Baptizing in the Marshall Islands

Happy Birthday Alex!!!!!

Well, today was interesting. I had my first experience with Baptizing in the Marshall Islands…different could be one word used to describe it. Here in the Marshall Islands they don’t believe in baptizing until you are old enough to have committed sins, and they do it to rid you of all wrong you have made and put you on the road with God. We had our normal session this morning, and this afternoon’s session was on the beach at the Lagoon because there was a baptizing ceremony. Six kids (ranging from 12 to 20) were baptized. The first part of the ceremony was normal…but the strange part came next. All of a sudden my father started walking down to the water. I was expecting him to bring some water back to use a holy water, but he just walked right on into the ocean. He had his very nice church attire on, and just walked right on in…up to about mid stomach. He stood there with his hands towards the Heavens for a few minutes yelling in Marshallese, and then it stopped. At that time the first of the kids walked in to join him; Richie was first. Like my dad he walked in fully clothed and took stance along side Kamot. They were there for about 4 minutes and then my father dunked him under water and he came out. We sang a song for him as he came back, and then it all happened again six times. I wish I had my camera to share the experience with you, but I thought that might have been a little inappropriate. Oh well. Needless to say though, it was a touching ceremony and really cool to see yet another way the Marshallese conduct their lives so differently.

Away from church I spent my Sunday cleaning and organizing the school. The condition of our school is AWFUL and it looks as though it might fall apart any day. The cement walls crumble more each day and wooden windows and doors slowly rot before our eyes. Another year and this school is definitely not going to be standing. No exaggeration.

I cleaned out the extra closet in the Kindergarten house and finally finished sorting out the Library. I hoped I could finish that sooner, but there were too many other things to take care of. I almost died when I saw the boxes that Movie decided to bring over from her house. I can’t tell you how many episodes we have had because no one had pencils and there are no staplers or sharpeners or rulers or markers etc…and movie had three boxes full of EVERYTHING we have needed that she ‘forgot’ she had. How can you forget you have all that stuff when you need it every day?!?! It blows my mind. Oh well. I cleared everything out though, sorted it, and but it all back in an orderly fashion – not just heaps. I also made quarter lesson plans with the weeks laid out (9) and then lessons for this week. It was a TON of work, but it feels nice to be organized. It makes for a lot less stress in the Sundays to come.