Support for Students from Yap

The short article below is pasted in from yesterday’s Sunday worship service bulletin from Gold Country Baptist Church in Shingle Springs CA. Gold Country (along with Gateway Bible Church in Scotts Valley CA) was one of the first churches to become part of our missionary support team when we first went to Palau in 1984 and has been a key partner in our ministry since then. They also have supported several other short and long term missionaries to PIU, including, currently, Mike and Samantha Owen and Mary Lou Carruthers. This month their missionary project is…

Project of the Month – PIU Students from Yap 

Our project for July is to help provide airfare and passport costs for three young people in Yap (Frank Rigag, Mark Stull, and John Marsog) who greatly desire to attend PIU in the fall. Their tuition and living expenses should be completely covered with FAFSA and Yap scholarships, but with minimum wage on Yap a mere $1.25, it is extremely difficult to save the money needed for travel.  They are hardworking young men; one of them is a leader with youth; one has a father who is facing a kidney transplant. All they need is a little help to get to Guam where their life will be completely changed as they learn about Jesus in a loving community.  Place your donations in the wooden box marked Project of the Month on the counter in the foyer.

We are very thankful for this project and for their partnership. If you would like to help with this project, a check designated to the “July 2012 missionary project” can be sent to Gold Country at PO Box 768, Shingle Springs, Ca 95762.

Library Renovation Work Day

We had a good group out today at PIU to work on shelving for the PIU library renovation work day. Librarian, Lisa Collins, was happy to see several volunteers show up with a promise for several more in the future. The focus today was on sanding and varnishing the shelves. As with most events, here it also turned into a fellowship and potluck. There will be several more scheduled work days in the future as we try to get everything ready before the students arrive for the Fall semester on August 22. Here are a few pictures.

Joyce gives some lessons on how to do the sanding. Everyone wants to use the power tools.

Mike stains one set of shelves as Courage looks on

Rainy weather means we need to set up the canopy to allow the shelves to dry

As the shelves were being sanded, Samantha was in the office putting the finishing touches on our letter of intent to apply for a grant for doing remedial education in the village communities on Guam. Serenity poses whenever she sees a camera.

Library Renovation at PIU

Below is from a press release sent out by PIU librarian Lisa Collins…

Pacific Islands University is excited to begin a long awaited library renovation.  Zelma Summers, former owner of Hafa Books, jump-started the much-need renovations by donating 56 shelves.  "I know how libraries have to make-do so often;  I'm glad I can help in some way".  Joining in the initial efforts,

Mayor Nito Blas authorized the use of a truck and trailer as well as the assistance of 2 staff members.  Max Erikson and Edwin San Nicholas from the Mangilao Mayor's office lent their tireless efforts to moving the bookshelves and other equipment to the PIU campus.

The Christian college, in Micronesia since 1976 and accredited since 2004, serves students from the Pacific region, Guam, and from the mainland.  PIU is excited to help the community through different avenues.  The library is one of those avenues; community members are invited to join the Friends of the Library group and enjoy full library service, including computers and internet access, checkouts, DVDs and the friendly help of the library staff.  The renovations are moderate in nature and will be done over the course of several weeks, through distinct phases.  Interested individuals or groups who would like to volunteer can contact the Library Director, Lisa Collins, at 743-7738.   Financial contributions can be made to PIU or to PIU Friends of the Library.

The library team is working hard to inventory all the donated items and to get things ready for the volunteer workers to start the library renovation next week

PIU Yap Ministry Team #5 – Grace Neth

  The 5th interview in our Yap ministry trip series is with Grace Neth. Grace is a 3rd year student who just finished an AA degree in biblical studies and is now in the BA in liberal studies program at PIU. She is Chuukese but born and raised in Hawaii. This is Grace’s first time to go to Yap with the ministry team but she was on the Voices of Micronesia team that toured the USA in 2010. Grace was a Resident Assistant in the women’s dorm last year and participated in the work-education program as a library worker. During the ministry trip she led devotions and discussion groups with the young ladies there. She was also VBS and retreat leader and helped organize the program and music.

Grace’s favorite part of the trip was “actually having the opportunity to speak in front of churches and youth groups. I have never experienced that before. It was a new thing to speak and lead discussion in front of such a big group. Speaking in front of a group is a very different thing than singing in front of a big group.” She also enjoyed building relationships with the Yapese girls, “I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to talk to people because it was my first time to Yap but lots of girls came and talked and joked around with me. By the end of the trip I knew some of them well enough to be ‘promise sisters.’” She also appreciated that though the team was a “group of strong personalities, everyone got along.” 

The greatest challenge on the trip for Grace was “learning humility.” "She says, “ I need humility. Sometimes I need to be quiet and listen, but I would say, ‘No! We need to do this.’ She also struggled with “last minute changes.” “Flexibility is one thing, but I didn’t want to be so last minute.” She stressed the importance of “being an example to do what we are preaching in the retreat programs, that we would be warm after God and sharing it by loving our team members and those around me.”

Grace is thankful that her experience as an RA at PIU taught her to “speak into the lives of people from different cultures” and prepared her to “live cross-culturally.” In her Field Education courses she “saw a lot of different ministries.” At the time she wondered, “Why do I need to do this?” but she “got a good taste of ministry.” Now “ministry is familiar to me and easier. I know I can do this, this, or this!” I found that “when I bless others, people bless my life.” “I can do ministry even though I don’t have white hair yet.”

