Catch the Wave Guam

It's the 20th Anniversary of Catch the Wave.  Catch the Wave is the youth retreat that I started in 2006 so that kids could have some kind of a camp experience since we can't have camp

Kicking off the retreat was tough. I'm coming off of mega cranky day. Then because of needing to communicate with my students/former students rescuing Sweets to the vet, the vet, my parents about Sweets, I had to keep my phone on.  I barely got over 3 hours of sleep between calls and notifications pinging on my phone.  And I was going to a youth retreat where one has no sleep. AAAAHHHHH

We kicked off the retreat at the church at noon. We enjoyed some lunch together.  During this time I discovered that the kitchen air con stopped working after the storm.  UGH.  After lunch we had a church and parsonage shutter take-down party.  Maybe not-so-much party, but at least the job is done!

Our retreat was held at Garden Villa hotel in Tumon.  I had driven past it a million times and had no idea it was there.  The rooms were super awesome for a retreat. (Not fancy. Just perfect for a bunch of teens.) They had a kitchenette, fridge/freezer, two double beds on one side and two twin beds on the other side with a tv, sitting chairs, and table/chairs in the middle.  Then what I learned after being there about six hours, is the rooms have TWO BATHROOMS!  How amazing is that when you are cramming 7 people in a room?  The girls room is where we had our sessions/games and the boys room is where we had our meals.

This year our retreat title was Catch the Wave: Stand Firm. How does one stand firm?  By putting on the Armor of God, of course.  So in four sessions we covered all the aspects about the Armor of God. 

Session 1: Ephesians 6:10-18; There is a real spiritual war happening, and we are all a part of it. When life gets uncertain, our faith can become shaky. But God wants us to stand firm in Him and His strength, so He has given us His armor to help us in this battle. When we fully rely on God’s power, fully dressed in His armor, we are able to stand and fight!

Session 2: Ephesians 2:1-10; The armor of God is not something that we can work for or earn; it’s God’s gift to those who put their trust in Him. When we believe in Jesus as Lord, He gives us salvation, which we can wear as a helmet, as well as righteousness as a breastplate. These crucial pieces of armor are ours only through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Session 3: John 14:1-14; Spiritual attacks and temptations can happen at any time. In order to be prepared, we must take up the belt of truth and the shield of faith. These pieces of armor are vital tools to help us stand firm and follow God in any and all situations.

Session 4: 2 Timothy 3:14-4:8: Every piece of the armor of God is important and needed. Our one offensive weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Bible. God’s Word and prayer are powerful and help us better understand and put on the shoes of readiness given by the Gospel of peace. Equipped with the whole armor of God, as well as fellow believers around us, we are ready to stay alert and stand firm in our faith.

When we checked in for our rooms, I noticed a few kids in the pool.  We were told it would be three more days before it opened from the storm, but it was OPEN! (My crankiness was turning around.)

We enjoyed Session 1 followed by pizza. (Can you really have a youth event without pizza?  Little Caesar large pizzas are $6, up from $5 from previous years, on Fridays. The line is 1-2 hours long. If you don't do that, pizza is silly expensive. They waited in line for 1 hr 20 min for our pizzas.)  Because of the pool, we got to have a couple of hours of pool, "hot" tub, and water basketball.  We had our second session at 9pm.  Then they played games until midnight.  Me? I got in my bed and dozed...interjecting occasionally or getting up for a snack while they played. I felt bad not playing, but there was just no way. I'm sure my half asleep commentary was more exciting anyway. lol

The boys cooked breakfast.  By boys, probably Ezekiel--the youth leader.  We had an island breakfast of spam, eggs, and rice.  And it was delicious.  I was surprised to see a watermelon because they are always so expensive.  When I asked how much that tiny watermelon cost, the receipt showed almost $17.  

After breakfast and our third session, the kids had about 1.5 hours for more swimming before we checked out!

After check out, we had our fourth session back at the church, followed by leftovers and sandwiches. 

Then because of the typhoon damage to the sanctuary, we sat up the tents/canopy for outdoor service on Sunday.  

