Well Fernando and I are finally back from teaching on Namu, this time for good. No more taking boats or planes to reach our destination. The last few weeks on Namu have been a roller coaster of good and bad events. But it’s all part of the experience and we made the most of every opportunity. So after spring break Fernando and I headed back to Namu to finish the last part of our teaching. We made it back on April 2 and as soon as we entered our house we knew something was terribly wrong. I remember feeling so excited about coming back to Namu and finishing up but the realizing that we’d been robbed left me emotionless. Apparently somebody had come into our house and eaten all our food. There was half eaten/empty cans all over our house, our ramen was gone, we had about 1/2 a bag of rice left, and in our food containers they opened up our dry instant food and just poured it out. I really felt defeated at the moment, almost betrayed. After walking to Darrel’s house to tell me about our situation we came back to our house and realized that we got robbed AGAIN! Gah! As if once while we were away wasn’t enough. The members of the church came to our house and reinforced it so that it wouldn’t be as easy to break in. A few weeks later one of our students decided that he would run away and leave to Ebeye. Now this brings us to the first week of May. During this week we were preparing for our Spring Concert. The students spend hours practicing and preparing for the program that would be on May 5. Things couldn’t have been better this week but it was too good to be true. On Wednesday two of our students got into a fight. It never is fun having to deal with student misconduct, especially when the end is supposed to be the easiest.
Our program on Thursday, May 7 went superb! Our students really made us proud. After our Spring Concert we had our good-bye party from the community. Wow! I will never forget all that food! There’s nothing like rice, chicken (I got half of a whole chicken on my plate), doughnuts, coconuts, and juka juke (no idea how to spell it) all served on a Marshallese plate and eaten without silverware. After everyone had finished eating we were seated at a special table while the whole community sang to us and one by one came to shake our hand and leave a fan or shell. A small token of appreciation and something to always remember them by. I will never forget that day. Looking at the faces of the students we had taught for the last few months and at the faces of people we had to come to depend on and built friendships with. We came as total strangers and left as part of the family. We had a few more good bye parties but non as memorable as the first one. On May 10 we left Namu on a boat headed to Majkin where we would take a plane to Ebeye and we made it to Ebeye on May 11 as planned.
Like I said, the last part of my missionary experience on Namu was a roller coaster of events. But I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s all part of the experience. No matter what happened to us on Namu, God always made sure we had enough to eat and were taken care of. So this is the last of our adventures on Namu. It has been one of the best experiences of my life. I can’t wait to hear about Namu next school year.
