Faculty-Staff Appreciation Dinner

Our end-of year faculty-staff appreciation dinner for PIBC this year was kind of an "islands meet Texas" theme as we met at the Lone Star Restaurant last Monday. The purpose of the dinner was to thank all of our staff for a "job well done" for the 2008-9 school year. Lone Star was chosen as the venue again this year because "everyone likes steak," but Joyce likes it for the dinner rolls with the honey butter and the sweet potatoes. It was exciting to have 37 staff and faculty members there. It wasn't too many years ago we could get our whole staff around one table. This time we filled all three tables in the "Alamo Room."


Another purpose of the dinner is to honor and say goodbye to the people who have faithfully served at PIBC but are leaving to move on to other ministries. Brad and Cheryl Boydston (left) have been at PIBC for 3 years with Brad serving as our Academic VP and Cheryl in our business office. They will be church-planting in Arizona after they leave Guam in June. Hiob and Leah Ngirachemoi (Right) will be moving back to Palau to pastor the Koror congregation of the Palauan Evangelical Church. Hiob served as Dean of Men and campus pastor while he was here at PIBC. We will miss all of them, but we know God will be continuing to work through them and who knows, they may come back to us someday?

Some of our staff wanted to get up close and personal with a Texas steer (besides the ones they were chewing up and swallowing.) Joel Farnsworth (left) enjoyed his lunch and the opportunity to pose in front of the bull. Our Assistant Dean of Men, Kalvin Assito, also reached out to take the bull by the horns.

Baccalaureate

PIBC held our baccalaureate for the Guam campus on Sunday, May 10th. (Yes, I know I am way behind on my posting.) The service was held at the Onnuri Church in Mangilao. The featured speaker was Dr. Cristel Wood, current faculty member and our former Academic Vice President. She challenged us based on the graduates' theme to "Serve the Lord with Gladness." She used several Old Testament examples which I especially appreciated. One of our board members, Harald Gorges, led the communion fellowship which the almost graduates (at that moment) shared with all the audience. As you can see from the picture the students also sang a couple songs. The baccalaureate was student planned and led, with class spokesman Darwin Joker serving as the MC. I think every year the highlight is the prayer of dedication for the graduates led by several of the faculty. My job this year was the closing prayer. Of course after the baccalaureate service we went over to the campus for a delicious celebratory BBQ.

Memorial Service

I haven't actually written a blog post in a few days so I thought I would get you caught up on what is going on here at PIBC. It has been a strange last week with both very difficult things to deal with and things to celebrate - sometimes both at once. So here goes...

Last Friday night was the memorial service for Kathy Newell. It was held at the Lutheran Church of Guam. I think we were all still somewhat numb from shock. A lot of us shared that we had just talked with her in the last few days and she seemed as energetic as ever. I shared that she was talking with us about the final she had just given and how disappointed she was that some of the students did not perform up to their potential. I saw her as a person that had the Christlike quality (which we try to model at PIBC) of reaching down to meet needs to help, to make higher education accessible, but loved the students too much to leave them there - she insisted they perform up to their potential and she pushed them to get there with all her might. It is still hard to think that she is not with us any more.

The memorial service was a great celebration of her life with a lot of laughter and tears. The PIBC choir sang beautifully and her many friends shared the eternal impact that she had made on their lives. One of the students said "she will always be my advisor." I am thankful that, as Pastor Jeff Johnson shared, "we grieve, but we don't grieve as those who have no hope." We will miss her, not forget her and will be reunited with her and the rest of God's people in eternity.

PIBC Graduation in the Pacific Daily News

Here are some great pictures from our graduation yesterday in the Pacific Daily News. I will be posting my pictures and making a few other "end of the school year" posts soon.

Pacific News Center Story about Kathy Newell

Sad News From PIBC Today

This is from the PIBC web site...

The PIBC community is in shock following the death of much loved faculty member Kathy Newell this morning.

Apparently she had just entered the water for her first scuba dive of the day when her diving companions noticed that something was wrong. Two women dove into the water and pulled her back onto the boat. One of the companions, a nurse, began CPR, which they and the US Coast Guard maintained. She was pronounced dead at Naval Hospital Guam.

Kathy, was a mission volunteer through the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and was wrapping up her second year at PIBC. She had a ticket to return home to Flagstaff, Arizona on May 28th. Kathy was particularly excited about seeing her grandchildren again.

A career educator, Kathy taught Methods of Elementary Education; Community ESL, and Intro to Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition at PIBC. Her professional background was elementary education and English language acquisition. In addition to teaching in the Falgstaff schools she taught on the Navajo Indian Reservation and in Russia. She earned both BS and MA degrees from Northern Arizona University.

PIBC president, Dr David Owen, reflected on Kathy's work at the school, "She was an excellent, creative teacher and a selfless volunteer who came out here on her own time and at her own expense to give young people from the Pacific Islands access to a quality education. She ministered Christ to our students in a unique way as she held them to a loving, but high, standard."

A memorial service will be held at 7 p.m., Friday, May 8th, at the Lutheran Church of Guam.

You can read more about Kathy and how the PIBC community is responding to her going home to be with the LORD at the Stinnette's (PIBC VP of Advancement) and Melissa Heck's (Dean of Women) blog

Palau Trip

I spent last week down in Palau. Sadly I didn't get to do any teaching while there, but I always enjoy going back. My main purpose in going was to talk with church leaders, students, staff etc about the changes and challenges that look like will be ahead of us at PIBC/PIU over the next few months. As I shared in an earlier post, about half of our administrative council will be ending their term of service and will not be returning to PIBC after this school year. This leaves us in a position where we do not have enough people to administratively support multiple sites for the 2009-2010 school year. Our board has decided that, unless we get a miraculous influx of missionaries within the next month, we will pull back and run only the Guam campus next year and put the other sites on a one-year hiatus. Two weeks ago board member Harald Gorges and our CFO Jens Schulz went to Chuuk to inform church leaders, students and staff there. Last week I went to Palau to do the same thing.

I was very encouraged at my meeting with the Palauan Church leadership as they expressed their appreciation for PIBC and assured me of their help. The church leaders assured me that they would provide the support needed to keep the Palau TF open. With their help we can provide a computer lab and office where the students can take distance education classes and some hybrid classes (intensive classroom time with a distance ed. component) can be offered. I am hoping that we can do the same thing in Chuuk and Yap. I also needed to inform the church that we were moving our missionary and TF coordinator, Rob Watt, up to the Guam campus to be the VP of our student life department. I know they did not want to lose Rob, but the PEC leadership approached the issue with a kingdom perspective and I was blessed with the spirit of unity and cooperation that prevailed. The picture here is of Rob teaching his PIBC class in the Koror Church.

I also had the opportunity to drive up to Bethania with Rob and speak to the PIBC students up there and to spend some time with the senior class at the girls' high school. (I borrowed these Palauan scenery pictures from Bethania teacher Jenny Spencer). There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for, and interest in, the possiblity of coming to PIBC/PIU. These young ladies asked a lot of good questions. I also enjoyed the drive up Babeldaop island. The road is nice and smooth now all the way and of course, the Palau scenery is always spectacular. (You can see beautiful scenery like this all over Micronesia). The only bad thing about going to Palau is that the return flights to Guam leave at 1.00 AM and arrive at 4 or 5 AM.

I would appreciate your prayers for the people we need to run our Guam campus and to re-staff our teaching facilities in the future. More on the needs in a later post.