Hello, Goodbye

These are two words that missionaries have to say quite often. Summer seems to be the time of transition with this summer being no exception. So...

We said "Hello" to Dr. Gary Barnes from Dallas Theological Seminary. Gary is a faculty member in the Biblical Counseling Dept. at DTS. He was out here to do a week-long marriage seminar for military families. John Tomada (PIBC alum now attending DTS) gave me the "heads up" that he was coming out and Gary joined us for Sunday worship at Bayview Baptist (pastored by Mike and Judy Albin, also DTS alumni and pictured with us) and lunch at a Thai restaurant afterwards. We enjoyed getting caught up with what is happening at DTS along with other good conversation. I hope to meet up with Gary again this Fall when I stop in at DTS for faculty recruiting.

We said goodbye to Hiob, Leah, Micah and Jirah Ngirachemoi. Hiob has been our Dean of Men at PIBC for the last 3 years. We enjoyed a going away party for him at our house and then another one at the Palauan Evangelical Church of Guam. As you can see from the picture Joyce made sure Micah is properly armed for the trip back to Palau. We will miss Hiob's pastoral care for the students here at PIBC but we are excited to be able to continue working with him as Pastor of the Koror, Palau Church. I will also miss our discussions which ranged from missions strategy to theology to basketball and baseball. We had a good time watching the NBA playoffs together.

We said hello to Rob Watt as he comes to PIBC-Guam to be the new VP of Student Life and Dean of Men. Rob is not new to PIBC. He has been out TF Palau coordinator for the last 4 years. I guess we are kind of making kind of a trade as Hiob and Rob switch places. Rob has been up for a month teaching a summer class here. We have had several opportunities to discuss "stuffs" and I am looking forward to working more closely with Rob this school year. Hopefully we may even get out together to the golf course once in a while. I plan to watch a little football with him, and I'll even let him wear his Steeler helmet inside my house.

Hellos and goodbyes seem to be part of this job. Sometimes it is really hard to see people go, but hey, we have friends all over the world!