Titus Gets an Award

  OK time for me to brag about my grandson, Titus. This, of course, is my right and privilege as a grandfather. Titus started kindergarten this month and is enjoying school. He has now admitted that they are teaching him some things he didn’t already know. <smile> Yesterday Titus was honored as Hilitai of the month for his kindergarten class. A Hilitai is the Chamorro word for monitor lizard and is the mascot of Adacao Elementary School. The whole family attended this momentous event Friday morning. Keep up the good work Titus!

On the left the kids lead the assembly in the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. They also sang the US national anthem and the Guam hymn

Titus receives his certificate and his star necklace

The whole family enjoyed the ceremony.

Spirit Day #2

  Tuesday this week was the second day of Spirit Week at PIU and was designated “Colorful Day.” Actually at PIU every day is “colorful day.” So I put on my bright red island shirt and headed to school. Tuesday chapel was a little different as we broke up into small groups and spent some time discussing and praying for each other about some issues. Dean of Men Pete Jensen talked about issues of forgiveness and getting free from the shame and guilt of the past. Dean of Women Daisy Murdock talked about being more intentional with our witness in both our life and words. I had a good chance to sit with a group of our staff and faculty and talk and pray with them. That usually leads to having a good day!

Dean of Students Rob Watt (left) got the chapel started off and he, Pete (right) and Daisy guided the prayer time.

Melvin and Matthew make sure the room is set up for class after chapel

First John Family Chapel

Last Friday Mike Owen led us in a meditation on the book of First John. After a good time of singing hymns Mike showed us through a highly participatory illustration of the difference between the concept of the family in modern Western cultures and the concept of the family in the Ancient Near East, as it would have been understood in biblical times. It brought some illumination to us about just how important it is that God is our Father and we are brothers and sisters of each other. He then read the whole letter of First John and asked us to meditate on it in light of what we had learned about God’s family and the love within it.

Mike, Samantha and the worship team led us in singing some different arrangements of old hymns

Expansion of Women’s Dorm at PIU

This year we have 23 women living on campus at PIU. Last year we added a room to the dorm to increase our female dorm capacity from 16 to 19. This year we were able to renovate a small campus building to expand the capacity to 23. So last week 4 of our returning students were able to move into the newly renovated building. We are thankful to God for providing the materials for the renovation through our friends at Hawaiian Rock who donated all the concrete for the floor, Home Depot for donating all the paint and an anonymous donor who gave us $500 for the tiles. Thank you.

We also held a dedication service before chapel for the new building. Samantha explained to the students how the renovation was accomplished and how God provided for it. Then I led the group in a prayer of dedication. It is another of the many little miracles that happen pretty regularly around here as God blesses us at PIU.

Spirit Week at PIU

This week is Spirit Week at PIU. Each day there is a dress up theme and different activities to build enthusiasm, unity and identity on the campus. The week began Monday with sports jersey day, in which we were supposed to wear the jersey of our favorite sports team. Was there any doubt which jersey I would be wearing? This week I am also one of the judges. Not sure what the prizes are. I will be posting a couple pictures the rest of the week of our spirit activities. Here are a couple of me where I get to pose with some students…

A Couple More Chapels

We have had some excellent chapels at PIU lately. It is great to be able to stop the workday from 11-Noon to take some time to worship and hear some good teaching from the Word every Tuesday and Friday. We are hoping to get our chapel services live, or at least recorded, on line soon. I will let you know when that happens. Last Friday we enjoyed a rocking chapel with Dr. Jim Sawyer as our speaker.

We get to hear a lot of different music styles during our worship time at PIU, led by several different teams of students and staff. In this chapel the music was definitely rock and roll.

We are certainly blessed to have great faculty speakers for chapel. Jim teaches in seminaries all over the world and comes out every semester to teach a systematic or historical theology class for Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary. After chapel I enjoyed refereeing a very competitive balloon sword match between two very aggressive girls in my office.

