VOM Ministry in Salado Texas, July 6-9

After our long trip to New Mexico we did another long haul from Alamogordo to Salado, Texas. However, after the drive, we were able to settle in there for four days at Grace Baptist Church. We did concerts on Wednesday and Thursday night, along with a kids' program on Thursday morning. We had a good audience out for each performance, including people (many of the students' relatives) from the Chuukese and Palauan communities in Central Texas. We are very thankful to Grace Baptist for the use of their church van and trailer. We missed that van when we had to give it back and move all our stuff into a U-Haul. Grace Baptist has been a great partner with PIU the past few years in ministry to Micronesians and it was great to get to know the people a little better. We are hoping to see some students from that area of Texas at PIU in a couple years.

It was good to meet up with Daisy, our Dean of women, again. 

The VOM team greets the audience

Keiny gets to know a new friend

The kids' ministry day went very well

The kids all wanted to pose with the VOM team for a group picture. One little girl said that the program was "the best day of her life!"

Learning the worship dance was a very popular event everywhere we went

As usual, Joyce supervised the PIU display and table

It was great to see Aaron, Hollie and Sam Schaub again. They drove all the way from Corpus Cristi to see the concert. 

The students also got to see many relatives in Texas.

Thank you friends at Grace Baptist for taking such good care of us!

Some Traveling Pictures from July 5-6

Joyce and I had a good time yesterday evening with Scotts Valley/Santa Cruz team that came out to Yap for a short term mission trip to build our facility for the PIU Yap teaching facility. We enjoyed some good food and fellowship and made plans for the group to return to Micronesia. The plan for now is to have the group work on developing the Guam campus (more on the plans in a later post) and have them come out some time next Spring. I was very encouraged by their enthusiasm for being part of what God is doing at PIU and in Micronesia. I am also posting here some pictures from the VOM tour. After the 4th of July weekend we headed toward Texas. On Monday the 5th we drove from San Diego to Alamogordo New Mexico. I am sure it was the longest drive any of our students had ever taken. Here are some pictures of that day and loooooong night...

Joyce and I alternated driving the van pulling our trailer. We saw a lot of cactus as we drove out Interstates 8 and 10. 

I thought this rock formation was interesting

About midnight, when we were almost to Alamogordo we went through a border patrol inspection station. Several of the students had placed their passports in their luggage in the trailer so we had to find them so we could proceed.

We ended up having to wait 2 1/2 hours because we had some of the girls' passports in our van and they had some of the guys' passports in their van. The blue van was about 2 hours behind us. The border patrol officers were nice to us, but it was still a long wait so late at night with another long drive to Texas ahead of us the next day.

A Day with our Friend Dan Fields

After the sports festival we headed up the road a little to spend the rest of the 4th with our friend Dan Fields. Dan  came out to Guam last Fall to take the pictures for our publications and has helped PIU out in several other ways. We enjoyed a great day spending time with Dan and his family. We ended the day by watching the fireworks from his back yard. BBQ, swimming, fireworks and chilling out with good friends was a great way to spend the 4th.

I think everyone was a little tired from the previous weekend's ministry. We had plenty of opportunity for napping.

As usual, no matter how cold it was, Kita was the first one into the pool

Despite the beautiful, panoramic vista around him, Erten was intent on texting

We also got to see our good buddy Matt Augee at Dan's house. We were very sorry to not be able to perform at Matt's surf camp because of a medical issue, but we are glad that Matt is recovering and we continue to pray for him.

VOM Ministry at the MOMUSA Sports Festival July 2-4

Joyce and I are in Scotts Valley/Santa Cruz staying at my brother's house right now. Matt, Kristin and Milo are with us until tomorrow and we are enjoying spending some time with them. We will be meeting this week with some potential short term missionaries here and then we will go to my high school reunion on Saturday before we head back to Redding to speak at the 1st Baptist Church there on Saturday. In the meantime my goal is to get caught up with my posts and fully report on the VOM trip by the end of July. So here are some pictures and comments about the VOM ministry at the MOMUSA festival at Point Loma University in San Diego over the 4th of July weekend.

