was like What are you talking about?! Lol and they explained that it was because I had my hair down (I have it up in an ugly teacher bun like every day so this they were not used to apparently..) and because I was wearing make up (which I was not, but apparently there was the slightest trace of eyeliner from like vespers two days earlier which they detected). I found this pretty funny and so for Halloween I put my hair down and put on eyeliner and was a rockstar! :)

Besides that I am just getting closer and closer to my kids. They make me feel so loved. The other day almost my whole class made me a picture that said they loved me and all signed it. then they taped it up on the chalk board. I couldn’t help but smile the rest of the day. I also have a few boys that are what I guess you would call “trouble” boys that adore me, and I in return absolutely adore them. The sm before me wrote a letter of advice about my students and mentioned one student in particular as being very difficult and frustrating. Last week this boy drew me three happy halloween pictures repeatedly said, “Miss we love you soo much.” Or “Thank you for being our teacher” or “you are the best teacher ever, we love you soo much” . These boys melt my heart. I don’t know how I’m going to leave them. I don’t want any one to ever hurt them, I feel so protective of them. If anything ever happened to any of them I would just want to hold them until everything was ok.

I feel like God is teaching me how to love this year, and also how to be loved. I can definitely say that I am growing, and I can also say that it hasn’t been easy. But as I have needed God in different ways, He has had the opportunity to reveal himself to me in ways I had never seen Him before. THAT has been amazing.

Speaking of amazing, my dad and gramma sent me pumpkin pancake mix and that as been quite amazing as well lol. (Miss you guys!!) My roommates and I have definitely enjoyed that! :)

This week I have particularly been missing my close girlfriends. I am so blessed to have some truly incredible woman be a part of my life and I thank God for friends like them :). Hugs to everyone back home..

A full weekend

2009-10-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

I’m really starting to fall in love with this island. I have a feeling that these next seven months are going to fly by. It is so beautiful here, and there is so much to experience. I am so glad that I am here, and feel so blessed that God picked me. Grades and school can definitely get stressful and some days I don’t know how I’ll make it to the end of the day. This past week or so I have felt like Satan has been really trying to bring me down. At first I felt so small and frustrated and even hurt, but now I’m realizing that that is the opposite of how I should be feeling. Instead of becoming discouraged and upset I should be excited. I should be excited because that means that I’m doing something right. That means that something amazing is happening through me and the devil desperately wants it to stop. So I am trying to persevere through the days and hours exhaustion has its grip on me, and an invisible weight clouds my mind and heart. I’ve realized that I need to look to God for restoration and hope instead of myself, a movie, or even a friend. This weekend I was reminded of how great God truly is, and how unfathomable His greatness is, even in comparison to the devil and his attempts to distract me, to hurt me, and to bring down my spirits. For God takes distraction and turns it into incredible focus, He takes hurt and turns it into joy, into hope, into love. And takes broken spirits and builds them up with amazing faith and perseverance.

This island is beyond beautiful, and to think that this is just a fraction of the vast world He has created (that I had never seen before just three months ago) is crazy. Sabbath afternoon we climbed the one rock on the island. It is the highest point, and I had SO much fun climbing it. At first it was more of a steep hike, and then you get to a part where you have to climb up holding onto a rope otherwise you’d fall. The last part is literally straight up and you aren’t attached to anything, just free climbing. Needless to say I was loving life, and scambered up as quickly as I possibly could. Once at the top, I sat on the rock looking out across the island and at the vast sea. In that moment the realization of how small I am, and how big God is captivated my heart and thoughts. It is something that I cannot come close to completely understanding. I hope that through my life’s experiences I will continue to grasp a greater understanding of that concept.

As far as the rest of my weekend has gone, it has been quite full. Friday as soon as I was out of class I ran back to my apartment and changed as quickly as I could. Two of the other girls and I went out with our scuba instructor for our first dive. We actually did three. Haha one more day out and I’m certified! It is so easy to get certified here J I’m not going to lie though, it was a little bit more scary than I thought it would be. I just feel like I didn’t have very much control which I think is the scary thing. Haha I just felt so awkward, I was like I want to move this way, but I’m floating this way or turning in the complete wrong direction. I went down to thirty feet though! And next dive is sixty feet! So that will be crazy. I’m excited slash nervous. Our instructor is good though, he was my buddy J I definitely would not want to go without him!

Then Friday night we came back to the school for a bonfire vespers. We taught the kids how to make smores and they were really excited J one of the girls had me help her make like five. I was like ahh a little girl after my own heart. J Then after the climb on Sabbath all of the SM’s went to this restaurant where there was a hula show outside. A few of the students were in it, and it was so cute! Us sm girls have decided that we want to take hula lessons J it was really cool! Then we walked to another place and had dinner which was very fun. After that all the Sm’s decided we wanted to play tag outside haha which turned into darebase (greatest game of all time) this was followed by rain which led to a HEATED game of mofia (oh dear. Oh dear. I won’t get into that one). Finally a group of us played games at our apartment (its like one in the morning by now) followed by football in my apartment (surprised we didn’t break anything) and then a movie (which I did NOT make it through haha). Then this morning shaun came over to our apartment to see if we wanted to go to lunch and Amy and I were asleep, we were like huh? You mean breakfast? And then we realized it was past noon. I haven’t even slept like past nine since I’ve been here! so that was nice J as for now, I probably should stop blogging since I need to enter in all of my grade reports. UGH. Hope everyone is doing well. Miss you guys!

Sabbath and Wallets..

2009-10-10T06:40:00.001-07:00

How do people survive without Sabbath? I truly and honestly do not understand. It is so amazing, and one of the greatest and thoughtful gifts that Jesus gave us. Friday night we went to kitchi (the church on the other side of he island) for vespers and it was so fun! J we played this bible acting game and I was loving life if you can imagine. J we played the party game, and I had to act like I was the second coming haha so I was marching around trumpeting and singing GLORY at everything and being raised from the dead and running and jumping. It was fun and the kids were laughing so hard, it was great. Then today we went to church which was actually really nice today and had a WONDERFUL meal at Mrs. V’s house. She cooked all night last night and this morning for us. It was delicious! I have decided that phillipino food is amazing. AND she made pumpkin pie!! I about exploded with excitement. J I decided that it was an answer to prayer considering that I have desperately been missing the seasons so much haha. After that, one of the locals, Joy came over and the girls next door and we “danced like david” before the Lord. Haha it was soo fun! We were blaring gospel music, and doing the electric slide haha and making up dance moves. It was great J after that we went to sakus ridge to watch the sun go down. That was CRAZY. Ok, so we climbed this ridge about a month ago, I think I blogged about it. anyway, it is ridiculously steep, like we’re talking amazing glutes workout to the max haha. Anyway, there were about 16 of us in the back of Jon’s Ford truck and he was like, “you guys don’t have to climb, we’ll just drive up” I was thinking there is NO way that a vehical of any sorts can make it up this rocky steep trail. Especially with 16 people sitting in the back just like on the edges. I’m a Chevy girl, but I must say that that Ford did America proud today. It was soo crazy! I felt like I was on a Disney land ride especially when we drove down it at night time. It was like the Indiana jones ride but real life haha. The craziest thing was when we were driving up and going pretty fast and one of the tires like went of the edge of the trail for a second cuz its really steep and narrow. Anyway we were all like OH MY GOODNESS haha cuz if one of us fell or the truck slipped we would have all pretty much plummeted to our deaths.. anyway needless to say it was quite fun and a beautiful sunset.

When we got back to the school everyone wanted to go get ice cream but I had already had my share of pumpkin pie for the day so I decided to stay back. I ended up going over to Mrs. V’s house next door where she lives with her daughter and son in law and their ADORABLE little one and a half year old hailey and hang out. J we watched wolverine and chatted and I ate left overs J it was really nice. It was cool having like “family” time. I really enjoyed it. then after that I wandered down to the gym cuz I saw a lot of people. I guess it was an open gym night for the church or something, it was SO fun! I attempted to play volley ball with the locals (I really need to learn how to play haha) and then started playing basketball. THAT was fun J I was playing with these like eight grade and freshman boys and it was soo fun! Haha they were like “Miss! Miss!” whenever I made a shot, and I mean “Miss” as in Miss Breann, not as in ball don’t go into the basket. J it was great, UNTIL I sprained my ankle. Apparently playing basketball in crocs and no ankle brace on your bad ankle isn’t the greatest idea. Haha it isn’t too bad, I walked it off and am icing it now. It is rather swollen though. Oh well, I’m thinking it should be fine in a few days. Hopefully cuz it looks like I’m starting my exercise class this Wednesday! I’m really excited about that! I’ll have to let everyone know how that goes. I’m going to teach yoga and pilates two Wednesdays out of the month and Joy (Mrs. V’s daughter who lives next door and has the adorable little girl haily) is going to teach hip-hop and belly dancing the other two. Haha I guess she used to be an instructor in the phillipines J its going to be really fun.

