Day #1 of the PIU Board Meeting

The first day of the annual PIU Board of Trustees Meeting, taking place at the Christian Serviceman’s Center at Bayview Baptist Church, went very well yesterday. The morning began with an excellent breakfast (Fried rice and spam provided by Shirley’s Restaurant) and devotional from board member Harald Gorges and was filled with internal board business. The highlight of the morning session was the installation of two new board members Siska Hutapea and John Robertson. We now have a 10 person board. The morning session finished as some of the advisory board members joined us for some fellowship and discussion of the PIU long range plan.

After a nice lunch provided by Subway, the Voices of Micronesia 2012 gave a short performance. The students did a great job. Mike and Samantha have been directing the VOM team on an interim basis but we are still praying and looking for a director for the team who can also teach music as part of our faculty. After the performance, Hartmut came and took the official pictures of the event.

The Board (L-R): Advisory Board Members Cita Tomada, Jeff Jones, Board of Trustees Members David Mayer, Billy Kuartei, Bill Schuit, Vincent Parren, Siska Hutapea, Howard Merrell, Harald Gorges, me. Not pictured Mary Johnson (she is Skyping in to the meeting), John Robertson, Martin Auch.

The afternoon session mainly consisted of the president’s report and a discussion of the PIU organizational chart. I shared with the board the challenges we face as we try to keep excellent Christian higher education accessible to the people of the Pacific islands without losing our focus on discipling and providing character development to our students. It was an encouraging time for me. Today’s session 2 will consist of reports from all the departments of PIU. Please be in prayer for our administrators as they report and the board as they continue to make decisions that they will be directed by God’s Spirit. Our publication table here shows how many policies, procedures and plans they need to go through!  Thank you for praying for our board and the meetings this week.