Palauan Evangelical Church Guam 50th Anniversary

I want to make a few posts about some other things we have done lately. I am continuing to update JR’s condition on my Facebook page and will do another update post here soon. A couple weeks ago we had the opportunity to attend the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Palauan Evangelical Church of Guam. This was the first church Joyce and I attended in Micronesia when we went through Guam to head to Palau for our first missionary term in 1984. I have had the privilege of preaching there several times. The current pastor of the church is Andrew Immanuel, who was one of my students at Emmaus High School 28 years ago and has now been a ministry colleague for several years here. It was an enjoyable celebration at which we got to see several old friends and, of course, eat a lot of good Palauan food and listen to some great singing. The Koror Church choir (pictured left) flew up from Palau for the event. The Chuukese church also showed up to celebrate with a couple songs.

I attended the celebration with Joyce, Michael and Titus. Titus complained that he wouldn’t have anything to do there but it looks like he found several friends to play with.

Here is Joyce with long-time Liebenzell USA missionary in Palau Juanita Simpson. We were surprised because we did not know that Juanita would be there. The church flew her out from Hawaii to be part of the celebration. I also saw Ethel and Stella there.  We first met Ethel down in Palau several years ago when she worked at Emmaus. She then moved up to Guam and ministered many years with us at PIU. Stella is a PIU alum who works with us at PIU as our library tech.

Titus (He also took this self-portrait to the right) took this picture of me with John Aitaro. John graduated from PIU a couple years ago and has been working with Andy at the PEC Guam as an assistant pastor. It is always a lot of fun to see John because I know I am going to get into heavy discussions about theology and sports with him.

It was also good to see PIU grads Elilai and Sony Kenbaroy. And, no this is not their baby! It was wonderful to have some time to reflect on what God has done in the past and what what He is been doing now through the PEC here on Guam.