Sunday, December 31, 2006

Happy New Year 2007!

May you have a blessed new year in 2007! We pray that you will know God in a deeper way as you go through the year. Happy New Year From Joyce and I, and Michael, Samantha and Titus. By the way, we will be on the US mainland from June 1 to August 9. If you would like us to speak at your church, Bible study or mission group, or just want to talk to us about what God is doing at PIBC and in Micronesia just send us an email and we will work hard to get to over to see you.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Updated PIBC Web Sites

Just wanted to let you know that the PIBC web site http://pibc.edu is updated and new. If you have not taken a look at it lately you might want to click over there. Also, if you would like to keep up with what our Yap Mission Team is doing, one of our students, Mac Alfonso, is blogging about it with pictures. Here are a couple more pics of our vacation time with Michael, Samantha and Titus.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Christmas Vacation

We are enjoying our Christmas vacation (PIBC shuts down all its operations from December 24 to January 2 to give the faculty, staff and workers a much needed rest.). Of course we have spent most of it just spending time with Michael, Samantha and Titus. But we have got out of the house a little. On Christmas afternoon Michael and I went over to the school to enjoy a couple hours of pick up basketball with Guam Palauan Evangelical Church group. It was good to burn off a few of those Christmas dinner calories and have some good fellowship. We spent the afternoon at the beach the next day with the PIBC gang, BBQing and swimming. It does get colder on Guam in December. The temperature drops into the low 80's. Last night I had the opportunity to perform a wedding for some old family friends - the Mendiola's - that go back to our Yigo Baptist days. I am hearing a lot of feedback from people who want to see more of Titus so I am trying to include him in all the pictures. I am still working on putting video on this site.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


We pray that you have a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas from the PIBC family and from Dave, Joyce, Mike, Samantha and Titus. Join us today in enjoying this day as we celebrate that "the Word became human and allowed God's glorious presence to live among us" (John 1:14).

Friday, December 22, 2006

Christmas Vacation Begins

We picked up our son Michael, his wife Samantha and our grandson Titus at the airport on Thursday. For me that was the beginning of Christmas vacation. They are missionary-teachers at Emmaus High School in Koror, Palau where Joyce and I started our missionary service in 1984. We have had fun getting reacquainted with Titus. He has grown so much since October. He is now looking at everything, figuring out that he can control his hands (and all the people around him) and making lots of noise.

We will finish up a little Christmas shopping today. Yesterday we went to the Christmas program at Little Lambs pre-school. Joyce's 2-3 year olds did a great job and were very cute as little melting snowmen with funny hats. The pre-school is a great opportunity for Joyce to minister the gospel to her kids and their parents. We are planning to go to the Bayview Baptist Christmas eve morning service and then see the Covenant Players Christmas Eve presentation in the evening. We will then have a late Christmas Eve dinner with our friends Tony and May Vigil and many other friends. Most of us are far apart from our families so we become each others' families.

Thank you for praying for our situation with the Chuuk State Scholarship. The Chuuk officials have told that the money was redeposited into the account and we have redeposited the checks. Please pray that everything works out and the students get their much-needed funds.

Merry Christmas

Monday, December 18, 2006

Two Prayer Requests

Please pray for two issues for us...

1. We just received notice from our bank that all the checks from the Chuuk State scholarship fund bounced. Basically, this removes over $20,000 from our Guam campus account and places a great hardship on our Chuukese students who were counting on that money to make ends meet, including some who were hoping to use their refund to pay their airfare to Yap for the missions trip (See below). Pray that we can work this out (several students have already received refunds from PIBC and spent the money for personal needs) and that somehow Chuuk can find what happened to the money and fix the situation.

2. 10 students and 3 staff members will leave for Yap tomorrow to do ministry with youth and children there and help the Yap church with Christmas ministry. Pray for them that God will use them in a big way and that people will understand and respond as the Gospel is preached. Also pray that the group will be an encouragement to the Yap Evangelical Church and that this will be a "stretching" experience for all the students involved. Also pray that they will be able to raise the additonal $750 needed for the trip.