On a creepier thought, I was freaking out tonight. So last week when my roommate Natalia was in her bedroom with the door shut and the rest of our apartment left to watch a basketball game some man broke into our apartment and took joy’s (different Joy) wallet. Natalia had no idea he was in our apartment, and when we came back one of the administers daughters told us they saw a guy come out of our apartment. Anyway, Joy called and cancelled her credit card the next day, and found out that right after she had cancelled it someone had tried to use it three times. THEN tonight (like three days after this all happened) I was going through my duffle bag under my bed that is full of all my medicine to get something, when what is at the bottom of my bed? Joy’s wallet. I was like no way. AND her card is in it. so we don’t know if some weirdo broke back into our apartment to return the wallet and then decided to hide it in my random bag under my bed, or what. Maybe he just took the card info and then hid it under my bed? I don’t know the whole thing is weird cuz her wallet was in her bag out in our living room so why would he then put it at the bottom of my medicine bag in my bedroom? Its just all weird.

Anyway, I think I’m going to get some sleep! J haha and try my best not to think about creepy guys watching me sleep or breaking into our apartment. Anyway, the main point of this blog is that Jesus rocks, and I love Sabbath J hope everyone is doing amazing back home. Much love.

Positivity?

2009-10-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

Some nights I dread going to sleep because I know what awaits me in the morning. That sounds so terrible but its true. This is one of those moments. Wednesday is approaching much too quickly. And unfortunately Wednesday feels like it should most definitely be Friday. I got sick last Friday and haven’t completely recovered so teaching yesterday and today have been two extraordinarily long days. When you’re tired, teaching is just NOT fun. It takes so much energy to be a good teacher, and I have felt like a terrible teacher the last two days..I’m trying not to get discouraged and to remember that I haven’t been feeling 100% and that this most likely is the entire reason while I’m depressed about my teaching abilities this week haha. I think the whole sick thing has just thrown me off to be perfectly honest. I have been feeling pretty homesick too. I am just finding myself really missing my life at home, and college. Particularly the whole college scene. Walla Walla just started and everyone is starting to put up pics and I’m like, oh dear. This sucks. Haha that’s what I get for leaving to be an SM while I was LOVING college. A lot of people leave because they want a “break” from school. Not I. I left at the highlight of my college experience. Also, today I found myself missing class. I was like someone slap me in the face, what is wrong with me?! But its true…I kind of enjoy class haha like I kind of miss going to class and having my brain stimulated (wow I sound like such a nerd). Even dare I say writing papers?! I know, I know, this pohnpeian heat has to be seriously getting to me. Maybe it’s the sickness?? Anyway, if I cold have one comforting thing sent to me in a package right now it would most definitely be the seasons. Its only October and I’m missing them so much (what sucks, is I know its only going to get worse). At least I have made a life decision. It’s official, I’m living somewhere with seasons. I love them so much, I’d do anything for Autumn leaves right now, a cool and crisp day (yet still sunny), and the smell of pumpkin spice…A trip to starbucks to get their pumpkin spice latte with Emily on a girl date/study break sounds like simple perfection. Sigh…I probably sound pathetic. I keep telling myself I need to toughen up and then I get mad at myself. I don’t want to be here missing home, I want to be here living up every second I can, because when I leave I’ll probably be missing it here! anyway…I guess this is me openly admitting that this week has been well…hard, I have felt a little a lone and dare I say it again..homesick??? (ugh, what a terrible word!) The sickness that I got here was super weird. Amy got it to, but a little different. Kat assured us that most SM’s get it when they first come here, and one of the parents said it was like an island thing. Its like pretty much just exhaustion. I can’t really explain it except that you have NO energy. Like it takes almost all your strength to lift your arm. Plus I had a terrible sore throat (why does that accompany EVERY sickness I ever acquire?? And me off all people…) and my throat and like glands got super swollen, and I was pretty achey all over. But mainly just the exhaustion thing. I slept like all weekend. I just feel like there is so much that I want to do here, and I’m just too tired at the end of the day to do anything but recharge for the next day. It’s like this vicious cycle. I want to spend time with the people here, play basketball with the local boys, start an exercise program for the high school girls, cook meals at our house for the other SM’s, have a weekly bible study, etc. And I feel like I’m slacking. Like there is so much I want to do that I’m NOT doing. Well…I’ve complained long enough J The more trials I encounter the more I should be rejoicing in the opportunity to overcome them, and grow. I have been told that being positive is a quality that I posses, and I wish I could agree with those people more right now. I really do want to have a positive attitude and appreciate the incredible opportunity I have here. Even if I don’t have the energy or opportunity to do all the things I want to, at least I have the opportunity to teach 22 children every day about Jesus. He has chosen to love these kids through me this year. That is a privilege beyond words, a privilege that I don’t deserve. That should be enough for me..

Puke and Particularly Creepy Creepos

2009-10-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

So it has officially been way too long since I’ve blogged. And I apologize. There have been quite a few um…lets say interesting events, I can fill you in on. J haha lets see here, oh about three weekends ago we went to sda church that is on the other side of the island (its like a half an hour drive). They invited all of the sm’s for vespers. When we got there we sang songs, played a game, and THEN they announced that we were having a sing off! Lol I was like what?? So they divided the pews into two groups and explained to us that each group had to have one solo. One duet, one trio song, and a quartet song. And we had five minutes to prepare this. Haha so me and one of the other sm’s brice decided that we were all over the duet. We grabbed a hymnal and picked out “Tis so sweet” after five minutes we had our own little gospel version to perform haha it was really fun J when we sang it the kids at the church went Crazy, it was so fun J they had like a judge panel and everything, and needless to say we dominated the other groups duet ;) haha so that was really fun! It’s nice having a few guy sm’s here that can sing and are willing to! Ok, so now to the more interesting stories..

I woke up wed not feeling up to the tasks of teaching an entire class of fourth graders all day long. Regardless I got up and went to class. Second period I was up front teaching a long when I hear all of my kids start to yell “Miss! Ayaka Vomited! Ayaka Vomited!” I turn around to see one of my girls bent over her chair with vomit everywhere. She had puked ALL over. Like we’re talking ALL over the floor, on her backpack, on herself, in her hair, dripping from her hands (…ok I think you get the picture J) In this moment I was like, oh dear. I have to act like this isn’t gross. Oh my word. Haha so I was like, “ok everyone sit down please” and all the kids are yelling out what they think she ate for breakfast. I walk over trying to mask the terror and disgust on my face and place my hand on Ayaka’s back asking if she felt better. She decided to take this opportunity to randomly wip her hair back onto her oh so loving teacher, splattering her upchucked breakfast all over me. I ended up taking her outside and washing off her backpack, her, me, etc. and then sent her to the office. I went to the office to get some cleaning supplies and I was reassured that someone would come clean it up for me. I was like great! So I took my class out to the field and improv a new outdoor spelling game of red light green light with spelling words haha. Half an hour later when it was almost time to go back in the classroom I looked inside and saw that indeed no one had cleaned it up. It had just been sitting there..I guess the person they asked to clean it up replied saying, “if it was my vomit I’d clean it up, but not someone elses.” Haha so Cindy (our awesome secretary) and I charged the crime scene, destroying all evidence of the mornings events with a good amount of bleach! I’m not going to lie, I think I was in a slight state of shock haha I was like I can’t BELIEVE this just happened. Especially because I am quite the germ freak for those of you that know me. J anyway, so it was definitely a um…growing experience I guess one might say. Ok on to interesting story number two! Which unfortunately might be more interesting than this one..

Ok before I begin this story I first need to explain the set up of our apartment. Our windows do not have glass or any covering like that. It is too hott and we do not have air conditioning. So we have this criss cross like black wire with a screen behind it so air can come in. also our bedroom has two big windows in it right next to each other, and my bed is up against them. Like we are talking RIGHT up against them. Just for a visual, if I am laying in bed the screen would be like one inch from my face. Ok, moving on. Behind our apartment (the windows face the back) there is apparantly a ledge (we are on the second story). We did not know about this ledge until about a week and a half ago when one of the girls in the apartment right next to us had an interesting experience. She woke up at six in the morning to see a man just standing watching her sleep. So she screamed at him to go away and he just stood there. Then she got out of bed and ran out to get her roommates, by then he had left. All right, so now you know the background. Well after hearing this, Amy was like Courtney we should move your bed. And I was like eh, its fine lets just put these little cloth curtains up so no one can see in. possibly not my greatest idea ever and I’ll tell you why. But before I do! I have a quick side story about the ledge. So I was deep in slumber one night when I was suddenly awaked by two cats fighting (SO loud) an inch away from my face on this ledge. Lets just say it was one of those moments you would do anything to have on camera. I literally jumped like a foot in the air flailing and flew off my bed onto the floor knocking over our fan onto the ground with a huge thud. It was really funny but scared amy and I half to death lol oh man.. ok so back to the story at hand..So last night I was EXHAUSTED and about to climb into bed. You see I woke up Friday with a terrible sore throat and could only teach my class until noon. Oh no I’m getting side tracked again haha. Ok funny quick side story!

