Spring Break- Managaha!

On Wednesday Grant and I spent our day at Managaha. We have gone to Managaha many times before and just love how beautiful it is. Our favorite thing to do there is to snorkel. This time was different because we had our underwater camera to capture the action under the water. The fish and coral are beautiful and it was fun trying to chase the fish to get the right shot. It was an overcast day so the pictures are darker than usual. We spent time relaxing at the beach, eating our packed lunch, and enjoying the water. Here are some of the moments from the day.
Spring Break is amazing! This is one of the great perks about being a teacher-good time off! Love it!

Museum/Park Visiting Over Spring Break

Dear Friends, Family, and Readers:
I felt like blogging today since I haven’t blogged in some time. This past Sunday I continued with the Bible Study I am a part of on Sunday mornings and learned about El Qanna, which means “Jealous” and was a name God gave the Israelites in the Old Testament. The thing I learned was that jealousy in God’s eyes is not a bad or improper form of jealousy; it is a righteous form. He told the Israelites that his name was El Qanna because he is jealous for Zion and hated when anything threatened the covenant relationship he had with the Israelites. Satan would use God’s own name to slander God, but I believe that is because we have been taught that there is only one form of jealousy and that it is only bad. I enjoyed learning about the name El Qanna. One verse that has also been in my mind as of late is Luke 7:47b, which says, “…But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” When something stands out to me in the word I feel as though I must address it. I have read the Bible at least three times now as best I can remember and sometimes it is hard to see what God is teaching you when you read it over and over again. This verse jumped out at me because there is so little forgiveness today. Many Christians today simply know that God forgives but they don’t know how to reconcile themselves to one another. I find this ½ of a verse crucial to many people today (myself included). If we do not forgive another person their wrongs (in a kind and understanding fashion) we may directly set a precedent in that person’s life to the point that they love others little. Setting the example is so important and I believe it is why so many Christians today fail at spreading the word of God. I will be thinking of this verse for some time as I work on applying it in the various aspects of my life.
Yesterday (Monday) was the first day of our Spring Break and we filled our day with a lot of fun, some of the pictures are from our experiences. First, we visited the C.N.M.I. museum on Middle Road. The museum was closed for a few weeks during government cuts on the Island, but it was open when we went. The museum has a decrepit exterior and the interior is fairly nice if it weren’t for the water damage above the public restrooms that was releasing moisture into the various exhibits. The cost is $1 per person if local and $2 per person if a tourist. The exhibits were really, really neat. I suggest that anyone who wishes to know more about the native peoples visit the museum. The museum explained a lot about the native Chamorro people that I did not know. I think the most interesting thing I viewed was a decorated spear head made out of a human femur. I would have taken pictures of it, but pictures were forbidden in the museum gallery. I believe it was because of the priceless collections of Spanish Jewelry taken from the ocean during an archaeological underwater dig. The only criticism I have of the museum are the odd hours, the water damage (which will ruin the exhibits), and the spelling errors that were rampant throughout the exhibit labels. Needless to say, it was another Saipan experience.
We then went to the Sugar King Park. There is a building there (maybe a museum?) but it was closed and I didn’t know if it was because we arrived too late or there is no money to keep it open… The park itself is rather run down, which is too bad really, because the Sugar King was a major player in Saipan’s history under the Japanese Empire. The park has a walk way encircling it and a botanical garden to the left or rear of the complex. If it had been kept up the garden would be exquisite. There is a path you may walk on and it leads to a Buddhist shrine with a bell. We were told by an elderly Japanese man who was just about to lock the door to come in and ring the bell and pray since the “Peace Bell” he said is non-religious in nature. The Buddhist society on the island had set up the shrine and the bell in memory of the deceased Japanese soldiers on the island and that both Christians and Buddhists were welcome there. We then took a few more pictures and left.
Other things we did that day were visiting Kara’s favorite smoothie shop “Yellow Mango” and having dinner with Pastor Dickerman and his wife, Sandy; since it had been something they had wanted for some time in order to get to know the teachers. Pastor Dickerman was gone during the first part of the school year so it was hard to get to know all the new teachers. The meal was wonderful and the time well spent. Kara and I hope to have them over for dinner sometime when we are able. I hope you enjoy the pictures I put up a description of them is below.

