Micronesia Fishing Tournament

 We went to another fishing derby last weekend. This one brought fishermen from all over Micronesia.  Lots of people come to watch the boats at the end of the day to see their catches weighed.

This is the winning marlin or "billfish." It weighed 302 lbs. See the fancy fishing rods on the back of the boat? One boat at a time comes to the weigh in. There are different kinds of fish caught.

This was one of the smallest boats in the tournament but they caught the greatest number of tuna. It was a fun day.

Help Arrives from the Archibalds

Church HQs sent Dr. and Sister Archibald from the U.S. to help us identify specific diabetes projects and measurable outcomes. He is a retired surgeon who worked as Director of Surgery for a group of 26 hospitals.

We held 35 meetings over the 2 weeks we were here so the Archibalds could get a good understanding of the current conditions. We met with a lot of the medical community as well as members of the NCD Coalition.

 We also took them to the Wellness Centre and showed him their Wellness gardens. The Centre grows food for their restaurant and teaches diabetics how to grow healthy food.

 Here Dr. Archibald is meeting with Lab doctor and manager to learn about the capacity for increased lab testing of diabetics.

 We also met with the Hon. Phillip Muller, Minister of Health who is very supportive of potential Church diabetes initiatives.

Here he is meeting with Dr. Briand, Chief of Staff at the Majuro Hospital. Dr. Archibald gave presentations on diabetes to the NCD

Diabetes Health Screening Clinics

With several health partnering organizations, we started a pilot project with 5 health screening clinics. We want to find people who don't know they have diabetes and get them into treatment.

We test for blood sugar, blood pressure and body mass index (height, weight and age). We have found that 35% of our participants are unknown diabetics!

As part of each evening, we teach about diabetes prevention. This picture shows one of the interactive games we use that shows people what foods convert to blood sugar and how diabetes affects how cells in their body can use it.

 We also have an instructor who leads 30 minutes of light exercise - a good diabetes preventer - and a demonstration of cooking healthy food.  People love to eat what they cooked at the end of the evening.

Sometimes we do the cooking class outside if the weather cooperates.  Do you see all the children and adults standing in the school yard? We invite all the community to join in the screening so they  can have healthy families.

Smiling Turtle

Check out this turtle. Isn't he smiling pretty for the camera?

Sailing on Traditional Canoes

We decided to go sailing on the traditional Marshallese canoes. These are handmade by a company called WAM (which stands for something in Marshallese) which trains youth not in school otherwise. They kids learn their cultural tradition, sail guests around the lagoon each day and also learn marketable carpentry skills. It was a fun ride.

This is Sister Pat Smith, our Mission Nurse.  She is awesome and takes good care of all the missionaries in her charge.

 These are the two young guys who sailed us around the lagoon.  They use an oar to steer.  We sailed out into the lagoon and when we got to the other side, they switched the sail from one end of the boat to the other to sail us back.

This is one of the small tuna boats in the harbour. Sometimes there are up to 22 there. Do you see the small helicopter on the top deck. They use that to herd the tuna into their big nets.

This is a tuna boat from the other side. See the smaller boat they can put in the water?  They use it to run the big nets around the schools of tuna. RMI is the largest tuna transshipment port in the world.

Presentation to Assumption Catholic School

In order to encourage more physical activity and to help children here develop a passion for physical fitness and we hope prevent diabetes, we made a presentation on behalf of the Church of a variety of sports balls to Assumption Catholic School.

 President Anien is making the presentation to Evan, the basketball coach.  The children and staff were so excited.  It was such fun to see them wanting to play ball.

These two little guys knew what to do with the volleyball.  We hope the school can start up some sports leagues with other schools.