From Kita’s PIU Ministry in Susanville California

Below is a recent post from PIU student Kita Mokut who is ministering this summer at the 1st Baptist Church of Susanville California. The church there in Susanville has large Palauan and Chuukese congregations within it, and Kita is working with the already extensive ministries among the Micronesians there to provide some much needed help to the leadership of those ministries.For more about her and other summer ministries see here.

“Something crazy but amazing just happened here in my white-Parents' home :D A girl whom I do not know very much showed up for Bible Study last Monday was moved & touched by a praise I shared...Today, she wrote to me saying she wanted to see me...(she had questions for me)... I called her up and she came over today at 4 something... well at 4:30 May 30, 2012, She accepted Jesus into her life! Believe it or not, she is a daughter of the KING!!!! She broke down, & prayed on her own, accepting the LORD into her life! She will be returning to AZ tomorrow afternoon, please keep her in your prayers. She prays and hope to find a home Church & Christian friends in AZ... God thank u for YOUR WORD and for preparing me for this great opportunity today. Protect Kimberly Ruda and lead her in the life you now want her to live for you. TO JESUS FOR JESUS!”

PIU Yap Ministry Team Day - 9

Guest post by PIU Yap Team Student Leader Josh Ladd

Today was a interesting day for our team, but a very good one. Last night as our team was meeting together in the church here, there were several strange noises and loud banging sounds coming from on top of the YEC church. There were also sounds of coughing coming from the back of the church, but nobody was there. As a couple of us stayed back to pray later on the sounds got more intense and it sounded like people were walking around the church quickly outside, but once again there was nobody there. Pretty much, long-story short, we believe that our team has been under a lot of spiritual attack lately from stories like last night as well as some other really weird stuff that has happened to a couple of our team members. So this morning our team met together and shared some of what we have been experiencing. We also talked to Pastor Asael and he came and shared about the seriousness of spiritual warfare here on Yap. Our team then read a bit of scripture together, such as Ephesians 1 and 2, talking about how Christ has been raised and seated above all rule and authority with believers having been raised and seated with Him. We also read Colossians 1 which affirms that Jesus is the creator, sustainer, and reason for all things created - including all powers and spiritual authorities.

After this our team went and did a prayer walk around where both our girls and guys are staying. We also prayed for Pastor Asael's house, the YEC church, and the youth center where the youth retreat and VBS will take place. It was a very special time together and I believe it opened our eyes to a lot of things that we need to be watching for.

Many Christians today are doubtful concerning spirits and demons. All I can say is that both from Scripture and from multiple experiences of missionaries here in the islands it is very clear that there is a kingdom of darkness in opposition to God's Kingdom. It is also very clear however that Jesus has been given complete authority by the Father and no spirit or demon has any power outside of His control. We are so thankful to have King Jesus protecting us and watching over us here in Yap.

Here are some prayer requests for our team today:

1. Now that our eyes have been opened to some of the spiritual attack we are under, please pray that we will be very serious about prayer and reliance upon the Lord in all of our ministry. Pray that we will guard our hearts very carefully.
2. Pray that our team will continue to be protected from division and that the love of Jesus will be shown in every thought and action. Pray that the people here in Yap will see this love in all that we do.
3. Pray for the Bible study that was started yesterday - that more people will continue to come and be involved in God's word. It was awesome to see one of the guys come to Bible study for the first time who is not involved in any youth or church activities. Some of our team has known him for over a year now.
4. Continue to pray that God will bring more local girls for the girls on our team to minister too. He has already been answering our prayers in that area by bringing two new lady friends into our lives which is awesome, but we still desire to see more come.
5. Tonight Jesse Hartt will be leading Bible Study in the village of Tomil. Pray for him as he speaks and that the people will clearly understand and will be grown.
6. Davie Welle will be preaching at 3 services this Sunday (PMF Outer Islander service, Chuukese service, and English service) and I will be preaching at the Colonia Yapese service. Please pray for us as we prepare our messages as well as for the people who will hear the Word of God. Pray for our team as well because we will be doing songs, a skit, and Grace Neth will be doing a testimony. Another thing to pray for concerning the English church service specifically is that some of our friends who we hang out with here will come to the service. Several of them came last week who would not usually come if we were not involved in the service.

I know this is a lot to read and pray for, but there is quite a lot going on right now with our team. God has placed us in several ministries here, and I believe that He is using us to make an impact that Satan is not too happy about. We continue to need your prayers every day and we are soo soo grateful for everyone who is faithfully lifting us up. God bless you all!!

PIU Yap Ministry Team

Here is a post from Josh Ladd, the student leader of the PIU Yap ministry team. The team left Guam for Yap this past week and will be there for 5 weeks working with the Yap Evangelical Church, especially focusing on youth and children’s ministry. We are praying for them and appreciate your prayers for the requests listed below.

Day 5 in Yap.

Thank you once again for all of our prayers. Jesse Hartt was able to give his message this morning at the church in the village of Maap here on Yap. He was translated into Yapese and did a very awesome job. His passage was Ezekiel 16, which is an oracle about Israel's unfaithfulness to God despite Him taking the nation from her ashes and brokenness and adorning her in beauty and splendor.

Our basketball sports ministry went well overall yesterday. We had some confusion from a lack of communication, but we were able to play both girls volleyball and guys basketball with a local team training for the upcoming Yap games. At halftime of the basketball game we performed a skit presenting the gospel message as answer to what is the purpose of life. It was a new experience to most of us, but a very good one. One of our prayer requests shared tonight in our team evaluation is for the courage to be more open in talking to people that we meet in these ministries. We will have many more opportunities as we continue to play in these sports ministries.

