Advent Chapel at PIU

Joyce and I are on our Christmas vacation and the students are gone home for a few weeks. We will start school again on the 13th of January. We are visiting our parents now in Northern California and will visit our kids in San Diego after Christmas. I do have some pictures and stuff to post from a couple of our end-of-semester activities at PIU. One of my favorite end of semester activities is our customary Advent chapel. The whole campus joins to together to tell the story of the birth of Christ in story, song and activity. For me it is a great start to the Christmas season. Even though we do it every year, it never gets old.

It also provides opportunity for some Owen family Christmas pictures

And some PIU family Christmas pictures

The band played Christmas songs; some very traditional and some were loud and fast

I think everyone got into the spirit of the season

The Advent Candles were lit

The Christmas story was read.

And more family pictures were taken.

NT Survey Final Class

This semester I taught the PIES (Pacific Islands Evangelical Seminary) New Testament Survey class. PIES is the graduate school of PIU. Teaching Bible is, by far, my favorite part of my job here at PIU. This is the 4th time I have taught this class, it was a lot of fun, and I find that I always learn a lot from the class. We look at each book of the New Testament as a whole to try to get its main message and how it contributes to the overall theology of the New Testament. Each student has to write three small papers and one major paper. We also have a weekly discussion.

Monday night was our last class of the semester and, as is our tradition, we had the class around the dinner table. My plan was to move over to the television and go over my power point notes on Revelation, but the dinner table discussion was so interesting we never made it to my notes. Our PIES students always challenge me with their deep insights into scripture. I will be teaching OT Survey at the Palmridge Hotel on Monday nights next semester and am hoping to have more people from the community join us.

Christmas Lights on Guam

One thing we enjoy every holiday season is the light displays on Guam. We especially enjoy experiencing them with our grandchildren and with the PIU students. Joyce and I made several trips to Tumon to see the lights this year and here are a few pictures. Some look pretty much like last year, but there are a few new items. One has to admit that there is a certain “Guambiance” to the way we celebrate Christmas on the island.

We stopped at the Micronesian mall for dinner before we headed to Tumon. The girls wanted to pose with the panda even though we did not eat at the new Panda Express in the mall.

Serenity used the opportunity to call a meeting (“Santa” was the number one agenda item).

They seemed quite amazed at the decorations

They all give it their best smiles

Joyce took Angie and Sophie to visit Santa

A Guam Santa and snowman!

Guam Nativity Scene

Senior Chapel Fall 2013

Another PIU tradition, that I like very much, is the Senior Chapel. During the semester’s last week of chapels the graduating seniors lead one of the chapels. There have been a couple semesters where we had so many graduates that we had to allow two senior chapels to give them all a chance to share. This was not the case this time as 4 December graduates led the chapel last Tuesday. At the end of the chapel faculty and staff members lay hands on the graduates and lead in a prayer of dedication as they go out to serve God and their communities. You can see the 4 grads, Christine, Jonie, Sophie and Kevin, front and center in the picture on the left.

Kevin Graham coordinated the chapel time, led the music and gave a testimony about how God has redirected his plans at PIU. This included marriage (we are all praying that his wife will be able to come and live on Guam from the Philippines) and ministry.

Jonie and Sophie shared together and brought Esme up front for moral support. For some reason, again, marriage was an important focus of their presentation.

Ransom will not be graduating until May, but he shared anyway and entertained everyone.

Celebrating Mike’s Birthday

This week we celebrated Mike’s 31st birthday at the PIU staff meeting, with cake and party hats, and then we had a family celebration the next night at the Lone Star Restaurant (Mike’s choice). I do think the party hats made the staff meeting go much better. Perhaps we should make party hats mandatory for all staff meetings?

Everyone cheered as Mike managed to blow out all his candles

Doesn’t this look like a celebratory group?

Everyone enjoyed the steaks, ribs and ice cream at Lone Star

PIU Thanksgiving Celebration

I am a little behind on posting pictures lately. So here are some pictures of our PIU Thanksgiving celebration – a week late. Students, staff, faculty, alumni and parents gathered together thank God for what he has done in our lives and enjoy a celebration. We are so blessed to worship a God who celebrates with us and provides so much for us. As always there was plenty of food, fun games and good conversation. And besides, how often do you get to see Joyce dress up as Pocahontas?

The kids were dressed up and, so were the cupcakes

More cute kids – but it is hard to get this group to pose for a picture

The food and dessert tables were well-stocked

Sam and Cel prepare the food as Joyce and I pose with the, very snappily dressed, Scott Refilong

Fill the plates and enjoy the meal!

More eating pictures. At this point it was close to nap time