So here I wake up with a sore throat and its terrible. Basically I can not talk. But I didn’t really feel sick besides that so I was like meh I’ll just teach today. And my kids were actually really sweet about it. I had to have one of them read for me outloud haha and I would just like write everything on the board. Then I started to feel worse right before lunch, like exhausted, achey, hot flashes and whatever, so I put my head on my desk will my kids were finishing working on an assignment. Then all of a sudden I hear all my kids going “SHHHH! SHHHH!!! Be Quiet! Miss is sleeping! Miss is sleeping!” haha it was so cute. I was like, so THAT’S what I have to do to get them quiet! J

Ok I’m back, SO its Friday night and I am not feeling well. My roommates are in our kitchen and familyroom talking or whatever and I am walking around our room getting ready for bed like half awake. I strip to my underwear and my sportsbra (yes necessary information for the story) turn off all the lights, and the walk over and climb onto my bed. As I’m climbing into my bed I realize that our curtain is like open a little bit in the middle, so I’m like huh the wind or our fan must have blown it, so I reach to fix our curtain when I suddenly realize that less than an inch from my face and hand is NOT what it is supposed to be on the other side of our window. I was like oh my gosh. There is a man standing by my bed staring at me. So I quietly just turned around and stepped into our family room saying “um girls, I may be over reacting, but um…I’m pretty sure there is a man standing outside our window.” I thought maybe I was crazy, cuz it was really dark, and I wasn’t feeling well. I don’t’ know. So we walk into our room and we are all talking outloud like saying “is there really someone there? I don’t know, but why would they just be standing there while we were talking about him? Maybe its something else..” because you see now our curtains had closed so we could only see outside of them when our fan or the wind blew them open a little bit. Then the curtain moves and my roommate joy who had taken a step forward goes, “oh my gosh it’s a man. She grabs her toothbrush (who knows why lol) and yells, GO AWAY! NOW! GO AWAY!” I take this opportunity to take cover behind the door to our little cubard of a closet because I realize that I am half naked, trying to put clothes on. We turn off the light in our room, so he can’t see us as easily. Then we are like, no it can’t be because whatever it is, is STILL there and hasn’t made ONE sound. Like at all. So then Amy took a step forward to look and she confirmed it for the last time. She raced to take cover with me and said “it’s a man. Oh my gosh he’s just standing there, I saw his hands the were moving. It’s a freakin man.” (I’d like you to keep in mind that this creepo can hear EVERYTHING we’re saying” so then Amy grabs this little stuffed animal that she has and chucks it at the window and this guy is STILL standing there! So we all leave the room and I grab our broom and am like, this is ending now. This creepo is not doing this. So I turned on our porch lights and went out of our apartment with my broom stick yelling “You creepo! Freakin leave! I have a broom stick!” lol and then I yell really loud so he can here to the girls in the apartment next to us, “I just thought you guys might like to know that there is a creepo staring at us through our window who won’t leave!” then Charlotte (one of the girls from the other apartment) ran outside yelling “yes! I wanna mace him! I wanna mace him!” So she runs out with her spray haha. Then Jon, (Kat, the sm coordinator’s husband) came outside because he heard us yelling and came up the stairs to the apartment. We explained the story (I’m still yelling loudly so this jerk can hear me) and Jon climbed behind our apartment, just in time to see the guy running away. Talk about a way to get your adrenaline going! Who needs medicine when you’re feeling exhausted and sick? All you need is some creepy stalker that watches you sleep! J anyway, I guess this is pretty normal here. like these men know that the sm girls live in these apartments and a lot of times especially when they’re drunk they’ll come and try to watch them. We were like, this is NORMAL?? Jon told us that sometimes girls have looked up while they were showering and there would be someone just watching them from a little window in the bathroom. We also have a little window in our bathroom, needless to say, we are covering that up FAST. Lol and Jon told us that he doesn’t think the people here know what mace or pepper spray are and that perhaps this would be a good time for them to be introduced. I’m SO on it. I’m already sending a package request to daddy to send me some J haha so ya. That’s interesting story number two. It was pretty exhilarating. I was ready to bust out some serious moves with my broom stick. Haha who needs pepper spray. I just want a medal bat! J no but seriously, since we’ve told the boys, everyone wants to make a trap haha. Anyone that climbs up to ledge by our window is from this tree. So I think they’re going to saw it like almost all the way trough but not, so whoever tries to climb it will just fall. And then also, we’re talking about putting like sharp pieces of glass or something on the ledge so if anyone tries to grab it to pull themselves up it will just cut them. Haha and amy wants to put salt there too to make the cuts sting. Oh man…I’ll have to keep everyone updated on that idea.

writing projects haha

2009-09-14T23:57:00.000-07:00

So my kids have been working on a writing project in English class. They had to write a character sketch and setting sketch (they could create ANY character they wanted and use any setting), then write their rough draft, illustrate their story and finally make all my corrections (oh my dear were there A LOT haha) and write up their final draft. I’m grading them right now and they were making me giggle so I thought I’d stop and write up one of the really short stories for you. This particular story is by a boy named Marion in my class that could win a prize for worlds most energized child. He never stops. Never gets tired. Is ALWAYS ready to do something next haha he sits right next to my desk. Gotta love him…gotta love him J ok here we go

Once upon a time there was drunky. He liked to go Viking with his friends. And liked to scare everybody in the jungle. One day drunky had a problem. The problem was he had to go to war because they were attacked by other dead pirates. And they were not enough for the war. So that’s why he had to go. So then he went. The war was really deadly. After the war drunky’s team won “The Tough and Rough.” Drunky was so happy so happy that he could couldn’t stop cheering for his self. Then the next day drunky was called by his leader named Mr. Jorgy. Mr. Jorgy surprised drunky to be the leader of the army. Then drunky was so happy again. Drunky is nice, kind, an dfaithful, and good responsibility. He doesn’t scare anybody, he just walk away and be brave. He’s the leader of the army, so he just wants to be normal. The End.

Thought somebody might enjoy reading that J oh, ok here’s another really short one (some of them were like three pages) This is by a boy named Edgar in my class, oh and his main character named Yitzi is a talking basketball, he just forgets to mention that minor detail in his final draft haha.

Once upon a time there was Yitzi. He looked dirty and he went to ben the toy. He live at the sea castle one day he had a problem. The problem was that Yitzi escaped and I ben the toy chased him. He was running cause he went to Ben the toy. The Yitzi boy was a very bad and soon Ben the toy got him and spanked him. Yitzi stole my jaket and my cellphone. Yitzi was scared and he kept running.

Love everyone lots, hope all is going well at home. I sure have been missing football season and college coffee runs lately….sigh…mk, back to grading! Xoxo

An Unreal Weekend...

2009-09-13T03:44:00.000-07:00

I don’t exactly know where to start. This weekend was a surreal experience. It was so beautiful; it was like I couldn’t enjoy it completely because I couldn’t wrap my little mind around the fact that I was REALLY there. We went to Ant Island for the weekend. Wow, um, ok so. Imagine the most incredible colors of blue you can imagine changing and stretching as far as you can see, with a blue sky full of fluffy clouds as far as you can see. It seemed as though the earth and sky met and turned into one. Haha pretty much what I’m trying to say is that I lived in a tropical paradise Christmas snow globe this weekend. Ya know, the ones were Santa is lying on a white sandy beach with a terrible sunburn and huge smile on his face. I felt so free this weekend. At night I found myself wading out into the ocean by myself just standing in the waves with the soft sand beneath my feet staring into the night. There was this incredible mystery that accompanied the night there, it was glorious. Here I was standing in the middle of the ocean looking at millions of gorgeous stars I have never seen before, a cool ocean breeze is sweeping around me. Waves are crashing to about my waste as they continue on their way. (you could wade out for a while and it didn’t get deeper at all, so I was standing far out but still standing.) When I look back it’s a thick and haunting, in a beautiful way, jungle, and from in front of me an abyss of water and sky. It was just me and God and it was amazing. I stood there for who knows how long, soaking it all in and singing my little heart out. Truly an incredible experience. I feel like I’m experiencing so many things that people could never dream of experiencing. I truly feel so blessed to be here. Oh and Saturday was the most amazing snorkeling EVER. Wow. Wow. Wow! I couldn’t help but miss Laura haha my little snorkeling partner in crime. I found myself just kind off by myself. Haha I didn’t want anyone holding me back as I explored! It was soo fun! I’ve NEVER seen coral like that. ALL different shapes and sizes and colors too! There was bright blue, and purple coral. Soo cool! Oh and speaking of Laura haha there were these AMAZING clams! AMAZING!!!! They had the most beautiful patterns on them I have ever seen in my life. Haha it made me think of all of my fashionable girlfriends. Seriously. Like I kept thinking, oh my goodness I could SO see Laura wearing a dress with that pattern haha or wow, that would make the most amazing curtains! (I’m can’t believe I’m admitting that I thought that…) anyway, it was awesome. And I became quite attached to a few fish, I went through naming them all. Oh! haha and there was this little fish (his name was Raphael) that followed me around kissing me! I’m NOT even kidding! Haha he kept pecking at my legs and it tickled haha.

