I have many pictures and adventures to share, but unfortunately my computer is being finicky and refuses to recognize any outside sources. But stay tuned, pictures are coming!

So, instead of going into a monologue about the changes in my life on the lovely island Guam, I'll give you a list:

• I'm currently running the school at a second location. So in the mornings at around 6:30am,  I leave the house and drive about 25 minutes to the other school. I unlock the building, turn on the air con, water, and lights, of course. I make sure everything is set up properly and that the students have all of their workbooks. I just love my students.
• We're reading The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis as a class. Oh, how thrilling to experience the excitement of certain students, on the edge of their seats, grinning and gasping throughout the adventure.
• My youngest student is seven and my oldest is eighteen.
• The other location (which I also work at in the afternoons) currently has six Korean children. When the parents come to pick them up, they always bow to me! It's so cool to be around such a mix of cultures. We are the melting pot of the Pacific, you know.
• I live upstairs in the main school, which is a gorgeous house, on the edge of a cliff (that you can CLIMB DOWN) next to the lovely blue waters. I'm so blessed; it's insane. But before you begin making jokes about how I'm not living the "missionary life," haha, I'll add that there is a rat living in the wall of my closet, and he likes to converse with me through a type of "rat Morse code" scratching. yick. Actually, this morning there was a rat in the kitchen. I yelled for Pastor Bill, and he disposed of the creature. yick (once again).
• Every night the sunset is a sweet and new surprise. Worries fade as I lean over that railing and begin to breathe again. No, I'm not a perfect teacher and I get caught up in the little things instead of the big ones sometimes. But in that sunset, from that sunset I am reminded that HE IS everything I need. And yes, I am incapable of truly being great without Him. But the whole reason for living is to be with Him, right? 
• I'm learning that it is impossible to "fix" a child or permanently reform their character by managing their behavior. It must come from the inside out. They must surrender to Jesus Christ.
• Please pray for the people of this island. Many of the girls are eleven going on thirty, much too aware of the world and all the nasty it offers. They want to be loved, because many aren't loved at home by their daddies. And then you have boys who have no reason to refuse the attention from these aggressive girls.
• I love the people here. And it saddens me that there are so many people without filters; they just take it all in, anything. Whatever they feel like, they do it. And why not? If you don't know the Lord Jesus, what does life have to offer? What is the purpose of living other than to do whatever feels nice in that moment?

My encouragement to those of you who read my blog would be this: find those young people who need a godly influence and love them. Show them to Jesus. He's the only way true change will come. We can dress these girls up in skirts (which we do at school), and that's okay, but we must remember that who they really are is more than skin deep. Clothes won't cover their sins; only Jesus can do that. Please pray that I would have wisdom in ALL areas. We have (both schools combined) about fifty students, and we're still enrolling.

love to all and glory to God,
Audrey Ann