Student Life

This morning was music and praise chapel on the Guam campus. One of our Chuukese students shared about his recent trip to Manila to be with his father who was undergoing a serious medical procedure. He shared how he was so thankful for his family but also for his PIBC family and that when he was at a crisis point there he had called the PIBC dorm and asked for prayer. He felt that his father's recovery had a lot to do with those prayers and he was thankful for how the student body gathered around him. Another student shared that one of her relatives had just committed suicide and she was asking for support and prayer from her fellow students and the staff. It just reminded me that we are much more than an academic institution to our students. For example, the other day as Joyce and I were driving home we saw one of the school cars banged up on the side of the road. One of our Chuukese staff members was taking some students to the store and was involved in an accident (see picture). We were able to help them out and get the car towed back to school and insurance taken care of. Joyce went with one of the young ladies, who was slightly injured, to the clinic. So, in addition to being the teachers of our students, we get to be friends, parents, advisers and chauffeurs. We do appreciate your prayers for us and for our students as we grow together in the daily ups and downs of life

Psalm 128

We have had a bit of a long week this week. I picked up the same cold/flu/bug whatever it is, that Joyce has and was down Thursday and Friday. I was a little bit tempted to complain (I am not as tough as Joyce. She has been sick for a couple weeks without complaint). Then Psalm 128 came up this morning for my devotional reading. It made me realize how really blessed Joyce and I are. We have three kids making productive contributions to the world and we have even been blessed to live long enough to have the joy of being grandparents. We even have another 200 "kids" at PIBC that we are very proud of, in addition to many alumni who are serving the LORD. Though we have many problems and are far from "having it all together" God has really blessed us in our decision to serve Him in Micronesia. We are also blessed by those of you who pray for us and support our ministry. Sometimes it is just good in busy times to take a step back and look at how you are blessed. WOW!

Owen Weekly Prayer Requests

Here are a few prayer requests, a picture of our new road (back road to Andersen that we drive every day from home to PIBC) and a picture of Titus taken from Michael and Samantha's prayer letter. We have about 5 weeks to go in the semester. After graduation we will be headed to our short furlough on the mainland. We hope to see as many of our state-side family and friends as possible. Please pray for...

1. Joyce. We are still trying to figure out what bug is bothering her. The docs think she has an infection of some kind but they just don't know. It could be that her lupus is acting up too. She is happy to be mobile and working but would prefer to be operating at 100%.
   
2. Dave. Dave is back home for a few weeks after several weeks of travel and meetings. We will be working hard over the next few weeks to implement the board decisions including some reorganization, curriculum revision and trying to get the new seminary program ready to go.
   
3. Hawaii partnership. We have begun a partnership with Hawaii Theological Seminary and are looking into working with other schools there. We need wisdom getting this thing going.
4. Future for Michael and Samantha. They are still trying to decide if they should go to seminary this Fall or work a year.
5. PIBC Students. That they will have a good finish to the semester and that the students will be able to raise the money they need for their mission trips to Thailand and to the Marshall Islands.
   

We appreciate your prayers and always enjoy hearing from you!

PIBC Days Pictures

PIBC Guam held its annual PIBC Days March 31 to April 2nd. It is a celebration of the founding of the school. We celebrate with games, competitions and services. The entire campus is divided into three teams named with biblical terms. Last year I was on the "Hesed" team, this year my team was called skopos. Each team, besides being in competition, is responsible for a
service.

Back From Chuuk

It has been a while since my last post. Since then we have completed our PIBC annual board meeting, enjoyed PIBC days on the Guam campus and I have just returned from a pastor's conference and the 100 year celebration of the gospel's entrance into Chuuk. The conference lasted four days and, besides me, the speakers were Harald Gorges the Liebenzell Area Director, Steve Bradley a retired missionary who is teaching at PIBC Chuuk as a volunteer, and PIBC Chuuk teacher and Liebenzell missionary Siegbert Betz. Other guests included Roland Rauchholz, the 1st president of PIBC and Lothar Kaessar who was one of the translators of the Chuukese Bible. Roland showed a slide show documenting the history of the work in Chuuk.
I was able to spend an afternoon with the Chuukese pastors in a discussion about PIBC. It was good to talk about what our alumni are doing. It reminded us that God has been faithful already to work in the lives of our graduates. We also had a good time of planning for the future. I was pleased to see the commitment of the Chuuk church to their support and responsibility for the school. (In the picture PIBC Chuuk Campus Director, Yosta Lodge is translating my presentation into Chuukese.)
I will write more about the board meeting and PIBC Days in future posts.

Owen Weekly Prayer Requests

We are getting ready for a big, busy week. Here are some things for which we would very much appreciate your prayers...

1. Joyce's health: Saturday night Joyce had a recurrence of whatever has been bothering her. We went to the clinic but it was closed and she did not want to go to emergency at the local hospital. She slept all day Sunday and is feeling well enough to go to the pre-school today. Please pray for recovery and that the docs can figure out what is wrong with her.
   
2. Meetings with Mission Directors: I will be meeting this week with directors of two different missions that are interested in working with PIBC. Both already are working with us and we are looking into how to grow the relationship. Pray that we will have God's wisdom in what we need to do.
   
3. PIBC Board Meeting: Our annual board meeting is March 28-30. We have several important issues to discuss including a major curriculum revision. Again we ask for wisdom and strength for the leadership and direction of the school.
   
4. Michael, Samantha and Titus: Please pray for God's direction for their future. Some possibilities for next year include teaching at Yap High School, going to Dallas Seminary, teaching at a Guam high school or working for PIBC for a year before seminary (grandma and grandpa like that one!).
   
5. Preparation for our summer furlough: We pretty much have our June Schedule done, but we still have many open spots in July. Please pray that we can get to all our supporting churches and get some vacation time. If you would like to have us speak at your church, Bible study, mission meeting etc we would love to do it.
   

Thank you for praying. We could not do anything worthwhile without it.

PIBC Traveling Team

Here is a video of our PIBC traveling team. They present PIBC to the local Guam churches. In this video they are singing an island song as part of the children's sermon at the Lutheran Church of Guam. Sorry about the jerky beginning but I don't know how to edit yet. At least it will give you a taste of what they do.