9-year old Dolan took first place in putting together the Aiga Journal, which is our elementary students first video project on building short stories. The objective for the Aiga Journal was to get to know their families and learn to interview at least one person. Dolan was also selected to represent Kanana Fou Elementary School in the Young Writers essay competition.

On December 30th, 2009, we went to some of the villages that were affected by the tsunami, and hung out with the children to find out how they were affected by the disaster. We shared gifts with them and celebrated a little longer before we said goodbye. I was sad to hear what happened to their families, and I felt sorry for them because they were like my sisters and brothers. I felt compelled to do something to help them, yet I did not feel like I had the strength to do anything because only God has the power and the strength to meet them.

The team from Youth With A Mission talked with the kids while I watched and followed them. I heard the children telling their stories of when the wave came towards their home while they were running up the mountains. Another boy told us that when the warning bell rang, he ran to the K-5 classroom to fetch his little sister and took her up to the safety area where he learned about the tsunami. He thought about his parents and hoped that they were okay. When the tsunami had passed, they ran straight home to find their parents and they were so happy to see that the parents were also safe. Unfortunately, more than half of their village was destroyed. The people from YWAM are Christian missionaries that came from Kona, Hawaii. They prayed with the children, and shared with them about God’s love to help them forget about the disaster that almost swallowed our beautiful island of American Samoa.

Read more: The Face of Love - as seen by a 14 year old

The morning begins at 6 am in a nearby American Samoa village with the "Aumaga" (the young "warrior" men charged with the responsibility of protecting their village) who ring their makeshift bells constructed out of empty old oxygen tanks. The clanging calls the people to prayer and these youth would stop any cars that might attempt to drive through their village until 6:15. Not that they were waking up many people, since the wild roosters take on that duty as they plod through the dense underbrush around banana trees, coconut trees and plentiful tropical vegetation.

Waves caress the black lava shoreline as the sun comes over the steep and densely overgrown mountains that tower above us. Breadfruit which don't look or taste like bread or fruit, mangos, papayas, "paka" (similar to platanas from same family as bananas), countless examples of God's creativity, generosity and goodness...

Read more: What Pacific Means in American Samoa