Staff Barbecue

As we get to the beginning of December and the end of the semester it is time for celebrations. On Thursday the operations staff at PIU had an end of semester barbecue to thank them for a good done during the semester. As usual any party here escalates and there were quite a few people there, including me. I rarely miss a barbecue. We are really blessed to have a maintenance and office staff, including our many student workers, who work hard to keep everything clean and running at PIU. We can always use some volunteer help, so if you would like to join the PIU family…

Mo, our faithful maintenance man for the last 8 years, led us in prayer, Greg gave some encouragement, and Nino and Gwen enjoyed the festivities.

PIU Staff and Faculty Christmas Party

Last Sunday night we held our PIU Staff-faculty Christmas party. We decided to keep things low-key and simple this year and so the party was a potluck held at Mary Lou Carruthers’ house with a pretty minimal program. Everybody had to bring a food item that began with the letter “C” (Joyce doubled it by bringing caramel corn) and a small gift for exchange. It was a fun and relaxing evening. Here are a few pictures from the event.

 

We had some good “sit around and talk” time

Since it was also Mike’s birthday we celebrated that too, with ice cream and cake

The ladies pose for Christmas pictures. Do Samantha and Lisa look like they are at the prom?

Yotaka enjoys the gift exchange. I made a very short speech.

There was some serious relaxation going on.

National Car Rental Guam 25th Anniversary

National Car Rental on Guam and its CEO, Cita Tomada who is on the PIU advisory board, has been a faithful corporate sponsor of PIU over the last few years. So we were happy to be invited to be one of the participants in National Car Rental’s 25th anniversary celebration last Saturday. PIU had an information table at the venue and had an opportunity to present what we are doing to the community. It was a lot of fun to see so many friends who joined in the celebration. Thank you Cita and National Car Rental for what you do for Guam and for PIU.

The day started off with a Zumba fitness workout. Yes I danced…. a little. There were also several great prizes donated and raffled off including these little electric cars and, much desired, PIU T-shirts

Cita, left, oversaw all the celebration activities. PIU English teacher, Joey Charles, provided some of the musical entertainment.

Titus, Courage and Serenity enjoyed the bounce house

The PIU banner hung proudly among those of other Guam businesses, non-profits and ministries.

The Guam Ministerial Association

The Guam Ministerial Association held its last meeting of 2012 (we will have a Christmas party at the Royal Orchid Hotel next Tuesday night) at the Island Hope Four Square Church last Friday. I have been a member of GMA pretty much since we arrived on Guam in February of 1993 and have been an officer for several years. The GMA has a regular meeting at one of the member ministries on the first Friday of each month and meets for prayer on the morning of the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month. In addition PIU hosts the GMA theological discussion at lunch time on the 3rd Thursday of each month. Through the years my fellow GMA members have been a source of encouragement, support, accountability and ministry partnership to me personally and to PIU. There has been some conflict in the past but that has been very, very rare. This year I have been praying for deeper connection to Christ through the Spirit in my personal life and the GMA prayer meeting has been one way God has been answering that prayer. My brothers and sisters in the GMA have been a real blessing to me and I am thankful that the ministers in the group have such a good relationship with one another. This is a real witness to the community. The picture above is from the last meeting.

Adventures of Joyce

I was showing Joyce, the other day, how to upload pictures from her camera to her computer and found a bunch of pictures I had not seen before.Some were taken when I was gone on my recruiting trip to the Mainland, but some are a little older. I thought it would be good to post them so you can get a little bit of an idea of what she has been up to. From the picture on the left you can see that she stays well-hydrated. On the right, I think is an exercise from the PIU remedial English class that she teaches.

The major use of her phone cam is to take pictures of the grandkids. Here Titus and Courage pose under the coconut tree in front of our carport

Serenity enjoys preparing dinner for her dolls in our living room

Dress-up is always fun whether it is at our house or in Joyce’s class at the Japanese School of Guam

The girls enjoy the slide

Kids and adults enjoy posing for goofy pictures

Ladies’ night out with the PIU students

Tour around the island

Red hot cinnamon jello and corn casserole for Thanksgiving

And the wide variety of island transportation

Sports Tournament at PIU

The past couple weeks the PIU Student Council has been hosting a volleyball and basketball tournament for college students on the island of Guam. The tournament included teams from PIU, Harvest Baptist Bible College, University of Guam, Guam Community College and The Kingdom Seekers Ministry. The first rounds of the tournament were played on PIU’s outdoor court with the finals at Harvest’s gym last Monday night. I appreciated the great job done by the PIU student leadership to organize and run the tournament and, especially, their desire to reach out to other college students to build relationships for the Kingdom of God. It was great to see how the students interacted.

The PIU fans were in to it.

1st place in basketball was won by the Kingdom Seekers Ministry (featuring PIU student Mike Ihpa) and in volleyball by Harvest. The PIU Ladies (pictured here) took 2nd in volleyball.

Joyful Noise Music Festival 2012

  The 2nd Annual “Joyful Noise” Music Festival, sponsored by the Guam Minister’s Association, to benefit PIU was held last Sunday night at the Onnuri Vision Church in Mangilao. All the island churches were invited to bring their music groups, choirs, bands etc to perform one song and then everyone joined together for one mass choir song to close the program. I think this is one of the most fun and encouraging church events of the year on Guam. We get to hear many different kinds of music and experience different forms of worship from many different churches and denominations. It was a blessing to see everyone enjoying each other and fellowshipping together. Thank you everyone for a wonderful night.

Pastor Albert Alquero, president of the GMA, welcomed everyone and got the evening started off. Mike Owen led us in a prayer of Thanksgiving

We had a good group out to enjoy the festivities

Kevin, in red on the left helping with set up, and Samantha (right) did a great job coordinating the event.

The First Church of God and Island Hope Church groups got us rocking

The Ranch Fellowship singers and Lutheran Church of Guam Bell Choir were cheered enthusiastically 

PIU was well represented by Joey Charles and by the Voices of Micronesia

Miracle Assembly of God and Guam Christian Church had everyone hopping and clapping

The mass choir this year was led by Frances Okubo and sang “Let There Be Praise”

I closed the program with prayer and directed everyone to the PIU information table… and to the pie and ice cream social.

Everyone lined up for pie and ice cream. Thank you to National Car Rental, Triple J Wholesale and the participating churches for providing so much good food! It was a great night!!