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

VOM Ministry at Central Peninsula Church, Millbrae CA, June 27th

On Sunday the 27th of June the VOM presented our program at CPC Millbrae. We did a 10 minute program in the worship service and then a full 75 minute program at the lunch fellowship afterward. It was a very hot day and the team did a great job despite baking in the hot sun during the outdoor performance. The church photographer took some great pictures of the performance which I am using for this blog post. I thought I would only use a couple of them, but they are so good that I am using almost all of them. The pictures really give you a good idea of what a VOM performance looks like. (You can get our CD and hear what a performance sounds like too). After the performance we grabbed several cold drinks out of the vending machine and headed for an evening performance in Fresno.

We danced and sang in praise to God in our unique island style in the worship service

Jake, Jayleen, Joyce and Justin (The 4 J's?) prepare for the outdoor performance.

A "rare" smile from Erten

Meluat grabs a full plate before the lunch performance,                                                                                   Grace gets ready to sing

 Charles and Grace are ready to sing

Jayleen begins the performance by blowing on the shell trumpet

Jake finds a way to beat the sun as he plays the keyboard

 Leeman leads us in the Palauan chant which uses the Beatitudes to explain what kind of man God can use

The ladies invite friends to hear the songs and "hear the truth from the Bible"

Meluat introduces himself to some of the audience

Grace explains to the audience where she is from

Kita introduces herself with a smile (and she doesn't need a mic)

Eric explains who we are and where Micronesia is, while the girls enjoy a little break in shade as he speaks

The audience enjoyed the performance. Shade was at a premium.

Leeman led the group in a Palauan hymn

Hands are raised in praise for God's love

One comment that we heard after almost every concert, "You can see so much joy in their faces when they sing"

Kita had one admirer that really wanted to get close as she gave her testimony

The "crucifixion" skit showed how Jesus took our sins on Himself, paid for them and triumphed over them in His resurrection 

The skit always had a powerful effect on the audience

People would often rise to their feet cheering as Charles stood, portraying Jesus' resurrection

I had the job of explaining the vision of the school and making known how people could partner with us in the ministry

The stick dance was almost always one of the highlights of the performance

In the stick dance the words were changed to show that we no longer trust in other gods to help us fight other people but now glorify Jesus Christ and trust him to fight the spiritual battle 

The ladies hula/worship dance illustrated the God is the potter and we are the clay

"Oh God, My God" reminds us of our dependence on God

At the end of the performance we had to jump pretty quick into the vans to make the 4 hour drive to Fresno

Dinner With Some Friends

After the Sky High adventure we went over to the Chung's house for an island style dinner. We met Tina and Howard when we did a performance for the Vacation Bible School at their church over in Danville. They are both from Guam and were very excited to meet a group from Guam in the Bay Area. They took a great interest on our school and in the VOM team. We are looking forward to getting together with them again in December when they come to Guam to visit family for Christmas. The students very much appreciated the opportunity to eat island food again. We are so grateful for Howard and Tina and so many people like them who were so generous to us on this tour.

Even though we were eating island food it was a lot colder in the East Bay than on Guam. Here Erten and Keiny try to stay warm.

Charles enjoyed the island food

As did Meluat, Maymay and Leeman

MMMMMMMMMMM!