Tomorrow our team will be having a rest day to catch up on some much needed sleep. Here are some updated prayer requests for us:

1. Continue to pray for good health for our team and healing from all sickness
2. Please pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to open up relational ministries for both guys and girls. (One of my favorite things about our team this year is the flexibility that we have. We are easily able to be divided into groups of 2 or 3 and make great relationships with the youth walking around where we are staying. However, this is still much more difficult for the girls to do simply because there are not youth who are girls walking around in the same way that young guys do.)
3. Continue to pray for unity for our team and openness between our team members to resolve conflict when it happens.
4. Please pray that God will provide for those here in Yap who are interested in attending PIU. (Our team brought 50 applications for PIU as well as a lot of other material. Filling out applications with the youth here also provides an excellent opportunity to share the gospel message when they get to the page that asks for their personal testimony.)
5. Finally, pray that our rest day tomorrow will be a very refreshing and restful day for us. And that we will be wise in how we use our time. We plan to have a rest day each week on the trip.

Japanese Cultural Dancing Show

  Last Sunday the Japanese School of Guam, where Joyce teaches English, held a cultural dancing program at the Guam Hilton Hotel to help raise funds for a new gym. (It was in the same room where Matt graduated from high school in 1998). Several of Joyce’s students performed in the program.

After the program Joyce poses with several of her students and her co-worker “Mrs. Smith” who put the program together

Avocados and Mangos!

Yes, we have avocados and mangos! Some (few) of them are from our own tree in the backyard but most were given to us by a friend. Last night we brought avocados over to the Collins’ house to have large portions of guacamole with our fajitas. We have been freezing the mangos and then blending them into smoothies for our nightly smoothie dinners. Fresh mango with frozen blueberries makes a great smoothie. Joyce is now peeling, bagging and freezing mangos so we should have enough for a couple weeks worth of smoothies. MMM! I am allergic to the blossoms but love the fruit.

PIU Signs Agreement with the SIL Pacific Group

Monday was another historic day in the development of PIU as we signed an agreement with the SIL Pacific Group to work with the Isles of the Sea project. The agreement was signed by (r-l) Nico Daams, Director of the Pacific Group of SIL, Mark Taber, Pacific Area Director for SIL and by me for PIU. The purpose of the agreement is to second SIL Pacific Group Members to PIU to be teachers in the new Bible Translation emphasis in the PIU Bachelors Degree in  of Biblical Studies program. The introduction of the agreement encapsulates the goals of this partnership...


SIL Pacific Group (PCG) and Pacific Islands University (PIU), hereby agree to work cooperatively for the following reasons and with expected benefit to both organizations:

• to build vision and capacity for Bible translation as a mission and ministry of the church
• to equip Pacific Islanders in the work of Bible translation
• to build vision among future church leaders for the importance of language in the spiritual growth of the church
• to build capacity so that Pacific Islanders can think theologically in their own language and context

The first teachers in the program will be Wycliffe translators Peter and Robin Knapp. Together with their sons Joshua and Joel they have moved to Micronesia, where they will teach linguistics and translation courses, and will be helping the Mwoakilloa people in translating the Bible in their own language. Their first courses will begin this Fall. In addition Isles of the Sea will be funding a scholarship for students in the Bible Translation emphasis at PIU. 

PIU Barbecue

Last Saturday we completed a very event filled week with our 1st Annual PIU Fund Raising Barbecue. It was hard to tell exactly how many people were there but I would guess around 300. We distributed 500 tickets. It was good to see people from many of the churches on Guam and several of the runners from the 5K came back in the evening to eat with us. The food was amazing. We were thankful for the many businesses that donated food, supplies and funds to support the event. We are also thankful for the churches that supported it by selling tickets and bringing their worship bands. I am looking forward to next year’s barbecue!

Everybody got all they could eat, and there was food left over at the end of the evening.

The grilling team did a great job. They only paused for a moment to let me pose with them

The men’s group from 1st Church of God (left) and the youth choir from the Pohnpeian Church of Christ sang for us

The Voices of Micronesia also sounded great

The evening ended with a Celebration Dance led by the Marshallese church worship team

Greg Calvo showed us how to really dance and Lisa Collins entertained us with her “Happy Dance”

One More Post on Graduation

  One of my favorite things about the graduation ceremony is getting to meet, and take pictures with, the graduates’ families and friends. Usually we hang around the venue and talk with people for a longer time than the actual program. There is always that feeling of accomplishment and relief and it is enjoyable to be able to share that with the PIU family. So here are a few more pictures of smiling graduates, or should I now be calling them alumni?

On the left, the Owen’s and the Chorams. On the right Rommel Carino with Hartmut and Urte Scherer

Rommel and family, Bible faculty Larry Bock and Valedictorian Pam Flores

Karl Flores and Teisy with friends

Esther Tarkong with Joyce and Ikol with family

Xyanne and Justin, Johnny Esa with friends and family

Jaynee Sam and Lucy Aunu with alum Charity Sam and me with our friends from the Lutheran Church of Guam

PIU administrators Christel Wood and Phil Atoigue, Shelby and Esther had some family support

The Graduation Celebration

  I have a lot of pictures of the celebration after the graduation ceremony which I will divide into two posts. This post has mostly pictures that Joyce and I took of us, graduates etc. The first two here are of the cake cutting ceremony. New PIU Board member Siska Hutapea did the honors with assistance from Nino Pate and me.

Nino and Phil pose left with their future graduates while on the right we see Orichy Orichiro and Vivian Choram

Graduates Johnny Esa and Ikol Suda

Cita Tomada, Esther Tarkong and Joyce on the left, while Mike and Mo hit the dessert table

Greg Calvo takes care of the punch bowl.

Hadson and Shelby receive congratulations

We pose with more good looking graduates

Some more future graduates