After snorkeling I found myself lying in a hammock that looked over crashing waves with no one around, reading a great book. I was living in a postcard. Seriously. Ridiculous. Then decided to be scandalous and take off my basketball shorts (got so sick of being fully clothed all the time) and swam out to the big boat that was anchored out a little ways. Oh how I love swimming! I climbed up and layed on the front, it reminded me so much of all the happy lake memories I have! When I closed my eyes it was like I was at home J Then I took the opportunity to dive off the boat into the crystal clear water a few times, it is pretty high at the front so that was really fun. It’s very interesting. I find myself spending a lot of time by myself here. and its ok. Its like I’m discovering an introverted side of myself that I never knew I had, I think it’s really good for me. I’m happy with just being with Jesus and nature. I can feel free and alive, adventurous, or relaxed and renewed. Its all quite new to me haha but pretty cool I’m not going to lie.

Lets see here, oh another thing I never thought I’d experience haha I’m pretty sure I never want to eat peanut butter again! That is literally what Amy and I lived off this weekend. And now I feel gross. Lol. Definitely am looking forward to getting to the track tomorrow! Ooh I slept in my hammock! The first night I wasn’t really used to it, but the second night I slept like a baby. Seriously, like the best night sleep I’ve had since I’ve been here. (thanks daddy!) It was pretty great.

The way back today was quite an adventure. Haha! At a certain point we all had to get off the big boat and climb onto the little boat. We’re talking like a little tiny boat with a motor on the back that Mr. B steers. And there were like 26 of us on this thing. It was about to sink haha and we had to cross through these shallow coral waters. One of the guys had to stand at the front of the boat with this huge stick and push us through the water (I was like, this is awesome) so we wouldn’t hit stuff, and cuz we had to turn off the engine sometimes. And THEN it started raining like crazy, and we had zero shelter haha I can for the first time say that I was cold in pohnpei. This took like forty minutes, it was definitely a bonding experience haha everyone was like huddled together and couldn’t like move or stand at all otherwise we’d all probably fall in. J but we all got back safe and to top it all of got WARM showers! Haha we never have warm or hot water. It’s just something we’ve accepted. I take like a freezing cold shower every day. Which I can’t complain too much about because I’m usually really hot and sweaty, so after the initial shock of cold water its nice J anyway, so that was my weekend.

Oh also I didn’t really mention this, but right before we left I ate this cinnamon bread only to realize after eating a piece that it had cashews in it. I had officially eaten like a whole cashew if not more. I panicked. It was terrible I sprinted to my apartment and shoved benedryl down my throat (for those of you who don’t know I am very very allergic to cashews. Very allergic.) and then tried my hardest to throw up. I could only dry heave though. It was not fun. I wasn’t even really reacting badly but I was freaking out because I knew I would and we were JUST about to leave in like on minute. Anyway, I ended up being ok, it was SUCH an answer to prayer. First of all that I decided to randomly have a piece of this bread right before we left (because I hadn’t packed any benedryl) and secondly because I didn’t have a bad attack even though I ate so much. I still don’t even understand how that happened. The cashews were cooked, a lot. Like they were bendy and almost looked like dried fruit. That’s what I thought it was at first until I looked at it closer and everyone verified that it was cashew. So the only thing I can think of is that since it was cooked so much, I didn’t react as badly and also that maybe since it was cooked it was taking longer to get into my system and the benedryl got into my system faster? I’m not entirely sure, but I know God had something to do with it. I was so scared. I ended up sleeping on the way out to the island and was pretty tired and out of it that day from the medicine but as far as the reaction went I only had like on tenth of the stomachache that I normally have. It was such an answer to prayer. Anyway, God is good, and I can’t BELIEVE how beautiful his creation is. And to think that he made all of it for me. For me to explore and soak in and enjoy. Because He just loves me THAT much. A pretty cool feeling… J I felt very loved this weekend. Miss you all, XOXO.

Muscles/Boobs

2009-09-08T23:36:00.001-07:00

So I have actually started to have brief moments where I find myself enjoying teaching.. I had to stay in my classroom until almost five today though and have about two more hours of classroom work to do. This job is quite demanding sometimes. Haha but I can’t complain because I’m finally getting to go to Ant island this weekend. I CAN’T wait! It is supposed to be the most amazing place around here. It’s an island with no electricity, bathrooms, shelter, ANYTHING. And we don’t have school Friday so this whole weekend we’ll be roughing it J I can’t wait! I’m sure I’ll have many exciting things to blog about once I return!

Ok, random clip from my class today. Haha just thought I’d give your imagination a little picture of what I deal with everyday. J I looked over at one of my chubby little twins named julien and he had tennis balls (or maybe it was just wadded up pieces of paper, who KNOWS) under his shirt like muscles and was flexing. How could I NOT laugh? But they were SUPPOSED to be doing science, so I asked him to stop flexing and put his muscles away. About five minutes later he walks up to my desk with his once muscles conveniently placed on his chest, in order make two quite large breasts. I was like. What??? Lol, I’m pretty sure that his muscles/boobs then transformed into basketballs as he turned into Kobe Bryant, throwing wads of (I still don’t exactly know what) around my classroom in a very sorry attempt to make a basket in our classroom’s (always overflowing and disgusting) trashcan.

As far as exercising goes, I’ve finally figured it out J well getting there. Last week I dragged someone with me every day but one to go running or walking at the track. Then I figured out that a towel makes a perfectly good yoga matt for our dirty floor in our apartment. Haha last we had exercise class with Courtney. Five of us girls spread out in our apartment and I made the girls to “killers” where you do jumping jacks for a minute, then quick feet for a minute, then back to jumping jacks etc for ten minutes. Then I led out in a yoga class J haha from the limited amount of yoga I know from going at walla walla (thanks Lisa). So I’m thinking I might start like a workout class a few times a week for all the girls, or whoever wants to join. Maybe even some of the locals J I’ll keep you posted. I’m thinking I’m going to need a few yoga movies to learn stuff so I can teach everyone haha.

Oh! and I have FANTASTIC news! I found a piano on campus that I can use! Or a keyboard at least. Who cares! Something I can sing with J I’m soo excited! I haven’t played it yet but hopefully soon! Definitely an answer to prayer J anyway, hope everyone is doing well. Love you all! Xoxoxo!

this past week

2009-09-05T18:34:00.001-07:00

So, the last week..Hmm..well as far as class goes, it went much better. I think I’m starting to get the hang of the teaching thing. Well a little bit more at least J I seriously adore my kids already, I can’t imagine how close I’m going to be with them after the year is going to be over. It’s going to be so hard to leave them. Even the ones that I was worried would drive me absolutely crazy are making a way into my heart. I think I am finally understanding about where they are academically so it will be easier for me to deal with when they don’t understand certain basic concepts. I’m more prepared for that, so I don’t think I’ll get as frustrated. Since school has started they’ve had a three tests. The first two (science and math) some did TERRIBLE on so I let them find the right answers and fix it (I mean I just want them to learn the stuff) but for social studies almost all of them aced it! I was proud of them J later in the week we were talking about different cultures, and Irish dancing was mentioned, so I told them that I had a friend who was an Irish dancer and they thought that was pretty cool (I love you Megan!) and then the next day I brought in my laptop and played them some Irish music. Haha but all they wanted to do was see pics on my computer, so I gave in and showed them about four pictures. I have told them about Zac and how he is in Majuro as the coach. One day in prayer requests I prayed for him, and now the kids raise their hands and say “Zac!” I was like who? And they were like, “Your brother!” haha it was really cute. They all want to meet him J and when I showed them a picture of him making a silly face with me they were laughing so hard. It was super cute. So now they ask if he’s coming to visit and I have to keep telling them no L I am also figuring out the whole grading thing. It goes like this, grade ANY free second you have, then I don’t have to do it after class. However, I haven’t recorded ANY of my papers yet, which is now a massive stack. Ha, better get on that! Oh, and my kids finally like to sing! I guess they were just shy at the beginning. I taught them the Milk song and they LOVE it haha it’s so cute. This week had its rough times in the classroom for sure, but over all it went pretty well. And the days that I was struggling I got to open care packages from home (which just make EVERYTHING better) thanks familia and walla walla! J J