Perry and Laura had a great weekend! Hopefully, the teens had a great youth retreat.  

The Feeling Sorry for Yourself Stage

<Eventually pics will be added to this blog>

I suppose in every tropical story there comes a moment when human and platypus get a little cranky.  I had to move to my roach room (if you haven’t been a reader for years, then that means nothing to you).  I figured being in this room would get a flow of air going since it was just one room and there were two windows and a screen on the door.  In the main house, I was struggling with enough light in addition to air flow.  (No one took any shutters down.  I was able to free two windows on the house and one and a half window on the side room.  But since the shutters were rigged with scraps of wood and metal, it will take some power tools and a couple of guys to remove them.)

I was cranky about moving locations, but I guess the roach room kind of is Guam home. I hadn’t spent a summer in the house since 2019. (And honestly, the roaches haven’t been bad in a few years.)  After I got moved, I discovered a high pitch whine that has never been here before.  Where can it be coming from!?!? I HAVE NO POWER!  It’s in the bathroom, and praise the Lord I can close the door and mostly not hear it. Mostly.  But I have become super sensitive to sound over the last six months.  (Thankfully not band noise…but motors, low electric bass sounds, and high pitch hums.  I have had to unplug clocks in my house. I can’t sit through most church services at my church because of the bass roar. Sitting at stoplights when certain cars pull up nearly unglue me.) So if you know where a high pitch squeal in a bathroom could be coming from, let me know!

<SIDE NOTE: Since the blogs were written and posted later, I found the source of the sound after nearly two days or torture. I had already packed my bags for the asylum.  The sound was coming from the toilet. Who knew they had the ability to whistle.>

I'm cranky for moving. I'm cranky from the whining sound. Then dad has to tell me Sweets isn’t doing too so great.  (But I have put my best former students on it, so if Sweets can be helped, Cooper and her side-kick Devon is on it.) Cooper told me not to worry, so I’m trying to trust her.  But Cooper also dropped me giving me a piggyback ride when she told me she had me…so, do I really trust her?

<SIDE NOTE: Sweets did go to the vet.  She was given three meds and has to do water therapy twice a day.  So now my poor parents and Devon are way more invested in Sweets than I meant for them to have to be. Dad cooked her liver tonight.  And she's doing better he says. But I'm feeling terribly guilty making everyone do all this work.  All the helpers gets double souvenirs!>

I finally decided it was just time for a water hole. Water helps everything.  Beach would make me happy. Surely today I could make that happen.  On the way I needed a couple of things from one of my favorite dollar type stores for the youth retreat.  Well, it was closed.  No power, I guess. Another add to the cranky.

So I head to water.  Ugh.  The ocean water was rough, rough, rough and the hotel pools are all closed.  (They are full of sand and debris.  My Nikko kiddy pool didn’t even have water! They were working on them, but it will be a few days.)  I did get to enjoy some massive waves which almost never happen out this way. Since the pools were closed today, I had the youth guy call our youth retreat hotel for tomorrow to see if the pool was working because that was our fun plans. Nope. Closed at least three more days. NO!!!! 

When I got home, I decided I would check out flights to Saipan next week. I was supposed to have gone the first week Mon-Fri for VBS.  When the storm happened, we had to postpone a week and reevaluate.  Well, all the flights to Saipan are full Mon-Wed next week.  I decided to use my secret airline spy skills to see if that was true.  Negative 14 seats left for Monday.  Yep. Full. So now I can’t go to Saipan next week either. More cranky.

So then it was time to tackle the fridge/freezes.  That in itself is enough to make anyone cranky.  It’s one thing to clean out your own, but to have to clean another 3 that you don't even get to enjoy….ugh.  The church one was pretty bad so hopefully someone will appreciate a nice clean fridge and freezer.  (All this is on the heals of 72 hours of cleaning/packing a band building.)

Now that I vented every bit of pent up crankiness (well, almost) inside… how does one end their crankiness?  With popcorn and 7D dried mangoes.  That’s a supper of champions!