House Blessing

Recently our PIU IT Coordinator, Mary Lou Carruthers, purchased and moved into her new home on Guam. The whole PIU family is very happy for her and we gathered at her home, with our friends from the Lutheran Church of Guam, last Sunday to celebrate with her and fellowship in a “house blessing” for her. I had not ever been part of a formal house blessing until I came to Guam. PIU graduate and current seminary student Rommel Carino led the service that included prayers of blessing and applicable scriptures read throughout the house. We are thankful that God has blessed Mary Lou with a house that meets her needs and is dedicated to the service of God’s kingdom.

We started outside in the carport and then Samantha did a prayer of blessing that opened the door and invited everyone inside.

We prayed through every room of the house and then enjoyed fellowship around the table

A Couple Recent Chapels at PIU

It seems like “things to do” have been piling up around here at the Owen house and at PIU lately. I thought I would post a couple pictures from our chapels of Friday September 7 and Tuesday September 11. The 7th was a bit of a strange day at school as we were without power most of the day. Guam Power Authority was hardening power poles in our neighborhood (replacing wooden power poles with concrete ones) so we did a day of school without any electricity. This is why the classroom building was opened up and everyone was fanning themselves. Friday chapel was led by the Yap summer ministry team. They divided the chapel into groups to represent the main villages of Yap and then spent time praying for the churches and people in each of those villages. I didn’t get to see the whole presentation because I had to leave early to get to the Guam Minister’s monthly meeting.  

Tuesday’s chapel was led by two other summer ministry teams. First some members of the Impact Team spoke. You can read more about the Impact Team in my previous post. Rusty and Olivia both gave testimonies about how God worked in their lives through their experience with the summer missions team.

 

 

  Kita Mokut was a one-woman ministry team sent to work with the Susanville 1st Baptist Church in Susanville California. Kita had the opportunity to minister to the large Chuukese and Palauan congregations there as well as several women’s and children ministries. She shared how God used the ministry challenges there to push her into doing things she had never done before and deepening her level of trust in God. We are greatly blessed as a campus to hear the reports of God working in the lives of these students.

PIU Student Feature – IM Rusty Simon

IM Rusty Simon (The “I” is for his dad and the “M” for his mom) is a 23 year old, 4th year Biblical Studies student from Ta island, in the Mortlock Islands, Chuuk, FSM. His minor emphasis at PIU is Teaching English as a Second Language. Rusty works in the PIU “WeWork Program” as a data processor in the Institutional Effectiveness department. Last year he also worked on the classroom cleaning crew. Rusty is the Senior class representative in the PIU Student Council. He attends the Kingdom Seeker church where he helps Pastor Arnold lead the youth group.

This past summer Rusty was part of the “Impact Team” which was made up of short-term missionaries from  Germany, Switzerland, New Jersey and Palau led by Liebenzell missionaries Anne and Steve Stinnette. The team spent one month on Guam and helped with VBS at the Palauan Evangelical Church, youth ministry at the Ranch Christian Fellowship, did some much needed summer maintenance at PIU and visited several local churches. They then moved on to Palau and stayed there six weeks. They ran several VBS’s for Palauan churches in Koror, Anguar, Peleliu and Ngchesar, did hospital visits, led Sunday church services and helped with church cleaning. Rusty shared his testimony several times, worked with the youth groups, acted in the skits, got to know young people through sports ministry and went house to house inviting people to church and VBS (he was coordinator and MC for the VBS.)

His hardest job was to be the Micronesian cultural consultant for the American and European team members. He says, “we came from so very different cultures and backgrounds that we had to learn to understand each other before we could do ministry together.” “As a Micronesian I had to help the guys with cultural issues. They asked me lots of questions about how to do things and what to say.” The blessing in it was that as I was “paying attention to my team all the time, I got to learn some of their culture even though I have never been to the USA or Europe.”

Rusty recommends that his fellow students get involved in missions because “there is something different out there than here, there is something new there. I got to go out and do something important and experience something different.” The mission trip “shaped my life and now I can say that I am willing to serve and do ministry.” Rusty plans to go back to Anguar in Palau during Christmas break to continue ministry with the young people he met there. After graduation next year he plans to go back to the Mortlock islands and use his education in TESL to be a school teacher.

