The Owen’s End of Year Prayer Letter 2007-8

This is the end of the year prayer letter that we send out by email and snail mail. We have posted a lot of this information before but we thought it was a good summary anyway...

Greetings from Guam,

End of year prayer letter!? Either the Owen’s are six months early or 6 months late! No, you have to think like a teacher. Our year begins on July 1^st as we finish wrapping up one school year and prepare for another. We are praising God for what He did here during the past school year and are looking forward to another good year as we prepare for the new group of students to get here in a few weeks.

We feel truly blessed to have so many prayer and financial partners who have been part of our ministry for these last 24 years. If God gives us strength and Jesus delays his return we hope for at least 24 more years of building servant leaders in the Pacific Islands. Working with college students keeps us young, I think, but as we get older it is great to be working as colleagues with so many of our former students who are pastoring, teaching, administrating and serving the kingdom of God in many other roles.

What We are Doing

Joyce continued in 2007-8 as a PIBC student and a kindergarten teacher at the Little Lambs pre-school. She figures to have about three more semesters before she completes her BA in Bible with a minor in teaching English as a second language. She also had enjoyed helping get the Little Lambs pre-school and the ministry she has had in the lives of the kids and their families. However, for this school year she has moved over to the local Japanese school to teach English to 1^st through 9^th graders. The move enables her to give more time to her PIBC studies and is a great opportunity to share her fellowship with Christ with people who do not yet know him. Although she occasionally scares me, her health has been good.

I (Dave) have just finished my 5^th year as the President of PIBC. We have seen God working to grow the school in many ways during this time. This past year we have been approved to begin a Master of Arts in Religion program and so we will begin our first graduate program at PIBC this Fall. We have also been working on a distance education program. I taught three DE classes this past year with students, from all the islands we serve, interacting with each other on the internet. We are also working on the possible opening of a branch campus in Hawaii. Hawaii has more Micronesians than any other place in the world except Chuuk. We are seeking God’s leading on this as we begin teaching some extension classes there this semester. Though I have to spend a lot of time in the office I do enjoy my class time, getting into local churches to preach and share about PIBC and meeting people in the US as I travel to recruit teachers and raise support for the school’s program. I still try to get a little time on the basketball court with the students too.

Family News

Our big family news this year was the birth of our new grand-daughter Courage Eudaimonia Owen to Michael and Samantha on April 26^th. She is a beautiful little girl and we had a chance to see her in California while we were on vacation in May. Michael and Samantha are at Talbot Theological Seminary preparing to come back to teach at PIBC. Our #1 grandson, Titus is also there. He will be two in September.

Matt graduated from his Masters degree program in Information science this past May. We enjoyed a family graduation celebration with him and his wife Kristin. Matt is on the faculty at San Diego Christian College as a librarian.

Missy is living in Dallas Texas and continues to run her own nanny and child care business.

Challenges and Prayer Requests for the 2008-9 School Year

1. Accreditation: PIBC is up for reaffirmation of our accreditation this year. We will need to complete our self-study by January and have our TRACS visit in April. Please pray that it goes well and that we receive our 10 year reaffirmation in November of 2009.

2. Master’s Program: We will be starting our Master program in August. I will be teaching Bible Study Methods. We hope to start small with about 10 students. We want the program to be highly relational, academically excellent and very practical.

3. Joyce will also be teaching in the ESL program at PIBC this semester. This will be a new experience for her to teach adults instead of kindergartners.

4. Please also pray that we will be an encouragement and help to the faculty-staff and students of PIBC. School administration is a job that is never done and we do not want to lose sight, while piled under the “in-box,” of the people we minister to.

5. Pray that we will live out the image of Christ in the power of the Spirit.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. We would love to have you come out some time to visit us. We have a lot of things that a short-term team, family or individual could help us with. We pray for our supporters daily and would love to hear from you so that we could pray more specifically for you.