Our June Prayer Requests

Greetings from Dave and Joyce,

We are settling into our summer classes, retreats and other activities as we prepare for another school year to come. God has given us several opportunities for ministry in the community as we reach out from PIU. We appreciate your prayers very much because we realize that it is what God does through us that has real meaning and is eternally significant.

Here are a few urgent and critical issues for prayer.

1. One of our Bible faculty members, Steve Bradley, had a massive stroke last week. Steve is a long time missionary in Micronesia who returned to PIU a few years ago as a volunteer after his wife passed away. He was back in South Carolina for the summer when it happened and his family there is ministering to him. Please pray for his recovery and rehabilitation. Also this is big blow to our ministry at PIU as “grandpa Steve” has been a tremendous blessing to the school as a teacher and a wise listening ear to the students, staff and to me personally.

2. We are beginning our “Further Up, Further In” high school youth retreats on campus this weekend. The program is designed to focus high schoolers on biblical truth and discipleship and building relationships with each other and their church youth leaders. We are also hoping that it will help the churches and young people see PIU as a resource for their spiritual growth and as a possible place to further their education.

3. We have made application to the US Department of Education for a grant for developing a student center. This would pay for some additions to our campus building, but mostly it would provide for staff we need to take care of student remedial education needs, counseling (many of our students come to us with serious family or personal issues) tutoring, job training, etc.

4. We are beginning our summer fund raising effort. The “Rising Tide” is our annual fund that helps us pay our teachers and provide scholarships for students so that we can keep student costs affordable to Pacific Island people. I will be sending you the official email for that later today.

5. Please praise God that Joyce and I continue to have a lot of energy, even though we are both officially manamko (Chamorro word for senior citizens) now. Joyce just finished two weeks of labor to get the dorms ready for “further up and Further in” and I am running around all over the island teaching, preaching and representing the school. We are really blessed to have meaningful work to do in God’s kingdom and the bonus we get is the joy of relationship with our co-workers and with the students.

We appreciate your prayers and your support for what God is doing at PIU and in the islands.

Blessings

Dave and Joyce