<SIDE NOTE:  Since I'm posted three days after this was written. I'm much happier now. Still feel guilty about Sweets, but I had a great youth retreat and did something other than clean!>

Driving Around After Bavi

By Wednesday, I needed to escape. I hadn't left the church since Saturday morning.  It was time to see other humans.  (Actually, I just wanted something to eat other than peanut butter.)

As I started driving, I realized how fortunate I really was.  There were trees down, poles down, structures destroyed, and all the traffic lights are crooked (if they hadn't blown off).  Traffic can be pretty intense in Guam.  The National Guard were manning intersections. I have no idea how you could have driven on this island without their help.  The main drag on island is six lanes. The other major routes are 4 lanes.  Intersections of that magnitude required some assistance. 

Traffic lights at the airport were going, so that little area had power!  And as I drove down the hotel district, those traffic lights were also working. (But I think most of the hotels were being powered by generator.)  

I decided I would go to the mall, walk some, and get something from the food court for lunch.  When I pulled up to the mall, I noticed there were way too many parking spots available.  I parked, pulled open their FB page and said it was closing at 1pm.  I'm guessing their generators weren't working well enough.  

So I circled back to Donki. I thought I would sit in their food court area, have a fish taco, and work on the youth retreat in a nice cool environment.  When I walked in to Donki, I realized they may be open, but they didn't have enough power to run the air con. So...I ate my fish taco and just went home to sweat and work. 

Overall, I was super grateful that the damage wasn't worse for me, that I had water, and that I had a full tank of gas that provided air con while I was driving around and could charge 3 devices at once! (It's the little things.)

The Damage

<Eventually pics will be added to this blog>

On Tuesday it stopped raining. I knew the earlier I tackled clean up the better because there was no air con and it wasn’t going to get any cooler.  But though I didn't have power, I never lost my water!  Hallelujah! (I did know people to lose water. I was just blessed.)

The grounds around the church compound wasn’t too bad.  I have a feeling it was because there was a typhoon 3 months ago (and a major one 3 years ago). So all the small trees had already blown down.  Mostly it was just leaves.  I did find a poor dead bird.

The solar lights blew off the church so that was the real damage on the outside.

Inside the Sanctuary, the front doors had been blown open. We had covered the glass doors with a tarp, then typhoon shutters, then sandbags. But a significant amount of water still got in the church.  However except sweep out the tiled foyer, there was nothing I could do without power.  So the water just got to sit in the carpet and get smelly. Very smelly.

The Sunday School building still had it’s roof! Praise the Lord. But there was more leaking…more damaged ceiling tiles… So I swept up the water from all the expected places, picked up the tiles, swept up the tiles.  But the pastors office, that has carpet, got flooded.  Again, nothing I could do without power. So it got smelly. Very smelly.

Then I go back in the house and find more water. HOW!?  I’m going to be a really good mopper when this is all said and done.

Typhoon Bavi

 <Still on cellular data, so I cannot upload pics.  Someday...>

Typhoon Bavi came and went.  It was quite a storm.  My hunkering began about noon on Saturday, July 4^th. Not so much because of the weather, but I really just didn’t feel good.  I knew that I needed to be fully rested to battle the water that was about to come my way.  When I landed, I hit the ground running. Never had any jet lag that way.  But my body was tired. It came to the islands tired. And I fear I was getting really sick. (Thankfully, in the end I think it was the island mold + tired. Not Guam Flu.)

It rained a little on Saturday, but nothing crazy.  Sunday morning was again scattered showers that would come and go. Church was cancelled more so people could make final preparations over safety concerns.  Most people work 6 days a week in this culture. So they really needed time to finish boarding, etc.  The government had asked everyone to be in their safe spots by sunset.  And by sunset it was getting a little windy.  But I’m from Oklahoma, and it needs to be a lot windy for me to care or notice.

I shared about the shutters falling the previous blog.  

After that blog post. Things got noisy and stayed noisy for the next 24 hours. 

