Yesterday we went on a little hike through the jungle to a place called "Old Man by the Sea." It was quite the adventure through the steep terrain and mud. As the group was going down the hill I thought I would take a little short cut, and that I did. I ended up sliding all the way down the muddy hill past everyone. I must say though it was a lot faster than the other way.
When we got down to the beach we knew we had reached our destination because there in all its glory sat the big bolder that looked like an old man… hints the name "Old Man by the Sea."

Alex wanted to be sure our food would not
blow away!















How we left the house!















The worst of the storm that we saw

Typhoon Warnings

Last week was quite the adventure! On Friday we were told that a big typhoon was to be hitting Saipan Early Saturday morning and evening. At the end of the day on Friday we had to take everything in the school and move it up at least 2 feet just in case it flooded. Our school is very close to the beach so it would have been very likely that our school would have been flood if the typhoon was as bad as expected. The storm was set as a category 4 but was slowly moving into a category 5. For those of you who don’t know what that means (believe me I had no idea until I heard we had typhoons here), a category 4 is max wind speeds of 135-155 miles per hr and a category 5 is considered a super typhoon which has max winds or 156 or greater. Just a little info to help you understand the size of the typhoon. Well anyways after we picked up the school we had to go home and pack up anything and everything that was "valuable" to us. When they told us this we just laughed because pretty much everything that we had brought was valuable to us, in that if we didn’t take out most everything we brought then we would have absolutely nothing and people in Saipan would end up seeing 5 naked white girls because our clothes would have gotten blown away.
Our house that we are staying in was not safe enough enough at the time for the winds that were to come so we had to go stay at a different compound. It took us a bit but we quickly packed up our clothes and food and moved out for the weekend.
On Saturday when we woke up there wasn’t really any wind or rain so a few of us got ready and went to church. When we arrived at the church we were informed that the typhoon looked like it was heading north and might actually miss us. As we continued to wait for the storm to pass, we were then informed that the police were going door to door and telling people that there was a tsunami warning and to go up to higher ground just in case. So yet again we had to pack up our things and head to another house that was up on Capital hill. The storm ended up just barely missing us thanks to all the prayers. We are now unpacked and safe in our house again. Very little damage was done.

On Sunday we went to a water park called Wave Jungle. It was a blast! Water parks here are definitely not like the states. They really don't have rules or if they do they don't really stick to them. Their all about fun here in Saipan. For instance there were three of us girls waiting in line to take the tubes down a slide and one of the life guards waved us over and had all three of us connect together and go down backwards in the slide. It definitely added to the excitement. Only one problem... we could only go down it about 2 times before we would start to feel sick! Bad things happen when you’re going backwards, in circles, in the dark, down a slide. One of my favorites was the toilet bowl. You would go down this slide and then it would shoot you out into this "toilet bowl." If you watch carefully, you will see that I go so fast that you barely see me go out of the tube and if you tuck your legs in (so I’m told) it helps you to spin. When I first tried the toilet bowl I was so confused at where I was when I fell. I was expecting the water to be shallow so I could push off but it wasn't and it didn't help that my bottoms had fallen off from felling in head first! All the sudden I felt someone grab my arm and its the life guard and he says "Are you ok!" Haha I wanted to get out of there as quick as possible mainly out of embarrassment that a lifeguard had to save me because I fell in a toilet and couldn't get out!!!!We weren't experts at it but some of the people that worked there showed us some tips on how to do it and they could go around the bowl at least 4 or 5 times! It was a great end to the weekend!

So it's been awhile since I have written. The first week of the school year was pretty stressful. I had a few parents breathing down my neck about homework and things that they wish I would do differently in class. It took a long time to find common ground with a few of the parents but as of now things are running a little bit more smoothly.

I love my students very much. Although I must say by the end of the day my kids have pushed me to my stress MAX. They love to see how far they can push me but in return I just give them more laps for P.E. I always tell them that by the end of the year their going to be the most fix kids in the whole school! But for some reason that doesn't really excite them all that much.

My kids are so sweet to me! They bring me mangos, cupcakes, and just today I got chocolate chip cookies! Some days I swear I would never become a teacher but then there are those days that I couldn’t imagine if I weren’t a teacher. Teaching definitely has its ups and downs. I mean I’m not saying that I only like teaching when I get things from my students but sometimes I feel like my students could care less if I was teaching them or not. But then there’s those days when a student will draw me a picture or write me a note telling me how much I mean to them and it helps reassure to me that I might be doing an ok job.

Well usually when I am not in school I am at the beach. On weekends that is pretty much where I live. I sleep at home and go to church and then I go straight to the Ocean. In some parts of the ocean its very shallow and so the water is so so warm. It’s sometimes as hot as a hot tub and I’m not exaggerating when I say that. There’s this one part in the ocean where you have to walk in knee high water about 3-4 football fields to get to the waves! The ocean here is sooo beautiful and pretty blue!!! We haven’t been able to snorkel but probably next week we will go to this island where there’s tons of fish.

Sharla, Holly and I are the volleyball coaches here at the school. There’s practices in the blazing heat every Monday, Wednesday and games are on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This Tuesday was our first game. It was very close but we lost. Fortunately on Wednesday it was a different story and they won! It was pretty exciting because I guess they usually don’t start winning their games until about 20 games into the season. After hearing that we were pretty excited our team was off to a real good start!

