Ministry at Agat Chuukese Fellowship

Today we enjoyed ministry and fellowship on the Southern end of Guam with the Agat Chuukese Fellowship. The PIU Voices of Micronesia Team sang four songs and I preached. The church is pastored by PIU graduate John Jim Phanchy and meets at the Marianas Baptist Church. We have enjoyed many years of partnership with John Jim and the church there. Four of their young people are students at PIU and we hope to see many more of them in the future. I had a good opportunity to share about what is happening at PIU and explain the new programs we have available. I also got to preach on Genesis 1.26-27. Here are a few pictures of our service in Agat this morning.

As usual the Voices of Micronesia sounded great. I think I may have caught them between songs here. 

 

John Jim, me and Ben pose here for a picture after church. We are very thankful for alumni like John Jim and his wife Satrin who are being used in a great way by the Lord to make impact on their communities. 

 

Of course we enjoyed lunch with the group after the service. Here Jayleen and I show that we are indeed mighty at eating hot dogs. After lunch we took Ben around the Southern end of the island to see the sights. I will post pictures of that soon. 

Snake Hunt

Last weekend after we picked up Ben at the airport, we brought him up to the PIU campus to meet everyone there. Most of the PIU faculty and staff were still there wrapping up a dinner and prayer meeting with the PIU board members. As we drove in, the Plaxtons were driving out and we thought we had missed them. But within a minute or so they came back into the campus yelling that they had just run over a Guam Brown Tree Snake. Joyce yelled "snake hunt!" and took off running with the everyone else behind her. The snake was on the road, somewhat stunned from its encounter with the Plaxton's Corolla, but alive and well. Joyce used her well-practiced strategy of stepping on the snake just behind the head as it came at her to defend itself, rendering the snake helpless. She then grabbed it behind the head and was in complete control. After letting several people handle it, we took it home and she put it in the freezer (it is still there). She will trade it to a local craftsman for a snake vertebrae necklace and earrings. The Guam Brown Tree Snake is not an indigenous species to Guam and has wreaked havoc on the local wildlife, almost wiping out the local bird population. The Guam government is doing their best to eradicate the brown tree snake and Joyce is one of their best allies in the effort.

 

Joyce poses with PIU Board Member and Liebenzell Mission International Global Mission Director Martin Auch. It was Martin's first Guam Brown Tree Snake

 

Ben gets to handle the snake his first night on Guam. Some of our staff had been on Guam for years without seeing one. 

 

Students also enjoyed getting up close and personal with the snake. 

 

Marisol Farnsworth expresses her obvious delight in getting to know the snake.

 

Her son, Joel Farnsworth, seems more comfortable with the snake than his mom. However, the snake sensed it was time to make a break for it when Joel had him, but Joyce was able to recapture the snake. We have not seen anywhere near as many snakes on Guam as we used to. Perhaps the eradication efforts are beginning to work. 

Cousin Ben Arrives on Guam

It is always fun for us to have family visit. It is even better when family members come out to visit and help us with the work at PIU. That is why we are so excited to have our nephew, Ben Boudreault come here as a PIU volunteer. Ben arrived on the Saturday night flight and in the few days he has been here has already enjoyed a snake hunt (pictures in the next post), PIU potluck at the Wood's home which has one of the most amazing views on Guam, Sunday church service at the Palauan Evangelical Church, a visit to a Guam auto wrecking yard, an evening of PIU ministry at the University of Guam and the gracious hospitality of our students who seem to want to feed him constantly. In addition, in just 3 days, Ben has already fixed a lawn mower, diagnosed a car problem and has been a great help with several other projects. Ben will be here for three months as a volunteer in our maintenance department. Please pray for Ben that he will have a great experience here at PIU.

You don't have to be one of our family members to be a volunteer at PIU. We need volunteers who can do maintenance projects, work in the office, teach, bookkeepers and many other short, medium or long term projects. If you are interested shoot me an email at dowen@piu.edu or give us a call (Guam is 18 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time) at 671-734-1812.

PIU Annual Board Meeting Completed

The PIU Annual Board Meeting took place this last week, February 24-26. Our seven board members come from 4 different countries and represent several different organizations.On the back row L to R is me, Martin Auch, Harald Gorges, Bill Schuit and Howard Merrell. In the front row, Mary Johnson, Vincent Parren and Marcellus Ngiraingas. It was three long days of meetings but I think a lot was accomplished and the school took some significant steps forward. We did add a new member, David Mayer, to our board who will begin his term on July 1. We have several challenges ahead of us but I am excited and encouraged to be moving forward toward what God has for Pacific Islands University in the future.