I promise pictures with the next post!

Friday, December 15, 2006

Last Day of the Semester

Today was the last day of the semester before Christmas Break. My Old Testament class took their Final exam last night and our Cults class had its last discussion meeting this afternoon. Joyce closed her semester by presenting her linguistics class (pic below) project. I will be spending my Saturday tomorrow grading exams and papers to be ready to have my grades in by next Friday. My cults students still have until Wednesday to submit their assignments to me. It will be nice to have a couple quiet weeks and enjoy some time off. I know the students had a relieved look on their faces this evening.

Of course the bad side to all this is saying goodbye to the students as they leave for the holidays. Most of them are coming back, but two have finished their programs. Philemon Ngirakel has been at PIBC for five years and we have enjoyed his positive attitude and ever-present willingness to help. He went back to Yap yesterday afternoon where he will work with Asael Ruda in the Yap Evangelical Church. Jafflyn Poll (pic above) transferred to the Guam campus from the Chuuk campus a couple years ago and has been a real leader among the students. It would not surprise me if she is the governor of Chuuk some day. We will miss them both, but will get to see them when they return for graduation in May. I also had a chance to pray with the 10 students who will be leaving this week for a PIBC mission trip to Yap. Please pray for Hiob, Hollie and Ned as they lead the students in this ministry to youth and children on Yap.


Prayer Update: Thank you for praying for the revision to our grant proposal. It was approved this week. Praise God! We can now go out and get the equipment we need to really run our distance education program.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Fall Semester Prayerful Review

As we head into the last week of the semester I thought it would be a good thing to look back and praise God for some of the exciting things that have happened at PIBC over the past few months. Please join us in thanking God for …

The great progress in the student outreach to the University of Guam. The Guam Evangelical Church has changed into the “gathering,” a student-led relational outreach to Micronesian students in the dorms at UOG. I am especially thankful to see the way the students involved in the ministry have grown. As one student said, “I hated (at first) to go to the ministry at UOG, but through praying to God for help I came to realize (that I needed to) accept God’s call for me to help reach others… and not give up doing my ministry at UOG.”

The growing openness among the students to share their heart issues with us and trust us to help them.

The great unified team spirit among the faculty and staff.

The successful launching of our distance education program. Students from Palau and Guam interacted with one another and, I think, learned a lot in our first ever Distance education class – “Cults, Sects and Heresies.” This Spring we plan to include students from Chuuk and Yap with those from Palau and Guam in “Survey of Wisdom Literature.” I am really enjoying having the opportunity to teach and fellowship with the students in both the actual and virtual classroom.

God’s wonderful provision of a new dorm room and kitchen dining room (Quik space cargo container conversions), dorm furniture (from a sale at the Hilton), and other assorted physical needs being met at very low cost to us.

Provision for the financial needs of the students, especially the recent reception of the Chuuk State scholarship checks for most of our Chuukese students.

Prayer Requests

1. For good rest for students, staff and faculty over the Christmas break.

2. For the student mission trip to Yap to lead children’s ministry. 10 students and 3 staff members will go there over Christmas break.

3. For the acceptance of the revision of the “scope of work” list for our distance education grant from the USDA. This would provide all the equipment we need to make all of our sites into distance learning centers. This would be the first step in our plan to have a center in every island group for Bible and ministry training.

4. Many of our students struggle with family issues, addictive behaviors and other such problems. We will be starting counseling/accountability/encouragement groups on the Guam campus in January.

We appreciate your prayers and support for our ministry. We will be back in the mainland from around June 1 to August 9. It’s not too early to schedule us to speak in your church, Bible study, mission group or just to hang out together and fellowship.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

"Guambiance"

Last night as Joyce and I went out to get a Christmas tree we coined a new word. (At least I think it is a new word. If I heard it before I apologize to the person who thought of it.) We drove through Hotel Row to enjoy the new Christmas light displays. Though there was a lot of traditional Christmas display - reindeer, Santa Claus and elves, Nativity scenes, Christmas stars and winter snow scenes - the displays also worked in coconut trees, latte stones, Santa and elves in tropical wear - shorts and zorries- and starfish. Both of us commented on how much we enjoyed the Christmas season on Guam. There is a traditional, but different, island feel all at the same time. I said, yes, Guam has a very different ambiance and Christmas - in fact it is a "Guambiance."

