Craig Rayner

January has been a very busy month. The beginning of the year was celebrated at a resort on Guam , watching the fireworks and chatting with the MD about his plans for 2008. On the 7 th January we took a plane ride to Saipan . The local Guam people had prepared us for Saipan with the comment that Saipan was a smaller Guam and that it was still 10-20 years behind Guam . In some ways the statement reflected a little pride for Guam to claim that they were ahead of a least Saipan . We ended the month back in Guam after returning from Saipan on the 30 th January.

Saipan may be a little behind the rest of the world, but the YWAM base has been established on Saipan since the late 70's and the current leadership, Rengesuul and Angelina Yobech were well prepared for the team's arrival, having stocked the cupboards and notified the community of our arrival well in advance. The entire team hit the road running, with visits to various clubs, as well as aged day care facilities, child-care centres, private and public schools, chat-walks in the community and shopping districts, as well as catching the sights that the island has to offer. The base is co-located with an egg farm, the only egg farm on the island. Some of our work duties included collecting, cleaning, sorting and packing eggs.

Saipan is a lot smaller than Guam , being about 20 kilometres (North-South) by only 5km (East-West) with a population of about 60,000 people. Their economy is mainly based on tourism, with Japanese and Russian tourists being the predominant visitors. At least I could say hello to the Russian tourists, which surprised a few of them.

One of the highlights was a visit to Dan Dan Elementary school . It appears that in America , the land of free speech, you are not allowed to speak of the MD within schools, so to be invited to Dan Dan to share about the MD was a huge step for the MD. We spent an hour and a half singing and presenting our skit, and then followed up with on class, allowing the children (5 th grade, 11 years old) to interview us about where we came from etc.

We also had the opportunity to visit a local community and organise an afternoon of games for the children. As it was a public holiday, the team travelled to the Garapan community and spent the afternoon playing with the children, performing our skit and telling them about the MD. The community is where the Angelina is reaching out with a pre-school to help the children start school well, which many in the community cannot afford.

We did spend some time seeing the sights, with our first day dedicated to touring the island. We also had the opportunity to visit Managaha Island , a tiny sand/coral island just off the Saipan coast. We were able to snorkel and see the life on the reef. The area is a marine park, so the variety of fish was astounding, with colours that are just beautiful. My camera is not the water proof variety, so you will just have to take my word on the colours and beauty of the reef.

Most of the people in the world will never see the beauty created, yet the MD still takes attention to the details. What a wondrous creator we serve!

We finish up here in Guam on the 7 th February, arriving in Auckland on the 8 th February. My flight back home is booked for Tuesday, 19 th February. I am looking forward to being home of a short time before heading off again to Kazakhstan some time in April.

Images:

• Rengesuul and Angelina Yobech
• Forbidden Island (East Coast, Saipan )
• The team at Dan Dan Elementary School
• Playing with the children of Garapan Community.