initiation to Guam

Today was my most off day on the island so far and I am blaming the rain. I always refer back to Dave's Blog because he updates a lot of great stuff at the school, so definitely check it out. In today's post, you can see the results of the rainy season, and get some cool updates on PIU plus see the campus and some students.

But, back to this crazy rain. It managed to hold out all day until I got into the office. Right before that, I got to go on base to pick up my friend Lisa's husband's Jeep. He's overseas right now and she's letting me borrow it until I get a car. SWEET, right? Today was my second day driving in the rain here and it was interesting. Some of the roads became little rivers and ponds. The Jeep totally handled it, except it took me a minute to get used to controlling the windshield wipers.

Anyway, at this point in my day I was wide awake. When I got to my tutoring job, I think all four of the boys and I all wanted to just sleep where we were sitting. I did a little talking, they did a little talking, and some other weird anamalistic things 6th grade boys do (weird noises, movements, their own slang and language...) and we were all completely burnt out ten minutes early. They are fun, though. I have enjoyed working with their chaotic, sponge like minds. I find myself sitting there for brief moments while their world erupts into something dramatic and then dies down so I can start tutoring them again. None of us can really keep still, either. I managed to squeeze in some brief lessons "the perfect high five" and how to do "lion's breath" to break the monotony. (Man, I hope that's not all they are learning from all the work we do.)

Anyway, the rest of the night proceeded as follows:
I had an amazing dinner at a Thai restaurant with my new roommate Laura. After dinner, I saw my first big roach and he had a big roach head. Gross. This must have been an omen, because THEN it took me an hour to get home. The cops blocked off like 20ft of the road right before my turn for some reason. I had to drive all the way down the road I came up, looked for "route 3" from the cop's directions, turned onto a busy road without a sign- prayed for a sign (then I saw the sign for rte 3!) and went around the back part of the island just to get home. Melody and Tim waited up for me because they encountered that issue too. If I had a phone, I would have called them first. If I hadn't found rte 3, I would have found a payphone.

Can I just mention to you that in the last 13 or so days, I've seen maybe 3 or 4 cops? Tonight I saw half that doing nothing but redirecting traffic away from some mysterious thing they were doing in the middle of the busiest road. And, Guam doesn't have many street signs or roads marked. It's going to be a fun guessing game here. Trial and error, for sure.

To end on a positive note, I got to talk to my mom AND Alex today. That was really cool. I also found out I may be seeing them both sooner than I thought :) I miss my family, though I am meeting great people here every day...most of them missing their families.

As for now, I'm taking this mess to bed and will hopefully wake up to a great shower, class, sermon, and other wonderful things I'm here to do. Oh, and hopefully I'll be able to start putting up pics with every blog. But, for now, go back and check out Dave's. Oh, and if there's anything at all you need prayer for, I'd love to pray for you, or even just hear from you.

Love, Jen