Happy Birthday to Joyce

Today was Joyce’s birthday. We just got back from her birthday dinner at Tony Roma’s in Tumon. One of her favorite meals is Tony Roma’s baby-back ribs and she ate a half rack tonight. It was nice to have an evening out after her day trying to get tires fixed on her car. (See Below). So Happy Birthday to my lovely wonderful wife. May she have many more, but with a little less stress than today. Joyce says thank you mom for the blouse.

The Semester Has Begun!

Joyce and I returned to Guam early on the morning of January 11th and jumped right into the first day of class on the 13th. In fact, we missed registration and orientation which took place the week before. In addition we also welcomed visiting teacher Jim Sawyer who teaches church history and systematic theology for PIES, our PIU Seminary. Well, really we didn’t welcome him since when we arrived back on Guam he was already asleep a few hours in our house. We have been pretty busy getting caught up and jumping right into our responsibilities here. But, we also realize how blessed we are to have a job in ministry and that we get to work with college kids who want to know God better. Can’t beat that!

This semester I am teaching two classes: Old Testament Survey for the PIES Seminary and Old Testament History at the undergrad level. I am partially combining the courses with the classes meeting together for 7 overview sessions and then separately for a discussion class with the undergrad students on Wednesday afternoon and continuing for the rest of the semester on Monday nights with the seminarians. We are conducting the seminary class in the conference hall at the Palm Ridge Hotel so that we can better connect the seminary to the community. We are inviting the public to visit the class and check it out to see if it is something that would benefit them. After two class sessions we have been blessed to have several visitors register to take the class as an audit or for-credit student. It is a little different for us to have this big group in a seminary class. But we still do get a lot of discussion. Come and check us out on Mondays 6.30 PM at the Palm Ridge.

Joyce is back at work with her “WeWork” crews. Her crew takes care of the “special projects” around the campus. I think they were cleaning out some storage areas last Saturday. WeWork is an in-campus program that provides the students with some grant money and trains them to be ready for the workplace.

Of course there is always a break time to open up and drink a fresh coconut, or play around a bit..

Last Post About Our Vacation

Okay, it is the end of the first week of the new semester at PIU so I need to get my mind back to work and move on from vacation right? So this is the last post about our family time in San Diego. It was a much needed time away to relax and enjoy family and State-side friends. It is always hard to say goodbye. To me, one of the hardest things about being a missionary is that, whether we are at work in ministry or enjoying a stateside vacation,  we are always missing someone who is far away across the sea. Coming soon: Some posts about the 1st week of the semester.

One last “swing” before we left

A little time to play with the kids

A hug from (for?) grandma

And a little more play time

Lots of good memories

Seaport Village in the Afternoon

One thing we seem to always find time to do while in San Diego is to visit Seaport Village. It is nice to walk near the ocean and feel the cool breeze (much cooler than Guam) and browse in the many little stores. It was a very relaxing, pleasant afternoon with the family.

This very large ship came into port while we were sitting in the park

Everyone wanted to be in the tree. Yes, even I climbed up.

Matt having fun with his kids

We had a lot of time to sit and walk together

Keiahni enjoyed playing with a dog that walked by

Christmas in San Diego

This year Christmas in San Diego did not happen until the 2nd week in January, at least for us. We wanted to wait until Cliff, Missy and Leila arrived and we could open presents together. We often have several Christmas celebrations each year with family and friends spread all over the earth. This year we had two Christmases on Guam, one in Redding with Joyce’s family, one in El Dorado with my family and another in the hospital in Placerville on Christmas Day. You have already seen pictures of those celebrations so I’ll just post some pictures of the celebration in San Diego last week. Those kids sure made it a lot of fun.

We enjoyed seeing Missy, Cliff and Leila open their present from us (and from Mike and Samantha)

Keiahni enjoyed her first Christmas celebrations

The kids were so excited – and not just about getting presents

More opening of presents

Joyce liked her new necklace

My grandkids are very cool

“Thank you for my presents!”