Pants Party

We wear skirts. All the time. On occasion, we do dresses. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I’m a happy dress-wearin’ girl. But the fact that I now sigh in frustration having to put on a skirt/dress every morning means it is time for a pants party. And that is exactly what the girls did last night.
Pants, shorts, tanks, non-Jesus music, “Friends” episodes, junk food, dancing--we did everything we’re not supposed to. I had such fun. We decided this would be a monthly occurrence, because I believe girls can only take being so girly so much. Even yours truly.

My Aana

Aana is seven years old. I’m convinced that into this third week of school, I have said her name more than any other in my life. “Aana, get off the windowsill.” “Aana, that’s not where you belong.” “Aana, please pay attention.” “Aana, come here.” “That’s not okay, Aana.” “Aana, don’t jump on the desks.” “Aana, sit down. Aana…Aana…thank you.”And that’s all before our eleven o’clock lunch.

Despite the fact that by the end of the day I have spent a subject’s worth of time trying to get Aana on task, I am drawn to this child. She’s indescribable, really; one of my most hyperactive students. She’s my singer, my helper, my after-school company, my laughter. She loves me through my discipline, but refuses to fawn after me as some of my other girls do. And in that way, she is my friend. Though she loves my lap for company, she prefers my talk. Her little girl voice and stubborn temper remind me of my seven-year-old self.
Aana Hannah Pink Hana Anna. That is her real name. I envy her sweet contentment and happiness. She is small--plenty small to fit in my suitcase. I may consider it on my return home.

I Love Ocean?

Half a week and a couple days down. We are exhausted. “It’s going to get better . . . right??” we ask one another, a hint of desperation in the question. My soft-spoken voice is suffering slightly and I am more than ready for a break. Grace came to me in my classroom. “Do you want to go to the bridge?” (there’s one bridge in Majuro). Without hesitation, I was in.

Thirty minutes later we were loading the back of our campus pick-up--Scott, Nathan, Evan, Grace, Cameron, Travis (keeping up on his blue bike), and me. I left my stress on campus and happily took in the wind as we rode the couples miles to our destination.

When we arrived I got my goggles, braided my hair, and hopped down. “The bridge” has a small sandy beach (lacking at school), a cement type walkway which I can only best describe as a pier where many locals fish, and a bridge standing thirteen feet above the water.

Cameron, being the adrenaline-needing, acrobatic daredevil he is, headed to the top of the bridge to jump. The boys followed while Grace and I settled for watching from below. After they’d jumped a few times, she looked at me. “You want to do it?” I looked up to where they were standing, and then down where a small audience of Marshallese had gathered at the bottom. Being the first SM girls to hit the water from the bridge appealed to me. “I’ll do it if you do.” And with that we nervously climbed to the road.

For a jump that would be over before we knew it, we spent an unimaginably long time preparing ourselves, standing over the railing, breathing (hyperventilating more so), looking down and over at the boys who counted to three enough times to complete perhaps a couple minutes. Unable to take the pressure from anticipation any longer, I said to Grace, “We’re doing it when I count to three.” We let go and I experienced the longest three seconds of my life.

Fighting the current as we swim to the rocks, we looked at each other wide-eyed. I won’t lie--I got out of that water with a slight sense of pride and accomplishment. I exhaled. Now I was ready to swim.

Maybe it was my cursed edge of competitiveness, or perhaps I was still living off the rush from our jump, but for some reason I decided to keep up with the boys out in the big waves. Cameron told me repeatedly, “Jaimie, don’t come out here,” which of course only made me more determined. I love to swim. Always have. Who’s to tell me I can’t go further? Feeling pretty good when I manage to swim further out than the boys, I turn my back to the ocean to see where everyone else is at. I see Travis and Nathan across from me, Scott, Cameron, and Evan closer to shore, and then I hear, “Watch out!”

I turn my head with time enough to see the massive wave collapse on me. Without time to take a breath, my heart started pounding as I fought for surface, unaware that my body, like a rag doll, was hitting rock and coral. Fright took over and after what seemed an eternity, I screamed as I reached surface. Not a second later I was back under, same routine. Only this time, I thought I was going to drown. I was panicking with nothing but the pressure of water surrounding me. When I felt my lungs would burst, I managed to get above. Without thought, I screamed for Travis. He got to me after the third wave took me back down again. Pulling me up, he asked if I was okay. Shaking my head and near to tears, I said over and over, “I need to get out of here.” He grabbed me as we started swimming back to shore, trying to calm me through the waves we had to take back. Heart beating fast and still gasping for breath, I was a mess by the time he got me out of the water. I sat down, knees curled to chest, and all I could think about was how scared I had been--how I had thought I might die in the ocean. I didn’t want to touch that water again.

Not much later, the group decided to head back. I climbed in the back of the truck, and watched the water get out of view as we drove away. Bridge jumping, big waves, and body tumbling in the water--I decided I had enough of a break and would be ready for another day of school tomorrow.

Thanks to Mom

I received packages from my mother today. My kids now love her. I put our old colored pencils, dull scissors, and nearly dried-out makers in a box and filled our crooked art shelf with new school supplies. They made her Thank You cards. “Thank you for this things.” “Thank you Mrs. Julianna or Mrs. Harder” (I gave them the option, but many chose to write both). And I have real food. This is a happy day. I love you, Mom.

