Taiwan Youth Ambassadors Show

 We were invited to a show hosted by the Taiwan Embassy featuring 19 Youth Ambassadors from a variety of Taiwanese universities. They put on a fun, energetic performance which we greatly enjoyed.

The students continually changed costumes and provided a variety of dances, gymnastics and other skilled performances while we watched views of Taiwan on a giant screen.

 We learned about the culture of Taiwan while we watched the performances. The students were very artistic. There were 6 Youth Ambassador groups visiting 43 countries over a period of a month or so.

 This baton twirler was particularly colorful.

Students from the Marshall Islands also performed a dance and then at the end of the night, everyone took the stage including VIP guests like the President of the Marshall Islands, Chris Loeck, who is in the light blue shirt in the front row.

Pilot Diabetes Outreach Series Completed

 Together with our health partner organizations, we completed a pilot series of five outreach clinics at Rita Chapel - one clinic a week for five weeks. The purpose was to identify "unknown diabetics," testing for blood sugar, blood pressure and Body Mass Index.

 Depending on the weather, we had the clinics either inside as above or outside which was much nicer. We usually saw between 25 and 30 adults each night.

 Besides the health screening, we also invited participants to take part in 30 minutes of light exercise and encouraged them to do that every day to help control their weight and diabetes.

We played this game to educate how diabetes affects the cells in your body.

 We also provided "hands on" cooking demonstrations where people can cook easy, nutritious recipes which include lots of vegetables and local foods.

Here are our two weight-loss winners from the pilot series. Each lost more than 6 lbs. over 5 weeks. For every 2.2 lbs a person loses, they reduce their chance of getting diabetes by 5%.

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.