Senior Preaching Chapel

We are in the final week of the semester in which we have PIU chapels. Next week is Finals week. Traditionally that means that the graduates lead the chapel services. Tuesday was Senior preaching chapel in which the graduates pick one of their number to be the chapel speaker. This year the speaker was Mondale Tim (right), one of our three Master of Arts in Religion graduates. Scott Refilong (left), a first year student, introduced Mondale and shared the deep impact Mondale has had on his life through his leadership in the dorm. Mondale then spoke on the centrality of Jesus to our lives. He emphasized that Jesus needed to be the king of every part of our lives. The message was short but powerful – we need more sermons that would be described exactly that way. Today will be the Senior Chapel in which the whole graduating class will share. Our Baccalaureate service will be at 6 PM on May 6th at Bayview Baptist Church and our graduation will be at 4 PM on the 7th as St Paul’s North gymnasium.

Friday Chapel

Friday was my last opportunity to speak at chapel this semester. This week’s (final week of the semester) chapels are traditionally the senior sermon and then the graduates’ chapel. I usually get to speak two or three times per semester in chapel. Last Friday I preached from Luke 17 and talked about the importance of living out kingdom values right now. Luke’s Gospel is full of warnings that we will not be ready for the fully realized final kingdom of God on earth unless we are now being part of Jesus’ request that “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Somehow, we seem to glide over Jesus’ hard commands to forgive whenever someone asks for it, give to those who have need and pray for our enemies as if they don’t apply today. We then carried the discussion into the library and we talked about the implications of that for the church on Guam. It ended up to be about a four hour discussion. That was enjoyable but challenging! The worship/music team turned up the volume a bit and that was enjoyable too.

Summer Ministry Chapel

Last Tuesday we held our annual PIU Summer Ministry Prayer Chapel. Our VP of Student Life,  Rob Watt introduced the three teams that the school will be sending out this summer, gave each time an opportunity to inform of what they would be doing, what their needs are and how we could be praying for them. We then broke up into groups after each team shared and prayed for their needs. We are excited about the three teams who are going out as PIU ministry teams this summer and ask that you pray for them and for the many other students who will be returning to their own churches and islands for ministry this summer.

 PIU is sending a team back to Yap for 6 weeks (May 22nd to the end of June) this summer to work with the Yap Evangelical Church, to lead their Vacation Bible School, help with the large youth outreach event and to be involved in daily discipleship and evangelism ministries in the villages. In addition the team will be representing PIU in Yap and recruiting new students. Their prayer requests are listed on the screen in the picture on the left. The staff leader for the team will be our assistant librarian and alumna Stella Fatag and Josh Ladd will be the student leader. (Also pictured on the left)

The second team will be joining the Liebenzell Mission International Impact Team from Germany to do ministry in Palau and Chuuk. Alvin, Rusty and Mike (pictured with Rob – left) will be “big brothers” to the young people coming from Germany helping them with cultural adjustment, teaching them about Micronesian culture and working with them in various ministries with the Palauan and Chuukese churches.

The third team will be working with the 1st Baptist Church of Susanville, CA. The leader of the team will be Kita Mokut and she will be mainly leading women’s and children’s ministries there, working in the summer camp and helping with Vacation Bible Schools in several churches in the area. The church there in Susanville has large Palauan and Chuukese congregations within it, and Kita will be working with the already extensive ministries among the Micronesians there and provide some much needed help to the leadership of those ministries. If all goes well she will be joined by Jesse Hartt and Jonie Jones after they finish their ministry in Yap.

Chapel at PIU

I have been a little slow posting about what is happening at PIU and in our lives this month, so I will be trying to get caught up. Today’s post is about last week’s chapels. We have chapel at 11 AM every Tuesday and Friday and the community is welcome to join. Often we have one of the faculty or staff share or we have a speaker from the community. Last week’s chapels had one of each. On Tuesday Pastor Roy Burk of Life in the Son shared. Roy is one of the most popular speakers with our students. Friday faculty member Larry Bock (Right) spoke. Everyone looks forward to Larry’s messages which usually come with spectacular slides depicting God’s glory in creation and applications from scripture and science. We will be very sorry to lose Larry and Sharon after this semester. They originally came out as “short-term” volunteers and have spent 4 years here on our staff. We continually are looking for retired Bible and Liberal Arts teachers who would like to invest some of their retirement years in our PIU students.

