Christmas Vacation on Guam with the Owen's

 I have not been posting lately because we have been quite busy enjoying the visit from our son Matt, his wife Kristin and our grandson, Milo this past two weeks. Along with Mike and his family we have been enjoying having them here for the holidays. We put  Matt, Kristin and Milo on the plane this morning for the flight back to California, so I thought today would be a good day to post a few pictures and get you caught up on what we have been doing the last couple weeks. I plan to make 5 or 6 posts today to cover our Christmas vacation activities...

One of the first things Matt wanted to do when he arrived on the 19th was head out to Ritidian Beach on the North side of the island. Ritidian is a federal park and nature preserve, and is one of the more beautiful spots on Guam. December is one of the best times of the year (well. the whole year is good for going to the beach!) to enjoy Guam's beautiful beaches. I think Matt and family went to Ritidian at least three times on this trip. As you can see, all three of them enjoyed it.

Everyone gives me a hard time about living on a beautiful tropical island but rarely going to the beach. I do get out to the beach occasionally. In this picture I am doing my favorite thing to do at the beach: read a novel.

One day we got both Matt's and Mike's families out to Ritidian together. Here is a picture of Mike and Sam with Serenity. Titus and Courage were in the water most of the time.

Christmas Chapel at PIU

I just got home from my final class of the semester. This evening my Survey of the Gospels class discussed their papers on themes in the Gospels and then we discussed "what would Jesus really do." It was fun and I appreciated the insights they had. Now we fully move into Christmas vacation. But we really started getting into the Christmas spirit with last Friday's final chapel of the semester, our annual Christmas chapel. This year Michael and Samantha were in charge of the chapel and they worked with several of the students to give us a very worshipful advent celebration. Here are some of the sights from the chapel and a few family pictures taken afterward.

Michael and Scott provided the guitar accompaniment while Samantha, Jayleen, Davie and Ben led the singing, meditations and lit the Advent candles.

Serenity slept through most of the chapel, but she enjoyed it when she woke up. It was really funny to see her head turn trying to find her mom or dad when they were talking up front.

Jayleen lit the joy candle and led a devotional about the meaning of joy.

Samantha and Courage took a picture with the Advent wreath. Doesn't Courage look like a little angel in her Snow White dress?

Mike and his bride took a nice picture with the Advent wreath as did cousin Ben.

Titus and I had a nice conversation about the Christmas wreath and chapel

Grace gave the kids a bumpy, but fun, ride in the water cart from after chapel

Then Titus admired the PIU trophy in the office with Jake and grandma

The Owen's Get a Christmas Tree

One of the most exciting things for us this Christmas is having most of our kids and grandkids here for all the Christmas season. Now that Mike, Sam and family live here, we have been able to enjoy all the fun events of the Christmas season with them. Matt, Kristin and Milo will arrive this Sunday night and Missy and Cliff will get here in January, but we have been enjoying, since Thanksgiving, the Christmas shopping, Santa visiting, Mall light shows etc with Titus and Courage. One of the big events for us is going to get the Christmas tree. Of course there is no place to cut a Christmas tree on Guam, unless you want to decorate a coconut palm, which we do in our front yard. However, to get your traditional Douglas Fir, we went down to the local grocery store, Cost-U-Less, and bought a 6 footer out of the parking lot. Everyone then came back to our house and decorated the tree while drinking egg nog. Almost everyone had a good time.

Serenity was very excited to be going in the car to get the tree

Titus wanted to sit up on top of the car with the tree while Courage could not understand why we were putting a tree on top of the car.




Mike, Marci, Titus and I get the Christmas tree into the stand. It took a lot of work to get it to finally stand up straight. Then I had an allergic reaction to something on the tree. It pretty much put me out of commission for about a week. Has anyone else had a reaction like that to a store-bought real Christmas tree?

After putting up the tree we enjoy a well-deserved snack.

Even Serenity was tired out from the evening's festivities

Christmas Concert on the Beach

Last Sunday was the annual Christmas concert at Ypao Beach. Joyce and our house guest, Marci, headed down to the beach for the concert. I had planned to go, but was not feeling well, so they went without me. The concert included the Guam Symphony and the University of Guam chorus and, of course, a visit from Santa Claus. I thought you might enjoy a few pictures of the event...

Joyce enjoyed the concert and got a little sun.

Santa showed up with his sleigh drawn by his carabao

Santa's Carabao got a little unruly

But the carabao finally got Santa where he needed to be

Kids' Day at Pacific Islands University

Last Saturday was our annual Kids' Day at PIU. Each year the "Principles of Teaching" class, taught by Dr. Cristel Wood, hosts the children of our Guam community for a day of fun and learning. This functions as part of the "final exam project" for the class. Judging from this year's attendance it is growing in popularity. This year the theme of the day was "Daniel in the Lion's Den." The games, music and story and time encouraged the children to "have courage" because "God is with you no matter what troubles you find yourself in." This year was of special interest for me since two of the Kids were my grandkids Titus and Courage. Here are a few pictures of the days' activities.

Pete makes an important point from the story of Daniel. 

The guys wait for their opportunity to do the "Daniel Rap"

The youngest kids get a visit from King Darius

Kita helps Courage and Titus sing the theme song and say their memory verse. 

The whole PIU student body was working hard on the program!

Everybody sang together at the end of the program

The New Voices of Micronesia 2011 are Ready to Go

The Pacific Islands University ministry team, the Voices of Micronesia, has been re-formed for the 2010-11 school year and is available to perform on Guam from now until May of 2011. They have already performed a couple times to enthusiastic audiences. The team will be performing on the US Mainland again in May and June 2011. The team is also making plans for a performance in Mexico on this tour. If you would like more information about the VOM team or would like to schedule them for a performance at your church, school or civic group please call the school at 671-734-1812.

While you may recognize several of the team members from last year's VOM team several new members have been added. 

Another Great Post on Our Preaching Conference

PIU student Meluat Meluat has also posted about our preaching conference here with dozens of great pictures which I think you will enjoy. The pictures are a good representation of the diversity that you will see on the island of Guam and there are some good shots of the Voices of Micronesia performance. Meluat is a talented photographer and we enjoy the fruit of his ministry here at PIU. I think you will too.