This weekend there is a drama group retreat and 3 of the girls in our class are sponsors so my roommate Sharla and I will have the house to ourselves for the weekend. It will be pretty quiet without the girls around so will have to find some fun things to do!

Teaching!

It was 5:30 am and all 5 of us girls were running around the house getting ready. We had been told over and over again that first impressions were huge, so we really wanted to look our best! We quickly got ready, ate our breakfast and out the door we went for our 7 o’clock morning meeting. During our meeting all of us were just in disbelief that today was truly the first day of school. It had gone by so fast. Just last Sunday our rooms were a mess from all the moving and now they were sparkling clean for the first day of school. After our meeting got out I walked into my classroom and just stood there for a second trying to take it all in. I couldn’t believe that I was actually going to be a teacher for a year. It was all finally hitting me.
As the clock hit 8 I opened the door and the children swarmed the classroom. They were so excited for the first day of school and so was I. All the kids were so cute. Whenever they have a question they always start it by saying miss, miss…. or miss Cynthia I have a question. They definitely are by far the sweetest kids. I was at recess and one of the shyest kids in the class comes up to me and says, “miss Cynthia you are the best teacher I have had at the SDA school.” It made me smile so big and warmed my heart to know that I wasn’t doing terrible as a first time teacher. I also found out today that gifts for the teacher in Saipan are different than the gifts you get in the states. For instance usually it is said that a student gives a teacher an apple. Well not in Saipan because today I got a bag of mangos!!! Can life get any better? I feel so loved and it’s only the second day of school.

Oh So Tired!

Since the second we got to Saipan we have not had a day of rest! Its been so crazy! We arrived in Saipan on Thursday night at 8:50pm. We eat some food and then fell right to sleep. The next morning we had to get up and get tons of things done. The things we had to do were: get a drivers license, medical clearance, see the school, get groceries. By the time the day had ended we could hardly stand up from being so tired. Im pretty sure all of us went to bed early that night. Then on Saturday we got up, went to Sabbath school and church, had song service, potluck and then went on a tour around the whole island which lasted the whole day! On Sunday we had a work bee that started at 7:45am! We had to take everything out of each classroom and put it into a different classroom! It took forever!!!! Then on Monday-Weds had and will be having meetings that go from 7:45 to 5:00. Were all trying to adjust to the time change which is 17 hours ahead of the US but its very hard when you don’t get one day to rest!!! The best way that we figure the time change is to count back 5 hrs and change the am to pm if we want to figure out what time it is in Washington. For example if its 5pm here we would count back 5 hrs making it 12, and then switching the pm to am.

Its been pretty crazy! We don’t have a principle and we don’t know what books were using for the school year, which means I still don’t have my lesson plans done and school starts this Thursday. A little stressful but I’m trying to keep a positive attitude.

There is an Asian lady that works at the school that has 2 sons. One is in 5th grade and the other has special needs so he attends a public school. Her family moved from Seattle to Saipan because her husband was starting a business. The business fell through and they lost everything! This year their son will not be able to attend the SDA School because they don’t have enough money. I really would like to try and get sponsors for their son so that he can come back to the SDA School again! If you would like to help you can email me at cyndi.rearrick@gmail.com. I would love it if you could help. The tuition is 220 a month, so even if I could get a few people to donate 25 dollars a month it would work!

Heres my address if you ever want to send anything....

P.O. Box 501063 Saipan, MP 96950

Food is so exensive here! But according to the sign its Joeten's everyday low prices.... imagine when there high!

Feel free to send me food!!! I will be more than happy to have it!!!!











Getting our new drivers licenses

Being welcomed into Saipan!

All of the people going to the different islands

5 am on the beach of Honolulu!!! Way to early!

Our Car ride home with Aaron and Colette

Left Behind!!!

It was Weds night in Honolulu and we had gone to the church because one of the girls that was going as a student missionary was going to be baptized! After the service people were standing around talking so Alex, Sharla and I all went outside to get some fresh air. While we were out there these two people came up to us named Aaron and Colette. They were very friendly and asked us what we were doing in Hawaii. We told them that we were student missionaries and all of us were going to different islands. Then they began to tell us that they were also student missionaries and they had just come from Jerusalem because they felt that God wanted them to come to the islands to preach and so they did. We were all so interested in what they were telling us that when we looked up for a brief second we saw the bus starting to drive away! Sharla took a few quick steps to try to catch it but she was to far away. I quickly pull out my phone and start calling our director Jennie but after several times of calling she would not pick up! Aaron and Colette were so nice and were more than happy to give us a ride. I don’t know what we would have done without them!

Off To A Great Start???

On Aug 2, I was supposed to leave the airport at 9:30 to fly to Hawaii. Well things didn't happen exactly like I had hoped for. As I was waiting for my flight they announced that our plane was going to be delayed because on the last flight the plane had lost power as it was flying into Seattle and so they were trying to find the problem and fix it for my flight. At around 10:00 they found the problem and the part that they needed was in LA so they were going to have to put the part on another plane and fly it over to us. The part was to get in at 12 and then it would take at least an hour to install, so they gave us all a 10 dollar lunch ticket to use in the airport while we waited. Finally it was 1 and they announced that the part didn’t make it on the plane and it would have to be put onto another plane, which would get in around 3 and hopefully be installed around 4!!!! For their inconvenience they gave us a 100 dollars to fly anytime within the next year! I couldn’t believe it, how could they forget to put the part on the plane! To make a long story short, the part did make it on the next plane and I was off to Honolulu FINALLY at 4:45!