Freshmen Orientation and Registration

The students are back! New PIU students moved in Wednesday night and began registration and orientation on Thursday. Returning students checked in on Thursday and registered on Friday. Thanks to above and beyond work by the office staff and faculty advisors, we got everyone registered by about 8 PM on Friday evening. It is exciting to meet so many new students from so many different places. I am looking forward to an exciting semester. Here are a few pictures of the days’ activities.

Academic Advisors worked with the students Thursday morning and all day Friday

Prof Nino Pate administered the math placement test.

Registrar Urte Scherer (right) made sure the students were signed up for the right classes and then Mary Lou Carruthers took student ID pictures and made sure students got their proper PIU email addresses

We met with all the new students to go over PIU policies, financial aid, etc

Sarah explained the Liberal Studies program to the students and Mike explained the Biblical Studies program. I learned through this that the only books one needs to read to be a thoroughly educated person in Western knowledge are the Bible, the Works of Shakespeare and The Works of Plato. Hmmmm

The returning students are happy to be back together after being apart during the summer

I am very happy to have the office full of students again after a quiet summer. (Courage took this picture of me)

Faculty Orientation

The semester started officially for our faculty on Wednesday with a faculty orientation and in-service training day. It was good to see everybody together again and I think everyone is ready to get back to work. I had the opportunity to begin the school year with a devotional on Habakkuk 2.20 and then our Provost, Christel Wood, led us through the meeting.  We discussed administrative and curriculum issues, communications, school calendar, on-line tools, remedial classes, student motivation and spent some time praying for the faculty, staff and students. We have a small, but very dedicated faculty. We do have some critical personnel needs for our faculty (See here) but I am confident that this group will be doing a great job of serving our students’ needs here at PIU.

Sarah Brubaker (left) Liberal Studies chair and Christel Wood our Provost ably led and planned the meeting. On the right one of the faculty discussion groups talks about how to better motivate our students academically.

Courage and Serenity joined the meeting at lunch time. Joyce will be teaching remedial English this semester at PIU.

Library Renovation Almost Done

  We are almost done with the library renovation too. Lisa and her many volunteers have been raising money for materials and working on the library most of the summer. She has been documenting the process on her blog here. This past month all the books and some of the fixtures have been stored in the main classroom (left). These needed to be moved on Tuesday as the interior of the library building was being finished (right). We needed the classroom for teacher orientation on Wednesday and freshman orientation on Thursday. Several students, faculty and staff worked very hard to make the move go smoothly. We were very thankful the downpour of rain waited until Wednesday.

As one group moved the library books to the library from classroom 1A, the Resident Assistants for the Women’s dorm (left) did their training in Classroom 1B.

Extending the Women’s Dorm

The students began moving on to the campus last night. We are about ready to begin orientation activities this weekend. And we are feverishly trying to get things ready. We have a record number of accepted students (last time I looked it was over 30) expected to show up over the next couple days. Right now we have more students wanting to live on campus than we had capacity in our last year’s configuration, so we are trying to add a little more space. One way we are doing that is to convert our tiny dean of men’s residence to a dorm extension. We had no cash to do this but our friends and neighbors at Hawaiian Rock donated 6 yards of concrete and, with some other kind donors, we are able to enlarge and renovate the little house. It won’t be ready on time but it should enable us to add space for 4 more young ladies by next week. Thank you Hawaiian Rock and anonymous donors!

PIU staff and students worked with the Hawaiian Rock guys to pour the concrete

Operations Manager, Celia Atoigue, checks on the progress of the construction

Arrival Back on Guam

  Early last Friday morning we boarded the plane in Sacramento for our flight back to Guam through Los Angeles and Honolulu. We arrived on Guam on Saturday evening (after crossing the international dateline) after between 19-20 hours of travel time. The picture here is of the gate in Honolulu during the boarding process for the flight to Guam. This may have been the most disorganized boarding process I have ever participated in. It was a long flight but we have pretty much recovered now (I got up at 5 this morning) and we are ready to begin the official start of the semester today as we start faculty/staff in-service and the students begin to move into the dorm this evening. It is time to get the new semester started.

This was our greeting committee when we arrived at the airport. The girls are modeling the clothes we bought for them while in California. Titus has on his new school uniform. He started kindergarten this past Monday.

The kids got to open their presents when we got back to our house

Here is another picture of the kids modeling their new clothes for grandma

Saying Goodbye in California

We are now back on Guam after arriving on Saturday night. We are glad to be back and ready to go on a new semester of school but it was a little hard to leave. The main reason for being in California on this trip was to spend time with our parents. We were both able to do that. The last few days we were there Joyce spent most of the week in Redding with her mom and dad and I stayed in El Dorado with mine. On Monday I drove up to Redding to spend a couple days there and then pick up Joyce to bring her back to leave on Friday morning. Her sister Janet and husband Paul had driven down from Oregon so Joyce also got to spend some time with her sisters. The picture was taken Wednesday night before we left to head back to the Sacramento area. We do appreciate you praying for Joyce’s dad, Dale Cundall. When Joyce arrived in the last week of July the situation looked pretty bad. His recovery since then has been a small miracle. He has been able to eat, go to church and get around much better. He still is facing a risky surgery in the near future so please keep him in your prayers.

We spent Wednesday night at my parents place where I had been staying most of the week before. My dad has been undergoing treatments for some issues with his heart while we were there. He completed the treatments successfully last week and now is going through physical therapy. He is going to have to make some major changes in diet and lifestyle which will not be easy, but we are thankful that things came out better than they could have. It was very nice to have some time just to sit, talk and hang around with my mom and dad for a few days. I also got to spend some time with my sister and her family too. Thursday evening we went out to dinner and then down to a hotel near the SMF airport since our flight left very early (pre 5 AM check in) Friday morning. We have been more blessed than most to have both sets of parents still with us and so supportive of what God has called us to do. We pray that will continue for a long time.

Preaching at Gold Country Baptist Church

  These last two weeks have not been all about vacation. While we were up in El Dorado County I had a chance to preach at Gold Country Baptist on Sunday the 12th. I also had an opportunity to fellowship with the elders in their Friday morning get-together. GCBC was one of the first two churches, along with Gateway in Scotts Valley, to become part of our mission partnership team back in 1984 when we first went out to Palau with Liebenzell Mission USA. So we have many old friends at the church. It was good to see them and make some new friends. The church really seems to be growing lately. I enjoyed having a day to fellowship with the people there. We do appreciate Gold Country and all the other churches and individuals who help keep us on the field at PIU. I took some pictures of the congregation while I was preaching. I am sorry that they are a bit blurry.

I also had a chance to chat with Melody and Tim Plaxton. Tim and Melody spent 4 years out at PIU on our faculty and staff. GCBC not only supported them but continues support us, Mike and Samantha and Mary Lou Carruthers at PIU.