School as of Yet

I have little, if any, qualifications to be a teacher, but here I am--scrambling to create a sufficient second grade classroom, thrown into basic yet unimaginably difficult curriculum, and racking my brain for recyclable classroom materials. My hands ache from sharpening old pencils in preparation and I wonder why I used to find it fun, as my children do now, to do this menial task. I wonder if they notice the cardboard boxes that I use as paper trays or the capless markers I tried to salvage. Neither seem to phase them. Perhaps the teacher before me had the privilege of 12” rulers, but I don’t think my kids mind a couple inches broken off. Who uses all twelve at once anyway? And long pencils are overrated. Small, sharpened-down pencils work well for little hands, right?

With blistered fingers, I pick up broken chalk leftover from last year and write, as vertically as possible (a challenge, I admit), “Miss Jaimie.” Since most cannot yet read, I don’t hold it against them that many call me Miss Amy instead. They’re loud for their size, and quite charismatic. Six days down and I feel that this will be a constant work in progress. I hope I’ll savor every moment of it. They deserve that much from me.

From them I get light. If I don’t smile they ask me why I’m sad, and I’m gratefully reminded of all I have to be thankful for. When they tell me they’re hurting, I say I’m sorry, and they’re satisfied to have even so little sympathy. When they innocently ask, “Miss Jaimie, why are you so beautiful?,” I smile and tell them they merely see me that way, and I believe they feel they’ve then accomplished something. When they fall, I pick them up, and when I’m down, they return the favor. I have the honor of receiving freshly plucked weeds daily. And I lack the heart to scold them for using a third of our glue when they present to me lined paper stuck together, complete with abstract stick figures.

I have thirteen non-stop lively, desk-dancing, pencil-drumming, creatively spoken students. And I believe I love them. Very much.

Liking Jesus

I’m sitting on my “porch” right now. The rain’s just letting up. It’s rainy season here in Majuro and I think it’s wonderful. Maybe I’ll save some tin cans and set them outside my window. I think I’d enjoy that.
School is starting soon. When some of the SMs and I were talking, I told them the teaching part didn’t worry me. I said it was the Jesus element that was a bit unsettling. Kids I love. It was Jesus I needed to love more.

So I’m working on that.

Anyone can say “I love Jesus.” You’re supposed to, right? But to love Jesus best, you need to like Him first. And to like Him is to want to know Him. We’re doing pretty good so far, Jesus and I.

Meanwhile, I’ve attempted to make my unintentionally colorful brick room homey, though I fear it’s leaning more towards the homely side instead. And unless I’m taken by surprise, or trying to kill one, the cockroaches don’t bother me too much. Elizabeth, my apartment-mate, has enough fright over them for the all four of us.

So in-between preparing my classroom, cracking sprouting coconuts, and trying to bake better bread than Travis (still unsuccessful, but getting closer), I have been making a home out of little Majuro while also grasping Jesus in a different way. It’s all very good.

Apartment-mates

Our SM Home

Our sleeping place

Goodmorning Majuro

Carrie Cloke

Carrie and I laughed a lot tonight. I’m sitting across the bed from her as she reads her book.Eeyore is snuggled close next to her. Carrie makes for a good roommate, her and Eeyore both.

Tonight she listened to my stories and let me record her rubbing a Styrofoam cup of ice on her bug-bitten legs. That’s another good thing about Carrie—the bugs like her better. And she falls asleep with the light on (like she has now) so I can finish reading, drawing, or writing silly blogs at night. There’s also a good chance she’ll let me read her novel once she’s finished, since I only have three books and two of them are Bibles (send me books?). Carrie also takes her apartment key with her everywhere so that I don’t have to remember mine when we go out. She doesn’t talk badly of other people, which I think is pretty neat. And she’s funny. I like her.

Hm, she has just now, maybe subconsciously, lifted her head and “humphed.” Perhaps she hears the boys snoring through the wall. Regardless, I think I’ll turn the light off now. But yes, I do like her much and enjoy her company. If only she’d let me keep a hermit crab . . .

Looking to the End

A view of Honolulu

On our last night of orientation, we gathered in the chapel for a focus on commitment and prayer. Come morning, we’d be leaving for our islands and homes for the next ten months. I joined in the circle of my new “family” headed to Majuro and saw in their eyes a reflection of my own feelings. Fear. Excitement. Worry. Anticipation. From across the circle, a fellow SM looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, and our exchange seemed to be an acknowledgment: we’re really doing this. After months of waiting and days of preparation meetings, we were leaving behind familiarity and comfort with a certain determination toward an uncertain outcome. And that got me thinking: what do I want from all of this? At the end of ten months, what will I expect to have happened?

To close the meeting, the student missionaries huddled together in the center of the room. Before the closing prayer, a song was given as a gift to us for our upcoming journey. I don’t remember the lyrics, but a line in the chorus talked about the end of it all.

As it was being sung, I decided that I wasn’t going to make any expectations. I wouldn’t specify myself or my plans to that. But one thing was sure—I would hope that at the end of it all, people would know that I loved God and that I loved them.

Live a Life of Love

Yellow Flower

Face against the wind

She caught her cotton dress

Narrow eyes to ward such mist

Her tousled hair a mess

A life she left behind her

One unforeseen ahead

And yet she moved in darkness

With naked feet she tread

Now below a graying sky

She felt so very alone

Unprepared and unaware

Of this, the great unknown

And as she moved in quiet

Through such a lonely place

A lonely tear slid down upon

Her lonely, solemn face

She cast her glance aside

To what lay by the stone

Hope began to fill her heart

For she was not alone

A single flower lay

Yellow pedals as a crown

She came upon it softly

And slowly she looked down

She saw from where she’d come

Then looked forward to the sea

Where countless adventures waited

And ready she would be