PIU Challenges for 2010 #6 - Finances

To meet the previous five challenges, especially the challenges of staffing and facilities, PIU will need to raise significant financial resources. In the beginning PIU was funded by three basic sources: Liebenzell Mission provided the starting capital to buy the property and build the original facilities; most of the staff and faculty were missionaries (Liebenzell or other organizations) who raised their own support or were financed by other organizations; and the remaining operational needs were funded by student tuition. All of these resources were a tremendous provision but, with these alone, the school was pretty much limited to covering its basic operational needs and there was very little for future growth. If PIU was to move forward to accomplish the vision that we believe God is calling us to do we needed to take steps to find the money that we believe God was raising up for us.

So last year we hired a fund raising consultant, Mickey Beckham who was recommended by TRACS, our accreditor. Mickey was excited about the potential of PIU to raise funds and he made the following recommendations which we have followed....

Private and Public Grants: PIU has hired a grant researcher and writer, Katherine Currie, to explore both private foundations and government grants for the school. Since our main constituency is Pacific islanders and over 90% of our students receive Title IV grants we are eligible for many other government grants. We have been able to finance our computer labs on the main campus and our various teaching sites with a public grant and are exploring others. We are also in the process of applying for several grants from private foundations to meet needs in our library, staffing and some smaller capital needs. Please be in prayer for us as we complete and submit  several applications on March 1st.

Rising Tide Annual Fund: Because one of our major goals at PIU is keeping tuition costs affordable for our islander students and providing them a way that they can complete their degrees without being saddled with debt, our tuition will never fully cover operational costs. In addition, as we expand to liberal arts and general education and attempt to increase local hires, we have many faculty and staff positions in the school that cannot be filled by missionaries. To provide the resources to bridge this gap we have begun the Rising Tide Annual Fund. The purpose of the Rising Tide fund is to provide the financial resources to fill essential faculty and staff positions, to enable us to provide scholarships for students, and to support student missions, academic and library  programs.Our goal is to raise $500,000 per year in annual pledged donations to this fund by finding 500 people or organizations that would be willing to donate an average of $1,000 per year (about $84 per month). We are excited that, since this program was launched in January of this year, we already have over $70,000 per year in pledges.

Capital Funds: The final phase of our fund raising program will be a capital fund to finance the expansion of the Guam campus detailed in my last post. The first phase of the capital program will be to raise enough funds to buy the adjoining 3.6 acres. We have an architect coming this summer to make a more detailed proposed building plan for development of the property. The property would then be developed in phases over the next 5 years or so as God provides the resources to build. We plan to finance this through a combination of grants and private donations.

We are confident that God will provide the money as it is needed to accomplish what He is calling us to do. If God is laying it on your heart to be part of the Rising Tide Fund or Capital Fund please send me an email at dowen@piu.edu or call me at 671-734-1812 and we can get you details and information about it or answer any questions you might have. We will soon have all the information available on the school web site at http://piu.edu. We are now able to take payments and donations by credit card and very soon will have a donation button on the web site. 

In some ways it is hard for me to talk about money. But I believe very much that what we are doing here is part of God's kingdom purpose and that any investment in PIU is an investment in the lives of our students and in what God is doing here in the Pacific. I also know that is something that pays off forever.

PIU Challenges for 2010 #5 - Facilities

When our current PIU property was acquired in 1997 the plan was to build for a total of 35 students. The 3.7 acre property had been previously used by a construction company to house H2 workers and consisted of one large concrete building and three smaller concrete building shells with metal roofs. Soon after we bought the property typhoon Paka devastated the larger building. With an SBA loan and significant investment by Liebenzell Mission the large building was turned into a library, men's dorm and faculty apartment. The three smaller buildings became the administration building, women's dorm and academic building. With accreditation in 1999 providing the students the ability to get federal tuition assistance, the campus filled up quickly and additions were needed. In the summer of 2000 the outdoor basketball court was poured and small rooms were added connecting the three smaller buildings providing another classroom and faculty offices, and turning the 3 buildings into the one E shaped building that you see in the Google earth picture. This google earth picture was taken in 2006 and is still the one they have up today.

