Outreach Week 1

​            Hey all you fun people! Week one is over! I can’t believe it is already over and done!  If you think serving God in a tropical climate is easy, think again! It’s so hot here that dripping sweat is a common occurrence, you can get a sunburn from an hour in the sun, the mosquitoes eat you like they’ve never had a decent meal, and the lack of hot water can be rather chilling in the early mornings.  And here I thought tropical was supposed to be paradise hahaha! But if you ignore those minor details this place is amazing!

Monday we left Koror to head to a state in the north of the big island called Ngerchelong (yea… we couldn’t pronounce it either).  We spend the week up there working on putting a roof back on a church.  It was a small church, only about house size and our goal was simply to re-brace some of the support beams and then to nail in a new tin roof.  Alicia and I got slightly frustrated by having very little to do and feeling like we were sitting around doing nothing (she handled it better than I did, I started going nuts).  We were working with three locals (Osmond, Jessie, and Other), and that combined with our three men, and only three ladders, left us a bit stranded and often times we just thought we’d be in the way if we tried to help.  She and I did get the chance to pound in a few nails and I even went all the way up on the roof and nailed in some of the tin. She and I also had two mornings where we didn’t join the guys, and helped clean a local church for their Christmas event and cleaned the community center we had been staying at as a team.

Let’s see if I can give you a better more concise overview… Monday we arrived, looked at the church, went fishing with Osmond and attended a prayer meeting of a church across the street from where we were staying.  Tuesday we worked most the day (except for a lunch break that is normally an hour or two to try to avoid the greater part of the midday heat) and then spent the evening watching the guys play 500 with some of the neighborhood boys in the street by our house.  Wednesday we worked, took our lunch break at a sand beach, where it stays about 4 feet deep out until the drop off, which is way farther out than it looks.  We continued to work in the afternoon but ended early and kinda hung out with everyone for a bit eating coconuts and learning to husk them better and such.  That evening we all joined in to play 500 and had a blast.  Thursday was a wonderful day.  That was the day us girls helped out at the church (raking and sweeping mostly) then met up with the guys for lunch, helped finish the roof part (also the day I got up on the roof).  Being (what we thought was) our last day of work we ended early and took a trek up to and old Japanese outpost/lookout. We then went to the school and played basketball with a good group of kids for a few hours.  We ended the day going back to the pier to watch an absolutely gorgeous sunset.  Friday Osmond and Jessie took us fishing along with their wives.  We fished in open waters before having lunch on a rock island (that we had seen from the outpost the day before).  We had the fish we caught for lunch and then wandered along the beach swimming, enjoying the waves, and picking up shells.  That evening we made a campfire in our front lawn and sat out there watching the stars and playing guitar, and we were happy to be joined by Osmond.  We got pushed inside by the rain, but enjoyed our day immensely.  Instead of going home Friday night we had been asked to stay another day to finish a bit more on the church, so Saturday Alicia and I stayed to clean the center in the morning while the guys did some little bits more on the church.  We were back to Koror (and Fuana’s- our contact and host) by evening, cleaned up and went to go meet the other team from Kona with the APAC DTS.  They have 25 students and are a bit overwhelming for all of us, but we are all here for the same purpose and my team hopes to be able to serve them as much as we can.  Yesterday (Sunday) we went to church, hung out with the other team, went to the café and then watched a movie together as a family.  

Sorry that was SOOOO long! I just couldn’t bear to leave any details out haha. They main things we learned this week are to really pursue relationships and to be ok with taking them slow, that we need to focus on the people and not the task, and that we need to keep focused on the next little step that God puts in front of us.  Thank you all for taking the time to read through all of this! And thank you all for your prayers! If you think of us pray for our homesickness this week, as it is Christmas, and for the family back home who miss us.  Miss you all, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!