Creepy Crawlies, Craters & Communication

I had an uneventful night of sleep, no creepy crawlies again, but each of us have killed a 2 inch cockroach in the last 24 hours.  The ants are under control and the flies are down to a few hundred.  

Class got off to a noisy start today.  Just as devotions were concluding it started to rain and when I got up to start class I had to shout to be heard as the rain beat on the steel panel roof.  

I’m not sure I’m getting through but I hope so.  They seemed to catch the concepts of the study tools and I wish I could get more to them.  It seems a shame that I have a library full of stuff I only use occasionally and they have nearly nothing.  Even the Bible school library is very limited.  There are lots of books, but many of them are very old and/or culturally irrelevant.  Several books I have used in the past and have cast off as outdated.  Others have done the same and so the books end up here.

I showed them some of the good classics that are useful - Halley’s Bible Handbook and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.  Moses asked if they were available - I doubt it - but I will look into getting some shipped here.  Bringing them here in the luggage isn’t really practical because of the massive weight.  I guess I’m just frustrated by the whole have/have not dilemma.  

I do love the way the team is working together and the easy camaraderie of the three of us.  There is a good spirit of doing whatever we can to work together to get things done.

After classes last night Jeff and I went for a walk around.  He pointed out an interesting feature of the campus.  In the main yard there are three large depressions.  They are bomb craters from WWII!  They aren’t all that deep any longer but are quite large around.  This area was an area of heavy conflict during the war and the locals hid in caves down by the ocean.

We made our way down there this evening - taking a trail that led down and I wasn’t really believing where we were going.  The trail got fairly steep as we descended over coral and then there was a place where you used a knotted rope to lead to an aluminum ladder set into the wall to get down another 20 feet.  Then it was still down hill over jagged coral until it finally leveled out.  The ocean was beautiful and I picked up a shell and a bit of coral as a souvenir.  

When we got back I stopped by the cooking hut of the guys.  They were making KauKau - a cross between potato and sweet potato. We got talking about crops grown different places and Raymond asked me to describe maize.  I told him how it grew on a stalk and had one ear that grew rows of large yellow seeds.  Jairus said, “sounds like corn”!  We had quite a laugh over that one.  

Then tonight after dinner Rev. Joe came over to talk.  We had a great time with him.  He is very helpful in understanding the culture and has explained many things to me.  He also has an engaging personality and great sense of humor.  I’m loving this place and loving the people.