Last week Steve Stinnette, the PIU VP of Advancement, and I headed down to Yap to talk with church and government leaders, alumni and potential students. Steve and board member, David Mayer had been to Yap last summer and there seemed to be a lot of interest in PIU re-opening the Yap Teaching Facility there. We have been working on renovating a new Yap TF building for the last two years. The old building was flooded during Typhoon Sudal in 2004 and we determined that since it was at sea level right on the lagoon we needed to move the TF building up the hill. The building was finished last year by the group from Gateway Bible Church in Santa Cruz and my nephew, Ben Boudreault. As you can see it is still empty. We will need to get class and computer room furniture and library shelving. So Steve and I headed down to begin the process of getting things ready for opening the teaching facility next January.
Steve had already received an enthusiastic w
elcome from government, business and church leaders last summer and we wanted to follow up on that. In the Yap education office we were able to meet with the Director of Education who gave us a list of 54 names of interested students. We were also encouraged to hear that the Yap State Scholarship would be again available to PIU students from Yap. At the Yap legislature we met with the speaker of the Yap legislature, Senator Chieng who stressed the importance to us of Christian character building in education and provided support and encouragement to us.
Of course, the support of the Yap Evangelical Church has been tremendous in this operation. The church is donating the use of the building and area to us for the teaching facility. I appreciated the gracious cooperative spirit of the church leaders as we met with them to discuss the operation of the facility. We are planning to serve the church with seminar training in addition to our regular accredited PIU programs.
We also had the opportunity to see several of our Yap alumni. I am pictured here with Mac
Alfonso. Mac is now teaching full time at a public elementary school in Yap. The Yap education department has hired several of our graduates to teach in their school system and I was very proud to see how well our grads are doing there and how they are serving in the community and church.
We also went to Palau on this trip, but, for some reason, I forgot to take any pictures there. We did have a productive time there meeting with church leaders, alumni and our teaching facility students. I had the opportunity to preach Sunday in Airai. While there I was very pleased to hear the parent of two of our alumni say "Thank you so much for what you did for my children. They have good jobs and they are serving in the church." That is what it is all about!
I led a couple games while the kids' sampled cake number 1.
Joyce took care of Serenity 
Courage, Eli and Titus enjoy the desserts. 
Mom and birthday boy... and Titus shows his gratitude for all his gifts. 
I am just back on Guam after spending a few days on Yap. I had just been there a couple weeks ago and needed to follow up on a few things from the previous trip. We have had tremendous response from the news that we will re-open our teaching facility in Yap in January. I had some more good meetings with government, business and church leaders in Yap. I also got to preach at the English evening church service on Sunday.
Last week Steve Stinnette, the PIU VP of Advancement, and I headed down to Yap to talk with church and government leaders, alumni and potential students. Steve and board member, David Mayer had been to Yap last summer and there seemed to be a lot of interest in PIU re-opening the Yap Teaching Facility there. We have been working on renovating a new Yap TF building for the last two years. The old building was flooded during Typhoon Sudal in 2004 and we determined that since it was at sea level right on the lagoon we needed to move the TF building up the hill. The building was finished last year by the group from Gateway Bible Church in Santa Cruz and my nephew, Ben Boudreault. As you can see it is still empty. We will need to get class and computer room furniture and library shelving. So Steve and I headed down to begin the process of getting things ready for opening the teaching facility next January.
elcome from government, business and church leaders last summer and we wanted to follow up on that. In the Yap education office we were able to meet with the Director of Education who gave us a list of 54 names of interested students. We were also encouraged to hear that the Yap State Scholarship would be again available to PIU students from Yap. At the Yap legislature we met with the speaker of the Yap legislature, Senator Chieng who stressed the importance to us of Christian character building in education and provided support and encouragement to us.
Of course, the support of the Yap Evangelical Church has been tremendous in this operation. The church is donating the use of the building and area to us for the teaching facility. I appreciated the gracious cooperative spirit of the church leaders as we met with them to discuss the operation of the facility. We are planning to serve the church with seminar training in addition to our regular accredited PIU programs.
Alfonso. Mac is now teaching full time at a public elementary school in Yap. The Yap education department has hired several of our graduates to teach in their school system and I was very proud to see how well our grads are doing there and how they are serving in the community and church.
Jeremiah and Mike carried most of the scoring load while Josh led the team in rebounds.
We moved into October at PIU with 24 hours of prayer beginning with Friday's chapel at 11 AM and ending with a breakfast brunch from 10-11 on Saturday. Students, staff and faculty were invited to fast and pray for the day and come together for three large worship gatherings and for small prayer groups. The main focus of the October 1, 11 AM chapel was to focus on God's character and mighty acts of the past and come together to worship. That evening we joined together again to pray for God's direction for the school and to ask Him to provide the resources the school needs. 
Worship was focused on the prayers of scripture. Then the Saturday morning time was a focused prayer time to join together pray for the board, administration, staff, faculty and students. I enjoyed having the time to sit with students and staff just to pray for each other. It really is a blessing to be at PIU.
The program began in chapel with the staff leading worship.
We began the evening with prayer in a circle
led us in worship music as faculty, staff and students prayed together.
Lisa and Stephanie join together with the rest of the students and staff to pray for direction for PIU. 
Saturday morning prayer we formed two circles 
and prayed for all the students, staff and board of PIU
Samantha 
did a great job coordinating the prayer time.
oyce had to take a picture of Lucy with her Spiderman Chuukese skirt. I thought I should get in the picture too.
The Voices of Micronesia 2010 made their final performance at the Pacific Islands University Chapel on Friday September 17th. The VOM presented most of the same program they did on the US Mainland this summer and several then shared what God had done in their lives during the summer ministry trip. It was a great way to cap off the VOM experience for all of the team members and a few of us got a little emotional as we reminisced about the trip. It was a life-changing experience in many ways for the students who went on the trip and we had the opprtunity to see God work through us in many, unexpected as many students shared, ways. Don't worry that VOM is done though. We are already beginning the process of picking the VOM 2011 team and they hopefully will be performing near you some time soon. 
The guys enjoyed the worship dance. 
