Spring 1999

Assignment Pohnpei

by Erik Stenbakken

Everybody knows what being a student missionary is like, right? “You hear about waterfalls and diving and stuff,” says Walla Walla College student missionary Alysia Wresch, “but then you find out you’re spending every day making lesson plans, making copies and grading papers. And then it’s the weekend and there’s vespers, then Sabbath School, then church, then branch [village Sabbath School], then prison ministries, then vespers again, then it’s Sunday and it’s time to make lesson plans again.”

Sounds exhausting! But she’s right. The student missionary experience is an adventure. To go as a student missionary in order to “get away from school” is perhaps the ultimate irony—especially for those who sign up for a nine-month teaching appointment on the island of Pohnpei.

Pohnpei is the capital island of the Federated States of Micronesia, a four-island state-country located as far southwest of Hawaii as Hawaii is southwest of Washington state. Just six degrees north of the equator, its climate is the same nearly year round, varying only about five degrees from its average of 75°F with humidity so high it virtually rains even on a sunny day.

Being a student missionary is something you have to do for yourself to even begin to understand what the experience is like. Even then everyone has a different story, a different perspective—even the six Walla Walla College student missionaries on the same island.

Regardless of the volunteer’s perspective, no matter the geography or the assignment, whether it’s wanted or acknowledged all student missionaries share these two common threads: 1) Wherever you go, there you are; and 2) You are a missionary.

It’s that simple—and that complex.

The first is a stumbling block that crushes some. There is no magical transformation of character or personality when you leave United States airspace. Whoever sits down in that plane seat for take off is exactly the same person who lands. It’s a fact that leads to disappointment and irritation when you find that an administrator plays on your nerves like a hopeless scratch on a favorite CD, or that your roommate is into heavy metal music (or worse, country) and that selfishness, lust and temper didn’t stay at home to be automatically replaced by generosity, compassion and patience.

The shake up of the norm can be a catalyst for change however. As Matt Worley says, “living simpler is so much more satisfying.” And in general student missionary life is less distracted than life “in the real world.” It allows for more time for reflection about life and your place in it.

When you go as a student missionary the reality emerges that you are a missionary. Not just someone who teaches or writes or assigns or believes—although these are important. You are a missionary. It’s a lesson that changes the rest of your life.

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Heather Dodge teaches first grade. She and the other first-grade teacher spend nearly every night drawing spirit master sheets for duplication the next day. They have few textbooks and even fewer workbooks and often only an out-dated teacher’s edition for a given subject.
Second grade teacher Lisa Flores (SAU) arranged for a small shipment of chalk from her mother back in the U.S. What cost less than $2 at home provided an entire afternoon of fun and learning. The class assignment was to draw a variety of mammals on the classroom floor.
Before getting down to business Ms. Dodge’s first graders break into a spontaneous game of “ring around the rosie.” Daily life in first grade is about the same in Pohnpei—handwriting, math, Bible, reading, and recess. Even though the children play in a genuine thatched hut, on rainy days you can still find a line of little boys leading to the GameBoy or a tightly woven group of girls hovering over a synthetically-flaxen Barbie.
Most days are packed with grading, reading, typing, and teaching. However, without television, fast food restaurants, and the distraction of the phone, there is a surprising volume of time to reflect on the meaning of life.