Another week has come and gone, and I still have a job, my family is healthy, the roof over my head is strong, my fridge has more than enough food to nourish my body, and I live on a tropical island in the middle of the Pacific. I am blessed! These are tumultuous times, but if we can be thankful for what we do have, life is so much smoother day by day.
As September comes to a close, all the activities of the school year are in full swing. This year, I volunteered to be secretary of the PTO (Parent Teacher organization), and a Den Leader for the Cub Scouts in addition to my usual commitments to teach Sunday School, be a weekly reader in my child’s class, and lead the 4-H Ebeye Citizenship Club. As for 4-H, this will be my fourth year organizing and leading this club, and I am super excited for what is in store this year. We have a record number of participants this time from both Ebeye and Kwajalein. At our first organizational meeting and campus cleanup yesterday at Ebeye Public Elementary School, we had over 50 participants, including accompanying parent and teenage volunteers. It was fabulous!!
In case you are not familiar with 4-H or think it is only for farmers dealing with pigs and cows, etc…I’d like to take a minute to write about it here. 4-H is an organized group of at least 5 youth from 3 different families who meet regularly with adults and/or staff volunteers for a long-term, progressive series of educational experiences. 4-H is open to all youth ages 5-18. The purpose of 4-H is to provide positive youth development activities to meet the needs of young people and to give them experiences in belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. There are many different types of 4-H clubs, but ours is focused on Citizenship and becoming good citizens, which is defined by the Character Counts! Program as people who stay informed and vote, are good neighbors, obey laws and rules, respect authority, protect the environment, and make their schools and communities better. The Ebeye Citizenship club strives to encourage all its members to be active citizens and provide them with the opportunity to practice citizenship. Active citizens who with others to create, change, and improve the world around them, which we did in some small measure today by cleaning up the campus of the public school on Ebeye. We are looking forward to more projects like this throughout the 2011-2012 school year, such as our planting project where we can fulfill the 4-H pledge by employing our heads to clearer thinking, our hearts to greater loyalty, our hands to larger service, and our health to better living for our club, our community, our countries, and our world! Wish us luck and if you live on Kwaj or Ebeye, come out and join us when you see our group out and about! J
3 comments:
Wow! So fascinating to think of 4H on a tropical island. :) It's a great organization, and the kids there are fortunate to have access to all that it offers (and dedicated, caring leaders). Do you have a 'county' fair? How does that work? Curious about that...
How would you feel about doing a 4H penpal exchange? Maybe our club could correspond with yours. Just a thought...
Good luck in your many endeavors, especially the most important one of remembering to count your blessings. :) (Sounds like you're already doing great with that, though.)
Unfortunately, we are so small that we are not able to have all the aspects of 4-H here, such as a "county fair," etc... Our focus is on individual "project clubs" that run throughout the year. I am, however, hoping to bring all the clubs together this year for a couple of 4-H fundraisers, so we are branching out a bit!
I would love to have a 4-H Penpal exchange! The kids here would love to hear about what 4-H kids in other places are doing. If the kids there would like to be involved, get back to me, and we'll see about setting it up!
We're heading to 4H tomorrow, and I'll be sure to ask about it. I can't imagine that they'd say no - what a fun project! :)
Maybe (someday) we can join you in 4H there. I applied for a job on Kwaj yesterday - a Youth Activities Director position. I'm excited about it - it's a great fit for me, and I think I could bring a lot to the island in the position.
I went ahead and put my husband's application in again for the Wastewater job that he applied for last year - and almost got, except that he needed an accompanied position. Neither are listed as accompanied, but it never hurts to try. (At least - I hope it doesn't hurt!) Maybe it helps that both of us applied at the same time? Don't know. Praying and hoping that it will work out if it's meant to be. If not, that's ok too.
I'll let you know what the 4H group has to say. My email is thefarriers@yahoo.com. If it works for you, perhaps you can drop me an email. Might be easier to communicate that way.
Keep up the posts - LOVED to read about your float in the ocean. Sounds like it was just what you needed. :)
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