Here is how I define "Guambiance." Guambiance is the atmosphere that produces the feeling on Guam that "this seems very familiar, but there is something different here." It is produced by the influence of the traditional American/European celebrations with the added influences of Chammorro, Filipino, Micronesian and other Asian and Micronesian cultures. It somehow makes the parts of the celebration that should be out of place on a tropical island seem to fit in perfectly.

I guess the best way to define it is to describe it. Guambiance is ....

Going to get your Christmas tree after an afternoon at the beach, still wearing your swimming stuff...
Playing in the snow, inside the mall...
Hearing familiar Christmas carols in unfamiliar languages...
BBQing your Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner....
Turning up the aircon "so it feels like Christmas."
Riding on a Christmas Carabao ...
Explaining to the procession in your neighborhood that you do not want to "kiss the nino" because you are not Roman Catholic, but giving candy canes to the kids in the procession...
Seeing "sponsored by Miller Lite" signs in people's home Christmas displays...

I could go on and on but you get the picture. It's different, but we love it and would not want to celebrate Christmas any differently (except we'd like to have all our family with us). Please pray with us that more people here will really get to know the Jesus they celebrate this season.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Back To Work


We are back into the home stretch for the Fall semester after our one-week Fall break. The whole PIBC family enjoyed a great Thanksgiving Day feast (without football since the Thanksgiving Day games from the US come on in Guam on Friday). The students were able to use the time to relax and get caught up on their studies. The staff and faculty were able to take a deep breath and get ready for end of semester stuff. It is hard to believe December is almost here. Here are some prayer requests....
  1. We are beginning preparation for our March Board meeting. Please pray that I am able to present the issues and vision to the Board in a clear way.
  2. We need Solomonic wisdom for some discipline and discipleship issues among the students.
  3. Pray for the students to make a good finish to their semester.
  4. Energy, excitement and encouragement!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thankgiving

We have just finished up an enjoyable Thanksgiving with our PIBC family. (Pictures to follow in a later posting) We do miss our kids a lot on these family days so I thought it would be fun to look at a few old Owen family pictures. I think the first one is from 1996, the second from 1998 and the third from Matt's wedding in the summer of 2005. We pray that you enjoy your time to enjoy and thank God for all the wonderful blessings he has givin us. HAPPY THANKGIVING!!

P.S. My hard drive crashed last weekend. I am working on restoring everything but it may delay my responses to you a bit. Thank you for your understanding.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Spiritual Emphasis Weekend


Well it was a great weekend! It was very nice to get away from the normal routine and have some time to relax with the students and listen to what they have to say. We had only one minor casualty all weekend. Inca, one of our Chuukese students, was bitten by a Guam Brown Tree Snake while she was sleeping in the cabana. (See picture) She is OK but still in a little pain. Basically the format of the weekend was for the students to hear three messages, have group discussions and individual meditation times after each one, play games and have a lot of time to play at the beach. We had 2 faculty members (Brad Boydston and I) and a guest speaker, Paul Castillo a Navy chaplain, bring the messages. The theme was "Don't Waste Your Life." I enjoyed sitting with the guys discussing the messages and hearing what God was doing in their lives. We also had time to play silly games and just talk and get to know each other better. It is exciting to hear what God is doing in the lives of the students. Please keep praying for them that they will keep listening to God and they will see him overcoming the obstacles in their lives. Also many of our students are struggling with other issues that threaten to divert them from what God is calling them to do. They can use your prayers too. Here are some more pictures of some of the activities of spiritual emphasis weekend...
Preparing Sea Cucumbers to Eat


