Monday, September 20, 2010

Chuuk Trip #1

Last week Steve Stinnette and I headed down to Chuuk for the weekend. The main purposes of the trip were to finalize our agreement with Logan Memorial Church and Mizpah Christian School to run our Teaching Facility in Chuuk (more on that in the next post), meet with alumni, recruit students, and meet with other church and government leaders and friends. When we arrived we met, in the hotel van, two teachers from San Diego State who were there to participate in a graduation for the SDS distance education program. We had a good conversation in the van about how to run a DE program in Chuuk. When we arrived at the hotel we were surprised to find that the graduation guests were already there and the ceremony was ready to start. We were also surprised to find ourselves on the stage as "honored guests" and participants in the program. It was fun and one of our alumni, Mecky William (pictured here with Governor Simina of Chuuk), was one of the graduating students.

One unexpected blessing of attending the graduation was the opportunity to meet with Mokut William the president of the Evangelical Church of Chuuk and grandfather of PIU student Kita Mokut. We also got to meet Kita's father (in the middle in the island shirt) Enepo Mokut, at the graduation. We had a very good conversation and it was very nice to be able to reconnect with Mokut.

We also were able to meet Gardenia Aisek the Director of Education for Chuuk at the graduation. Steve has worked with her before, but I was meeting her for the first time there. She invited us to come to her office later that afternoon to talk about how PIU could help in Chuuk. We talked quite a bit about the "teacher crisis" in Chuuk. Many teachers in Chuuk are working without completed associates and bachelors degrees. We talked quite a bit about how PIU could help with that. We would love to be able to provide the needed teacher training. Our biblical studies program already has an elementary education minor with 18 credits of teacher training and we are developing an AA in liberal arts program. Eventually we plan to have a full teacher training program. We are hoping to be able to supply both our current and planned programs there in Chuuk. We are looking for someone to run our teaching facility in Chuuk and for someone to lead and develop our teacher education program. If you are interested give me a call at PIU at 671-734-1812.

No comments: