Saipan Catch the Wave

I have said it many times, but Saipan is the happiest place on earth.  I love the people…the food…the flowers…the lazy river…the ocean views…and…this year’s youth retreat!

Our event included similar sessions as Guam (Catch the Wave of Full Armor, Catch the Wave of Value, and Catch the Wave of Purity).  We had some games, watched a couple inspiration movies, and went to a local waterpark.  We lots of yummy food including Indian Tacos to celebrate my roots and pizza (because can you really have a youth event without pizza?).

 

I’m on a ridiculously slow connection, which is one reason I haven’t posted sooner.  (This event happened almost two weeks ago!)  

The Rest of VBS

Perry and I have gotten lazy reporting on Micronesia Adventures.  I'm sure you have all been on the edge of your seats waiting to hear the rest of the VBS report.  We had 54 kids come to VBS (and probably 30 workers throughout the week).  I LOVE island VBS food....island soups and tuna or egg salad sandwiches every night.  And on the special nights...pancit and lumpia.  You just don't get that kind of food at VBS in OK. 

Here we are waiting on VBS to start.  We have to do multiple van runs to get all the kids there, so we have kids as much as an hour early!

Obviously, you HAVE to have Bible stories at VBS!

Everyone loves crafts!!!

And food!  (We get island donuts this night with our soup & sandwich)

The kinder class is waiting on everyone to arrive for their pictures

Perry wants you to know if you look VERY closely, he is hanging (literally) in the front row. 

Beach Sunset Picnic

Tonight was a fabulous night.  I went with my friend Kathy and her kids (and a few more we picked up on the way) for an evening of swimming, sunset, and food on the beach.

Here we are...ready to EAT.  We had a little bit of fried chicken, red rice, salad, and cookies to go with our ants.  Nothing like a little extra protein.  (Perry said he preferred eating ants.)

Perry and I decided we'd have a little photo shoot while we waited on the sunset.

Island sunsets....always different and never gets old! :)

The drive back from the beach was hilarious.  We decided to greet tourists in their native tongue.  We used all the words we could muster in Japanese, Korean, and Russian (and Spanish, though I'm not exactly sure why).

Overall, it was a fun night and will probably go down as one of the highlights of my summer.  Nothing better than spending time with friends and a platypus on the beach!

Perry Wants an Airport Adventure Too!

I wonder if I could arrange Perry to have an airport adventure?

http://www.news9.com/story/29353740/airport-employee-takes-boys-lost-stuffed-tiger-on-adventure

My beautiful islands

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will save mine.

Naughty Platypus

I hadn't blogged in a few days because Perry has been kind of naughty.

It looks like Perry takes after me in being "part monkey."  

However, we have had lots of fun the last couple of days.  Besides VBS (which I will blog about later...and when I say later, I don't mean in the next few hours), we have been to Jeff's Pirate Cove....

....a Micronesia Festival....

....and had a photo session...

We apologize for the two previous pictures.   My photographer will be enrolling in classes soon. :)

VBS--Day 1

This year marks the tenth anniversary of directing Vacation Bible School in Guam.  Though it has come with more challenges than usual, the smiles on the kids faces is priceless.

Weird Animals: Where Jesus' Love is One-of-a-Kind is this year's theme. (Some of you may think, "No, that's last year's theme."  Since I fund most of the decorations, crafts, etc myself or with donations of others, I have found it it is much more efficient to use someone's year-old VBS and then buy crafts and decorations on clearance!  It works out in a great way, because two more churches--Guam & Saipan--have the opportunity to benefit from the VBS.  Thank you Sara Frakes for sending me your old VBS to use!  The crazy part, is this is the about the fifth year I have borrowed a VBS.  And every single year, there is one teacher's book missing: the Bible stories book.  How weird is that?)

Here's my weird animals habitat...

 And here we are hanging out before the festivities began!