Tropical Storm Bopha becomes Typhoon Bopha

Great…just what I wanted to hear. But, really, we are preparing for Bopha and should be fine. The elementary school, the academy, and Koror SDA Church are all on the high ground. The buildings are all cement block walls and have cement roofs.

This track is more southerly than previously expected and “has greatly diminished the threat of damaging winds at Faraulep,” according to the National Weather Service in Guam. Bopha is expected to continue on a west-northwesterly track, with its center passing very close to the island of Palau on Oct. 2.

via NASA – Tropical Storm Bopha Western North Pacific Ocean.

Pathfinder Campout

So there was a Pathfinder campout up at PMA this weekend. We were there for two nights. There was rain and there was sun. We had about 50 kids come and just about a dozen staff were there. It was pretty intense with all the food being cooked over fires.

Be on te lookout for a post with some pictures later this week.

Palau Pacific Resort

A day trip. We paid to go to Palau’s 5-star resort. It was definitely worth it. We will be going again. Maybe even once a month.

Daisy and a Sunset

Here are some pictures we have taken since we got back to Palau after our trip to Hawaii. We went to a “park” here in town with our dog Daisy Pearl and she had a blast. It started to rain so it cut the trip short, but not short enough. Daisy ran all over the place while it was raining, actually, torrents of water were pouring from the sky. It was still nice.

The other pictures are on various days when our dog needed her picture taken.

The sunset and the subsequent pictures were all taken this evening.

A New Pastor

So the new pastor is arriving tonight at 11:50pm. Clearly, we will be among those missing from the welcoming party. If there wasn’t work tomorrow and/or it wasn’t so (oh so very) late I would have decided to go. It’s kind of a big deal because the Koror Seventh-day Adventist Church has been without a pastor for well over a year.

There have been many times that I keep thinking , “Yeah… that’s one of the problems here in Palau, but when the pastor comes it’ll be different.” I keep pinning all my hopes on this guy that’s coming to Palau from the faraway land called Texas. I know some things will change for the better, but it will all take time. Pray for us here in Palau, but especially for the new pastor, the church here has been waiting for him for quite awhile.

Photos from a SCUBA Trip with Sam’s Tours

Ngchesar Waterfall

The school staff had a trip to this waterfall. It was super fun. Our dog Daisy really enjoyed climbing around the rocks and swimming in the water. We went on a walk down the stream with Victor and his puppy Neveah.
Enjoy some pictures.

Is this the end…?

Could this really be the end of the Palau Power Crisis of 2011?!?!?
For the last five nights we have not lost power here in Koror for more than ten minutes. Actually, it may not have even been five minutes. Of course, we have not heard anything official, but we have heard that a temporary-backup generator is currently solving the immediate problem of power in the city. Unfortunately for Hailey this generator cannot provide power for everywhere, so Palau Mission Academy and the rest of Airai state, or at least most of it, will continue to lose power at what currently seems to be random times. In fact, they had no power for most of the morning earlier today. They are pretty used to it. But it is exam week so it was extra hard on everyone, the students especially.
Most importantly for us is that we should now have power when it is time to sleep and time call home.

Daisy @ the dog show!

This gallery contains 17 photos.

The Palau Power Shortage of 2011 more info

We got more information today about the utilities situation here.

The office received a few different schedules, that kept getting revised throughout the day, but the times below were taken from the last one that was labeled FINAL. So during the times below we will be without electricity or water…until further notice…

POWER will be turned OFF in areas including our schools:

From 9:00 PM to 12:00 AM (midnight) in some areas of Koror (which include SDA Elementary and Koror SDA church)
From 2:00 PM to 6:00PM at PMA (and the surrounding area of Airai State)

WATER will be OFF (pretty much everywhere) from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM

…AND…

from 12:00 AM (midnight) to 5:00 AM

It won’t be too bad. But, we will see how hot it gets when we are trying to fall asleep tonight.