Packing Out

Friday, November 17, 2006

Back Into the Classroom

Thank God It's Friday! Not for the usual reasons and not because today was "Island Wear Day" for Spirit Week and I got to wear my island shirt and golf shorts all day. Friday is the day I finally get back into the classroom after a month away. While I was gone I have been interacting with my Cults distance education class students by internet chat, threaded discussion and email but today I was back in the regular classroom. I always enjoy our Friday class because it is in full discussion format. I come prepared with a couple questions. Today, since we are studying Oneness Pentecostalism, my questions dealt with the how's and why's of non-Trinitarian views and the problems with the added requirements for salvation of extreme Arminian views. The students always seem to bring up an unexpected side to the issue. Then we move on to issues the students choose to bring up. Since last week's subject was Post-Modernism, most of the students' questions related to relativistic views of truth. So class was a lot of fun today. As always, I came out of the class pumped up and wanting more.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Back Home on Guam

After almost a month on the road, I am finally back on Guam and it is great to be back. Except for my 10 pound weight gain from all the good food on the trip I would say it was very successful. I have a pile of resumes to sort through from interested prospective teachers. I will be following up with everyone I talked to over the next couple weeks.

It was great to be back at school with the students and staff and hear what has been going on while I was away. Yesterday at the staff meeting one of our deans shared how one of our new students prayed to receive Christ this week. Every year we have students, who came here thinking they were already Christians, understand the gospel for the first time and commit their lives to Christ. The great thing about it was that he was led to Christ by a fellow student. I had a chance to preach in chapel today. This week we have been preaching through Ephesians 1:3-14 and today was my turn. This weekend we will be going to an all-school retreat at Rios Beach. I am looking forward to spending some direct time with the students and I will get to preach to them again at the Sunday sunrise service. The students are also excited about this week's startup of our "Adventure Club" outreach to the kids in our neighborhood. Next week will be the Fall semester break.

Here are some prayer requests....
  1. We are in need of short or long term coordinators for all three of our remote teaching facilities in the Fall semester due to furloughs and other issues.
  2. The Chuuk state scholarship funds have not yet arrived. This is a real hardship for our Chuukese students and a bit hard on the budgets of both campuses.
  3. Please pray for refreshment and that our students and staff will hear what God has to say to us as we take time away this weekend from normal activities to focus on prayer, fellowship and God's Word. I'll let you know next week how things went!
  4. Pray for Chuuk faculty member Graceful Enlet and his wife Bilha as they go to Hawaii to deal with some of her medical issues.
Staffing Needs
  1. Bible/Theology Teachers - especially ones who could also serve as teaching facility coordinators
  2. English Teachers - Master's degreed or ESL qualified
  3. Maintenance Person for our Chuuk campus - Short or Long term
  4. Computer Person - Short or long term
If you are interested or know someone who is send me an email for details....

And here is another picture of my cute grandson

Friday, November 10, 2006

Heading Back to Guam (Finally)

Well my long trek is finally over. The TRACS conference ended today after lunch. Again it was a great conference in which I learned a lot. However, the best thing about the conference is being able to interact with the leaders of institutions similar to us. I had a lot of time to talk with Randy Furushima, President of Hawaii Theological Seminary. Plans continue to go forward for us to put together a partnership that I am hoping will enable us to offer accredited seminary courses on Guam in the Fall of 2007. The seminars were also excellent. The picture is of David Barton who spoke last night after the evening meal. It was an excellent presentation on the overwhelming influence that evangelical Christianity had on the founding fathers and documents of the USA. I also did not realize that evangelical African-Americans had such an influence on the American Revolution and early American government. But, I think I have had enough of the mainland now and am ready to come back home to Guam and to my lovely wife. (Pictured) I will be back on Sunday night (Guam time) after a marathon flight and I will be back in the office on Tuesday.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Greetings From Nashville