After this picture was taken in 2006 PIU-Guam enrollment steadily increased from about 60 to over 130. This necessitated some scrambling to make a campus designed for 35 accommodate almost 70 on campus and over 60 commuter students. Two houses in the neighborhood were rented and are outlined in green in the updated picture. Two temporary buildings made from shipping containers, the Cannex houses 12 male students, and the Dinex which was originally slated to be a cafeteria was adapted to become the computer lab. Finally this last summer a pavilion was added to provide the students with a gathering place. (sorry my paste in of pictures of these new structures is not too professional)

It is clearly time to expand the campus. We believe that with an expanded land area and upgraded facilities we could be providing excellent Christian higher education to 300-400 students by the 2015-6 school year. The blue outlined area in the picture above is a 3.6 acre property adjoining our current site and is available for us to purchase. The drawing to the left here is a rough outline of what we would like to do with our current and the adjoining properties. The acquired property facing Route 15 would become the front of the campus with with the administration building, library complex, academic building and faculty housing unit all facing the entrance. The current property would become the student living area with a student center and cafeteria built in the current open area. We believe that such a facility would not only meet the educational needs of our students, but would also be a tremendous benefit to the local community.

With our current facilities strained to the breaking point and plans to expand our programs and diversify our student body, we need to expand our facilities soon. We know that God provides the means for what He calls us to do, so we are trusting him for them or to provide another direction to proceed.

Below are some recent pictures of our facilities....

Welcome to PIU. This sidewalk runs in front of the academic, women's dorm and administration building. 

 

This is the building that looks like an "E" from above. 

 

The pavilion serves as a gathering place for the students, a place to eat a meal or a shelter from the rain.

 

On the left you can see the C-Annex Men's dorm which houses up to 12 students.  The building on the right contains the library, main men's dorm and a faculty apartment. 

 

Here is a closer view of the Cannex. We will need to do some major repairs on this building this summer and in the long term would like to replace it with another concrete men's dorm. 

 

The computer lab. The wooden deck also provides bleachers for watching basketball or volleyball games. 

 

Another shot of the main classroom and admin buildings. One thing that we rarely lack on Guam is greenery and blue skies!

PIU Challenges for 2010 #4 - Staffing

For PIU to be what we believe God is calling us to be it is going to take a lot of people. As the school grows.. if we are going to continue to be a place where Student Development takes place as faculty and staff work closely in relationship with the students, we must keep the student to faculty ratio low; if we are going to continue meeting the challenges of accreditation, we need to continue to bring in quality faculty, administrators and staff; and for the school to grow to meet the challenge of diversifying our programs, student body and staff we will need to continue to recruit quality people from all over the world to join the PIU team. The key asset of any college or university is its faculty and staff, and God has already provided PIU with many outstanding people.

We are thankful that God has already assembled a great administrative team here at PIU. It seems like Steve Stinnette (VP of Advancement) and I have been here at PIU since before Magellan came through, but God has added a great group to our leadership team recently. Dr. Eric Sorenson became our Seminary Dean in 2008. Melody Plaxton has been on our faculty for 3+ years, but just this year moved up to the Academic VP position. In August, Rob Watt moved up from our facility in Palau to head up our Student Life team and Lisa Collins was hired as our Director of Libraries. Our most recent hire was Nino Pate who leads our assessment and planning efforts. Nino is working for us now from the Philippines as we wait for his US visa to come through. Our biggest need in administration is for a Chief Financial Officer. Harumi Eliason has done a great job for us as an interim CFO but is only available through the end of April. We are now looking for the person God has called to this position.

I am also thankful for the highly qualified Bible and general education faculty God has brought our way. All of our graduate faculty and 42% of our undergraduate faculty have doctoral degrees. But more importantly, all of our faculty are committed to sharing not only information, but their lives, to minister to and mentor the students. This is something we don't want to lose as the school grows. We want to have enough faculty so all the students are able to have real relationships with faculty members. We are thankful that we have new Bible, English and Counseling faculty committed to joining us for the 2010-11 school year. Our greatest need is to find an elementary education teacher who can help us start our new teaching program. As we expand to the liberal arts we will also need Christian teachers in several disciplines who want their teaching to be a ministry.

Finally, the staff are also a key component to the success of the mission of PIU. The Student Life and office staff are the ones who most often are dealing directly with the students. It so cool that our Office Manager, Celia Atoigue and our Financial Aid Director, Delight Suda, are able to, not only help the students navigate paying bills and getting federal grants, but are also able to minister to the personal and spiritual needs of the students.  As we grow we will need more staff like them who desire to share their lives with the students.

We are confident that God is going to bring us the additional people we need to make the vision he has given us happen, but we need to do our part to go out and find them.