Senior Chapel

Traditionally the last chapel of the semester is the “Senior Chapel” in which all the about-to-be-graduates have an opportunity to address their fellow students and the staff and share a little about their experience at PIU. It is always one of my favorite chapels of the year as I don’t often get to hear directly from so many students what has made their time at PIU meaningful to them. This year was especially touching as we had several students who had been through some trying times and had very encouraging testimonies about how God had used PIU in their lives. We will be very excited to see our biggest graduating class ever march on May 7th. After leading some congregational singing and sharing a “senior song” several of the graduates gave their testimonies…

Charles Sam (left) served as the MC and music leader for the graduates. He talked about how God fulfilled His promise of “giving him the desires of your heart” at PIU. Mondale Tim (right) talked about how PIU has prepared him well for the job and ministries he will be doing when he returns to Chuuk.

Ikol Suda (left) said that he had a very speech ready but yesterday’s final exam in Critical Thinking and Logic had driven everything else out of his brain so he could just say “thanks.” Rommel Carino talked about how PIU was the right place for him to go to school because the school ministered to him in a holistic way.

Pam Flores (Left) within a few humorous stories about classes she took at PIU (snoring and meowing cats in class?) talked about how thankful she was for the family atmosphere on the campus and how allowance was made for her to bring her children on to the campus while she was in class. She also talked about how every class she took gave her something important to take into her life and ministry. Pam and her husband Karl will be graduating together (Pam-BA and Karl-MAR) this year. Esther Tarkong was thankful for PIU providing her with access to a Christian college education and working with her as a single mother of two children so that she could graduate.

 

Mo, who will graduate with an MAR degree, talked about the amazing ways God brought him to PIU and was especially thankful for the way that staff, faculty and administration went out of their way and beyond expectations to help him with academic and personal issues in his time at PIU. Ceci, Teisy and Jaynee came up together to give their thanks to fellow students, staff and faculty.

 

 

Pastor Sal Ilai led us in prayer and shared. Sal began by mentioning that he holds the PIU record for the longest time to get a BA degree – 17 years. He said that, in 1995 as a pastor in the Pohnpei Church of Christ, he realized he needed to move beyond “an elementary knowledge of the Bible” and get deeper training and enrolled in PIU. He encouraged the students with several stories of how God, not only provided the financial resources for him to go to school, but went beyond to meet their other needs while he was studying at PIU. He shared how God sustained him spiritually through the deaths of his mother and then his wife within days of each other in 2010. He closed by saying that the fact that “I can stand up here and preach in English” is because of PIU.

The chapel went several minutes beyond the normal time, but no one noticed. We were all blessed.