Monday, September 18, 2006

Week 4 at Pacific Islands Bible College

It is hard to believe that we are already at Week 4 of the Fall Semester! Here is what is coming up this week. I think it is a pretty typical week and will give you a good idea of what we normally do here. Well. if there is such a thing as a normal week.

Sunday

Joyce and I have been enjoying visiting churches on the last few Sunday mornings. We have changed the format of Guam Evangelical Church to a student-led afternoon service targeting outreach to University of Guam students. This has freed us to attend different island churches and represent PIBC on Sunday mornings. We have been very encouraged the last two weeks to see God working through evangelical pastors at the Guam Methodist Church and Guam Lutheran Church. We also attended the dedication service of the new Bayview Baptist Church. They had been meeting in a hotel for over three years after their building was destroyed by Typhoon Pongsonwa in 2002. We also enjoyed the PIBC prayer and praise meeting on Sunday night at the campus.

Monday

Joyce is not talking to me much today because she has a test in her Theological Foundations class tonight. She has had her nose in a book since she got home from the pre-school today. Her hours at "Little Lambs" have stabilized, at least for now, at Monday to Friday 9:30-1:30. While she is at class I will work on responding to the students' posts to the Distance Education Cults Class web site (and on this posting).

Tuesday

Joyce has class (Linguistics) for 8:00-9:15 and then she heads to pre-school. She has the same schedule on Thursday. While Monday is my day that I try to devote to only "teacher" stuff, Tuesday is the day I try to devote totally to "president" stuff. Tuesday we will be meeting with our group of pastors and wives to say goodbye to Graham and Joan Rogers who are heading to Pennsylvania. The Rogers have been missionaries (and good friends) on Guam for over 20 years and we will really miss them.

Wednesday

This week we are running a series in the Guam Campus chapel on "The Four Deadly Sins at PIBC." We have chapel Tuesday -Friday at 11:00 AM. This week we will cover one of the four deadly sins - dishonesty, laziness, gossip and selfishness - at each chapel. I will be speaking on laziness from Proverbs 24:30-34. Please pray with us that God will use His Word this week to help the students be more spiritually disciplined. We also have our Guam staff meeting every other Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday

Thursday is my long day. It begins in the office at 8:00 AM and ends at about 9:30 PM with the 6:30-9:00 PM Prophetic Literature 1. This Thursday we will be studying the prophet Amos. Please pray that the students will apply the stress that will be placed on Amos' theme that God's people are responsible to show their righteousness by helping the needy and promoting justice in our communities to be ready for the coming Day of the Lord.

Friday

Friday completes another school week. My Cults class meets for an hour at 1 PM to discuss the Jehovah's Witnesses this week. We are having a hard time getting some students comfortable with the internet portion of the class. This is the first class we have offered at PIBC with an internet component. While many of our Micronesian students are quite familiar with using a computer and the internet it is a new experience for some. I am also planning on playing basketball Friday evening with my intramural team.

Saturday

Joyce generally spends Saturday morning in the yard and in her garden. It is also dog-washing day. (See the picture of our new puppy). This week she has some tables (I think we got them for free) she is refinishing for our home office. Right now we use a door laid on top of two file cabinets for our desk. The tables will definitely be an upgrade. I usually spend Saturday morning correcting class work and prepping the coming week's classes. Saturday afternoon will be the second PIBC basketball game in the Island Church League. We lost our opener last week, but it was a competitive game and we all had a great time.

What an exciting life huh? We feel very privileged that God has entrusted us with such a great staff and faculty and a good group of students. No time invested in growing God's people is ever wasted.

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