 

Mike Owen is the faculty leader of the worship team, but students do most of the actual planning and leading of the music worship time. Tuesday, above left, a group from the women’s dorm led worship. On Friday worship was led by Jaynee and Alvin (left) and December graduate Charles (right)

Again Serenity helped me with the picture taking and took a self-portrait

PIU Quarterly Newsletter

Dear Friend,

What were you like after high school? Were you shy? Outgoing? Ready to conquer the world? Or not? Are you the same way now...what made the difference? For Ceci Pedro, May 2012 graduate, Pacific Islands University (PIU) has made the difference.

I asked Ceci what kind of change PIU has made in her life over the past three years. She said immediately, “I’m more open to others.”  As a new student at PIU, Ceci was so shy that she didn’t want to speak in class at all, and with other people very rarely. Now she readily agrees to an interview as I try to share a part of her story so you can see the difference that PIU makes in the lives of its students.

So what happens at PIU to make such a drastic difference in a student’s life?  For Ceci, it wasn’t one single event. Living in the dorms with so many different people was one major factor. PIU’s diverse campus lends itself to a richness of culture that can be challenging but also eye-opening and fulfilling. Teacher requirements, such as speaking in class and oral projects made a big difference in Ceci’s transformation. And her favorite campus events, PIU Days and the Spiritual Emphasis retreats, were highlights of her experience here. These highly popular annual events focus on spiritual growth, teamwork and fun. As Ceci’s transformation occurred she was identified as a leader and was invited to participate in PIU’s Voices of Micronesia team that spent 9 weeks on the west coast of the mainland 2 years ago. Today, Ceci is a campus leader as a Resident Assistant in the women’s dorm and mentor to a specific cohort of girls. After graduation, Ceci would like to become an officer in the military.

Did you know that you play a part in the transformation of our students as well? With every dollar you donate, every prayer you offer, every time you say our name, you are offering your support to what Pacific Islands University does in the lives of its students and in the entire community of the Pacific. How many other invitations do you have that give you the opportunity to affect an entire region? Your partnership with PIU allows you to impact the lives of people in the entire region of Micronesia.

We are in the middle of our Spring Fundraising drive, January to June 15th.  Our goal is $100,000 and we have achieved one third of that already. Your contribution will help us reach our goal, but more importantly, it will be contribute to the total life transformation of students like Ceci. Donations can be made on line here.

Blessings,

Lisa Collins, Acting Director of Advancement, Director of Libraries

Pacific Islands University Graduation is Coming Soon!

It is hard to believe that we are already nearing the end of another school year. PIU graduation is coming up on May 7th and we would love to see you there.

Thank you for your prayers for all of our graduates.

Library Week at Pacific Islands University

  This past week we at PIU have been celebrating National Library Week. Starting on Monday with an “Obstacle Race,” each day of the week featured a special event designed to raise awareness on campus and in the community, about the resources available in the PIU library. PIU not only has the largest and most diverse theological library in the region, but we also have an extensive collection of family and children’s literature including a large selection of Sunday School and other Bible teaching curriculum available to churches and individuals in the community. Non-students can become “Friends of the Library” for a very small annual fee and receive the same library use privileges as our PIU students.

The Library week events this year were planned by our student library workers, and included, besides the obstacle race, a treasure hunt, puppet show, a read aloud hour, and two movie nights. There were several door prizes and it seemed like everyone had fun. Our Head Librarian, Lisa Collins, guaranteed that nobody would be “sshhhh’d.” The pictures here are of the puppet show which seemed to be a very contemporary version of the story of King David.

The door prize winners show off their winnings. Yes, with these big afros on campus I feel like it is 1973 all over again.

Stella (left) kept close supervision over the library activities to make sure that, despite the fun everyone was having, the library was still quite conducive for studying. The next big event in the library will be the “Turabian Nights” workshop where you can learn the anatomy of a citation, information for a bibliography, footnotes and how to do it in Open Office.  Bring in your books, resource list, and papers and get individual help.