Friday/Saturday, September 2 & 3, 2016

I left home at 2 am on Friday, September 2, to drive to the Buffalo airport for my trip to Saipan. There was no lineup at the border and the customs agent looked at my papers and was very efficient, so I was at the airport by 3 am, waiting for the United Airlines counter to open so I could check a bag for my 6:50 am flight. The counter opened by 4 am so I checked my bag and cleared customs shortly afterwards.

The 4 flights were tiresome but uneventful and I met my fellow workers in the Honolulu airport as we waited for our flight to Guam. I arrived in Saipan at 7:15 am Saturday morning EST, 9:15 pm, Saturday night. After 30 hours of travel I finally reached the MDS site on the north end of the island.

Including the site director, who was already on the Island, there are 8 people who volunteered to be part of the first group to start building and rebuilding houses in Saipan with MDS.

There is also another group of 6 people with an organization called ‘ World Renew ‘ that is staying nearby and will be working in the area as well.

We are staying in the accommodations for an abandoned radio station that had been cleaned up for us to use. When the project is complete, the government plans to use the buildings for a drug rehabilitation center.

Our accommodations are very simple, but more than adequate.

We are in a nice 3 bedroom house.

The house is one of the accommodations at the abandoned radio station just below the house. There is a beautiful view of the ocean from our location.

We were all tired by the time we reached the site, so it didn’t take us long to fall asleep.