As far as this weekend and last weekend, pretty great. J last weekend we went to this AWESOME waterfall that you had to hike to. OH MY GOODNESS! I was seriously in heaven. Pohnpei has to be the best island hands down. I LOVE the jungle haha anyone who knows me, knows that exploring through a jungle is most definitely my idea of fun J we started the hike and then like we turned straight into like the thick mass of the jungle and kept going there like wasn’t a trail at all, so we were like climbing over and under trees in the mud, jumping across creeks. (I had to pee, quite exhilarating actually…in a rainforest J) and then we got to the waterfall. There was like a forty-foot drop straight down and so of course I immediately jumped off. SO fun! And then we climbed up the side of the waterfall where all these rocks were, I was like oh my goodness this is why I was made! Lol I love exploring soo much! It definitely makes me miss some friends from school though. Wow. Anyway, then you had to quickly cross the river where the waterfall was so you could get to the other side and jump off again. Haha so I saw the current and was like, ah its not that far why don’t I just swim it really quick. Bad idea. Lol I just lunged forward and realized that I didn’t quite make it and suddenly I thought, “oh my goodness if I can’t grab onto a rock or something I’m going to go over the water fall” haha luckily I grabbed onto a rock and was fine. Possibly not my brightest idea ever J all very fun though. Then it started pouring rain, which just made everything better. I decided to run back in the mud and rain, everyone probably thought I was crazy but I was just loving life haha. Then the next day we went out to breakfast at this place and had macadamia banana pancakes, followed by an outing all day. They took us on the big school boat out to these ruins that were so fun to climb and explore! I guess no one knows much about them, it’s like a mystery. But it used to be like a city and civilization. And it’s all made out of rock, so climbing up the walls were really fun! Then, we went to this little island and explored it. There was actually SAND at this island and the water was unbelievably clear. So we just sat like in the water or leaning up against a palm tree eating out packed lunches. Pretty awesome. I still can’t believe how beautiful it is here. Then yesterday after church (oh haha I did Sabbath school and gave like a miniature sermon, it was actually kind of fun. I kind of enjoyed it! Still haven’t sang for church yet, like special music that is, man I’m going crazy I’m really missing singing..) Amy and I and Joel and Barbie (two Australian guys) went on a picnic with the phillipianos to this amazing like little open hut at the end of a dock type of a thing. It was beautiful (of course). It was for Noli’s birthday (he’s the maintenance guy at school and is awesome, we live right next door to him :) we ate AMAZING Pilipino food AND had icecream!! We played bible games with them, it was so funny they are wonderfully happy people lol laughing at everything! It was great. And then we met up with some youth from the church at climbed to this ridge that looks over the whole island to watch the sunset. Man, was it a hike! I’m not sure if I’ve ever hiked up something quite so steep! It was fun though, I was sweating like crazy, I felt so good after haha it was a great workout J and on the way there were like old war bunkers and an old rusted tank, and really cool stuff like that. That was fun to explore. Then when we got to the top there is like a phone tour thing that I climbed up part way to be even higher. Pretty cool J when we got back down it was completely dark and we still had to drive back, so about 25 of us all climbed into the back of our faithful truck and drove through pohnpei. We went through a side of the island I hadn’t seen yet, at it was so cool just soaking in the island and their culture at night time. Really enjoying being here. it is so different at home.

Which all leads me to right now! Typing and flicking off the annoying ants that have decided to share my bed with me haha. This morning has been a cleaning day for the school. So I got to go clean my classroom, and wait for it….drum roll…my little fourth graders DISGUSTING bathroom. Oh. my. Goodness. There is NO way my dad would have cleaned that thing lol. I kept thinking about that and laughing. Anyway, I’ll spare you the details but lets just say it’s as clean as it’s going to get now! Then there is some party tonight for someone leaving the school or something which means lots of rice and fish and bananas and fruit for free! Actually, I’m rather surprised with myself but, I’m ENJOYING cooking. Like, we have to get fairly creative here but my dad and gramma have sent me quite a bit of cooking stuff and I’m having fun with it. Amy and I make beakfast burritos, French toast, and like fruit parfaits for breakfast. And then for dinner I’ve been cooking like sautéed veggies, and rice, and veggie meat cooked with spices and sauces and baked beans etc. it’s been great. Oh, and apparently soymilk, frozen bananas, honey, ice, and dried apricots make for the greatest smoothies of all time. Haha, so I’ve finally gotten the food thing figured out. I’ve finally been able to exercise too! It is so awesome, this last week I went to the track every day but one. I have been power walking and doing sprints (trying not to kill my knee) regardless its great. You can get away from the school, and there is such a cool atmosphere there. Like all the people from the community come out. It’s awesome. Haha I want to join one of their track teams! I think it would be super cool J and I just realized how long this is getting! Sorry my faithful readers! J I guess I’d just like to conclude this blog once again with prayer requests. Pohnpei SDA school is going through a difficult transition time right now. There is a lot of drama going on, we don’t exactly have a principal, and may not have our sm coordinator now too. I’m not exactly sure. We don’t know everything as sm’s but there are some fairly big problems going on right now. Also we lost one of our SM’s last week. Rian went back home. That was pretty hard for the school too, I think a few of the administrators and island teachers took it personally. I hear that we’re getting two other girl sm’s now, but I don’t think anyone knows exactly whats going on haha. I think that would be great! So I’m praying for that to work out J anyway, thanks to everyone, miss you lots and can’t stress enough how much I appreciate all of your support!

yogurt covered raisins!

2009-09-02T02:14:00.000-07:00

At this moment I am sitting on my couch eating yogurt covered raisins from my father, and a granola bar from Walla Walla University. Boy are care packages the best. I’ve decided that besides Jesus, they are officially the most comforting things ever! And the rollercoaster of my life continues. Yesterday was awful. Probably the worst day since I’ve been here, yet now as I write today there is a smile in my heart and consequently there has been one on my face for most of the day, AND I’m about to go jump off a buildings and swim J Yesterday class was really hard, my kids were not listening and crazy. And then I stumbled back to the apartment to try and use our bathroom. Didn’t exactly work. Our toilet flooded like our entire apartment. It took Amy and I like almost two hours of work cleaning up, moping, sweeping, etc. And then I had to do laundry to have the washing machine broken. Anyway, I didn’t even get to sit down until like 7 something at night and was so fed up. But this morning I woke up renewed. J Today was a great day of class. My kids all like aced their social studies test, and we talked about Jesus and sin and heaven in bible for two class periods. The kids got really into it and were asking so many questions. It was great! AND its over half way through the week! Meaning another INCREDIBLE weekend is almost here J haha this one boy draws me a picture like every day (its always the same picture haha its so cute.) And he usually drives me slightly crazy cuz he asks the stupidest questions literally every thirty seconds. He’s growing on me though haha I don’t know how he couldn’t! yesterday he wrote me a little note (accompanied with the same picture as always) that said “Miss Breann is the best teacher. I love her.” Those are the things that get me through the day and keep me from losing my temper! These kids just need to be loved (along with learning how to count and minor things like that) and I’m doing my very best to do exactly that. Oh, and did I blog about my amazing weekend yet? Hm…I’ll have to do that J

An interesting day.

2009-08-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing how many emotions you can go through in one day. Earlier today I was playing football in the middle of a gym with (120 little kids running around playing every game all on top of eachother, no seriously volley ball, basketball, tag, jump rope, soccer, CHAOS) a group of my boys and loving life. I was Qbing telling them all plays and they were SO excited. It was amazing, I was having so much fun. Haha I made them huddle up, and acted all serious and they got so in to it. It was crazy, with no rules, or anything but quite fun. I went from that to a terrible lunch period where everyone was yelling and screaming. (barely got to eat) then trying to make my kids understand science for like a full hour, helping each one individually do a stupid (easy) worksheet. To get them prepared for a Test tomorrow. Then, I surprised them by making cupcakes and having a surprise birthday party for the kids with august birthdays. This was chaos until we went outside to play duck duck goose. I made the kids pretend they were ninjas so they would be quite for the other classes that were still in class. This made me laugh because here all my kids were running around campus jumping and being ninjas. (myself included of course) BUT then it started raining all of a sudden so we had to run back to the classroom. (didn’t even get to finish a session of duck duck goose) This led to everyone all loud and disruptive. Finally school was over and I had six or seven kids stay to work on their math assignment for the day, (it was just review over stuff we had already learned and they hadn’t gotten like half way through it) I was tutoring them and going through every problem individually but some of them wouldn’t even pay attention, and I was SO tired and trying to help them. Finally I only had three left. I was trying to explain rounding. For instance a problem was the number 59. the assignment was to round it. So I would tell my kids ok, is this number closer to 100 or closer to 0? And they would look at me like I was a crazy person. So I said. Alright, when you have a number 50 or higher, you round up so it would be 100. but if you have a number 49 or lower then you round down to 0. So is the number 59 bigger or less than 50? And they all looked at me and said “less?” I didn’t know what to say. So I would repeat the question like five times. I did this with every problem. This is COUNTING. I kept saying, well lets count. Do you count up to 59 from 50? And they’d say “um…no?” I felt SO helpless. When kids left and I was on the verge of tears. I felt so over my head today. I don’t’ know how I’m supposed to teach kids like that anything that’s remotely close to 4^th grade. and I’m putting everything I can into it. I didn’t even know I was this patient. And yet today I was seriously about to yell at a girl, “are you THAT stupid?!?!” So I’d really appreciate prayers. I need it. My days are kind of like roller coasters here. either absolutely amazing, or frustrating and exhausting. Last night I read a text in Isaiah 58 that said “The Lord will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs..you will be like a well-watered garden. Like a spring whose waters never fail.” Sunday I felt like a spring that just had a flash flood and was erupting everywhere haha but today I felt like my spring was drying up pretty quickly. I had to keep reminding myself of the promise that God made to me. I have a lot of needs right now, but I know that he will meet all of them and fill me completely. I just didn’t’ feel like that today. I felt like my garden was dying and withering right in front of my eyes. Not to depress anyone J I really wish I could have music time with just me and God here. like have access to a piano and room, just for myself. It’s so healing to me. Sigh…

Anyway thank you so much for being supportive at home. I just received my first package (thanks Gramma Haskins!) and it made my heart smile J Its nice to know I’m not so far from home when I feel lost! And most of all I can’t thank you enough for your prayers, I need them now more than ever!