Yours Truly,
Grant

Picture 1- Kara next to beautiful flowers dangling from a trellis at the park.
Picture 2- Picture of face from the statue of Matsue Haruji a.k.a. the Sugar King
who was born in Aizu Wakamatsu-city, which ironically is a Fukushima prefecture of Japan near the nuclear disaster site. You can learn about The Sugar King online and if you visit Saipan.
Picture 3-Kara making funny faces next to a lion sculpture in front of one of the many shrines at Sugar King park.
Picture 4- Me at Sugar King Park in front of a silly plant structure that looked twisted and gnarly.
Picture 5- Is of the bell and shrine inside its enclosed space.

New Happenings

I was thinking about how fast this year has gone by and how fast things have changed. I wanted to talk about what has been happening in the Fifield household and what thoughts are rushing through my mind right now. Spring Break is 2 days away and I feel like a kid at Christmas, I am just itching for a break. For Spring Break Grant and I are going to have a staycation in Saipan. We live in a vacation spot and want to take the opportunity to go to our favorite places during the week and have a relaxing time. Also we just went to Japan in December and want to wait awhile before we take another big trip. I am excited to go to on hikes, beaches, and spend lots of time with my husband. First of all I can not believe that it is March 22 and there is about 2 months left of school. This year has completely flown by and it is hard to separate what happened when because the weather in saipan is the same all year round. I have made some great friends, found a good church, and love the bible study we are in. As far as jobs go we are planning on staying another year we just are waiting for contracts. Now Grant and I are in the process of finding summer jobs and just have to send in our resumes into a place and just hope it all works out. I am not ready though for the year to be over. I genuinely love my kids at school and will miss seeing their faces everyday. I am working hard everyday to prepare them for second grade. I have a lot of special memories with them and enjoy the time i get to spend with them. But right now I am thinking about spring break and going to the beach with Grant!

St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day is a day that I actively celebrate since I am 1/4 Irish:) I decided to talk to my students about what this day is about and to celebrate it with them. I told them all to wear as much green as possible on this day. We read books about leprechauns, gold, and rainbows during story time. The day before St. Patrick's Day the students cut out and decorated shamrocks with green tissue paper, my kids are very hands on learning and enjoyed it a lot! The day of St. Patrick's Day I spent the last part of school with them celebrating. I made my famous cupcakes with green frosting. I have never made my cupcakes for them before and was glad that they enjoyed them so much. Then the student had the opportunity to sponge paint shamrocks for an art project. The kids had a lot of fun and now know what St. Patrick's Day is all about!

Science Fair

On March 3rd our school hosted its annual Science Fair. As a first grade teacher I had to come up with a project for my entire class to participate in to showcase what they had learned. My students favorite chapter was over animals and their habitats. So I divided my class into three groups- Ocean, Forest, and Desert. Each student had to make a shoebox diorama about the group they were in. So first came the painting which was a messy ordeal but they lvoed it. From there they had the backgrounds and animals to color, cut, and glue/stand up. The next step was going to the playground and then beach to get materials that can be found in that habitiat to add to their diorama. I had a helper with me and I was so nervous that some kid would jump into the ocean but they were so into what they were doing they were on their best behavior. So they gathered seashells, rocks, sand, sticks, and grass to add to their boxes. From there they added the final touches of what they had found to their boxes and they were finished. This whole process took about 3 weeks. The entire school was a part of the Science Fair night and 3-8th grade were judged and they earned prizes if they were the winners. On the night of the science fair Grant and I helped tally up all the points for the other grades to help determine the winner along with the other teachers. From there I had to go to my room to be able to greet the parents and families who came to visit. It was basically a large open house so people were coming in and out of the room constantly. By this time in the year I know all of the parents and it was great to see how excited they were to see what their child had done. There were also parents from other grades seeing what my class had done. I had a slideshow of all the pictures I had taken this year and the parents really enjoyed seeing what the kids have been doing in class this year. Grant was able to walk around and visit all the rooms and take pictures of the night. He was a great support to me and came in to check on me ever so often. :) It was a long long day but it was worth it to see the final product and to be able to showcase their learning. The best part of the project is they did it all by themselves and I want to teach them to be more independent everyday. Overall it was a great time for everyone!