I have now finished my first day at the TRACS conference in Nashville. At the end of a good week in California I had the opportunity to make a PIBC presentation to the Gold Country Baptist Church mission group. It was great to see so many old friends, and family. (See some of the younger ones of the group pictured here!) On Saturday morning I flew to New Jersey where I met up with old friends from seminary, Jim and Rebecca Fox. Jim is the new pastor at Evangel Baptist Church in Springfield, NJ and I was honored to be there for his installation service. I appreciate him letting me preach the morning service. It was also fun to spend time with several of their family members. (Sorry no pics. My batteries were depleted.) Jim then drove me up to Schooley's Mountain to meet with the board of Liebenzell Mission USA (See web site at www.liebenzellusa.org). We had a productive couple of days sharing vision and strategy for the mission and PIBC. (Pictured here is board member Norm Dietsch and wife Hilda and Candidate secretary Mike Galley) Wednesday morning I headed to Nashville for the TRACS conference. I plan to post a report on that tomorrow. It has been a long month and I am ready to head back to the warmth of Guam.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Greetings from Northern California

I just returned from a speaking engagement at Shasta Bible College in Redding, California. Note the speaker's eye view of today's chapel in the picture! Again it was a real encouragement to see so many young people who are dedicated to the Lord and Christian service and interested in missions. Several talked to me afterward about short term, internship and student exchange possibilities at PIBC.
I have been keeping busy in California visiting family and supporting churches. It's a little cold here but I am enjoying getting to experience the Fall season. I will be here until Saturday and plan to meet PIBC appointee teachers the Plaxtons and Sorenson while I am here. I will head to New Jersey on Saturday. I am enjoying my trip, but looking forward to getting back to Guam.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Greetings from Winston-Salem North Carolina. I have just returned from dropping off our Chuuk Campus Director Yosta Lodge, pictured here with Don and Melissa Howell who hosted us in Columbia South Carolina, at the Greensboro airport. Yosta will stop by Los Angeles to meet with people in the Chuukese community there and try to recruit new teachers and partners in churches and schools there. He will then meet with PIBC alumni in Hawaii on his way back to Chuuk.
Our time at Columbia International University went well. We spoke to about 25 interested students after I spoke in chapel. Several expressed interest in becoming Bible or English teachers at PIBC after their graduations. Please pray that interest will become action and reality. I will be spending the weekend following up on those interested at CIU and Dallas Seminary. I will also be meeting people at a new church in High Point, NC this Sunday.
As you can see Joyce is also keeping busy with her classes and pre-school. Though we are both busy it is hard to be apart from the one you love so long. Just two more weeks to go!

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

This Weekend

Greetings from Columbia, South Carolina! I am here after a busy weekend. On Friday, Missy drove me up to Edmond, Oklahoma to visit with our former foster son, David Ahlgren. David runs a web business called Wave Services and has been donating his service to PIBC to run our web page and Distance Education pages. We had a great time of fellowship and (for me) learning a lot about how to use our distance education set up. We then went to Metropolitan Baptist Church where we met with several of the mission committee members and presented PIBC to them. PIBC has been approved there for designated giving and we are hoping to become part of their regular faith promise giving. We drove back to Dallas on Sunday evening where we met with the mission committe at Redeemer Bible Church and made another PIBC presentation. Joyce's sister Janet and her husband Paul Ramler are on the mission committee there. Then we got up early Monday morning and Paul took me to the airport to fly to Greensboro NC. I met our Chuuk Campus Director, Yosta Lodge in the Houston airport. We then met Annette Ladd in Greensboro, borrowed their car and drove to Columbia SC. This morning I was able to speak in the chapel at Columbia International University and speak with several of the students about opportunities to serve in Micronesia. I am very encouraged by their enthusiasm and responses. I am so thankful for God's provision through the wonderful hospitality of David Ahlgren, Janet and Paul Ramler and Don and Melissa Howell, our hosts in Columbia, and to the Ladds for the use of the trusty Rav4. I'll share a little more about Columbia tomorrow. I do appreciate your prayers.

Friday, October 20, 2006

I'm Back at Dallas Seminary

Hello from Dallas Texas. I am a little cold - I don't even have a jacket - but doing well. I was very pleased about how things went in Hawaii. We continue to talk with Hawaii Theological Seminary about a possible partnership and significant progress has been made there. I was also encouraged to meet with leaders of several other Christian schools and institutes in Hawaii who are interested in a cooperation that I believe will benefit the students at all of our institutions.