Yap Ministry Team #4 – Jonie Jones

The 4th in this series of interviews with the members of the PIU Yap Ministry team focuses on Jonie Jones. Jonie is a 3rd year biblical studies major who was born on Chuuk but raised on Guam. Last school year she worked with the chapel ministry team as the audio-visual coordinator and in the dorm as an RA. This coming school year she will be the secretary of the Student Council and will again work in the dorm as a Resident Assistant helping to oversee the spiritual health of the women living there. In Yap Jonie led devotions and discussion groups with the young ladies there. She was also VBS and retreat leader and helped organize the program and music.

She thought the best part of the trip was “sitting down with the youth and eating.” They knew that relational barriers were coming down when the Yapese young people would say, “Wait here for us and we will go get food and we will eat together.” They were also able to build relationships by “helping the older ladies cook.” “They said we were a big help – I thought it was going to be hard, but it was fun.” It was “a great day” when “we cleaned the youth center before the retreat because working together opened up many opportunities to talk.”

Team meetings were always “a challenge.” We had to “figure out what to do,” and “planning (all the ministry activities) was hard!” It was also tough “to get out of my shell.” For the first few days of the trip “I was just staying by myself, but the Yapese youth drew me out and I enjoyed being involved.”

Being an RA at PIU has been a great preparation for life and ministry because I learned “how to organize my time,” and gained “boldness to approach people and start conversations.” This helped me develop a relationship in Yap where “I talked and prayed with one girl regularly.” PIU also trained me to be disciplined to prepare devotionals. Jonie urges her fellow students to “open your eyes to the world, obey the call, see what’s out there and meet new and different people!”

4th of July Celebration at the Vigil’s (JR update too)

Yesterday evening (after a full day of laying on the couch reading a novel – my idea of how to do a vacation day!) we headed over celebrate the 4th with barbecue and good friends at the home of Tony, May, JR and Mike Vigil. The steak and veggie shish-kabobs were tasty (as evidenced by the empty plates and bowls in the picture) and the fellowship was great. The kids had a good time playing games and we all had a good time celebrating independence day.

We also had another reason to celebrate. It has been almost a year since JR Vigil had his car accident. It is a miracle that he is still here with us and doing so well. (See here)Just recently we received this update from the Vigil family which I intersperse with pictures of our celebration…

Greetings again from the Vigil household.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been eleven months since JR had the accident.  We have seen God’s healing hand and how He has provided for all our needs.  We will never know why God let this happen but we know that God knows what is best for His children.  JR is still in good spirits and has  totally accepted what happened to him, and is anxious to get his definitive legs so that he can start doing more activities.  With his temporary legs he is very limited on what he can do.  We applied to get assistance at the Division of Vocational Rehab to fund his definitive legs in January but we found out last week that his counselor had not turned in the paperwork to the Administrator who is in charge.  His counselor said that the quote they received from the prosthetic company is too high ($167000.00), so now supposedly they are looking at another company to get a lower price.   

Please pray that DVR gets their act together and that they will accept Progressive as a vendor here in Guam.  Progressive is another Prosthetic Company base in Oklahoma and the owner is a Christian.  We found out about Progressive from a friend of ours and JR has been communicating with Michael Arnett, the owner.   JR’s counselor said that it will take another two months for them to get the paperwork going.  It is very frustrating especially for JR.  Pray that it won’t take that long for him to get approved.  We are completely relying on the grace of God, we know that he is in control of all things.

Thank you for your prayers for JR and Happy 4th of July!

PIU Yap Ministry Team–Ransome Esah

Ransome is a 3rd year biblical studies student at PIU from Chuuk and Hawaii. Ransome’s roles on the team were to lead some of the devotions and develop and perform in the skits that were presented. He played the role of “The Good Outer-Islander” (the island version of “The Good Samaritan”) in one of the skits. But his main role on the team was to do the “background guy stuff” – talk to people, build relationships, hang out and “make them comfortable” to be with the team. Ransome will spend the rest of the summer in Hawaii working with his mom and doing youth ministry.

He agreed with many of the other team members that the most challenging part of the trip was that everyone on the team “had their own ideas about how to do things and we had to find the best way to work things out and do it.” The challenge was compounded by the cross-cultural issues with “Americans, Chuukese and Palauans” seeing things differently. But, “we always worked it out. The meetings lasted until we came to agreement.” He “learned a lot about how to work together through disagreements and go with the flow.”

One of his favorite experiences in the trip was the spiritual warfare. He had heard several of the PIU teachers talk about it in Spiritual Warfare class but “I had never experienced anything like that.” “I used to just pray and go to sleep, but on Yap I really prayed!” He also enjoyed building relationships with the Yapese youth. He “made some very close friends,” who “really opened up to us” as they “slept out in the village churches with the young people.” Ransome was also “very moved by Jesse Hartt’s testimony.” He “was encouraged by hearing that the Voices of Micronesia ministry in 2010 had led Jesse to come to PIU and showed him “how powerfully Micronesians can minister.” He was also encouraged that Jesse shared openly about how God helped him overcome shyness. The girls followed Jesse’s testimony with the song “Freedom to Serve” and Ransome saw that “God’s gift of love is really cool” and he realized how “songs can touch people’s lives.”

Ransome thought the trip was worthwhile because “there are a lot of people who want to become Christians but they don’t know how, and there are a lot of people in Yap who are Christians with no one to lead them. The youth need someone older to look up to, and college students can help by just sharing how God has worked through our struggles. You never know when someone is having the same struggle you had.”