New Email Address

Just thought I should let everyone know that the "mailto" on my blog has changed to dowen@teleguam.net. We switched our internet provider at home so that we could bundle phone, internet, and TV. We have the Guam Telephone bundle now. After we have it a while I will let you know how we like it. My PIBC and Gmail addresses have not changed, at least yet. We are in the process of changing the PIBC web site and email servers to a new piu.edu domain. I'll keep you updated on that one as it happens.

Update on Thailand Mission Team

Just received this from Melissa Heck this morning...

Just wanted to send a quick update....

Erten is still in the hospital but will be coming home tomorrow. He will need to have the hand cleaned each day of the week for a week. I am told he is in good spirits but when we went to visit he was tired and seemed sad. Kalvin (our other leader ) is staying with him. We will be excited to have him back tomorrow.

Some good news is that the medical bills will only be in the neighborhood of $1200 which we have. It may leave us a bit short at the end but we are trusting that God will provide for our needs.

Another good news is that the doctor believes the surgery was successful and Erten will eventually have full use of his hand.

Please continue to pray for God's provision and protection.

Also pray for some Thailand Campus Crusade staff in the south park of Thailand. A van with about 7 - 8 people had an accident and are now in the hospital.

These things are not positive but have put us in a position where we are forced to rely on God... and we know that He is good. We are all thankful to be here.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support.

Blessings,
Melissa

Please join with us in keeping Erten, Melissa, Kalvin and the team in prayer.

PIBC Thai Missions Team Urgent Prayer Request

We just received the following in an email from Melissa Heck, PIBC/PIU Dean of Women and one of the leaders of the mission team. She says....

Although it is hard for us to understand exactly what happened one of our team members, Erten, walked into a glass door and it shattered severing the tendons in his hand and severing two veins. He was rushed to the hospital where he needed surgery to repair his hand.

He is in the hospital recovering --- should be ok but is in a lot of pain.

Please pray for Erten's recovery.
Please pray for the medical expenses to be covered some how.
Pray for God's protection over the rest of the team.
Pray for God's wisdom and discernment in the ministry. The spiritual battle here is fierce.

Thanks.... Melissa

We would appreciate your prayers for this situation. You can follow the adventures of the PIBC Thai team on this blog and on their official blog.

The PIBC Thai Team is on Their Way!

Early Monday morning, the PIBC Thailand Mission Team lifted off from Guam. Except for a thunder and lightning storm which set off all the security systems in the Guam Airport, the trip went well and they arrived in Bangkok without incident. They had a six hour layover in Tokyo and another seven hour layover in Bangkok before they fly to Chiang Mai. You can follow their actions and get their latest updates on the Thai team blog.


On Sunday night Joyce and I, along with Brad and Cheryl Boydston, went over to the campus to say goodbye to the team, encourage them and pray with them. They have been team building by working with the Lutheran Mission Team from Albuquerque renovating the school perimeter fence and doing painting and maintenance on the dorms in the morning and then preparing and practicing for ministry in the afternoon. It was easy for us to see that the team has done a good job of building unity and they seemed well-prepared as they went over their testimonies and performed a couple of their skits. This is the 3rd year we have sent a team to Thailand to work with the Campus Crusade group there.


The team is going out this year still a little short on financial support. They are confident, however, that God will supply their needs. If you would like to help with this you can still donate to the team by sending a check to PIBC with a note that it is for the Thailand mission team. Please join me in prayer for the team as they minister in Thailand over the next six weeks.

Bible Study on the PIBC Campus

This summer I was scheduled to teach the Exegesis in Wisdom Literature Course. This is a 400 level course designed to test if a student has really met the objectives of our Bible program. Thus, it is a pretty tough course with a lot of work to be done. Perhaps this is why no program students signed up for it. We had several audit students sign up, but no one was required to do the work. This is why we have decided to change the course into a Bible study. The study will meet on Monday nights this summer from 7:00-9:00 PM. Each week we will be going through a passage in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or Song of Solomon showing the "nuts and bolts" of the passage. We will talk about how one goes about understanding a passage in wisdom literature, understanding the poetic structure, interpreting the metaphors and other figures of speech, developing a word study methodology and analyzing the pieces of OT Wisdom Literature. Then we will put each passage back together to determine theological principles that can be derived from the passage, pull out its teaching points and discuss how it can be applied in our lives today. You can work through the passages together with the other students on the PIBC distance learning site during the week or just show up and see what we do in the class. There is no charge for the Bible study and you can come every Monday or show up when you are able. Of course we are hoping that people will enjoy the study and sign up for a PIBC or Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary class. Come join us this Monday at 7:00 PM as we look at Proverbs 1-2.

Little Brown Bunny

Joyce was gardening last Monday night in our back yard and noticed that she had a little visitor. This little brown bunny was in the yard and watched her for a while and then slipped out underneath our fence. Wednesday, when I came home from school, the bunny was in our drive way munching on some of Joyce's flowers. It ran off into the jungle when I drove in. Yesterday it was seen again by the Boydston's who are staying at our house. Joyce has been feeding it and trying to get it used to her so she can catch it. We are hoping to get it to a safe place before the neighborhood dogs get to it. Bunnies are not indigenous to Guam so it had to come from somebody's rabbit hutch close by.

Flame Trees

The flame trees have been blooming on Guam the last couple weeks. Joyce thinks that this is one of the best years for the flame tree blooms, so today we went out to take some pictures of the trees. We wonder if the "bloom increase" has any connection to the fact that we are also seeing more birds, or that maybe it is just because we have not had a typhoon hit Guam since 2002. This flame tree on the left is in Tamuning behind the Lone Star Restaurant. The one below is in front of the Alupang Beach Tower hotel. I took it from the car window as we drove by on Marine Drive. It is great to see the beautiful red blooms back again contributing to the tropical color palette of our island.