Pathways and Abatao

Our big day this week was working with the Pathway Senior Missionary Couple, The Frehners,  with their big presentation on the pathway program. President Ashton and Vice President Eyring from Pathways was there along with Vice President Kau from BYU-Hawaii. They all spoke to help promote the Pathways program.  I can't believe what an amazing program it is.  The students must pass an English proficiency test and take a computer competency class. Then they are given a free refurbished lap top and can apply for some of the many on-line jobs the pathway program has. They will work for minimum wage for one year and then they can move up and get a much better job that pays more money. All chapels will be equipped with star link internet that they can access for their job. All of this is free!  And all of this is in preparation to start the pathway program.  Where they can get a bachelors degree for about $800. That's before all the scholarships that are granted.  If you are a RM you get 25% off.  And then, if you meet the "needs" requirement (which everyone from Kiribati does)  you can get up to another 50% off.  That's a bachelors degree for about $200-$600 without having to leave their home.  There's no catch.  You just have to WORK the program.  And it's open to everybody regardless of being a member of our faith or not.  Most of us senior couples were there to help the people create accounts and register for the program. Unfortunately, the website was having problems and very few people were able to register. So they are having to come back these next few weeks to register.   Our Pathways Senior couple has their work cut out for them.  

We were also able to go to Abatao a North Tarawa islet. You can walk across at low tide or you can take a 5 minute boat ride at high tide.  We took the boat.  It is a beautiful, quiet, peaceful place.  The people there live very simply.  We went with another senior couple, the Bennets and Sister Tawita,   to ensure the housing accommodations were ready for a local senior couple called to help the small branch there. I will never complain about our accommodations here!  


Keith helping at the Pathways Meeting


The Abatao Branch building 


Boat ride to Abatao


Steak?!!  On Tarawa??  What a sweet birthday surprise. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bureaucracy at it's Best

Image
 Most of our week was spent trying to get a convection oven that is used to make prosthetics out of customs and on it's way to the hospital on Kiritimati Island. It was donated by LDS charities and has been sitting at the dock here on Tarawa for almost a year.  So we got all the paperwork we needed (or so we thought), and went to Betio to where the port authorities were located. Met with a man there who spoke every little English and he told us we needed another document and that we could get it from Tamwango. He gave us directions and drew us a map to his house.  So we followed his directions and ended up at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy (MISE). Someone there told us we were close and gave us better directions along with his email address.  Hurray!  It is now after 5:00 and all government offices are closed. So we went home and email the man.  He was very prompt in returning our email which is not normal here in Kiribati. But what h...
Read more

Outer Island Experience

Image
  Traditional coconut water - straight from the coconut We had the best week!  We went to the southern islands of Beru and Onotoa  with several people including Uraia, our supervisor; E/S Brock, Service missionaries and Project Managers over the Desalination project; Epeli, Suez engineer; Willie, Suez consultant; Eretai, Construction Manager; Gideon, from OB office in charge of emergency preparedness, and Regina, woman extraordinaire who took care of every single detail of our trip! I count it as a great blessing to have been in the company of such good people.  We were there to evaluate the first phase of getting clean water to 20 outer islands. Beru and Onotoa were 2 of 5 islands to receive a desalination plant.   What?!  I didn't get a group picture at the beginning?  Ugh Our trip started at the airport at 5:00 am.  Nothing ever goes perfectly and this was no exception. There was a little mix-up with the flight reservations which was event...
Read more
Image
 We have another boat project from a different North Tarawa islet, Anatoa.  Yes, it is a copy cat project. However, it can still do the same amount of good as the first one. And we knew this would happen.  This one was harder to put together just because of the personality and skill set of the senior missionary who was requesting the boat.  I sent him home to revise his plan for "sustainability" several times.  But once he got the entire community involved, it came together beautifully.  We submitted it and the committee wanted an evaluation of the first boat project before they recommended approval for the second project.  That's very fair.  We, as project managers, cannot do the evaluation, so Uraia came from Fiji to Nabeina to do the evaluation.  He found that their original plan for maintaining the boat didn't work out so well, so they changed it and now it is working quite well.  It has really improved the living conditions of the v...
Read more