Yap Ministry Team #4 – Jonie Jones

The 4th in this series of interviews with the members of the PIU Yap Ministry team focuses on Jonie Jones. Jonie is a 3rd year biblical studies major who was born on Chuuk but raised on Guam. Last school year she worked with the chapel ministry team as the audio-visual coordinator and in the dorm as an RA. This coming school year she will be the secretary of the Student Council and will again work in the dorm as a Resident Assistant helping to oversee the spiritual health of the women living there. In Yap Jonie led devotions and discussion groups with the young ladies there. She was also VBS and retreat leader and helped organize the program and music.

She thought the best part of the trip was “sitting down with the youth and eating.” They knew that relational barriers were coming down when the Yapese young people would say, “Wait here for us and we will go get food and we will eat together.” They were also able to build relationships by “helping the older ladies cook.” “They said we were a big help – I thought it was going to be hard, but it was fun.” It was “a great day” when “we cleaned the youth center before the retreat because working together opened up many opportunities to talk.”

Team meetings were always “a challenge.” We had to “figure out what to do,” and “planning (all the ministry activities) was hard!” It was also tough “to get out of my shell.” For the first few days of the trip “I was just staying by myself, but the Yapese youth drew me out and I enjoyed being involved.”

Being an RA at PIU has been a great preparation for life and ministry because I learned “how to organize my time,” and gained “boldness to approach people and start conversations.” This helped me develop a relationship in Yap where “I talked and prayed with one girl regularly.” PIU also trained me to be disciplined to prepare devotionals. Jonie urges her fellow students to “open your eyes to the world, obey the call, see what’s out there and meet new and different people!”