All through the night was bang, bang, bang.  Shutters and boards beat against the windows from the wind. I would get up to check for flooding and was happy to not find any….yet.  My watch showed 3:40 of sleep that night.

Finally, I just got up and continued doing as much computer stuff as I could.  Everyone I knew on Saipan and Guam had lost power except for me, so I knew it was a matter of time.  I was thankful to have more cup of coffee…and one more hot meal…

When the winds shifted, here came the rain. I used every single towel the house had to soak up water…and the mop.  It mostly just came in three spots which helped. Once the power went out, I read a book.  There were two fiction books at the church and parsonage. Amish books. I figured that was fitting as that’s how I was about to live!

But Monday night the banging subsided.  I slept on the couch because I could open the doors for air.  (The windows had shutters....or "shutters" I should say.) The doors have locking metal screens so I figured I was safe enough...and seriously, we were still in the middle of the typhoon. Who was going to be kidnapping in that kind of weather?

I slept over 9 hours.  On the couch. I was tired.

And there you have it folks.  I survived the great Typhoon Bavi 2026. 

Bavi Cometh

 I'm not sure why my photos won't upload.  Eventually, I will go back and add them.  

It has rained off and on all day.  Occasionally the sun would come out. (It was in the moments, I thought to myself, "You know...you could go to the beach for a while."  My favorite moment today was in the NWS 3:30pm briefing, the governor attended and told all the surfers they had their fun, now go home. (The Marianas doesn't really get waves--except when storms come. So when the storms come, the surfers flock to the ocean!)

About 5:30 we started getting heavy rain.  Then thunder. Thunder is exciting because it doesn't happen out here.  When I saw that Saipan was losing power, I decided to do the things I needed to do. Like one more shower...just in case.  

At about 8:00pm, I was sitting in the living room when I heard a crash.  It really wasn't windy enough for major excitement.  I went outside and a shutter had fallen off.  I came back in. Another crash.  I go back outside, another shutter had fallen off.  Apparently the guys didn't pin two of the windows.  

It wasn't a job I could do by myself (mostly because I can't close the shutters blocking the doors), so I had to call reinforcements to help.  But with only 3 cars on the entire road system, he made it quickly.  

Shutters are now secured (ish).  

Time to get some sleep and see what morning holds.  It will be getting bad when I wake up. But it has turned a smidge north, so maybe not bad bad. 

The Supplies

 ~33 gallons of drinking water. Check

~50 gallons of flushing/cleaning water. Check.

~Cleaning supplies. Check. (Probably should have gotten more trash bags.  The church building should have...you know, if the roof doesn't blow away.)

~Power bank fully charged. Check. (Should get 2-3 charges to my phone.)

~4 Ryobi batteries fully charged. Check. (This can run a fan.  Remember...For probably 24 hours or so, I will be full enclosed in a house without air conditioning.  It will be hot. But I have ~70 hrs of fan time. So that's good.)

~USB fan fully charged. Check.

~Solar light and solar fan/light combo (today's score!!!) charged. Not check. I guess I wait until the sun returns.

~Radio.  I found one today! Put batteries in and it started playing country music.  Check.

~Candles, matches, lighters, oil lamp. Check

~ 2 random lights that can be charged and are fully charged. Check

~Pantry full of food. Check.  (I also have a gas stove, so that's good.)

~Laundry done. Check. 

~Full tank of gas and extra 5 gal gas. Check.

~Anything within 5 feet of a window packed up.  Almost. (The people that live here have a young child, and I think homeschool. There's plenty of books, crafts, games, toys in front of the windows. Whew.)

~Popcorn popped.  Happening next. :)

~Furniture moved away from doors and windows.  Will do when I get closer to time.

I can't remember if I already said, but I will not be alone in the storm.  There's "kid" that live so on the property that will join me when it gets crazy. There's also a neighbor who has indicated she may come over. There's three couches we can push far from windows, and be fine.  Also, the house is built with a hall way with no outside doors or windows if this became a worst case scenario.  I am in a safe place. :) I'm more worried about the clean-up.