Back From Chuuk

I got back from Chuuk on Saturday night. The plane was delayed an hour because of some kind of pressure problem. Thus, we flew much lower than normal which provided a very interesting view of the ocean and Guam (I was blessed with a window seat). This trip was one of my most enjoyable to Chuuk ever. Maybe one reason was that I actually got to teach a class! The Chuuk campus is off to a good start with 60+ students (they were still arriving during the first week) and my class started off the Teaching Facility in Weno. Here are some pictures from my time in Chuuk....
For the first time I got to ride the Truk Queen from Weno to the Chuuk Campus. This is the "school bus" that brings the students and their stuff out to Tol for the start of the semester. The ride was an uneventful 3 hour trip across the lagoon. Some of the students came out to the campus on their own family speed boats. The campus is accessible only by boat. It looks promising that we will have wireless internet there some time this semester. It seems funny to me that internet and cell phone, instead of power, water, sewer etc, will be the first infrastructure provided to this area of Chuuk.

The Campus is absolutely beautiful. This is the view from the apartment I stayed in while on campus.











The women arrived early on Sunday for the morning service. After the guys arrived I had the opportunity to preach for the opening campus Sunday service. I was also privileged to be the first chapel speaker on Tuesday.







We always eat well in Chuuk. This is the Chuuk campus cafeteria where I shared a lunch of BBQ'd chicken with the Tol students. I always enjoy the great hospitality on the Chuuk campus and at the TF. It is not a good place to lose weight! :) Especially for a guy like me who suffers from TMB (too many buffets).







I tried to burn off some of the food by playing ball with some of the guys. They just about killed me. What ever happened to walking the ball up the court? They did let me score a couple times. You can also see the library (white with red roof) and the classroom/women's dorm building (blue) in the background. Again you can see how beautiful and green the campus is.






Back on Weno, I finished the classroom portion of the distance education Prophetic Literature course. We had a 2 1/2 hour classroom session each evening with computer training offered in the afternoon. Three of the students had never used a computer before. I was pleased with how well everyone did adapting to handing in homework, reading and doing discussions on line. We are still waiting for the new computers to arrive for the computer lab in the Chuuk TF library (pictured here).