Lots of love, Courtney

An Awesome Day

2009-08-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning hurting everywhere. My skin was burning, my wrists and joints were aching, my stomach was churning, I had a full week of 23 attention consuming children ahead of me, and yet I got out of bed rejuvenated. Ok, so my body was most definitely not rejuvenated, but my longing for adventure was. I had been aching for an exploration all last week, and did I get one Sunday!

I woke up Sunday morning at six o clock, and by seven there were sixteen of us (amy and I were the only girls) and fifteen surf boards climbing into our faithful read truck ready for a day out on the water. I was AMAZING. The driver for Pohnpei Surf Club graciously took all of us out for the entire day on his boat for only the cost of gas. It would have normally cost $500 to go out with a group, but we only had to pay $20 each J First of all, I can not even begin to explain how breath takingly gorgeous seeing the island from the water was, and what was even more incredible was seeing the water in stunning shades of blue I could have never imagined. I’d never seen such beautiful colors in my life. Hmmm J Amy, Matt, and I sat up at the front of the boat hanging over, with the wind blowing in our faces, it reminded me of the lake but even better. We started off the day with stopping at a surf spot. We all grabbed our boards and started surfing. The waves here are definitely different (and slightly more intimidating than at home), but I braved them anyway. Getting an obscene amount of salt water up my nose (my sinuses have never been so thoroughly cleaned), being held under water for a good amount of time, getting scratched up by coral, but enjoying myself the entire time. Some of our guys are seriously REALLY good surfers. Like I’m not sure if I’ve ever surfed with guys this good, the surf is really like the reason they came haha so my surfing capabilities looked rather sad compared to them. However, there were a few other boys who never even caught any waves, so I was feeling ok with myself J I then decided to catch my breath so paddled over to amy (who was of course snorkeling to her hearts content) where we held on to my surf board and floated, watched the guys, took in our beautiful surroundings, and talked about life. We then hopped into the boat, and our driver continued around the island stopping at another spot. Some of the boys continued surfing but I decided it was time for snorkeling, so we jumped into the water to explore! This carried on for like three more stops. It was soo fun! We’d either surf or snorkel, each spot being a little different. Then when I felt tired I’d lay at the front of the boat and close my eyes feeling the boat gently rock and listening to the islander music our driver was playing. This enjoyment had dire consequences however, I haven’t been this sunburned since I was Puerto Rico (Laura it made me miss you!!) Yes parents, I put on sunscreen (two or three times!) but apparently the Pohnpein sun has a mind of its own. My goodness! I am sunburned inside of my ears! Its crazy! Haha Lets see, ok back to snorkeling! I saw a shark! I was super excited, we had been looking for one all day, and I saw the most BEAUTIFUL fish! They were poka dotted, and striped, the most amazing colors, I can’t even explain them in words, there were so many! I think my favorite one might have been a bright turqoisish blue one with black zebra stripes. It was so me. Ha. Oh, and well…the beautiful parrot fish…um…well about that. So, we were taking turns spear fishing (I ‘tried’ but didn’t catch anything, I think I just subconsciously didn’t WANT to catch anything haha), when Eric (one of the guys, who’s obsessed with spear fishing) climbed into the boat with a parrot fish. He killed it and began scaling it right there. I would have been sad but I was just so curious! This new explorative, culture side of me has been quickly immerging. Anyway, he cuts it in squares (like you do with a mango) and pours soy sauce and lime juice on it. I was like you’re just going to bite into it RAW?! And the boat driver explained to me that its like everyone’s favorite food here, and like a real treat. To eat a fresh and raw parrot fish. Suddenly I turned to Eric and was like, can I have some? Next thing I know I was biting into a raw fish, sitting on a boat in the middle of the ocean just off a gorgeous island, and surprisingly it was actually yummy! I went back for a second bite haha I couldn’t believe it! Lets see here…talking about spearing fish. The FUNNIEST moment of the trip happened yesterday too. Amy had been swimming around with the spear for like half an hour or more trying to catch a fish, when I see here swimming towards me with the spear in the air. She goes, “Courtney, I caught one!” I smiled really big and was like “Great Amy! That’s Awesome the guys are going to be so jealous!” When she took of her goggles and I realized that she was crying. No wait, not crying, SOBBING. It. Was. Hilarious. I about died. Here she is floating in the ocean holding here fish that she had tried to catch for almost an hour, crying her little heart out because she felt so terrible. I was dying laughing! She just kept saying “It started twitching! I didn’t think it would twitch! I hurt it!” and this would send me into a fit of histarics once again. Lol. Ok, so lets see, what else. Oh, as we were heading back to the island we stopped at a few more places to snorkel and we saw a manaray! They are HUGE! I couldn’t believe it! I wanted to swim with it but only got to see it from the boat. Still was super cool though J Then after being exhausted in the most remarkable way, I drifted off to sleep as we took the enjoyable and lengthy trip back to the dock. Followed by a delicious dinner of rice and grilled veggies, and watching ‘how I met your mother’ with the roomies.

Some how that trip made all the hardships, stressful class periods, and exhausting days worth it. As of today I’m back in the classroom for a week, but its nice to know that another weekend adventure is on its way. I must admit, Friday and today have already been getting better. I think my kids are starting to get a better feel for the type of teacher I will be, and some of them are really trying to do there best, like in everything. I have about four boys that I can tell just adore me, and man do I adore them. They all have tons of energy, but are smart and when I tell the class to be quiet, try to help and get everyone quiet too. Also, I took some extra time to read to my kids Friday, and they all crowded around me, sitting on the floor and even standing next to my chair. It was soo funny because one of my boys named Burt (who I thought was going to be a problem at first, cuz he kind of acts like he thinks he’s super cool) started giggling in the middle of the story and couldn’t stop. This led my entire class to start giggling, followed by myself. When I tried to get them to quiet down Burt went into a fit of giggles once again, and I just could not for the life of me tell them to be quiet without giggling myself. So we all just stopped at laughed, it was great.

Today I was just really tired from yesterday, but not as much exhausted as sleepy and sunburnt, which in my book is much better. J I think Wednesday I’m going to throw a little birthday party for my class, for the kids who have birthdays in August that is. Also because they have two tests this week (plus a spelling test), so I figure they deserve a break! Doing this once a month for the birthdays in that month will get slightly costy, (from making them cookies, or cupcakes or whatever) but I figure that it will give the kids something to look forward too, and will make them feel special. I don’t’ exactly know what they all get from home on their birthdays. This leads me to something else. I was reading one of my girl’s papers today and she mentioned that her dad died this weekend. I’m not sure if this is true (I just read the paper tonight, and she went home early today, plus she doesn’t have very good writing so I’m not entirely sure if that’s exactly what she meant) but it has me very concerned. So I’ll find out what’s going on tomorrow, but if you guys could really keep that in your prayers I’d greatly appreciate it. Also, I have a girl who has been bullying this adorable sweet girl named Zara (she’s from Australia) and it has been very hard for me to be as sweet to her because it makes me so mad. I just found out though that her father died last year, so I’m worried about her. Clearly she doesn’t know how to deal with her feelings in a positive way. (as you can see my social work side is kicking in) So if you guys could pray for her too, I’d also appreciate it. Besides that, prayers for my energy and stomach would be great! I’ve been having some problems with my stomach and it just adds to the stress of being a brand new teacher. Anyway, love everyone at home, sorry this blog was so long, I just had so much to tell! J

