Weekly Shopping

On Friday Afternoons, I still take a group of 6 students, two from each area with a kitchen and we buy weekend groceries for the dorms. I found out apparently Micronesians are not too fond of eating vegtables but they like to pose with them.

Basketball Begins

This Saturday was the first game of the new Basketball season. Although it was extremely close game, the team actually came from behind and was winning but in the last couple minutes, our team lost 52 - 51.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Tuesday being my day off, I spent much of the day hanging out in my apartment doing various things. So at 11PM, someone knocked at the door saying that a large group of the students wanted to go to the airport to say good bye to the Stinnettes.... Having cried and said good bye.... and hating middle of the night airport runs.... I was not excited about it but I agreed to do it.

I got up at the agreed upon time and waited but the girls must have been told a later time or were running late.... so the Men and I hopped in the van and left so we did not miss the Stinnettes before they entered the secure area of the airport.

We actually beat them to the airport by about 5 minutes but they seemed excited to see us. The guys prepared a song. Harald Gorges, director of Liebenzell Micronesia, also showed up. He shared the watch word for the morning and prayed for their journey.... then we sang another song and all said our goodbyes. It was one of those God moments..... You know it looked like everything was so organized and put together but really none of it was planned.

A group of about 10 women also came to the airport right after we left and were also able to say their goodbyes.

Sorry Steve and Anne are blurry. It was about 4:15AM.... I am not at my best.

Recipes

Here are the Brad and Cheryl Boydstons, Stella Fatag, and Ethel Laco..... they are in my apartment about to have dinner. Kind of a risk since I was trying out a new recipe for me..... Cranberry Chicken.... Fortunately it turned out well and everyone enjoyed it.

One reason I am trying out new recipes is that I am tired of my cooking repitoire. It is like I forgot to cook after being in graduate school for 5 years and not having time.

If you would like to help me - please send me a copy of your favorite recipe..... preferably nothing with fruit or chocolate together in the same thing. Email or Snail Mail..... Snail Mail to Guam is just a regular US First Class stamp. My address is found on my website on the contact tab.

Farewell Anne and Steve

One of my favorite things that we do at PIBC is our every other week prayer meeting with the Faculty and Staff. What a wonderful time of fellowship and about once a month.... food too. During our time together this past week, we also gathered to say farewell to Anne and Steve Stinnette who are leaving Micronesia after 28 years of service here.

It was a great but sad night..... We will all miss Anne and Steve.... and I am guessing we would all agree that our lives are all better for having known them.

Happiness is Killing Snakes....

This is Joyce Owen and Happiness Lodge (one of our students) For the last couple of years the two of them have had a competition to see who could catch and kill the most Brown Tree Snakes.

Also pictured.... One Huge Brown Tree Snake about to meet his maker. This is by far the biggest one that I have seen since I have been here. According to some sources(AKA Brad), it could have been about 6 feet long. In their natural environment where they actually have preditors, they are more typically 2 - 4 feet long.

The good news is that each year the number of snakes caught gets smaller AND the bird population seems to be getting bigger. Hopefully this is a sign that the efforts to control the snake population are beginning to be effective. The local electric company just reported having trapped 2000 of them. Another program is sending the snakes to a center in the mainland to have the males sterilzed and introduced back onto the Island. Brad reports that they have also tried to kill them by introducing rats laced with Tylenol. That sounds like killing 2 birds with one stone.

The good news is at least I did not get chased across campus with this snake.

Campus Kids

This semester we have 4 kids living on campus. Here are Joel, Ganya, and Micah..... and of course Amelia who is not pictured.... The Farnsworth children appear often on my blog. Ganya is the daughter of one of our students who now live in the house which was formally Peter's house. Micah is the son of the Dean of Men. Tonight I was in my apartment baking cookies for tomorrow's covered dish, when my door opened and in came Ganya and Micah to visit me. It is fun having little ones around.

Secret Door No More

I am very sad to report that my neighbors, the Farnsworths, who live on the other side of my "secret door" are being asked to move off campus in the name of office space.