I flew from Hawaii to Dallas on Tuesday night. After spending most of Wednesday with Missy recovering from the red-eye flight, I spent all day Wednesday interviewing eight Dallas Seminary students and graduates who are interested to become PIBC faculty. I was impressed and encouraged by their qualifications, but even more by their missionary spirit and desire to see young people discipled and trained to minister in their churches and to the unreached areas of the world. Please pray with us that God will lead them to the right place of service and enable them to get there.

After the day at DTS I met Missy and we had a nice father-daughter dinner at Olive Garden. (I have been looking forward to some of their pasta and bread since there isn't one on Guam.) We will be heading to up to Edmond Oklahoma tonight to see David Ahlgren and to meet the missions committee and pastors at Metropolitan Baptist Church. I will let you know how it goes!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Meetings in Hawaii

Hello everyone. I am in Hawaii now. I just finished a great meeting with administation members from Hawaii Theological Seminary and Hawaii Bible Institute. I was able to show a Power Point presentation about PIBC and talk about what we are doing. Tomorrow I will meet the President of HITS for breakfast to talk more about partnership possibilities. We will then have a lunch meeting with several other interested people. I am very encouraged by the openness here to partnerships and to hear what God is calling us to do to reach the island people. Sorry, no pictures of the meeting. Our camera is broken and I don't have the school camera. I plan to buy a camera when I get to Dallas on Wednesday. In the meantime here is another picture from our trip last week to Palau. (Sorry it is a little fuzzy).

Friday, October 13, 2006

More on Our Palau Trip



Here is another picture of Titus with his mother Samantha. We did get to do a couple other things while we were there. I was able to meet with Billy Kuartei our PIBC Board member and the Chief of Staff for the President of Palau. I appreciate him taking time to meet with us while in the midst of moving the Palau capitol from Koror to Melekeok. I also had a chance to meet with the PIBC Palaun students and meet the students from Palau who are taking the Distance Education course we are offering. I also had a chance to preach in the English service in Koror. It was a busy but relaxing time.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Our First Meeting With Titus Ungilbesul Owen


We are back from Palau after a great week with Michael, Samantha and Titus. I will talk more about the other events of the week later but today, just about Titus. He is, of course, the cutest and best behaved baby in the world. He is growing fast, now over nine pounds. He sleeps a lot and when he is awake he scopes everything out and seems to be looking and thinking everything over. He doesn't seem to cry unless he wants something. We think he looks very much like Michael did as a baby. He is a real wiggler and tries to push on everything with his legs.

Of course, he took to his grandma right away. He was very happy to be with her unless, of course, he was hungry. I had a little bit harder time with him. He wasn't happy with me holding him until the last night we were there. I was just amazed every time I looked at him. Stay tuned for more pictures in the next couple days. I promise some pictures of Michael and Samantha next time. Thanks for your prayers for them and for Titus.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

October Prayer Requests


Wow, it is hard to believe it is already October. We are well into the semester and beginning to get to know the new students. Here are some things you could be praying about for us for this month.
1. Please pray for a quick recovery for Samantha from her 30 hours of labor with our new grandson. Also pray for Titus that he will grow up to be what Jesus calls him to be. (This is also an excuse to post another picture of the good-looking boy)
2. Joyce and I will be going to Palau on Friday. Pray that we will have a good time with Michael, Samantha and Titus and that I will have a productive time meeting with church leaders and PIBC students and staff at our teaching facility there. Three of my Cults class students are taking the course by distance education from Palau.
3. Our administrative council meets October 4-5 to finalize the budget revisions for the 06-7 school year and to take care of other business. Pray for wisdom, discernment and understanding of the needs of all our sites.
4. I will be going on a recruiting/support raising trip to the US starting October 16th. (More info to follow on that) Please pray for effective preparation for the trip.
5. Though both Joyce and I have been down a couple days with the flu we have been spared from being wiped out like some of our staff members. We appreciate prayers for our continued health as we stay very very busy.
6. Keep praying for our students as they hit the middle of the semester that they will stay focused and disciplined and that God will use them in a powerful way in their ministries.

