The PIU annual day of prayer last Friday began early in the morning as a small group of students, faculty and staff braved the wind, cold (for Guam – note the sweatshirts everyone is wearing) rain and nasty vermin (trying to get away from the high waters) to meet for prayer in the pavilion in the center of campus. We got to spend an hour praying for each other, the school, the islands, the community, missions and for the supporters of PIU. After the hour of prayer students and faculty headed to class and I headed to the office.
The next event was the Prayer and Worship Chapel. Michael Owen organized the chapel (one of his responsibilities is mentoring the worship team and I appreciate the fact that it really is a worship team – not just a music group) The theme for prayer chapel was based on the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew 5-7 so the worship, music, prayers and speakers were all organized around that theme. The chapel began with music interspersed through scripture readings from the Gospel of Matthew.
Mike asked a few members to share some thoughts during the chapel. My job was to summarize the Sermon on the Mount in 3-5 minutes. Jesus summarized it much better than I could when He said that He had fulfilled the law and that we fulfill the Law when we follow His command to “Follow Me!” Sarah Brubaker spoke on prayer and shared powerfully about how God had worked in her life in direct response to prayer.
Joyce shared from scripture and from her experience how, when you understand how big God is and how much He loves you, that there is just no reason to worry. As you can see she had a little help from Serenity who, as Joyce finished her talk, tripped over Charles’ guitar cord.
We then divided up into groups and prayed through several prayer requests
And sang a few more songs
In the evening we had one more prayer gathering led by Samantha. All week she had been collecting prayer requests on cards from the PIU family so we could pray for them for two hours on Friday night. We shuffled and re-shuffled into small groups and worked our way through all the prayer cards. In addition Sam organized some creative activities that helped us pray for all the leadership of the school, unreached peoples of the world, and for each other.
One of my favorite activities was the “prayer circle” in which we rotated to pray for the board, administration, faculty and staff of PIU
My favorite part of the evening was was when everyone gathered together to pray for me. That was so encouraging! It is nice to be reminded that so many people pray for me. This has been a difficult year for us in many ways but we serve a good and Almighty God!
This week’s featured students are part of the “Liebenzell Scholarship” program which provides a substantial tuition discount to students who do not have sufficient resources (income, scholarships and grants) to afford to come to PIU. Even though the costs for PIU are among the lowest of all accredited private Christian colleges in the world, most of our students need to take advantage of the discount. In return for the discount each student works up to 5 hours per week for the school in various jobs. While one of the big reasons for this is to help the school meet needed expenses and keep tuition low, the main reason for the program is for students to get some work experience that will help them later in life. Many of our faculty and staff members have volunteered to supervise and mentor these students as they work. It has been exciting to see most of our students fit into their jobs and excel.
One of the biggest groups of student workers is in the Advancement department headed up by Lisa Collins, Lisa is our librarian too,but has graciously agreed to coordinate the school’s advancement efforts until a qualified full-time person can be found. The advancement team went to work, visiting high schools, contacting alumni, prospective students and donors, creating and editing school publications and social networking, with such fervor that Lisa dubbed them “The A Team.” The team consists of (left to right) 1) Mathew Fanoway- helping with creation and editing of publications 2) Johnny Esa - Coordinates communication with the FSM association of Churches on Guam and the Chuukese Alumni Association, and assists in Alumni Relations 3) Lisa Collins – The Big Boss 4) Camry Ann Fichan who handles filing of information 5) Josh Ladd - coordinates communication with high schools and helps with promotion. 6) Asia Oshiro – coordinates email, social networking and team communication and prospective students. She also helps with alumni relations. 7) Billy Edwin is the staff member who is in charge of alumni relations and works with Lisa to supervise and mentor the “A” team. Not pictured are staff/faculty members Joey Charles (Video Production Coordinator) and Samantha Owen (Publications Coordinator). It really is a pleasure to walk by the Advancement office and see the A Team happily hard at work!