They won't be moving far.... just around the corner to the Onnex. However it will be sad not to have them right next door. I usually stop in to see them at least once a day.... Amelia and Joel like to come over and play in my apartment. Amelia especially loves trying on my shoes and playing with Happy Birthday Bear. Both Joel and Amelia love playing with my exercise ball.

So in the next couple of weeks they will be packing up and moving.... and my new neighbors will be Dave Owens and Brad Boydston. It is hard to imagine Brad or Dave coming through the secret door and saying "Surprise"..... probably not too appropriate either now that I come to think of it.... anyway I will miss having them next door tremendously. :o(

Thai Land Mission Trips

This movie was put together by some of our students. It is about 8 minutes about their work in Thailand. It is always hard to know what kind of lasting impact that a missions trip has on the place where you go.... but it is amazing to see the impact on our students who have really grown and matured in a lot of ways after their experience. One of the interesting things was not too many people from Thailand had ever heard of Micronesia. Often people assumed they were from Thailand which seemed to open up peoples hearts toward them. Of course if you know Micronesians you would understand that it is not hard to believe since they are usually very warm and friendly in the first place.

"Peter's House"

This little building used to be Peter's house. When he lived in it, I thought it was a little small but he thought it was perfect for him. It has a decent size bed room but the Living room and Kitchen were the same area with no real stove (a couple of burners) and no room for a table. Since Peter is gone we have now a family of 3 (A student, her husband, and her 3 year old girl) now live here. I have not seen inside so I have no idea how they fit. This year they added this area behind the house for laundry. Joy plans to graduate in Spring.

Marbo Cave

On Wednesday I went for a very short hike (about 1/4 mile) to now my second cave pool. The pastor for the Lutheran Church (who happens to be married to the head of our English Department and a friend), Jeff Johnson, took 3 of us from PIBC and a young woman who attends his church, Lauren, who happens to be a Counseling student at the University of Guam. There were two pools joined by a short crevice that you would squeeze/swim through. The fresh water is extremely clear and is fed by underground springs. The blue is actually the color of the rocks on the bottom. Melody we found is an explorer. She found several sections to the cave that Jeff (our leader) had never seen before. Since this cave is easy to access and close to campus - I hope to take students here in the future.

Wild Thing, I think I love you!

This is a plant that we saw on our hike today. Guess what it is?..... No really try........

Ok.... it is a Wild Pointsetia. It looks kind of like a pointsetia but the leaves are actually pink and green. Pretty neat. I had not seen anything like it before.

She's Back!

This is Stella Fatag. She graduated from PIBC this past Spring and she was part of the Thai Mission team which taught English as a second language. This semester she will be working in our library along with May. She is also living in the one dorm with the women students. Isn't she pretty in pink?

Hiking - Pagat's Cave

After a long day of cleaning, a few of us went for a hike. Joyce and I had been trying to plan a time to go on this hike for about 8 months but due to illness and other things getting in the way, we never made it. Today we finally got to go. We hiked into the jungle to a cave which has a clear fresh water pool. People that go there leave candles and you light them when you go in. It is beautiful and the water is extremely clear and deep at places. After the hike down, it was quite refreshing to go for a swim. Melody came along with Joyce and two new students, Leman and Judson, came along with me. Fun thing was it just happened to be Leman's birthday.

Campus Cleanup

According to school policy students are required to help with the campus clean up. Today each student worked for 2 hours helping weed, mow, water blast, trash collection, sweeping, windows, etc. From what I saw every one did an excellent job.

2 Weeks Down

Today we have just finished the second full week of the semester. So far things seem to be going well over all. Of course there are a lot of adjustments with a new campus director and a bunch of other newbies added to staff, but we seem to be muddling through.

Every day is busy but different than the day before. Boredom is certainly not a problem in this job.

This semester I am not teaching, but I am driving quite a bit more because Ned who did quite a bit of the driving is now teaching 3 classes. However this semester I am able to take and savor my day off. Unlike other semesters, I picked a different day so there are no mandatory meetings to attend and I am not leading devotions that night either.

