1-17-14
Hey everybody!!! How are you all doing? I miss being able to have real conversations with you all… haha. But I am grateful I can send out this to still show you guys what’s going on in my heart and mind. Since I’m a little behind on getting my update up I ask you to bear with me… as its gonna be a long one, sorry.
Monday (January 6th) was a day off. We spend the day talking, going to the coffee shop, and preparing for a special dinner. Wilson and Ester and their kids came over for dinner (and brought most of it) and we ate with them and played a few rounds of spoons. When they left the team played Indian Poker before going to bed.
Tuesday (7th) we began our time with the Boys High School. Every day that we were there we lead the morning breakfast devotional and then joined the seniors for their Bible class. Tuesday we did both of those, and then the guys when to play ball with them in the evening while Alicia and I stayed at Fuana’s.
Wednesday (8th) the boys add Chapel to their morning routine and we joined them to hear the other team do some speaking and leading. After that the school had some concrete work they needed help with, so the guys did that while Alicia and I helped out in the library. Then we had the Bible class before going and spending the rest of the day at Fuana’s.
Thursday (9th) we had a day very similar to Wednesday, devotional, working around the building until lunch and then Bible class. After that we packed, shopped, and prepped for Anguar (An-gar).
Friday (10th) we did our last devotional with the guys (hopefully not last for forever), and split them up into groups to have them pray for each other. I had a bit of a hard time connecting with them in the time we were there, and had only really connected with the seniors who I could talk to on a more personal level through class. Who ever thought I would be intimidated by being one of two white girls surrounded by Palauan teenaged guys? But I enjoyed getting to pray and talk with some of them that Friday. We then headed to the boat to Anguar. It’s a 4 hour boat ride, and the island is small enough that you can walk around it in two hours. We landed (with the other team, we all stayed together), got settled in and spent the evening crabbing and then did some worship.
Saturday (11th) we did what we set out to do… but what I forgot to tell you was that it was raining the entire week. The only day we didn’t have a lot of rain was Friday, which was such a blessing to be dry on the boat. But Saturday we decided to go clean up the beaches, which is part of what our purpose in Anguar was to be. But it was still pouring rain…. So we put on our swimsuits, grabbed our trash bags, and headed to the beaches. One of the biggest problems in Palau is the Spirit of Passivity, and we decided to set an example in breaking that by going out in the rain. So we spend the day drenched in rain, hiking through slippery rainforests, to pick up trash off of beaches… adventure right?
Sunday (12th) was one of the most intense days I’ve had in a long time. Max spoke at the little church that morning and God used him to teach me some… much needed lessons. To begin with, I was struggling with why the spirit of passiveness was affecting me so much; I understood that it was the spirit of the land, but why was it so much worse for me? God showed me that it was worse for me because it is also a bit of a spirit in my family. Once I realized that I begged God to break it out of me, to set me (and my family) free from this spirit. I realized that my passiveness had lead to my feelings of isolation, and disconnect, not only with the other team, but with my own team as well. I had been passive in trying to get to know the other team while I had the opportunity of living with them to do so. In choosing to be passive about getting to know the other team I had also been losing my connections with my own team as they actually did get to know the other team. See what a vicious cycle it was? Thankfully God broke it, and since I have been able to step out in many ways, including even saying this so bluntly to all of you. The other thing God began to show me Sunday, and the rest of the time in Anguar was who He made me to be. He and I sat and had a long conversation at the pier and it was so good and so refreshing to hear from Him and to hear even just a piece of who He made me to be. To help me out, He allowed me to really connect with a leader (Tanya-Rae or just Rae) on the other team, letting her ask and me tell, everything that I had gone through that day. She also encouraged me and lifted me up, and just told me to keep pressing in. We managed to rope in a few of the other team members to play spoons that night, and I had the best time I had had the entire time of being with them. Funny how freedom and openness can brighten your mood and lighten your heart, right?
Monday (13th) we tried to keep as a free day a bit, and so a bunch of us learned how to make local sweet bread from the pastor’s wife Sylvia. I got to swim at the pier (something that happened more often than not… like every day haha) with Rae, and two others from the other team (Caleb and Anna). We all got to take the time that evening to watch the sunset before eating dinner and having a family sharing time (where I again stepped out against passivity and apologized for disconnecting from them). We then had an amazing worship time, where God spoke to me and also allowed me, again, to be blessed by Rae. After that Alicia, Caleb, and I lead a small worship time for Fuana, our Anguar contact, and another amazing woman of Anguar.
Tuesday (14th) was another amazing day. We spend the morning doing a prayer walk around the island and then visiting an old, fallen lighthouse. After lunch we again set off to clean some beaches, and Alicia and I took our own. We worked, talked, explored, and had a blast before heading to the pier to swim before dinner. She is working on learning to dive (something she has never learned to do before) and each day she gets better and better. I’m working on learning how to do a running dive, which is going a lot slower than Alicia’s learning haha. For dinner we had a special Ships dinner, at the only restaurant on the island, owned by an Australian named Bennie. It was a WONDERFUL evening; I shared what God had been teaching me and we all shared about the things we had been learning, growing in, and overcoming. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the food!!! SO GOOD!!!!!! And then we all just hung out played spoons and Indian poker, and managed to rope Bennie into playing with us at both. It was a perfect, flawless night.
Wednesday (15th) we spend doing the deep clean of the community center we were living at… and man-oh-man was it gross!!! Seriously! But we put on our swimsuits, dug into the cleaning, and then dove into the ocean to get off all the chemicals and grossness. We had a party of sorts in the evening, we invited the whole island, only a few came, but we had some worship, some skits, some testimonies, and some time by the bonfire, it was a perfect ending to our time.
Thursday (16th) we finished packing, did another clean sweep and then got on the boat to come back to Koror. The rest of the day we had free, which we spend at the coffee shop before having an amazing pizza dinner with the other team before we rented and watched a movie.
Today, Friday (17th) is basically another free day, at least for part. We leave on Sunday for Kayangle, and it sounds like we will be there for quite a bit… like a month. Sunday is the January 19th, and they think we will be staying in Kayangle until February 10th, which is basically the rest of our time here. It will be the five of us Ships people, and we will be joined by only 3 of the guys from the other team, the other two who were gonna join us are going back to Anguar where they already left 10 other members of their team. So Kayangle is turning out to be nothing like what we had expected, and to be honest… I’m extremely unsure of how I feel about all of it. I’m afraid of feeling useless like I did in Ngarchelong, and I’m afraid of trying to live with no water, except to drink, and to live with not only the 3 guys from the other team, but most likely in a community center, with countless others. I’m extremely intimidated by the entire though of everything having to do with Kayangle. Not that I plan on letting it stop me, but… well, I don’t know… I guess I just have to say pray for me haha.
Thank you again for suffering through all of this to read my whole brain barf haha. I have absolutely no idea when I’ll be able to post once I leave, or if we will come back halfway through the time to write home or anything, but I’ll write to you all as soon as I can. You are all amazing, and I miss you all so much! Love you all!!!!!
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