Made it Through One Storm

Tropical depression 18W came through Guam with a lot of publicity but didn't do much, except drop a lot of rain. You can get a bit of an idea of how much rain there was from the picture of our parking area next to the classroom which, during a heavy rain is called Lake Liebenzell. (Thank you Plaxton's for the picture). We had classes in the morning but canceled afternoon and evening classes. The storm unexpectedly broke up in the afternoon and the students enjoyed some extra free time. I used the extra time to work on the budget - how exciting.


People here know the importance of being prepared for bad weather. This morning was the first time in a long time I have had to line up for the gas pump. But, if a bad storm hits you never know how long it will be before the gas stations will be able to pump gas. Another big issue is drinking water. We heard that many of the bottled water establishments ran out of water pretty early in the day. Our water place, Wellness Water and Ice next to the Payless Grocery Store in Yigo, didn't run out of water. But they did great business today. Joyce went in there this afternoon and took pictures of the water bottles lined up for filling. We like going there for our drinking water because they are nice, friendly people and they load the water bottles into your car for you.

Tropical Storm is Here

We are under tropical storm condition 1 here on Guam today. What I am hearing is that we will have 35-45 mile an hour winds and heavy rains. The main force of this storm will hit us in about 7-8 hours at 4 PM this afternoon. Our morning classes today are still meeting, but we have canceled our afternoon and evening classes. I will have to make up another session of my New Testament Survey class which was supposed to meet tonight. The storm coming through today will probably not do much more than get us really wet, but we are more concerned about Tropical Depression Melor. Melor is predicted to become a typhoon and is on track to hit Saipan on Saturday or Sunday. Of course a typhoon's path can not be predicted precisely so we are preparing the campus in case it takes a more Southern path. For updates on our weather situation check out our local newspaper, the Pacific Daily News or the Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. The storm track pictures are from the JTWC web site.

Tropical Storm Headed Our Way

The Guam Pacific Daily News this morning is warning Guam residents to take precautions and be prepared for "damaging winds" later today or tomorrow. The storm, tropical depression 18W, appears to be moving further South which would lessen its danger to us, but it is best to be prepared. This should give us a good chance to test our emergency readiness on the PIU campus (yikes!). As always, we appreciate your prayers.

PIU-LCG Challenge

The PIU-LCG Sports Challenge and Fellowship Day has become an annual (and much anticipated) Fall ritual. The 2009 version happened last weekend on the PIU campus and, despite some rain delays and event cancellations, a good time was had by all. The PIU team again was victorious but it was a very close competition that came down to the final pull of the tug-of-war rope. The LCG team took the win in basketball but PIU pulled out victory in volleyball and the tug-of-war. Everyone enjoyed the great barbecue, which was supplied by the Lutheran Church of Guam, and the devotional and worship time led by LCG pastor Jeff Johnson (husband of PIU board member, Mary Johnson.

The faithful officiating team for the basketball game. 

 

The cooks kept the barbecue going long into the night. 

We all enjoyed the devotional time

Yap Trip

I got to make another short trip to Yap last weekend. I always enjoy my trips there. Yap is a relaxing and beautiful place. The main purpose of the trip was to prepare for the completion of the PIU Yap Teaching Facility. We had a team from Gateway Bible Church in Santa Cruz California come out last year to work with the Yap Evangelical Church to renovate our classroom building and they plan to come out again in 2010 to help finish the building. Our original building was flooded during Typhoon Sudal in 2004 so we are working on a new building a little further up the hill overlooking the lagoon. I had a good chance to sit with the Yap Church leadership and plan for the work and also for how we will run the Teaching facility when it is done. We are hoping to have a grand re-opening of the facility in August of 2010 to be ready for classes in the Fall 2010 semester.

We also had the opportunity to talk to several people about PIU's growing program with the already added seminary and certificate in Basic English programs and the planned liberal arts and education programs. There is a lot of support for this in Yap and several leaders and businessmen there indicated their willingness to help financially and with publicizing the school and recruiting students for us. I was very encouraged by the response. Thank you to everyone who prayed for the trip.

Hope For a Road to Our House

10 years ago when we built and moved into our present house we were told that soon a road would be built to it. Part of a dirt road was scraped out then that goes about halfway from the paved road to our house. (left) Since then, 5 more new houses have been built in our neighborhood and we still pretty much drive overland to get to our homes. As you can see from the pictures it is a pretty rough ride on the cars. But finally there is hope. Last week, 2 piles of coral were dumped next to the road and then 2 more piles were brought in this week. Nothing has been done with them yet, although one of our neighbors went out and used about 1/2 of one of the piles to fill some of the worst holes. We are hoping that the piles of coral are indicators that some road work will soon be done. On the positive side... our road condition makes our neighborhood pretty quiet.

Theology Around the Table

One of the new traditions I am trying to establish in my seminary classes is having one class session per semester at my house around the dinner table. This seems to be a well-received and popular tradition among the students. In fact, we had some students from my previous classes that asked if they could come to the discussion class at my house! Last Wednesday we continued the tradition as the New Testament Survey class met for dinner at our house. So, with giant slabs of take-and-bake pizza and buckets of chicken in front of us we discussed how the Gospel writers developed what would become the high Christology of the New Testament through the story of how Jesus interacted with those around him, including the Father and Spirit, the disciples, and the crowds. The discussion was wide-ranging and enthusiastic with everyone contributing. It seems that everyone is more comfortable to share their thoughts in this type of environment. Right now, with small classes, it is easy for us to do this kind of teaching. Maybe as the seminary grows I will just need to get a bigger table.