PIU Student Feature – Davy Welle

Davy is a 22 year old PIU 5th year student majoring in Biblical Studies. He is from Dublon, Tolewas in Chuuk. This year Davy is serving as the President of the PIU Student Council. He also served as a Resident Assistant in the main men’s dorm last year. Some other activities he is involved in include Big Brothers, Voices of Micronesia and The PIU Tide basketball team. The last couple years he has led and participated in missions/ministry teams in Yap, Mexico (where he almost did not get out because the border patrol agents had never seen a passport from Federated States of Micronesia), Saipan and Susanville California. He enjoys preaching and teaching occasionally at the Ranch Christian Fellowship which would explain why one his favorite PIU activities is our annual Preaching Conference. (This year’s conference will be October 18-20)

This last summer Davy participated in the ministry trip to Yap. Unlike the rest of the team who returned to Guam after 6 weeks, Davy spent the entire summer in Yap working with PIU alumni, Pastor Asael Ruda and Jonathan Sam as they ministered to several congregations on the island. Davy led Bible studies 5 days per week with each day’s study in a different village – Monday and Tuesday in Rumuuch, Wednesday to the adults in Colonia, Thursday in Tomil, and Friday back in Colonia with the youth. Saturday was spent cleaning the church and resting, and then on Sunday he often preached 3 or 4 times. Since Davy was there, Pastor Asael was able to take some needed time off.

One of his interesting experiences in Yap was leading a men’s retreat. It is very unusual for an outsider to come to Yap , especially a young guy, and immediately be asked to teach the older Yapese men. He said, “It was very uncomfortable for me to be asked for advice by old men. I am much more comfortable leading in a youth group or church service.” He also had the experience of preaching a Yapese traditional funeral. “The open coffin was right in front of me.. and with all the grieving people… It was a really weird experience for me.” I even did some marriage counseling,” for which he felt he didn’t have any experience, but “they came to me because I was from PIU.” He was even drafted to help Jonathan with transportation to church events. “Because of that I have a Yapese driver’s license and I got it one day!”

Davy found that “when I keep myself busy in the Word and doing ministry during the week, I have more confidence sharing the Word on Sunday.” After the rest of the PIU team left Yap, Davy was concerned that he would have to face the spiritual warfare the team had encountered by himself. “I was concerned that the evil spirit would scare me, but studying the Word gave me confidence. The evil spirit never bothered me.”

Maybe his favorite experience was a trip to the outer islands in which he got to fly a plane. He feels “burdened to go back and share with the hundreds of kids” he met there.

This semester Davy wants to focus the PIU students on activities to “grow together” and be closer to each other.  He wants to have more activities this semester but realizes that unity is the most important and so his main focus will be “growing relationships” among the students. Davy asks for prayer for direction after he graduates this coming May. Five different churches and ministries have asked him to come and help and he wants to go where God directs him. Wherever he goes he has a “burning desire to help youths.”

It’s Football Season Again

Yes, it is September and yesterday was the opening of the NFL season. So last night when the kids came over we all put on our 49er jerseys and went out to play some backyard football. Titus loves to “run fast and score touchdowns” and Courage gets a big smile on her face and responds with great enthusiasm when I tell her that it is ok to smash into people and knock them down. Her evaluation of football is “I like to tackle.” Of course we took a few pictures of the event.

Titus does his Steve Young pose (I know wrong hand, but he looks good) and we all show our enthusiasm for the 49ers

They were trying to look tough here. Serenity decided to bring dinosaurs to be on her team

A couple action shots. Courage flipped Titus over on to his head right after the picture on the left. This year no one was hurt in the backyard game

OK My predictions for the NFL season. Division winners: Eagles, Falcons, Packers, 49ers, Broncos, Texans, Patriots, Steelers, Super Bowl will be a victory for the 49ers over the Texans. This week I will predict 49ers 26 – Packers 24