From NorCal to SoCal

Tuesday we left Northern California to drive to Southern California for the last part of our vacation. Michael had already returned for classes on Monday so we put Titus and Courage in their car seats, and Joyce, Samantha and I headed down Highway 99 to La Mirada. The trip started out badly with a speeding ticket on Mother Lode Drive in El Dorado. What made it really bad was that it was right where my mom and dad had spoken about, "Watch out for the downhill part of the road. It is easy to lose track of your speed and the CHP likes to sit there and watch for speeders." That is exactly what happened as my speed hit 63 (or so I was told) in a 50 zone. Arrrrggg! Nevertheless, despite the ticket and the foggy conditions the trip went well. The kids traveled great. We stopped in Visalia and let them play in the Mcdonald's play yard for about an hour - as you can see from the pictures.

Now we are at Mike and Samantha's house and spent yesterday mostly running errands. I took Titus to Starbucks for breakfast (thanks mom for the Starbucks card for Christmas) and he went around the restaurant introducing himself, "Hi, I am Titus. I play football." We have also been amazed at how much Courage has grown and developed while we have been here. She stood on her own for a few seconds and is looking like she might take off walking pretty soon. It has really been a blessing for us to be able to be with them and we will really miss them when we head back to Guam next week. As you can see Joyce is enjoying coloring with Titus and I have enjoyed watching sports with him streamed live on the computer.

It was also hard to say good bye to family up in NorCal. We went out with my family to go bowling and have a family day on Saturday. (See Titus and Mike bowling in the video I posted on my Facebook page). Then on Monday we spent most of the day over at Joyce's mom and dad's (left) place cleaning out our kids' stored stuff there to bring it back to them. Our rental car was stuffed to the max with our kids' stuff on our trip.

Now we are waiting for Missy and Cliff to arrive from Texas to complete the family vacation. We will hang around with them (and head to San Diego for part of the time to have all 3 kids together with us for the first time since Mike and Sam got married on New Years Day 2006) for about 4 days. It is also great to get to meet Batman up close and personal.

New Years Day Activity - Burning Tree

We had a great family, food, and football filled New Years Day. My sister Jayne and her family spent the day with us. As you can see in the video we continued our family tradition of burning our Christmas Tree on New Years Day. It is a kind of "out with the old, in with the new" tradition for us. Sorry I started out with the camera sideways. This year Joyce put no flammable material on the tree but it still went up pretty quick. Except for the cold and fog we are very much enjoying the family time. Our plan is to drive down to LA on Sunday or Monday and spend about 4 days with all three of our kids and their families down there.

We have spent the last few days eating (here is Joyce and Titus making cookies) and playing games. We did not play Twister - we left that to Titus and Courage, but we have enjoyed dominoes, Boggle and Taboo among others. Mainly, these games are just a good excuse to spend time together talking and making funny comments about each other.

PS For all you Penn State fans out at PIBC... My condolences and I told you so!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Dave and Joyce. It is already 2009 on Guam, but we are still waiting for the new year to come in California. We are having a great time with the family on this vacation. We pray that God gives you a blessed 2009 as you serve Him.

Family Christmas Celebrations

Joyce and I have been enjoying our family Christmas celebrations. After taking off from Guam at 7.30 AM on Christmas Day we enjoyed a 2nd Christmas Eve in the airport in Honolulu. We then arrived in LA at exactly the same time we left Guam. We enjoyed our first Christmas celebration with Michael, Samantha, the kids, and Samantha's family right after our arrival. The next day we met Matt and Kristin and drove up to Northern California, El Dorado County, to do both Cundall family and Owen family Christmas celebrations.






The Cundall family celebration was first on Saturday afternoon. Except for our daughter, Missy, all the families of Joyce and her sisters were there. We got to meet Nathan's new fiance and Brittany's new husband and get caught up on what was going on in the lives in the Cundall extended family. Even Joyce's Uncle Gary and Aunt Lois showed up at the celebration and took the family picture on the left. Of course there was a lot of food, featuring ham, pies and of course caramel corn and caramel filled cookies - a Cundall tradition. The evening ended with some serious game-playing. Also pictured here is Joyce with her mom and dad and sisters, Janet and Judy.



Sunday afternoon was the Owen family gathering. My sister Jayne and brother Doug with most of their families (Missy and cousin Jessica had to work and missed the party) came to my mom and dad's place. Everyone, except Diane who took the picture, is there on the left. The usual craziness ensued, but I think everyone had a good time. We enjoyed the traditional and very competitive "horse" tournament. Titus did a great job entertaining everyone. The turkey based dinner featured the traditional noodles and candy-cane cookies (made perfectly by Nate). It was a really wonderful blessing to be with so much family for Christmas (me with my brother and sister on the right.

