![\"Sister](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Sister-Martha-pix-150x150.jpg\")
As principal and teacher, she said she is concerned with laying the \u201cfoundation of life\u201d for students, focusing on the \u201cwholesome\u201d development of a child.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy age 6, we should know everything we need to learn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She noted that between the ages of 3 and 5, a child forms the foundation for the rest of his or her childhood, and that an environment that is loving, safe, and free teaches a child to have self-esteem and respect for self and others.<\/p>\n
Sister Martha said she has found \u201cjoy in serving\u201d these last 10 years despite the woes the school faced financially, noting that she has had to lay off teachers in her tenure as principal as the school had to balance the constant struggle between meeting costs and raising tuition.<\/p>\n
She said the school\u2019s dedicated staff and teachers as well as parent cooperation helped the school earn funds with walkathons, pizza nights, and soup-to-go food sales.<\/p>\n
She noted that tax donations from generous members of the community have been \u201cthe biggest help\u201d in their success.<\/p>\n
What motivates Sister Martha is service. \u201cThe highlight of my whole life, I\u2019ve been in the community for 60 years is, has been service. Service. In the latter years of my life, we get salaries for what we do, but in the earlier years, we served for free.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that being able to love and serve the people she is in touch with is key.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started my mission and my ministry ever since 1960. It\u2019s still like it\u2019s only yesterday, it is truly wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
In deciding to retire, she was offered a return to Palau, but she refused, calling Saipan \u201chome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people here on Saipan, whether they\u2019re Bangladeshi or Chamorros, or Carolinians or Filipinos or whatever, they\u2019re my people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ramarui said she \u201cstill has work to do,\u201d as she intends to transfer to the Maturana House of Prayer and work with the elderly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to give a hand there, and I\u2019m going to love it too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 10 years of \u201cjoyful\u201d service, Sister Martha Ramarui, MMB, retires as principal of Sister…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":43862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,21,319,67],"class_list":["post-43860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-life","tag-palau","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}