TRACS Conference #1

After a couple days off in North Carolina I headed down to Orlando, Florida early Tuesday morning to attend the TRACS annual conference. PIU has been a member of TRACS since 1999 and I have attended this conference every year since 2002. It is an important time for us to network with TRACS staff and our colleagues at other TRACS schools. The conference did not begin until Wednesday night, but I went to the conference on Tuesday to be ready for an important added meeting on Wednesday morning. Dr. Sam arrived on Tuesday afternoon and Nino arrived later that evening at midnight.

The meeting was with Dr. Brent Brantley who is a Wycliffe missionary. Brent is the founder of the TITIP school in West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), with whom PIU is now affiliated, who now works for Wycliffe from the US Mainland. Brent came to us last year with an idea for a program in International Business that would provide a Christian approach for business designed for students in our area of the world who want a top level academic program in an environment of Christian discipleship. I have been praying for years that God would work to help us meet the desire of Pacific Islander students for a business  program like this at PIU and it seems that God may have answered that prayer. 

The bottom line decision for the meeting is that PIU will incorporate the program plan from Brent into our liberal studies program as an 18 credit emphasis. Brent’s group will provide most of the teachers, who will come from, mostly, Christian teachers from American state universities who desire to make an impact on the mission field. We are still tweaking the class lineup, but the plan is to have an “International Business Emphasis” ready for the Fall of 2015. We would appreciate your prayers as we move forward.