"Cell Phone in the Refrigerator" Days

Yesterday was a "cell phone in the refrigerator" day. A "CPIR" day is one of those days where you get so many things going on that you forget what you need to do or get distracted from one important thing by another urgent or important thing.  For example, I am on my way to chapel and I get into a conversation, then I see something that needs my attention. When I am done with that, I forget that I was on my way to chapel and go back to my office to work on something else. Then I happen to glance at my calendar and see that it is Tuesday and I have missed half of a chapel I really wanted to attend. So I rush over and at least get to hear the message. This happened this past Tuesday so maybe it is a "CPIR" week. Yesterday I overslept, forgot appointments, started at least 3 emails and then forgot to finish them etc etc. To top it off I went down to Rev and Tax to renew my Driver's License (which I forgot to do on my birthday) and they were closed for renovations. Yikes!

The reason that I call these "cell phone in the refrigerator days" is an incident that happened a couple weeks ago. Normally, when I come in to the PIU office in the morning I am carrying my computer bag and my lunch. Usually the first thing I do is stick my lunch in the refrigerator and then get myself set up for the day in the office. That morning I noticed that, after my set up routine, my lunch was sitting on my desk. I thought I had already put it into the refrigerator but, not thinking too much about it, I got up and put my lunch into the fridge. A little while later Joyce came in and said she had been trying to call me on my cell all morning and was wondering why I wasn't answering.  I said that I didn't hear it ring and I was sure my cell was turned on. When I reached into my pocket it wasn't there. We looked all over my office, the school and the car for that phone and would have gone home to look for it unless someone just happened to ask me why there was a cell phone that looked like mine sitting in the refrigerator. How it got out my pocket into the fridge I will never know.

I suppose now that I am officially "old" a case could be made for some degeneration of the brain. I prefer to think that it is so many things going on that my brain just "misfiles" a few things. CPIR days often involve a lot of administrative things that I would rather not do, but need to be done. However, the good side of these CPIR days is that the "distractions" often involve visitors to our campus, ministry opportunities with students and, yesterday, two long good talks with staff members that were very encouraging to me and I hope to them too. I suppose I could use these CPIR weeks as an excuse for why I haven't posted lately - My plan is to get caught up this week - but probably they are just a normal part of ministry.

Student Statistics for PIU Spring 2011

Yesterday the PIU registrar published our official enrollment statistics for the new semester. I was happy to see that we have slightly increased our student body. We usually have a lower enrollment in the Spring than Fall because of December graduates. This semester our total number of students is 101.

This number includes 5 students in the Master of Arts in Religion program, 70 in the Bachelor's program and 12 in AA program. We have one Bible certificate student and 13 non-program students.

We have 53 male and 48 female students. Since I have been here we usually have had more female than male students. The largest ethnic group by far is the Chuukese with 51. We have 14 Palauans, 4 Yapese and 14 Caucasians. We also have students from Pohnpei, the Marshall Islands, China, Korea, Bangladesh, Philippines and of course Guam.

Most of our students are full time (65), but we have 31 part-time students and 5 auditing. 46 of our students live on-campus in our dormitories.

A lot of numbers I know, but each one is a unique character, created in the image of God and part of our PIU family. We have the privilege of helping each of them become what God created them to be. 

We appreciate your prayers for our students this semester!

Some More Pictures of the Beach

Here are a few more photos of our beach adventures while Missy and Cliff were here in January. Hopefully, this will warm up you US Mainlanders  a little.

We got to see several interesting critters.

Cliff and Missy tried to get as much beach time as possible in before they had to leave.

Shark's Hole is a great place for a hike, swim or snorkeling

We enjoyed the beautiful view from Two Lovers' Point

And of course made a tourist pose.

More Island Tour Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from when we took Missy, Cliff and Jesse around the island last week. There are some pictures of the old Spanish administration building in Hagatna and then some pictures from a drive around the Southern end of the island. Cliff enjoyed seeing the WW2 guns and everyone enjoyed our warm water. Come visit us and you can get the same tour...

There are still a few guns left from the battlefield site in Agat.

Everyone who visits us gets to have their picture taken with us at Ceti Bay. I still think this is one of the most beautiful spots on Guam.

We also had to head down to Fort Soledad so Missy and Cliff could ride the carabao. For more info about this site see here.

Then everyone else had to get a ride too. The carabao seemed to really enjoy eating the star apples.

We visited the statue of "Our Lady of Camarin." Oral tradition relates that Santa Marian Kamalen, Patroness of the Marianas islands, floated into the shores of Merizo escorted by two crabs with lit votive candles on their backs over 340 years ago. 

The trip is not complete without a swim in the Inarajan pools. Here Jesse impresses with his diving skills. 

TRACS Visit

Another event in our busy first week of school was a visit from the VP of Institutional Compliance of TRACS (the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, the national accrediting organization that provides us with accredited status), Dr. Tanmay Pramanik. Dr. Pramanik is new to TRACS. I met him for the first time at the November conference. The purpose of his trip was for him to get better acquainted with PIU and to go over, with us, our applications for accrediting our new Scuba Diving Certificate and our AA and BA degree programs in Liberal Studies. In addition Dr. Pramanik looked at our revised long term plans for expansion and some of our possible sites for relocation and expansion of our campus. It was great to get to know him on a professional and personal basis. He spoke in our opening chapel and our administration, faculty and students had a chance to sit, eat lunch and talk with him. We also got to take him to Chamorro Village on the last night he was here. We were encouraged by his appraisal of our school and the proposed new programs, and are looking forward to TRACS approval of the new programs. TRACS has been a good partner with us since 1999.

Theological Discussion with Titus

My 4 year old grandson Titus and his sister Courage spent the day with us today. This afternoon we were watching a biblical themed show on the Discovery Channel together and it got us into the following discussion....

Titus: God is an angel. How did God get to be an angel?

Me: God is not an angel. The angels work for God.

Titus: Yes he is. My dad and I talked last night and he told me that God is an angel.

Me: Are you sure that it was your dad said?

Titus: Yes he told me that.

Titus: Grandpa are you going to die soon?

Me: Why do you ask that?

Titus: Because when you get old you run out of life.

Me: I think I have some life left.

Titus: You don't have as much life left as me.

Me: You are right about that.

I am co-teaching a class with Mike right now. I may wait a little while to add Titus to the faculty.

Joyce's Birthday Celebration

Here are a few pictures from Joyce's birthday celebration last week. We had lunch at Jeff's Pirate Cove and then came to our house for cake, ice cream and strawberries. The funny thing is that I have a lot of pictures of the family celebrating her birthday but not too many of Joyce.Here Ben and Missy don't seem too unhappy to be stranded on Guam.

Before we went out to lunch Joyce. Missy and Cliff made another trip to the beach, even though we have been having a winter chill down in the low 80's.

The lunch at Jeff's Pirate Cove was excellent and we finally took a picture of the fish sandwich.

Courage insisted that we take her picture several times with the pirate mural.

As you can see from the picture it was a pretty breezy day.