Community

I love Saipan because of the community.  People talk to each other. People are willing to make friends outside of their set groups.  People share meals with one another.  Though my little town of Francis does have a sense of community, I don't really get that outside of the Cedar Grove/Francis/Denny boundaries.  When I first moved back to Oklahoma, my pastor and his wife understood community. They were a wonderful transition for me from the islands.  

As I was waiting in the Guam airport to go to Saipan, my friend sent me a message asking if I could move their car (they live in Saipan) because their lawn guy needed to mow. We chatted for a bit. She asked if I had any friends left in Saipan.  I told I knew some people, but most of my "have-adventures-with" friends were off island. But I wasn't worried because I always make friends.  And sure enough,  I connected with old friends, and I made friends. I had adventures! (And didn't have nearly enough time for my adventures!)

My friends Donald and Malou moved to Saipan not long after I did.  Their boys were in my first youth group.  They had moved from Chuuk, so we had mutual friends already.  When their son graduated boot camp in Oklahoma, I was able to go greet him and help bring some "home" to his celebration.  This family was one of the main reasons I needed to get to Saipan this year. They left island just two days after this picture and will be moving to the mainland.  You will hardly meet a finer couple than these two! (Be praying that they find jobs in the US and have an easy transition.)

I was also able to reconnect with my friend Jill. She introduced me to my crazy card making/paper-crafting that I do.  Jill also owns Saipan Snaps--a company that makes yummy ginger snap cookies.  Not only did we get together one night to craft, but she left me a goodie bag at one of their stores with three different kinds of cookies! (And I made a new crafting friend that night!)

Not only did I reconnect with old friends, I made new friends.  Alison and her husband Nate and their three kids recently moved back to Saipan.  Alison previously taught at the same school I taught at in Saipan (but after me).  Though I had heard about the family, I had never met them.  They should be on island for a while, so I look forward to future adventures.  But while I was on island we attended the Pacific Games, beach, Taste of the Marianas, and Mt. Tapochau together. She also makes a great smoothie that I got to enjoy at her home!

Alison and I also made another friend, Tricia. She too is a teacher in Saipan.  (She has also taught other exciting places like S. Korea and Africa!) Tricia joined us for ladies day out (Thai buffet) and was on my flight back from Saipan to Guam. So we got extra hang out time!  (I meant to take a picture with her, and then didn't catch her again in the airport after we got our luggage.)

I am so thankful for Saipan community. I'm so thankful that I always feel like I'm at home there, and it is so hard to leave. 

Mt. Tapochau and Taste

My friend Alison invited me on a Mt Tapochau viewing with her and her kids followed by Taste of the Marianas.  (Last time I went up Tapochau, the road was so bad I said never again.  But our friend had actually gone up the night before in her car, so we figured we could make it the SUV--granted, I was still a bit skeptical.) 

Mt Tapochau is the highest peak in Saipan. When at the top you can see the entire island.  It was also very significant during WWII.  Sadly it had just been raining, so we did get any really great pictures of the view.  But the "air conditioning" was wonderful. It's so windy up there it's like it dropped 20 degrees. (Well, at least 3 degrees anyway.)

Perry got a few selfies in...

And because my view was a little crummy, here's what you can see....

After Tapochau, we headed down to the last night of Taste of the Marianas.  I enjoyed some fish tacos.  In one of the bands performing, Alison pointed out the uke player was the uke teacher at her school. The she said his name.....he was a first grader when I taught there. Yep. I'm old. 

And then maybe a few pictures of some things you don't see every day:
 

Signs advertising Sizzling Squid

A roasting pig over coals

A platypus with a roasting pig over coals

Sunset Beach BBQ

We were at the beach.

We saw the sunset.

But as for BBQ...it was island style BBQ. Hotdogs. 

