Cold salt water showers, bacteria, cockroach scares, and wall paintings.

      Please excuse me for a second while I try to catch the two mice that live in our kitchen.....nope, too fast, anyways..Teaching…it’s tough stuff man. I have a new type of respect for teachers. Although I am in a third world country, the feelings of unappreciation, frustration, and getting your feelings hurt are the same anywhere you go.  Last week I started drawing on my classroom walls. I drew a sun, flowers, a house in the distance, clouds and a rainbow. I was thinking man, these walls are really ugly, they are so covered with kids scribbles on it, I want to do something nice for them. I began my project. I got a lot of compliments from my first grade class that I assist, but when it came to my second graders, I had a girl tell me something that surprisingly hurt my feelings a little. “Ms. Em, you are crazy.” “(I laughed) Crazy? Why am I crazy?” “Because you draw on walls, so you’re retarded.” I said, “That’s not a nice word and I don’t want to hear you say it again, okay? I’m drawing on the walls for you guys, so they’re not just plain.” “Okay, but you’re retarded.” I know she just doesn’t understand the actual meaning of the word and that she was using it in the wrong context, but I still had to make an effort to go back to making the painting for them. God is showing me through different trials or experiences so many things here, and how much appreciation I forget to show to Him.  

Sometimes I’ll think about…Wow, I am here for 5 months…5 months..every single day. How am I going to get through this? My second grade kids, some of them can’t even count using their fingers. I cheerfully and patiently kneel down by their desk and do it with them. They thank me, and then go back to cheating, so I go back to taking their papers away for cheating. “But Missah…Uziel was cheating.” “Well it was your paper that you gave to him, I took his paper too.” “Arghhh (tongue rolling thing they do). Each day I go over the rules with them “1) Listen to the teacher 2) No climbing out the window 3) No choking or punching eachother..etc. Usually by the end of the day they’ve broken all of them at least 10 + times. I stay on my word though. I hold them after if they misbehave, I put them in the corner. They are very unfamiliar with being reprimanded that I’ve actually made quite a few cry. One boy showed up about 1 hr late, left class for half an hour playing on the computer, swore at another student, and jumped off the balcony. I held him after class for what, ten minutes? He bawled his eyes out…I knew he needed to learn, but it hurt me to watch. I tend to avoid conflictive situations, or drama and seeing that I had caused this, confliction and pain, it was a lot for me to take in. So much that after class I needed to go find a quiet spot where I could just talk with God. I walked near the ocean and tried to avoid all the dirty diapers and garbage around me, so I sat on a rock. Seriously, there is garbage all over the “beach”(tiny strip of land with trash and stuff that looks like sand underneath) and the water is filled with sewer drainage containing tons of poop.“God 5 months…every day of yelling, being tested, getting hurt? Lord, I trust in you, please just be here with me, help me to love them like you love me. I need your strength.” And I always hear..“I will give you the strength each day, Emily, whenever you ask for it, and I will never leave you.” Everytime I start thinking about the length of time I will be here, I always remember that God is here with me too and it warms my heart. I am not alone in this, not even for a second. I have a purpose here. I already love my kids. Some days are stressful but I still love them none the less. During recess, even though I just got done teaching them, they wait for me at the door to go play with them, even the boys…all 26 of them. Why would they want to be with me if they didn’t think I cared about them, or if they didn’t care about me? We’re building a relationship more each day. I want to help them grow. When I look at academically how much help they need, I think, man, if only I had enough time…Wait a second, waddup 5 months! Then I praise God for giving me this opportunity. God has already allowed me to place little seeds in their heads. A boy in my class can now count by two’s and one of my girls can now write on the lines. Just showing them how much you care, can go a long way.

