The VBS Flood

Tonight's VBS Bible story was about when God speaks to Elijah during his 40-day trek to Mount Sinai.  Instead of God appearing in a mighty wind, earthquake or fire, God presented himself in a gentle whisper.  I guess God thought we needed a good demonstration of the mighty wind part of the story because he sent a STORM!

Guam and Saipan have been in a really bad drought...which is strange for a couple of islands where it rains every day.  It has hardly rained any since I have arrived and everything is so brown.  I was talking to a man tonight that said he hasn't had to mow (well..."bushcut") his yard in six weeks!  Today was mostly cloudy with a few showers here and there.  About the time we started the van run, it started showering.  Before VBS started you could hear thunder and see lightening. (This is always very exciting because it doesn't happen much...and lightening freaks everyone out.)

When we started our rotations, things went CRAZY.  Pouring rain...high winds...I was pretty sure our snack tent was going to come down.  We moved all the tables to the middle, but eventually, when the water outside starting rising under the tent, we had to give up and go inside and share the kitchen with snacks and crafts.

Here we are trying to move all the tables to the middle (before the water started rising).



I had to sneak through a classroom to avoid getting drenched.  Here's a peak at one of the groups hearing about Elijah.


I knew we needed the rain, but I really didn't want the van drivers dropping off kids in that kind of weather. Thankfully, right before VBS closed, the wind and rain stopped.  I learned from a few of the parents that were picking up their kids that several roads had flooded.  Crazy night! (It was almost like being in OK.)

VBS Kick Off, Year 11

It's my 11th year for Guam VBS.  I believe anyone who makes it past year 10 is allowed to retire.  Here I'm the decorator, the organizer, the purchaser, the opening person, the closing person, the music girl, the sound guy, the kid video lady, the registration person....so exhausting.  And I'm pretty sure I'm going to run another van route tomorrow night because it was almost 1 1/2 hours getting them all home tonight.

Here's Perry at the Base Camp of Mt. Everest.  (Or Mt. LamLam, which we say here in Guahan.)


VBS Snacks on the islands consist of either egg salad or tuna salad sandwich, a cup of soup (usually corn soup or noodle in coconut milk soup), a donut, and a cup of Tang.



And here we are waiting on vans about 45 minutes after VBS closed.

Catch the Wave, Guam

Another great youth retreat in Guam.  It was the 10th Catch the Wave (CTW) in Guam.  I don't think they realized the big anniversary. We had the themes of CTW of Hope, CTW of Faith, and CTW of Truth.  We stayed a hotel we had never been to before, down in the tourist area.   It had a great view of the ocean.  Here are me and some of the gals that I've known since they were little girls with a great back drop...


We try to get as close to the "church camp" environment as we can, so we stay in condos that we deem as the dorms and bring cooks.  Our cooks were awesome! (And in case you're wondering, the SPAM ran out way before the bacon.)


We try to have one big event outside of our retreat location.  This year was Jamaican Grill. (Ya, mon.)


Of course, youth everywhere must have ice cream...


We had a great time of lessons, small groups, prayer, swimming, and FREEZING.  There isn't a lot of air con out here, so put us in a hotel with it and it was almost unbearable.  Here's Perry and I trying to keep warm.
  
It was a wonderful few days with the young people.  Perhaps there will be more pictures when I get them from some of the teens.

35 MPH?

I've been teaching Perry how to drive.

I'm not really a speeder when it comes to driving. When I'm feeling wild and reckless, I set my cruise at 2mph over the speed limit. There have been a few exceptions. There was the one time in college when I was between Stillwater and Tulsa on the turnpike and a tornado was heading my way.  I went fast.  Very fast.  And so did everyone else.

The biggest exception to my no speeding is Guam.  This is a divided highway with two lanes going each direction, yet the speed limit is 35mph. WWWWWHHHHHHYYYYY?


I didn't realize how much I speed until I did the math.  I looked down and was going a bit over 60mph...25mph over the speed limit.  Yikes! (Oh, and Perry likes to speed too.)

Fly Over

Perry and I went swimming today.  It was a beautiful day up until I set foot out of the van and it started to rain. However, this was absolutely perfect, because Asian tourists melt in the rain.  The least hint of rain and they bolt to the nearest covering.  This meant that I had the entire water source (mostly) to myself.