Saipan Community Church

I have wanted to write about our church for a long time, but kept forgetting to put it in the blog so here you go.
The church Grant and I attend while being in Saipan is Saipan Community Church. It is on the same campus as the school and where we live. It is a part of the General Baptist Conference. The church motto is "Where the doors are always open." You can take this two ways, we do not have doors and it is an open air church so you can always come in, but second the the community is one where we like to get to know one another. At the beginning of the service we do the meet and greet and then we sing the family song. We hold hands and make a giant circle around the chapel and sing the song. It does sound a lot like camp and some people are not big fans of it, but for me personally I love it because community is number one when I am looking for a church.
At the church I feel as though I have met most everyone that goes there and have spent some time outside of church getting to know them too. Grant has been asked a few times to be the worship leader where he gets to lead the service. The main way that we get connected though is through our bible study which meets on Monday Night. We meet at a couple's house in our church and start with a potluck dinner and then get into the video bible study. I love the potluck since it is new food every week and getting to talk around the table builds community. From there we watch a video on the series we are on and then have a discussion. Grant and I have lead discussions before and it is pretty easy to do since the material is already given to you. We love going on monday nights at the beginning of the week and getting to fellowship with other christians.
We definitely knew from the hard time we had finding a church in Sioux Falls is that you need to get involved in a bible study to meet people.
Saipan Community Church is a place where we are fed spiritually and feel at home.
The pictures I have posted are Grant and the boys, the front of the church, the whole view of the church, the pastor greeting people after church, and the girls and I. Hope you enjoy it!

A Marvelous Weekend!

Dear Readers, Family, and Friends,
March has been off to a great start so far. The science fair went well and all the parents enjoyed seeing their students projects. After the long week it was so nice to be able to spend time with friends. On Friday night Grant and I went over to Laura and Josiah's for swimming and dinner. It was a great time to get to know them even more and to spend time together. I made my mom's famous Italian Pasta Bake and Laura and Josiah made the broccoli, I definitely feel like an adult realizing that we can have our own dinner parties:) Saturday Grant and I went to Managaha which is the island outside of Saipan which is surrounded by reef. We went with our friends Amy and Matt. It is free for locals to go and so we like to use it when we want a day off island. It was such a beautiful day and we had a wonderful time spending time with Amy and Matt. I enjoyed snorkeling about and then feeding bread to the tropical fish. They swarm and it is so neat to watch, I always feel like I'm in an aquarium. It was a bit colder than usual and our time there was shorter since that was the only time we could get, but it was still an amazing day! It was relaxing to spend time admiring the beautiful water and to see all the multicolored fish. Saturday night we headed to Laura and Josiah's to watch the movie Alice In Wonderland. Great movie! Sunday I volunteered for the nursery at church and most likely will not volunteer again, I was expecting to watch babies which I am really good at, but I had a whole room of 5 year old boys! crazyness! Then all of us girls got together and spent the afternoon at the pool, getting ice cream, and watching Fame. I love girl time and love these girls so being able to spend time together made my day! This weekend was so great because of the people in it and I feel so blessed to have such great friends here. I am working on being more spontaneous and not planning ahead as much and just going with the moment since about half the events this weekend were last minute but wonderful. I am by trait very time organized and am working all the time on island time!!!! Saipan is amazing!
Here are some pictures from the weekend!

