It's Snowing!

I woke up this morning to the beginnings of a snow fall and the snow has continued to come down steadily all morning. We are under a severe weather snow advisory until 6:00 PM this evening. I enjoyed my five minutes out there in the snow and then came back inside where it is warm. I have decided not to do the shirtless snow picture this year. I am sure the entire world is breathing a sigh of relief there. :) I am praying that the weather does not effect my 5:30 AM Monday flight out of Newark. (I'll be back on my tropical island at 7:00 PM Tuesday.)


I had a good time last evening with Steve and Anne Stinnette after yesterday's meetings. (More on the meetings below) Steve will be seeing a doctor this week to see about a special contact lens that may enable him to deal with his eye problem without surgery. While he is receiving medical treatment he will be living at Schooley's Mountain where he and Anne will serve as missionaries in residence. They will be able to speak to the many retreat center guests about the global mission work of Liebenzell, especially Pacific Islands Bible College and hopefully transfer their passion for missions to many of the church groups (The LM-US retreat center hosts a lot of immigrant church groups from the surrounding area) that come up here on the mountain. We, of course, would like to see them back on Guam ASAP but we wait and pray for God's timing on that.

We were privileged yesterday to be part of the installation of Bill and Barb Schuitt as the new Global Director of Liebenzell Mission USA. They served with Joyce and I in Palau back in the 1980's as the principal of Bethania High School and they have served on several other fields as well. We are all very excited about what they bring to the mission and I am looking forward to ministering together with them. Bill will replace George Hege on the PIBC governing board at the upcoming meeting in March 2008.



Overall, I thought the meetings went very well. Here are some of the key decisions that came out of the meetings this weekend.

1. PIBC is a partnership between the various Liebenzell Mission boards and the school. The Liebenzell leadership sees the need to expand the PIBC Board and include new partners in the support and running of the school. LMI will work together with PIBC leadership to find organizations and individuals who can partner with us for the continued growth of the school.
   
2. The land ownership of the Guam campus will go to LM Germany and PIBC will have a long term lease with the mission.
   
3. PIBC will widen its focus to some kind of a liberal arts major that will prepare our students for careers in the islands, especially teaching, and to produce biblical thinkers who will be Christian servant leaders in the church and whatever career they pursue.
   
4. PIBC and LM-USA will cooperate more closely in fund raising and recruiting. I am looking forward to working with Bill and Steve on this.
   

We were also able to deal with a lot of smaller issues and discuss personnel. I believe a lot of gaps were bridged this weekend and we are much closer to a unified vision for PIBC and the work in Micronesia. This afternoon I plan to go out and do some shopping (I have a small list of stuff to bring back to Guam) with Steve and Anne and maybe stay indoors and watch a little NFL. Next post I should be back on Guam.