 Oh, so you know my quiet place? Not so quiet, and not so my own. On Ebeye, there’s no privacy whatsoever. As soon as I took a breath and sat down, literally 20 kids came running at the blonde American sitting on a rock. Among those kids was the little boy I made cry in class, and he was the first happy face to reach me…guess he didn’t care that much.. They slowly crept over towards me and though I wanted to be alone, or so I thought, I remembered how much Jesus loved the little children, and how I needed to put them first and show them love and God would give me time later with Him alone. So I turned around and smiled at them, and  they rushed over to my rock, and squatted on it and just stared at me with their little tattered clothes, greasy hair and sores covering their body, they couldn’t have been any cuter. Well maybe the one without clothes could have worn clothes, and that may have been a little bit cuter. Due to his lack of clothes I tried to avoid any contact from him. The naked ones aren’t just little kids, they are pretty old. They tried to talk to me in Marshallese, and when I could not understand, they were not frustrated, they just smiled really big and snuggled up next to me and I embraced them. A reoccurring thought that I’ve had so far here is that I am so glad that a smile is the same in every language. Sounds corny, but it’s hard to fully understand until your living in a different country and interacting everyday with the people. The next few days I tried to find another quiet place, but the same scenario happened, just a bunch of different kids. They just run up to me like I’m their long lost mother and cling on to me for dear life, smiling and copying my every movement. I love that, and all of them. I usually belt out a giant Santa Claus laugh.. I love how they can keep themselves so occupied. They come up with just about every game imaginable that their resources can give them. They use wood and a tennis ball to play baseball, and run all over the coral and rocks, it scares me half to death to watch. But when they fall and bleed, they just keep playing. They love scoping out the garbage on the beach, and playing with the empty bottles, or syringes. In a strange way, it is beautiful. I look at the kids in America who whine when they don’t get a new iphone4, or ipad…and I look at these Marshallese children, so precious, their zest for adventure is inspiring.

                I interact with the kids a lot more than the adults here and I’m trying to change that so it’s more even, but this is the thing. It’s probably hard for them to comprehend why I am here, so I assume it’s hard for them to treat me quite like an equal.. I get a lot of cat calls, or awkward remarks, or stares from the men and boys, not because I’m “Oh, so beautiful”, I actually look terrible, and like a ball of yellow sticky hair.. I love walking alone when it’s light out, but hate it when I see that there is about 50 guys congregated on each corner just staring at me like I’m a tofu burger (<SDA style ). Which is usually the case, because there’s over 15,000 people here, with nothing to do.. Unfortunately, it’s not safe to walk alone at night.. So, it’s very frustrating . I’m thinking, “Come on, I have a skirt covering my knees, my hair is stuck to my face, I’m carrying a giant back pack..go inside.” I am excited for it to all settle in, I do not like this kind of attention of standing out because I look different. I feel bad that these women’s husbands are gawking at a younger woman right in front of them and I can’t blame the women for not running at the new missionary with open arms, because that hurts and makes you resentful towards the cause. This kind of stuff happens all over the world though, not just in Ebeye. Ebeye, is a great...wait..it’s not a great place…but, it is full of wonderful people too. I have met a lot of nice men and women, and I’m eager to get to know them better. I have slowly been branching out towards the house vertical to ours, but like I said it’s hard for them to know my intentions here. Am I just passing through here? Am I lost? Surely I am not staying. I really want to show them Jesus, through my actions, my words and even a smile. Which will have to be the case because man is Marshallese a hard language to learn.

        I’m getting used to cold, salt water showers. Walking half a mile each day to get clean water isn’t a burden, but good exercise. The cockroaches, I can’t find a single good reason why they are alive, I despise them. Skirts every day aren’t as bad as I anticipated, but wearing them when you jog and swim… not my ideal scenario, but I like adjusting to new cultures. The smell here is worse in some parts of the island than others, so I now know where to walk to avoid the deathly hallows. I now assume that anything I have in my backpack or pockets, the kids will find it and put it in their mouth. I still am disgusted when I see boogers creeping out of kids nose in class and then I turn around and look at them again it’s gone…it’s sort of a mystery game, or a magic trick... a super disgusting one. My germ phobia is constantly getting pressured on all sides. Don’t even laugh at the ridiculousness of that sentence, I live in a landfill…so, not too ridiculous. I believe the Lord brought me here to face that as well..not to welcome the bacteria, but for me to learn not to worry about it more than the devotions I’ve missed, or time not spent with Him..But, I would not be opposed to everyone sending me hand sanitizer. J  To sum this post up, if someone came to me and gave me an option to go home right now, or somewhere different. Without hesitation, I would say, “No”. I believe God has started a great work here, in myself and for others and I will follow where ever He leads me. He has blessed me with wonderful staff and very energetic students. The school days  that I feel worn out, or at my weakest, I remember, Nehemiah 8:10. “The joy of the Lord is my strength.”  Forever and ever.