2009-08-18T03:30:00.000-07:00

So…the last two days have been EXHAUSTING, and no, not in the amazing I just wakeboarded all day on a wonderful lake way. Wow. I just keep telling myself that these first few weeks are the worst. I don’t even know where to start. I love the kids here so much but I just feel like I’m over my head. Like I’m wearing myself out too thin already and its only been two full days! I just got another girl in my class Monday (that makes 23 with no aid) and she doesn’t speak ONE word of English. I was like, what?! What am I supposed to do?! So I talked to her father and am trying to arrange for her to get tutoring from one of the teachers aids for the other classes that speaks pohnpeian. Also I have these two twin boys in my class that LITERALLY ask thirty questions a day. It is actually quite amazing. Lol its only been two days and I’m pretty sure my patience has never been tested so very much. Also I don’t think my voice has ever been so tired! And I’m used to talking a lot! Its actually sad. My kids are struggling so much academically. It is very frustrating because the school wants us to use the books we have for their grade but they aren’t ready for it. Some of my kids can’t even really read. Like maybe a sentence. For instance I’m supposed to be teaching my fourth graders multiplication and long division etc. but they can’t even add. I went over some adding with them out loud, went over problems with the class, and then was on my feet going from desk to desk helping every kid the rest of the period. Then I reviewed every single problem and answer with the class again all together. It was exhausting, and when I just graded my papers I was slapped in the face with the fact that most of them failed the assignment. Like only a few kids got anything higher than an 80% like maybe three. And it was just adding! This is all supposed to be easy review. Also, when I went to teach bible and passed out the bibles my class has (I only had like 12) the kids couldn’t even all use them because most of them were missing so many pages. Plus, my class doesn’t have bible books cuz there aren’t enough. Haha just many challenges like that. It’s just so hard because I have like four brilliant boys that are so excited about learning and want to do everything and move on, and the rest of class is just struggling so much. I seriously don’t think I ever sit down in my chair for more than twenty seconds at a time no exattuaration. Its crazy. However, there is something that MADE MY DAY today. My kids were working on a social studies sheet, and one of my boys raised his hand very concerned. The students were supposed to match a resource from a specific state with a job someone living in that state might have. Haha one of the answers was “cotton” (with the matching answer being a clothes factory or something) and this little boy looks at me with the most earnest eyes and asks, “Miss, are they talking about cotton candy, or the cotton that you make clothes with?” I had to look away after I answered so he wouldn’t see me laughing.

After grading papers, and being depressed I headed back to my apartment just in time to grab my snorkel and jump on our faithful red truck. My grumpy mood soon brightened with a trip to the ocean. Amy and I swam out to this reef through open water where people go fishing. One of my buddies, named Zack he’s in sixth grade, who I love to death told me has lots of sharks, so one of the guys lent us a spear cuz they were going spear fishing. We decided that this was a more frightening experience than an enjoyable one. Haha it was really murky for some reason where we were and you couldn’t see anything below you for a long time while you swam out. I was like huh, there could totally be sharks right under us and we’d have NO idea. Then, the coral wasn’t too great, saw some pretty little fish, but nothing amazing. Still waiting to do some awesome snorkeling at an actual place for snorkeling. Hopefully we’ll be going this weekend J So after we swam back there we were all jumping off the roof of this building thing into the ocean (its about fifteen feet up, maybe a little more?). The guys were all doing gainers etc. and I was suddenly inspired to try a front flip. Haha I have no idea why considering that I’ve NEVER done a front flip off anything before. Like not even into a swimming pool haha my friends know that I can barely manage one on a trampoline. But I just went for it, and totally landed it. Didn’t over rotate or anything. It was pretty cool, now the guys want me to do a back flip haha so we’ll see. J Its so nice to have a support group, like all of us going through the same thing. It seems like we’re all struggling with the same things and are all exhausted, and its nice to be able to all leave after a frustrating day and just have fun together. I’m really enjoying getting to know everyone better here, and am looking forward to getting closer through the year.

Oh, and last night Amy and I made an amazing original dessert! Her dad had just sent her tortillas in the mail, so we fried bananas and rolled them in tortillas with butter and brown sugar and then baked them in the oven. They were SO good, and well…quite unhealthy. Haha but the boys really enjoyed them. I’m quickly realizing that this is going to be my crash course in cooking year! Anyway, I need to try to catch some sleep and grade some more papers. I don’t think there will ever be enough hours in the day! Miss everyone at home, thank you so much for your prayers, I really need them right now!

God truly is so good. One of my friends said, “There is no where better to be than where God wants you to be.” I can honestly say that I feel like Pohnpei is exactly where God wants me to be this year, and it is a great feeling. J

a good day :)

2009-08-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

Today was AMAZING. This weekend actually. It is Sunday night and I am officially exhausted. But in the amazing way, like after a full day of wakeboarding at the lake J I am falling in love with an Island called Pohnpei. Sabbath we went through town telling people about a free health fair we were having and it was really cool to see more into the culture here. I have decided that I am never complaining about our apartment again! There is quite a bit of poverty here, we are so lucky in America. Seriously, I feel quite spoiled living at the academy here. Then, at the health fair, I ended up sneaking out and just playing with the kids all evening, it was SO fun. Haha I was soo tired, I need to get in shape! At the health fair I got my blood sugar taken just for fun, so Ryan poked me with a needle to get some blood and I jumped cuz I was really surprised. Haha the kids thought it was SOO funny, so they started calling me Miss Pokey Hand. I was like what? What are you calling me? And then they’d just run from me. It was so funny. This led to numerous games of hide and seek, dance offs, the game Drop, and fits of giggles. After we left, Amy, Joel, Matt, and I had a photo shoot in the rain. Haha we had to drive back in the rain, so we were already soaking. It was quite fun J Joel and Matt, have me pretty convinced that I want to move to Australia (that’s where they’re from), haha at least a visit J

Today we woke up and a group of us went out to this little island to teach some kids how to surf. It was amazing. I really don’t know how to put in words. It was like today wasn’t real. We pretty much spent the entire day in paradise. Got to teach some kids how to surf, ate rice and barbequed chicken (I had a little, trying to live up the culture thing) and then we took out the boards for a little. The board I was on was literally half as small as mine and half as wide, I didn’t think I was going to get up at all, but ended up catching a wave. I didn’t stand up though haha I was too scared of falling into the coral. When I got off my board I was in only like a foot of water, if that. I am realizing that if I’m going to surf here I need booties cuz I was just standing on the coral, and then waves start crashing in. Its slightly intimidating I’m not going to lie! Some of the guys actually got cut up, but I ended up being ok J Oh, and Amy and I learned about Fire Coral the hard way! She decided to grab it thinking it looked pretty, and I accidently kicked some while pushing a little girl on her surfboard. It burns! So now we know to stay away from that J We’ll definitely be going back to that island, it only costs five dollars to get over there, and then ten dollars for a little hut to spend the night (which you can split between five people) so I’m quite excited to say the least. Now I just need to get some sleep before my first full school day tomorrow! I’m sure I’ll have many stories about that, hopefully good ones!

2009-08-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

So the first two days of school are officially over! I’m not going to lie, the first day was exhausting! Everything I had planned was over in like an hour, and then I was like oh dear. What do I do?! Haha but today was much better, and I was well prepared J my kids require every ounce of my attention at every second, but are absolutely adorable. I am really looking forward to getting to know them all better. Today I read Winn Dixie to them for like an hour, and had them draw a picture or a scene from the story I was reading them. And they loved it. I was doing the voices and everything, it was quite fun. I’m definitely going to enjoy that aspect of teaching J We also had math today, and oh dear is there a lot of work to be done there. I am supposed to be teaching them times tables and division and all of that stuff but today as we were reviewing adding and subtracting I realized that they are far from ready to move on to anything else yet. I went over their assignment with them and did like four examples with them. In the end I ended up doing every single problem with them on the board, and sometimes with them individually again as well. It was pretty tiring. I don’t know how I’m supposed to teach them other things, its going to be a lot of work. I have this one little girl named Zara from Australia who is absolutely adorable! Besides that the other 21 of them are all islanders who insist on saying Miss! Miss! Every second J. Teaching is going to be much more work than I thought to be perfectly honest. But I think it will just be especially difficult at the beginning, I need to get the hang of things, and as Amy and I are discovering already, learn things the hard way J

Much to my delight Amy and I are finally figuring out how to eat here. That was quite discouraging but now we have a rice cooker (I ruined are first batch of rice last night. Worst pohnpeian missionary ever. I swear I followed the little instruction manual!) and have found that we can get carrots, and cucumbers for our vegetable supply (even some frozen veggies occasionally! )And have decided that the pricey apples are worth it for our fruit supply along with a never ending supply of bananas. The locals put bananas in EVERYTHING haha they are quite delicious however.

Last night two of the guys came over and had a lesson plan party with Amy and I. It got kind of late, (ten is late for us now haha so much for a college schedule!) and my silly side kicked in full force! The laughing was great stress relief but I’m pretty sure I traumatized these two innocent guys that barely know me. There were just like oh my goodness whats happening?! Now we’re all about to go find a swimming hole or something cuz its sooo hott! I’m seriously like over heating here. and I’m still waiting to go surfing! Ahhh!!! And maybe snorkeling soon J I hope we get to do something fun like that this weekend!