Learning about God, Marriage, and Saipan

Dear Friends, Family, and Followers:
There is a lot to talk about in this blog, but I will try and keep it as focused as possible. I have had many different things come up that I have learned about God and we had our science fair at our school this past week.
Thing learned about God #1: There are many ways to help the poor people around us and sometimes arguments between married couples come from such uses of money and or criticism. As some of you know it is my desire to someday become a pastor or chaplain. While on Saipan I have given money to two poor individuals the one I gave money to the other day outside of Bobby Cadillac’s Pizza parlor was probably the most interesting because it started a dialogue between my wife and I on the use of money and charity. The situation went down as follows: The man called me friend and asked if I could help him and I told I was going in to eat soon but perhaps could help afterward. After eating he came and asked me while Kara, myself, and our two friends were leaving (very audacious). Kara went to the car as I talked with the man as our friends left in a hurry. I asked the man what I could do to help him and he said three dollars, but eyeing the five in my wallet said five dollars. Now taking into account that I didn’t let my right know what my left hand was doing I pulled out five dollars. Before you think about how I shouldn’t do this, realize that the five dollars I gave was out of my own tutoring money (even though in marriage money is shared between spouses, at least in our case). My wife was upset about my charity because she felt that I critique her when she spends money and that besides buying food or clothing for the man would have been different because you can see the use of it. In the end I agreed that next time I would buy him food or clothing instead as a compromise, but before I let this quip drop I need to share something I feel the spirit of God is leading me to say about this dialogue.
First, I could not help but feel a little like the man in the parable Jesus spoke about the workmen who were paid by the field owner the same amount as those who were hired later in the day (Matthew 20:1-16). In the parable the owner asks the men why they are arguing with him about what they agreed to previously and the owner says that his money is his to do with as he pleases. I mention this little story of our experience not because I believe myself to “be” the owner in the story as was intended by the parable but because I think there is an interesting parallel to discussion about finances in marriage to be thought about. Second, like the poor and diseased in the Bible when a poor person sees what you have of course they will want it. Third, I am not going to say that we should all just go give money, food, or clothing to those who need it all the time…Rather I would like people to take giving the poor money as a trust in God’s hand. Every time I give a poor person anything I let them know by holding their hand and looking them in the eye that they are blessed and to thank Jesus for the gift they receive. I ask them to make good use of it because if they do not it will be used as a testimony against them because God has given them the money (his money) through me. So, whatever that man uses it for I will go on faith that God will bless or punish his actions. Forth and lastly, I feel that my debate with my wife was a good one, but that we as a couple need to consider how much money was actually talked about here. I have only given $8.00 to the poor in Saipan. That day I also spent $40 in gas, $20 for lunch and dinner with Kara, and $20 on a shirt for KJ at Managaha’s gift shop (since she doesn’t have any “Saipan shirts”) totaling $80 on self next to nil on others…just a thought.
Today, I also started The Truth Project during Bible study this Sunday morning. It was very interesting to hear Dr. Del Tackett speak about truth. If you want to know more about him and his mission his website is http://deltackett.com/ . There is also a facebook group dedicated to discussion of The Truth Project. The main thing I am dwelling on from the first session is the talk about how the definition of insanity is not simply a loss of grip on reality, but rather to a Christian it is the loss of grip on the reality of what God has envisioned and created and is the abandon of that truth into following lies of the world. It is a really deep topic, but one of many covered in this first session I will let you know more about that later.
I hope you enjoy the blog and the musings on life and the Christian faith.

Yours, Grant

Description of pictures:

1. Is of the seen from my lounge chair at Managaha where some locals had laid anchor (almost looks like a picture from a Corona commercial)
2. is of the sunset I took the other day after talking to God about my dialogue with my wife. I like it not because it is the most beautiful but because the cloud in front looks like a dolphin in the air.
3. Picture of the sign outside of Kara's favorite store "Yello Mango" that says "smoodie" instead of "smoothie" haha
4. Picture of the Bobby Cadillac's entrance the scene of my story as you will. Enjoy.