I went around doing my thing...kidnapping kids and teens and hauling them off to play games, have adventures, eat food, and maybe draw a little closer to Jesus along the way.  Some years back we had done a sunset beach swim and cookout at Pau Pau Beach.  When I was giving the teens some options of what they would like to do, that came up.  Which was great for me--I'm always up to sunset and swimming on the beach!    

Tourist Day!

Generally, I would be having a youth retreat in Saipan.  However,  a group of the teens are off-island while I'm here and arrive the day I leave.  So I decided to kidnap the two girls left behind for some quality adventures. (And to build relationships.) We decided to pose as tourists and do all the touristy sites of Saipan.  

We kicked off with a circle of the CNMI Veterans Cemetery.  This was built after I lived on the islands, and I don't recall visiting it until Tourist Day.  It's a beautiful cemetery. 

After the cemetery, we went to Banzai Cliff.  The girls told me that last time they were at Banzai I had taken them there at night when they were little girls and they were very scared.  (I don't remember this.  But I felt better when they told me Laura [not me] and Josiah were there too, so maybe it wasn't totally my crazy idea???)  The views are spectacular from here.  It has been so windy this week (thank you, Jesus for the breeze!!!) that the waters were very rough. But rough waters also mean no sea turtle sightings. 

From Banzai we headed over to the Grotto.   They have really expanded the grotto lookouts, improved the stairs going down to the bottom, and added picnic tables.  Very nice.  (Going down to the actual Grotto is amazing. The girls didn't want to do the stairs and we were trying to beat the rain and the clock, so we didn't go down.  You will have to check out a previous year's post for those views.)

From the grotto we catch Bird Island.  Today may have been the prettiest I have ever seen Bird Island--it was as if it was glowing.

We had two more stops we had planned to make: Suicide Cliff and Last Command Post.  However, the rain was starting.  We were able to catch a quick photo at the Saipan sign before the skies completely unloaded on us.  

Even thought we didn't make it to the top of Suicide Cliff, we did get some really nice pictures from afar looking up.  

Pacific Island Club (PIC) Saipan

Today Perry and I kidnapped a couple of high school girls from the church to pose as tourists with us.  (There will be a post later about our many, many adventures today. We had a lot of fun. However, I'm too tired to share them all tonight.)  I shall share the end of our adventures first. PIC.

One of my favorite places in the world is PIC Saipan.  There's one in Guam, but Saipan is definitely superior as it has my favorite lazy river in the world. (Guam doesn't even have a lazy river. Boooooo.) I always get so excited at the prospect of a lazy river when I go someplace and am always disappointed as it never lives up to PIC Saipan.   Not only does PIC have an amazing lazy river, it has happy hour  with half price smoothies and appetizers...on the beach...where you can watch the sunset. 

Here we are getting our drinks and some of our food. 

Then bam...it's all gone! 

Perry also enjoyed his...

Pacific Games 2022

It's a super exciting time across the Northern Mariana Islands as they are host to the Pacific Games! (I blogged about these a few years back when the games were held in Guam.) Think summer Olympics with island nations across the Pacific.  Like the Olympics, the event is held every four years.  Twenty countries are participating: Guam, CNMI, FSM, Solomon Islands, Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Palau, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, American Samoa, and others. 

Like the Olympics, the games kicked off with the opening ceremonies and events have been taking place across Saipan (with a little also on Tinian and Rota).  I have caught some tennis, track, and baseball driving around island.  Today, we made a trip down to the beach to actually sit down and watch some beach volleyball.

It was super exciting with multiple games going, both men and women's teams.  Unfortunately, we were only there a short time before the skies opened to torrential rain.  But the games must go on!  (I learned this evening that golf kept playing too in all the rain.)  

The kids thought it was THE BEST DAY EVER! We started having flooding under our tent and they were able to build motes and castles without even walking down to the water or getting sunburned.  

Of course all became beautiful again as we were leaving. 

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering...Papua New Guinea is currently ahead in the medal count.  2nd place with the most gold medals is Australia, but second play with the most medals is a tie between New Caledonia and Tahiti.