I try to hang out a bit more with the students. I have played some volleyball and some basketball with them (In the form of HORSE)....

I have just made reservations to go to Palau for Christmas Break. Palau is another group of Islands in Micronesia from where we have students. Using frequent flyer Miles and staying at the apartment of the PIBC Palau Teaching Facility Coordinator, the trip will be relatively inexpensive. "They" say that the Rock Islands of Palau are one of the most beautiful places on earth. I am also hoping to see the site where Survivor (The TV Series) was filmed.

Happy Birthay 18th Tanja

Tanja is the daughter of Hanalore and Harald Gorges. Harald is the director of Liebenzell Micronesia and a part time instructor at PIBC. She celebrated her 18th Birthday this week and we all celebrated by sharing her cake. Yum....

Spiritual Formation

This semester I have decided that I am going to take advantage of some of the excellent bible teachers on campus so I decided to audit Brad Boydston's class on Spiritual Formation. I have found out that it is a class usually taken by freshman so I am having fun getting to know some of the new students. I am not necessarily loving the 8AM time frame but the sacrifice is worth it. Brad took this picture the first day of class.

Happy 70th Birthday Spam!

Spam (also known as "Chammoro Steak") is extremely popular in Micronesia. I have to guess that it was introduced during World War II, and it retained it's popularity here. One reason may be due to it's lack of need of refrigeration which can be spotty on the islands. For whatever reason more SPAM is consumed here per capita than any where else in the world. Our students eat their share of Spam as it is always included in the weekly groceries.

It's Curtains for me

My friend, Joyce, has been telling me that I needed new curtains. She even told me if I would buy the material she would make them for me.

Finally she just got her own material and made me some.

Before I had 3 Tan curtains......
After I am in the pink!

Thanks Joyce!

World's First Baby Teenager

This is my baby nephew. Rumor is that he turned 13 on September 2nd. Unfortunately this is impossible because he is my youngest nephew and if he were not a baby any more then quite possibly I am getting old. Since that could not be. He must be the world's first baby teenager. Isn't he cute?

Happy Anniversary 56th Mom and Dad

Sorry this post is a little late. I didn't have a good photo and I received one today from my niece Amy.... Their Anniversary was on September 2nd. Of course it is still only the 4th in Pennsylvania where they live.

Happy Birthday Crystalene

This is my friend/ "little sister", Crystalene. She used to be on staff here at PIBC. She now is in Hawaii with her family. I really miss her. So I am thinking about her as school starts and on her birthday.

When it rains it pours

As you can see by the following string of posts, I have been extremely busy for the last week. Hopefully now that we are getting up and running there will be a bit more normalcy and I will have time to post more regularly.

Today is my first day off in awhile. Although there is still much to do, a time off was greatly needed.

I am hopefully going to to pool this afternoon since I have not been there since I have been back and the skies are blue..... at least on this side of Guam which is not very common these days.

New Faculty

Here are two of our new faculty members.

Eric Sorenson will be teaching theology based classes. He was a pastor and comes from the same denomination as Brad Boydston. He is here on island with his 16 year old son Christian. His wife, Karyn, who is a counselor, will be here in the next month or two with their 2 daughters. Their oldest son remains in the states at college.

Crystal Churchill is a missionary with the Luthern church. She spent the last 5 years doing accounting for the Luthern church in Paupau New Guinea. She will be teaching book keeping and financial math.

Labor Day

Although around the world Americans are grilling up all kinds of delicious food and relaxing. PIBC had a busy day of registration for classes. This year's registration was much more comlicated than previous years since there have been many changes to our catalog. Our BA program was changed to add 6 minors including Pastoral Care, Teaching English as Second Language, Teaching, Biblical Research, and one more which escapes me now. Also previously 3 volunteer hours a week in ministry were required from each student, along with 2 internships during their 4 or more years at PIBC. Changes have also been made so that there are 3 ministry classes with differing levels of expectations for service. However if a student is almost finished in the old program, they may continue with that program until graduation. All new students are required to participate in the new program.