A Wildflower Morning

For those of you who remember jolting around in the back of a pickup truck over those horrible, un-paved roads around the island of Pohnpei, I have good news.   The road that rings Pohnpei is now completely paved.  The whole way!   Except for some of the older sections that need repaved again, the road is pretty smooth and nice.  It only took a couple hours of driving to get completely around the island.  Some of you might remember how we rated the jolts on the Richter Scale, as if we were measuring the power of an earthquake.  I believe that we would have called it a 10.0 if someone had been launched out of the back of the truck.  Thankfully that never happened, but I do remember some potholes taken at great speed that bruised up most of us, shaking our brains real good, likely causing the poor memory I have today. One of the coolest things we saw on the trip around was the Kittie Church.  Some of my sweat was i...

Keproi Falls, on the island of Pohnpei, could be one of the most lovely waterfalls I've ever seen, especially when you add in the warm water, and the refreshing pool for swimming.  It falls over the rocks like a lacy curtain I would have gotten in myself, but when I sat down on the rocks with my feet in the water, all of sudden I was surrounded by dozens little curious fish.  That unnerved me, and all of a sudden I was out of the water, remembering when a fresh water eel had nibbled on my foot in a Pohnpei river long ago. None of the other swimmers seemed to mind though.  The pathway to the falls was colorful, and lined with flowers. In the States you can by this plant in tiny containers to grow in your house.  This is what it would look like if you would give it enough heat and humidity.  I found the little white flower above growing by the water in Guam too. I've seen no country grow nicer Hibiscus then Pohnpei.  They s...

I'm thinking about Pohnpei tonight, listening to music and sorting through photos.  This photo, taken on Willie island in Ant Atoll, really speaks to me.  (You might wish to click on it and look at it closer.)  The two island you see have significance to me.  The one on the right comes around to the right to the channel.  I first fell in love with snorkelling there.  On the far left, of the left hand island is the place where we spent the night after our boat crashed on the reef, 25 years ago.  Between the two islands you can see the silhouette of the Pohnpei mainland, with a touch of a rainbow setting it off.  I love this place.  I can't get it out of my mind ever since I've come home.  I've been to some place close to paradise, and I've had to leave it again.  But it is not just about the beauty of the lush tropical island.  It's those kids at school, and those people at the church.   They are held deep in my hea...

 One of the best things about Pohnpei SDA School is the students.  While Rob was working on special projects, the rest of us got to spend Thursday and Friday mornings with them.  The next week would be spring break. My daughter, Araya, and I started the morning by telling stories for worship in the classrooms of willing teachers.  Araya got a little taste of what it was like to stand in front of a classroom of students for the first time. She spent the rest of the morning in classrooms helping students one-on-one, or grading papers for teachers. She fell in love with the whole working with little island kids thing, and didn't want to leave the island when it was time to go home.   William spent Thursday morning with this first grade classroom. Envangeline is their teacher.    He was really nervous that he wouldn't remember what you have to know in 1st grade.  I told him not to worry about that.  He knows ...