Island Fever

What do you do when you don't feel like more lesson planning or grading, watching another movie, reading another book, it's pouring rain, the power's off, and there's no where to go? 

You grab a friend and run around in the rain until you're cold.  You try roasting marshmallows over candles, then hunt down a butane burner.  You cling to the few shreds of sanity that are left.

Because sometimes that's just what you have to do.

I wish

I keep hearing of student missionaries who either are renewing their contract for another year, or wished that things would work out so that they could.

And it makes me jealous.

Because I wanted to feel that way.

I wanted so badly to feel connected to where I’d gone, wanted it to be hard when I left because it would mean that I’d really loved it while I was there.

I’ll miss many things, of course.  I’ll miss fellow teachers, and the good times we’ve had together.  I’ll miss my students, kids sitting on my lap during chapel, reading crazy test answers, answering questions that only 8 year old minds think up.  I’ll miss diving, and swimming in the lagoon.  I’ll miss the Chuukese staff and church members I’ve grown close to.

But I won’t miss feeling like a prisoner, trapped on a campus I occasionally leave, and an island group I never leave.  I won’t miss the staff problems I never expected, or the frustrations of teaching students who are at more levels of understanding than I know how to accommodate.  I won’t miss the violence, and never leaving campus after dark unless I’m in a vehicle with many other people.  I won’t miss feeling like I have a very small amount of control over my life.

It’s not that I feel my time here is worthless, or not meaningful.  I know that just because something is not the way you expected it does not mean it becomes less valuable.  But it does not keep me from wishing.

Oh, how I wish.