The Micronesian Outreach Ministries USA festival is a pretty big annual event. Groups came from Pohnpei, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, Arizona and all over California to attend the 3 day sports-worship-evangelistic event.

The basketball tournament is a big part of the event. PIU won one game and lost two in the tournament

The girls participated in the volleyball tournament. They didn't bring shoes so they had to borrow some to play.

Justin hits a free throw to keep us in the game.

Joyce and Milo took care of the PIU display.

I met quite a few of our alumni. Here I am posing with Alter Balualay

The VOM team ministered in the Saturday night program.

Keiny gave a great challenge to "stand for God" within the activities of daily life. We really enjoyed the conference. I am hoping that PIU can participate in future MOMUSA conferences as one of the sponsors.

San Diego County Fair

While we were in San Diego the VOM team was given free tickets to the San Diego County Fair. We thought it would be a great cultural experience for our students, and it would be fun too. So we loaded up the vans (we took Milo too) and enjoyed a day at the fair.

Milo and I had our baseball caps on and we were ready to go

The deal was that we could have free tickets if we came in and sang at the visitor's center. So the first thing we did was go in and put on a small concert for them. I think they enjoyed it and we got a good round of applause from all the onlookers

Milo enjoyed the animals and the farm displays

Jayleen and Meyou pose with their Australian cuisine

Maymay and Meyou rest their tired feet after a long day of walking

Milo found a better way to get some rest as Meluat stands guard

We are ready to head back to our host homes after a long, fun day at the fair

This Weekend's Schedule and Some Pictures from our visit to San Diego around the 1st of July

This weekend Joyce and I are in Redding and Ashland Oregon. We are staying in Redding right now with Joyce's parents and will speak at Westside Church at 9 AM on Sunday the 25th. In the afternoon we will drive up to Ashland, Oregon and speak in the 6 PM service at Ashland Bible Church. We will drive back to Redding late Sunday night and then head for Santa Cruz/Scotts Valley CA where we will spend most of next week for some meetings and family time. If you are near us in those areas we would love to see you.

Here are some pictures from our time in San Diego around July 1....

Jayleen took some pictures from the window of the van as we drove from Fresno to San Diego. This one was from I-5 just south of Los Angeles

We were very thankful for our friends in the Carlsbad area who hosted us for a couple days before the sports festival on the weekend. It was quite a bit cooler there than in Fresno.

 Of course one of the big blessings for us in San Diego is staying with Matt and Kristin and getting spend time with our grandson Milo

Yes Joyce took a lot of cute pictures while we were there

We had a lot of fun with him while we were there

VOM Ministry at Biola Congregational Church in Biola (near Fresno) CA

I am headed up to Redding tomorrow where I will be preaching at Westside Church there. I have a couple more weeks of driving all over the place before I can settle for a couple weeks and get a little rest. In the meantime here is another post about the just-completed VOM tour. Immediately after our performance in Millbrae on June 27, we drove 4 hours down to the Fresno area. This was the only performance we were actually late for because we got lost (we went to 5th Avenue in Fresno instead of in Biola). The people there were very patient and enjoyed the performance even though we started about an hour late. The audience was actually from three different churches; Kerman Covenant Church and The People's Church in addition to the Biola Church people. The People's Church is a Spanish-speaking church so our students had their first experience at being translated into Spanish. Some of the songs went from Chuukese to English to Spanish. Despite the late start we had a great time of ministry and fellowship. The church building was also a beautiful old building and Joyce enjoyed taking a few pictures of it.

Sorry this one is a little blurry. It is the only performance picture from the night. Here Kita's testimony is being translated into Spanish

I enjoyed fellowship with the young people from the Spanish-speaking church, found some potential students and enjoyed eating the El Salvadoran stuffed tortillas

Of course the students and the kids from the church had a great time together