Our New Grandson Has Arrived!


Titus Ungilbesul Owen was born Friday morning @ 4:30 A.M. Sep. 29 2006 at the hospital in Koror, Palau. He was 7 lbs. 12 oz. and 52 cm. long. His mother and father are both doing well although Samantha is resting up after almost 30 hours of labor. We are thanking God for him and that all went well. He has O negative blood so the shot was not needed, even though they had it. Thank you everyone who prayed for him and his birth. Joyce and I will be going to Palau next Friday to spend a week with the latest addition to our family (and with Michael and Samantha too). Isn't this great!!! Keep coming back for more pictures as I get them.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Welcoming the Farnsworths to Guam

One of our favorite things to do on Guam is welcome new missionaries. We got to do that last night as Ned, Marisol, Joel and Amelia Farnsworth arrived last night. Ned will work as an assistant dean, teacher and coordinator for children's ministries. As you can see from the picture several of our staff members and some students came out to the airport to welcome them. Between traveling through the islands, people coming and people going we spend a lot of time at the airport. We are thankful that the Farnsworths have arrived and we would ask for your prayers for their adjustment to life on Guam and that God would use them in a big way in the lives of our students. We will give them a few days to recover from the long (16-18 hours in the air) flight and then put them to work. We are excited that God is sending us so many good people here to help us in the work at PIBC. Please keep praying for our other personnel needs including ESL teachers and an IT person.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Guam Evangelical Church

Six years ago Steve Stinnette and I, along with a small group of couples founded Guam Evangelical Church as a fellowship designed to reach out to people from the islands surrounding Guam. With our PIBC responsibilities growing we saw the need to back away from many of our leadership roles at the church. The leadership of the church also saw the need to focus the goals of the church more sharply. Thus, GEC was reborn as a student-led outreach ministry to the Micronesian students at the University of Guam. Instead of being a traditional church ministry, GEC's role will now be to work with other evangelical churches to reach and disciple college students and plug them into the churches working with us. With faculty and staff mentorship (especially from Steve), the UOG team (pictured here) held their practice service yesterday. They are busy building relationships with the UOG students who will be coming to their get-togethers. Please pray for the student team that they will be able to minister the love of Christ to the students they are working with.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

PIBC Students

I thought you might enjoy seeing and meeting some of our students. So here you go...


Here is (L to R) Mac (Yap), Elilai (Palau), Stella (Yap), Lynnette (Palau) and Happiness (Chuuk). Mac is leader of our chapel worship and University of Guam outreach team. Happiness is on the Dept. of Youth Affairs team and is in competition with Joyce to see who can kill the most snakes this year. Stella just completed her internship in children's ministries in Yap. Lynnette is a graduate of Bethania HS in Palau and worked there as a teachers' aid. Elilai went to high school on Guam and is one of our commuting students.






Here I am talking with one of our Palauan students John Aitaro at the Ministry Fair. I actually met John when he was one of the basketball players at Palau High School playing against the team I coached (Emmaus) back in 1986-8. John moved on to Guam, got married and became a Christian though the ministry of one of our ex-Emmaus students Andy Immanual who now pastors at the Palauan Evangelical Church on Guam. John is now one of the Bible study leaders at the PEC-Guam and one of our dedicated commuter students. John works all night at one of the local hotels and then takes three PIBC classes during the day.







This picture of me with Tenry and Julius was taken right after Cults class on Friday. Tenry and Julius are certificate graduates from the Tol, Chuuk campus who have transferred to Guam to complete their BA degrees. Both of them are commuting students. I am still working on Tenry to get out on Saturday and play with our basketball team. We need him. We lost 37-35 yesterday.








This picture was taken during registration as several of our Chuukese students are excitedly waiting to see what the semester holds. For many of our students coming to Guam and living in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment requires some major adjustments. We are praying and planning that these present adjustments will prepare them to make the future adjustments necessary to minister inside and outside their own cultural contexts.


And finally, my favorite student...