Yap #1–Views of Yap

I returned yesterday from a trip to Yap. The purpose of my trip was to speak with Yap church leaders about our teaching facility there. We have not had any students in the facility the last couple semesters and we needed to talk about what they wanted to do. I was encouraged at the meeting by the church leaders’ enthusiasm for PIU and its programs. (We have 4 students from Yap on campus right now). The key issue for the TF will be having a teacher who can do “face to face” classes on Yap. (We find this to be true in our experience for all of the islands of Micronesia – DE classes work best when we have someone on the ground there developing relationship with the students) Thus, it is our goal to find teachers that we can place in Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Palau to teach classes, facilitate other teachers’ classes and build discipleship relationships with students. I will be on the US Mainland looking to recruit teachers like that in October. In the meantime enjoy some views of Yap. On the left is the view from the guest apartment. On the right is the view from the porch of the church in Colonia.

On the left is the inside of the church in Colonia. On the right is the youth group singing for the Sunday evening English service in the youth center. I had an opportunity to talk about PIU in the morning Yapese service and then preach in the English service on Sunday evening.

The hospitality was great. On the left grilled fish for lunch at the ESA Restaurant where I was able to talk with the mother of one of our students. On the right, lunch with Falrog, one of the matriarchs of the church in Yap. We had an interesting conversation about the history of the church there and she gave me some good advice about doing ministry in Yap.