Some Random Pictures

Well, it is the last day of the month and I thought I would post a few pictures that I had not worked into previous posts. I do take a lot of pictures and don’t always have time to post them.

We like to barbecue and often find excuses to celebrate with one. These 2 pictures are from the PIU Operations Department bbq last Spring

Looking at pictures makes me realize how much we miss people when they are gone. We miss Lisa the librarian (with the top hat) and her family. We also miss Hartmut and Urte Scherer, with the leis to the left of Samantha in both pictures, who are on furlough this summer in Germany.

Oh, how about another barbecue?

We also do the serious stuff,like class. This is Mike’s “Exegesis in the English Bible” class

Joyce always is doing creative things with the grandkids.

Samantha took the PIU students out to a high school college fair to do some recruiting

We enjoy all the things we get to do on Guam. On the right Joyce poses with one of her colleagues at the Japanese school of Guam at a territorial band concert. Her colleague was one of the band directors

Happy Birthday Titus Again

Since today was Titus’ actual birthday Mike, Sam and the kids stopped by the house this evening so that we could give Titus his birthday present and we could eat some birthday ice cream together. Joyce found a really nice child’s guitar for Titus at a yard sale. So now, hopefully, Titus can get some lessons and learn to play it. I think he liked the present. He certainly enjoyed posing with it.

Everyone enjoyed the ice cream

Titus blew out candles on the ice cream and then did his rock star poses.

Happy 7th Birthday Titus!

This weekend we have been celebrating Titus’ 7th birthday. We had a little party Friday afternoon at the PIU campus and then went out for a family dinner on Saturday night.

Titus and I toasted his birthday with our water glasses and the evening ended with the waiters at the Bistro bringing him some birthday cake and singing “Happy Birthday”

Titus and Courage enjoyed their first “formal dinner.” Serenity fell asleep at the table.

They also enjoyed ice cream and cake on Friday afternoon.

Chapel This Week at PIU

At PIU we have chapel services twice a week on Tuesday and Friday at 11 AM. It is such a blessing to be able to work in a job where we get to take an hour twice a week to corporately worship, praise and hear a word from God. Tuesday, after a warm welcome from StuCo president Scot Refilong (right)and a rousing music set, we heard from our speaker Rick Harris. Rick has been a missionary on Guam for over three years and did mission work in Nepal before that. He encouraged the PIU family to “dig ditches” so that we would be prepared when God acts in our lives and community (from the story in 2 Kings 3). We often miss the work of God in our lives because we have not faithfully prepared, whether through disobedience, ignorance or distraction, and we miss what God does and its attendant blessings. Rick drove the point home with a lot of funny stories that made an impact on the students.

Friday our speaker was Pastor Mark Benavente. Mark talked to us about our identity in Christ. We began the chapel time by breaking up into groups and playing a game where we told true and false things about ourselves and people had to guess which it was. Mark then played a scene from the Bourne Identity movie in which the main character realizes that he has multiple “identities” and he does not know which one is real. Mark urged us to get rid of our “expired ID’s” and “fake ID’s” and see ourselves as chosen, loved and holy, as God sees us. One student responded in a Facebook post, “Chapel really spoke to me. (#MyIdentityinChristJesus #IamHoly). I can't believe I let the devil shape me, by beliefs that weren't true. Thankful that God has opened my eyes and now I completely see the change in me.”

PIU chapels are open to the public and we would love to have you join us. Friday’s chapel will be our annual PIU Day of Prayer Chapel.

AmeriCorps Comes to PIU

We were happy to welcome Lisa Jensen from The Guahan Charter School and the AmeriCorps program to PIU for a seminar today. Several of our students are already doing their WeWork hours and volunteer work at the Charter School and about 30 students attended the seminar today to find out about becoming AmeriCorps members working at the Guahan Charter School. Our students are well-suited for doing this kind of mentoring work and are very excited at the possibility of gaining valuable work experience in the education field. They also just like to be ministering with kids. We would appreciate your prayers for our PIU students as they take this step. Guahan Charter School is a new venture on Guam this year and PIU is happy to be partnering with them.

The picture on the left is from our planning meeting with Charter School Director, Donna Dwiggins (2nd from right) with the PIU admin team. On the right the students talk with Lisa about their hopes and dreams for their education and careers.

Fellowship Group

Last Friday in chapel we met our 2013-14 fellowship group and this past weekend we had our first meeting. This year all the PIU students are divided up into fellowship groups and assigned to different faculty and staff members. Some of the groups are very large; I think ours is the smallest. The purpose of the groups is to build relationships between staff and students, provide mentoring and and practical help to the students. We braved the nasty weather and had our introductory meeting at our house. It was a fun night eating chicken soup and ice cream, talking and playing some fun table games (right). The group is pictured on the left: Nathaniel, Matson, Nonie, Mary Lou, Joyce, me, Telsie, Jesse and Jonie. Jesse and Jonie are not actually in our group but we let them crash our party. Last year I did not get to participate in the fellowship groups so I am especially looking forward to getting to know my group this year.

More Rain… and an Earthquake

Life on Guam is always interesting. We are under a flash flood warning again from 10 AM to 4 pm today. Last night as I was getting caught up on email we experienced that familiar rumbling of a 4.7 earthquake. At PIU we have had no internet or phones in the office for two days because of leaks in the roof. Hopefully we will get everything back on line by Monday. In the meantime it is raining hard. Yesterday, I didn’t think it could rain any harder but I might have been wrong. We cancelled classes last night, but today it was school as usual with classes and chapel. This evening our student fellowship will meet at our house for dinner. The pictures here are of our driveway this morning.

The water was high as Joyce drove her car through the gate for chapel, but all the Owen’s were there

Dean of Students Rob Watt delivered the message

Shelter and Davey did some wading in Lake Liebenzell after chapel

Heavy Rains on Guam

The floods have hit Guam. Today may be the rainiest day of the year so far for us. We are under flash flood warnings and everything seems to be under water. As you can see from the satellite picture there is a potential typhoon forming to the West of us which may threaten the Northern Philippines and weather systems behind it which promise us a great deal of rain over the next few days. The torrents of rain have already opened up leaks in our metal roof buildings at PIU and we have been busy trying to protect equipment and facilities. Our phones and internet have been out all day. Evening classes on Thursday are cancelled because of the flood warnings. We appreciate your prayers as we weather the storm.

The campus is pretty flooded and “Lake Liebenzell” has returned. If we can get a few hours without rain hopefully, the water will disappear.

This is some of the leakage in the admin and classroom building. The metal roofs have new leaks which we will need to fix.

The rain has been coming down by the bucket loads and the wind brings it at you in multiple directions

Our driveway at home is also a river