Merry Christmas Eve

It is Christmas Eve here on Guam. I am slow getting into it this year with so many meetings, etc. but now the fudge is in the refrigerator, the candy cane cookies are on the table and every time I see Joyce, she is making or wrapping a Christmas present. I spoke this Sunday on "the mission of Jesus" from John 1.9-14. Jesus was a "light" as the perfect image of God "glory" in a human body, he "made his dwelling" with us so that we could receive "grace and truth" and dwell with him now and forever, and he came to "his own" to develop relationship with us "children of God" for us to grow into the image of our Father and work with him to call and make more disciples. God becoming human is the turning point of human history. Let's celebrate it well! Merry Christmas. (Picture is from the PIBC staff Christmas outing - thanks Hartmut)

Dolphin Boat Trip

I have just returned from enjoying our annual PIBC-Guam staff Christmas outing/party. This year we went on the dolphin boat ride at Guam Tropical Dive Station. Pretty much all the staff was there except for a few who were sick (we missed you Tim, Calvin and Sudas). This is the third time Joyce and I have gone on the dolphin trip (I think 4th for Joyce) and we have seen dolphins every time but one. This time as you can see from the picture we got pretty close to the dolphins and watched them frolic around for quite a while. You can also see the village of Agat in the background.

After the dolphins went away, we anchored a short distance away, in a relatively calm area and did some swimming and snorkeling. Several of the staff pulled off some incredible dives from the top of the boat. I stuck with cannonballs. The water was about 20-25 feet deep, so clear you could see the coral on the sea floor and nice and warm. Once some of the staff brought crackers and little hot dogs, it was also full of a wide variety of little fish. It was cool to just float in the middle of all those colorful fish.

After the snorkeling were the banana boat rides. They are a little more fun with a speedboat, but most of the kids, including Joyce and Jeff Johnson, had a great time on the ride. Most of the way back they were pulling someone on the banana boat.

It was a great day. The weather was perfect and I think everyone had a great time. We live on a beautiful island so it is nice to get out and see it once in a while. It is also great to have some relaxed time just to talk about stuff not related to work. On the left here is Joyce with our "roommate" Daisy Murdock. Daisy will be one of our housesitters while we are in California. On the right is Josephine Mendiola (PIBC science teacher) and I in one of our deep theological discussions. I will post the picture of our whole group on the boat when I get a copy.

End of the Semester

The last final has been completed, the last dorm room has passed exit inspection, the grades are in (or at least they will be soon), reports and evaluations are done and the students, staff and faculty are breathing a sigh of relief. Christmas vacation is here. Actually it seems like just yesterday we were beginning orientation. In some ways it was a tough semester. We had less dorm students than we expected this year so we had much less money than was budgeted. But with some belt-tightening we got through and nobody seemed to lack what they needed. We completed our first four seminary classes. I have to say that my Basic Exegesis class was one of my most fun and rewarding experiences in all my years on Guam. I saw tremendous improvement in my students' ability to interpret and preach God's Word. We saw (or heard) great improvements in the English level of many students. In addition, we saw students make lifetime commitments to God, some first time commitments. This semester was time well-spent!

But now it is Christmas vacation and the students have departed to their islands or to relatives' places on Guam. According to today's PIBC Post the staff and faculty will spend their Christmases like this ....

• Bill and Christel Wood leave Sunday morning for Singapore.
• Peggy Duncan will be arriving this weekend from Chuuk and she will be staying at the Wood's house.
• Larry and Sharon Bock leave on Monday to spend Christmas with their family in Texas. Larry will be returning for the start of the new semester and Sharon will be returning in February
• Ned and Marisol Farnsworth's parents arrived earlier this week to celebrated Christmas with them.
• Eric and Karyn Sorenson's parents arrived this week for Christmas.
• Brad and Cheryl Boydston's three children will be joining them over the holidays.
• Tim & Melody Plaxton's daughter Erin is visiting from Palau.
• Hollie & Aaron Schaub are leaving Jan. 1^st to go backpacking in New Zealand.
• The long awaited return of Steve & Anne Stinnette is almost here! They've purchased tickets to return on Jan. 27^th.
• We will leave Christmas morning for three weeks in California with our family.

Not all the students leave and go back to their islands. Some stay with faculty members. We will have two of students (pictured moving in) Daisy (from Texas) and Mayumi (from Chuuk) stay with us until we leave for vacation. They will then house-sit for us until we get back in January. Tonight we had a little party at our house with staff who are staying around and the students staying with them. Melissa Heck, our Dean of Women and Laura Peters our receptionist came over with some of the students to eat and play games. I think they all came, except for one who said she didn't want to do "white people things." ;) I am not sure what that means. Vacation has begun!