2009-08-12T04:36:00.000-07:00

Sooooo in about eight hours I will no longer be Courtney but Miss Breann J I can’t believe school is starting tomorrow!! My classroom is as tidy and clean as it’s going to get. Well. Besides the little bathroom I have in my classroom. But lets not talk about that. I’ll have to get some pictures up of my room and kids soon. Friday I think I’m going to have all my kids put their hand print in paint up on some poster board that I got and then we can put them up on my bare walls J Oh, Amy and I recently discovered that we have a few new roommates. One being a mouse that decided her computer chord was absolutely delicious and worthy of chewing, a gecko the size of a woolly mammoth (and company), and wandering ants that find my bed as comfortable as I do. I was the lucky one to first site the mouse haha it was so funny. I had just put a delicious chocolate cake in the oven for Shaun’s birthday and was sitting down when I see something (literally) crawling out of our stove. I was like WHAT is happening?!?! And then I saw that it was the little wire eating culprit. We unfortunately didn’t catch him, but I was perfectly fine with that cuz he didn’t eat my chocolate cake. Otherwise the wrath of Miss Breann would have rained down upon him. The girls are rather terrified about our new little oven dwelling roommate but I think he’d look rather cute if he was wearing a bowtie…anyway, oh my I’m so excited about tomorrow! I can’t really sleep, which is exactly why I’m writing on my blog right now J decided to use up the good old internet card. Oh dear, that can get a little expensive. So tonight Mr. B (the principal had everyone over to celebrate Shaun’s birthday. It was so amazing. They cooked an incredible meal for us (my favorite meal since I’ve been here) they even made three birthday cakes and had ice cream! But that wasn’t even the best part, there was fruit and a, wait for it…drum roll….salad!!! Amy and I were SO excited. We’ve been going crazy, it’s so hard to get fruit and veggies over here. but tonight we had cantaloupe and the best pineapple ever and watermelon and rice and these deep fried banana things, and fish (it was actually really good) and grill cheese sandwiches (definitely a treat, considering we can’t afford cheese). So that was really cool. Oh, and Mr. B has a piano! I’m not going to lie, that is something I’ve really been missing. There is just something about sitting down at a piano and singing that makes me feel whole. When we went to church on Sabbath there was a piano and I was soo excited until they started playing it at church. I’m pretty sure I have NEVER heard a piano that out of tune. Haha it was actually pretty funny. Definitely couldn’t sing to that one J well…I probably should get some sleep so I have some energy tomorrow. Oh boy. Now the real adventure begins. Oh and by the way I have twenty students and no teacher’s aid! One of the third grade classrooms only has eleven kids and an aid. I was like huh… haha so this will be fun! J

2009-08-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

So I have decided! Its official, I am definitely going to be able to get used living here! J it is soo beautiful and the people are so sincere and welcoming. They threw us a welcoming party last night. there was literally tables of food! and the woman did a pohnpeian dance for us, so fun :) On Sabbath almost all of the SM’s came over to our apartment and we made spagetti. It was awesome. We have such a great group of random missionaries! Much to my delight, we have two Australian boys J I love their accents, but I have quickly learned that I am supposed to never relate them to New Zealanders, haha so our potluck was fun. We seriously had like twelve of us in our little kitchen. I think that will be a tradition that we start, and I’m looking forward to it. Then we went to these twin waterfalls way out in the jungle Sabbath afternoon. Haha if my Father saw the way we get around here, he’d probably have a heart attack J its awesome, we all climb in the back of these like old truck things, one of them kind of looks like a little fire truck and we all just stand and hang on while we are like off roading through the jungle. Oh and the waterfalls..AMAZING. Oh my goodness! I’m trying to put pictures up as soon as I have enough internet! It was sooo beautiful! We climbed all over them and jumped off and swam in the pools. I was most definitely in my happy place! Then it started pouring rain and everyone found shelter under this little metal sheet thing, but not me! I was loving the rain! Its so warm, needless to say I was drenched and smiling ear to ear J Oh my, may I please deviate from the topic of hand and inform you that I am currently sitting on my bed typing this attempting to eat a bowl of granola without breathing through my nose because it smells like pig! Its rather difficult…anyway Sunday morning wasn’t quite as enjoyable as sabbath I must admit. I went to see my classroom and let me tell you, there is SO much work to be done! My classroom is ridiculously dirty and stuff is kind of just all over the place. It was slightly overwhelming cuz I wasn’t sure where to start. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many spiders in one setting, good thing I’m not terrified of them. It just made me realize how amazing we have it in the states, even like our “ghetto” Adventist schools. Wow. All of the desks are rusted badly, the floor is uneven cement that is almost black, I don’t think I have enough books for some subjects etc. oh, and the books are all wet from the humidity and gross. I wish I had better materials to give to my kids..It will take much cleaning and organizing before I can start decorating my classroom or doing anything fun. And on top of that I have to start my lesson plans! School starts Thursday, so I’m excited but a little nervous cuz there is so much to be done. And I am still waiting to go surfing, we haven’t been able to go to a beach or anything, however we did go to this like lagoon yesterday and a few of us jumped off this roof of this like abandoned house thing into ocean that was fun. The boys are hilarious, they all have nick names for themselves, and I’m pretty sure they just decided that Amy and I are worthy of being nick named as well. Apparently they have decided that I’m seaweed haha I’m definitely going to enjoy getting to know everyone better. I can tell, we have an awesome year ahead of us. The beginning is just a little stressful! Anyway, thanks for your prayers, I really appreciate them and need them!

i'm here!

2009-08-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

I’m here! Wow. I don’t even know where to start! So flying in was AMAZING. I was soo excited, I got out my camera and next thing I know we landed and I didn’t take one picture haha I was so in awe that I forgot. It is so beautiful. Also the island is much bigger than I imagined. I still can’t believe that I’m here and am going to be here for ten months, that sounds so crazy to me. I’m trying not to think of it like that because I’m not sure if that excites me or scares me right now. Our apartment is…well…not quite what I expected, but we are doing the best with what we have! We just went on a total cleaning spree today scrubbing the kitchen and floors etc. it still looks kind of dirty but at least we know the truth! oh, and I must mention that we have some interesting/terrifying neighbors. Amy and I were introduced to the pigs that live right outside our window and behind our apartment upon our arrival. I honestly thought there were baby dinosaurs being tortured outside our room. I was completely unaware that anything in the world could make such a horrifying and loud sound. So THAT will be fun. Oh, also we have discovered a few roommates as well. Apparently the lizards here are on steroids and love our kitchen.

Yesterday we were taken to the “grocery store” to get supplies and food. When I walked in I almost cried. Lol I was like there is NO way I can live off of this for a year! It was very small and had limited and very expensive food. For those of you who know me, you will know how important food is to me haha and luckily we took a trip to the store once again today. I almost broke out into song when we walked into this grocery store! I was like thank you Jesus!! It was literally eight times as big and even had soymilk! I was sooo excited! I will be more than fine J they even had Oreos, however they were seven dollars haha the food is really expensive here its crazy. I seriously think I’ll be living off of spaghetti, rice, and apples.

So apparently humidity and Courtney to do not mix well. I am pretty sure that I will take eight showers a day. Oh my word. Its crazy! I really hope I get used to it. And worst of all my feet, ankles, and fingers have swollen up like balloons! I’m pretty sure that I know what it’s like being pregnant! Haha my feet are the worst. It sucks because they are so achy! I hope this is an adjusting thing and I get used to it because it kind of hurts! Lets see…oh, and also our apartment flooded last night haha luckily it wasn’t Amy and I’s room. There is something wrong with our pipes or water or something, because like our shower will just randomly turn on, and then the kitchen sink will suddenly be on full blast etc. I think the maintenance guy is going to look at it and try to fix it soon though! We have our fingers crossed..Also the smell of our apartment and just pretty much everywhere is going to take some getting used to. I think its because its so wet it is almost like everything is mildewed. Oh well! There definitely many things to get used to!

In general I guess I am kind of in a daze. This place is quite different than what I was expecting, but then at the same time I don’t really know what I was expecting. To be perfectly honest the living here is much more primitive than I anticipated, and also English isn’t as predominant as I thought it would be. People speak in more of broken English and in very thick accents so it’s hard to understand. We were told that our students will have English as their second or third language and I for some reason didn’t realize that. Currently the school is going through some transitioning and we don’t exactly have a principal. It’s a little confusing as to where we’re supposed to be etc and like the SM’s haven’t even all officially met or had a chance to do ice breakers or anything. That is the thing that has bothered me the most, because even if we’re all confused as long as we stick together and are a close group I think it will all be fine. So for anyone who is reading this, if you could keep that in your prayers that would be wonderful.

Oh, I think I forgot to mention this, so um…when it rains here…it RAINS! Oh. My. Goodness. I didn’t even bring an umbrella lol I don’t know WHAT I was thinking! I can’t wait to go to the beach or water or something. I guess the water is ten or fifteen minutes away? I hope we still get to go a lot cuz I was hoping to go like every day (of course) oh, and I’d love to go explore I seriously just want to hike through the jungle. We’ve only been at the school and church. And I haven’t gotten a chance to catch up on sleep yet either, we’ve been so busy moving in and cleaning etc. I’m so exhausted! Speaking of which, I’m going to try to get a nap in before we have vespers, but just so everyone knows I’m here safe! Thanks for all your prayers, this is definitely an interesting transition and I’m not exactly sure how I feel about everything yet. But I know God has amazing things planned for me this year, and regardless of how I feel, this is where I am supposed to be at this time in my life, and that God has guided me here. It will just take some time to discover exactly why that is. Thanks for everyone’s support! J