After many, many, many laps I made it out of the water to dry off and read a bit. (The rain had stopped and had left things windy and "cool"...if "cool" is such a thing in this heat.)  Suddenly, a loud roar was taking place above me.  I look up just in time to watch three airforce fighter jets do a fly over in formation. (I assume they were Air Force; the could have been Navy.  I assume they were fighter jets. Do the military fly anything else super fast and in formation? I also know they were not B2s. I'm familiar with that aircraft as I nearly ran off a cliff more than once watching them fly over.  They seemed to always do their flying at the exact time I got off work...at the exact time I was driving down a cliff.  I'm lucky to be alive, you know.)

Anyway, it was so awesome.  I thought I was back with the Byng Band at Garden of the Gods when we got buzzed by those jets.  About the time the shock wore off, here they came again.

There is only one explanation for the second fly over. Some pilot saw me swimming, thought I was cute, and wanted a second glance. (Or they wondered why a grown woman was swimming with a stuffed platypus.)

No time...

Perry and I have many adventures to share, but I'm too tired.  For this weekend, I have four youth sermons (with powerpoints, worksheets, music sets, and devotions), a Sunday sermon, and VBS decorations to finish.

So instead of our spa adventure (the Old Japanese man didn't understand me taking pictures of a stuffed animal at various locations at the spa) or our lazy river adventure, I leave you with....

the summer of more braids has kicked off!

A Rough 24 or Eat More Beef

I should have known things in Guam were going to start out rough when it took 10 minutes to locate the three keys needed to bust in the parsonage.  I was pretty sure it was going to be a third year of  a breaking and entering blog.  However, since the last time I busted in, I secured the windows so people couldn't break in and the church put bars over the other windows.  Eventually, I found all the right keys and while working on the locks, a giant roach ran across my foot.  It was a sign of doom.  (Did I mention it smelled really, really, really awful?)

It was nearly 1am before I made it to bed.  However, my back hurt so bad I couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep.  (The light in this dark blog of the day is that I have the master bedroom this summer instead of my roach room.  That bed has a really good mattress, unlike Guam's second worst mattress that is on my bed in the roach room.  Guam's first worst mattress was the one I had when I first moved here.)  It was well after 2am until I dozed off.

As the sun started coming up a bit before 6am, the chickens let me know it.  Then the house behind me just have gotten a very noisy dog since my last stay.  Dog and chickens do not make for sound sleep.

Work needed to be done though, so I scurried off to the Post Office to see if Chris (the postmaster) had my boxes.  When I walked out the door of the parsonage I remembered....the smell....

I got to the Dededo post office, and Chris greeted me.  I asked if he had two packages for me.  Chris, being the good post master knowing everyone's business, knew my mom had sent me something (which were a few of the missing VBS books I ordered).  However, the giant box of clearanced crafts and decorations from Oriental Trading had not arrived.  Nooooooooooooooo!

I got back to the parsonage.  Ugh...that smell.  I did a little poking around, and it didn't take me long to find a dead cat. The country girl has no idea what city folks due when they come across a dead animal.  I decided I didn't care about that and went to see if I could track my package.  I discovered that Oriental Trading didn't even ship it until 9 days after I ordered it.  I discovered that it should have arrived last week.  I discovered that it is somewhere over the ocean.  (I later learned tonight a ship arrives only once a week with mail.  That person thinks it is on Thursday.)

I decided to go search for some of my own decorations.  I head to The Dungeon which is a costume/party store.  I decided after a while that either I missed it or it moved. I turned around and pulled in to where I thought it use to be and there was a sign that they had moved.  It took me several sweeps of a very busy road to find the new location. They had all sorts of great stuff that I could have used in the previous 10 VBSs.  But nothing relevant for this one.  Next best thing, I head to a Filipino dollar store and buy a punch of plastic table cloths. You can do anything with those.

I get back to the parsonage to realize that dead cat is gone. Wait, wrong.  It was moved to right under the house window!!! I had a choice to make.  Die of heat. Die of bad smell.  I was really going to have to do something about this dead cat.  But first...swimming.

I found my way to a pool. (It's best not to ask where or how I got in.)  I did a bunch of laps and then got out to dry off.  It had become a bit cloudy and was cool, so I fell asleep. This never happens. (You can tell I'm tired.)  About 4pm, I get back to the parsonage to see the yard covered in chickens.  Ugh, that smell.

I decide to go see if I could make something out of those table cloths I bought, and come back to eat some supper.  Ugh, that smell. And lots of chickens. But wait...there is considerably less cat than earlier.  Are the chickens eating the dead cat?  Ewwwww....

After some more decorating, I come back to the house for water break.  Sure enough, the chickens are eating the cat.  There's only a leg left.

So...the moral of the story is.  Eat more beef.  Don't eat chicken. Chickens eat dead cats.