Yikes!

I am not sure what this piece of contruction equiptment was but it was having trouble getting by our van parked on the side of the road where we left it for our hike. Fortunately we got back just in time to move the van out of his way. Although this picture does make it look like it - I think he had room to get by us but obviously he did not want to take any chances.

Holiday Hiking

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, after our basketball team played, I took a small group of students hiking. I guess it is more accurate to say that Joyce led us on a hike. I had done the hike before but was concerned that I did not remember everything so she came with us again. We hiked to a beach they refer to as "Shark's Hole" We did a little snorkeling while we were there but really there were not that many fish. It could be due to the fishermen on the beach this time? Anyway it was a nice walk and a nice swim. We also took a little side trip to a fresh water pond and also took a swim.
Not a bad view either.
Protecting themselves from the Sun are Smileen, Retain, and Brad.

Thanksgiving

It is a tradition at PIBC to have a big Thanksgiving Celebration with the staff and students who are around. This year I was responsible for organizing the Thanksgiving Celebration on Campus. Everybody was very helpful in bringing food. I also had help making food. The evening before and the morning of the dinner I had a handful of students who were helping me cook in my apartment. They were chopping and mixing and cleaning. It was not only a great help, it was a lot of fun working together and hanging out.
Another group of students, under the direction of our librarian assistant, Stella Fatag, decorated the class room. It really looked nice.
Before the dinner, Brad and Cheryl led us in some singing and had an open time of being able to share Thanks with each other.
Then many people worked together and cleaned the place up. It really was a good day. I hope that you were blessed by your time of sharing.
Oh yeah.... before I forget... I am thankful for Brad and his great photography. These are his pictures because my pictures got corrupted once again due to my computer freezing when I stuck my memory stick in it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just thought I would reflect on some of the things for which I am thankful - Since it is that time of year and all....
1. My family and their support
2. My PIBC Family (Staff and Students)
3. My Job
4. Wonderful Friends and Supporters
5. Amelia, Joel, Micah and Ganya, Maggie, Elise, and Lexi
6. My Life and Health
7. God’s provision
8. Liebenzell support staff
9. Laughter
10. God’s Grace and Forgiveness
11. Diet Coke
12. Ugly Betty
13. Variety in People and Cultures
14. Music
15. Computers
16. Digital Camera
17. Skype www.skype.com - allows you to call telephones from your computer.
18. Sunsets and Rainbows
19. Ice Cream
20. Chocolate

For what did you give thanks this year?

Touring Around the Island

Heavens to Betsy

Betsy is the name of the beautiful Carabao in the center of the photograph. These are some of the students I took to see some of the island, the carabao owner and one Japanese tourist at Fort Soledad. Apparently this man was giving Carabao rides for donations to support the park. This was the prettiest and cleanest carabao (or water buffalo) that I have seen on Guam.
Eli and Stella jumped at the opportunity for a ride.
So did Sassy and Jayleen.
Machinta was very scared but finally with some coaxing got on the Caraboa. Of course, they all wanted their pictures taken. I am sure if you are looking you will find many of these pictures on MySpace (The students' favorite website I believe).

Worshiping During Sunrise

A tradition during Spiritual Emphasis Weekend is worship on the beach with the Sunrise. Here Mac and Hiob (our Dean of Men and Director of Spiritual Development) lead us in Worship. Mac is an excellent worship leader and we will miss him as he is done after this semester.
Psalm 19:1 " The Heavens Declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hand. Day after Day they pour forth speech; Night after night, they display knowledge."

Just Hanging Out

Students and Staff just hanging out during Spritiual Emphasis Weekend.

Coconut Branch Weaving

This is Delight. No that IS his name. Of course he is a delight too but that is another topic. Delight and his wife Evelyn (above) are staff at PIBC. Evelyn is also a graduate. Delight works with the students in helping them get financial aid. Evelyn is the Chuukese liason. Here Delight is weaving a mat out of coconut palm fronds for him to sleep on.

Early Evelyn made us some stirring stirs out of palm fronds because no one remembered to pack spoons. These two would do very well on Survivor.... actually I believe most islanders would fair pretty well in many of the situations that they use in the show.

Bar-b-que is BIG

For spiritual emphasis weekend - there is always lots of food involved, especially Bar-b-que. This year, Hollie was able to rent us a HUGE grill, from the Military Recreation group. It was huge which was good since when you are cooking for about 80 people - there is a lot of meat that needs to be cooked. Some of our cooks were Jerome, Hansen, Jeffrey and Jayleen.
Ribs, Brisket, and Chicken made up our Saturday evening feast. We served it with rice and salad.
Coolers not only work for keeping things cool but also to keep things warm. When making so much food, they really come in handy. Molly and Jayleen sampling are doing some taste testing and showing off for the camera.

Be Still and Know that I am God Psalm 46:10

To start off our Spiritual Emphasis weekend we challenged our students to spend some time in solitude and silence.
We also encouraged them to spend that time praying and meditating on Scripture.... seeking God's direction in their lives. The students spend a lot of time in all their classes learning about the bible and God but we also hope they develop first hand experience of God in their lives. The green book is a guide I created to help them structure their time.
Many of the students really enjoyed the time.
Even Hollie was able to take some time to spend some time praying and reflecting on life's direction.

Hop On the Bus Gus

This year for our Spiritual Emphasis Retreat we rented a bus so we could get all the students down to the retreat site in one trip. We camped on a private beach about 30 minutes south of the school. Unfortunately only 50 of the students fit on the bus. The rest went in the vans and in private cars. This was the first time for many of our students to ride on a big bus. On most of their islands there are not enough people to warrent having a big bus. Some of them liked it - Some of them didn't.

Going Postal

One of the things I do here at PIBC is go to the post office and pick up the mail three times a week. Most people on Guam have P.O. boxes. Many houses in Guam are really down dirt roads in the middle of no where and have no real street address. This often leads to very long lines at the post office. Previously they had a seperate line for people who were just picking up packages or mail that does not fit in their boxes. Now everyone has to wait in the same line. Usually when you get there the line is quite long. It is quite normal to have to wait 20minutes before getting to the counter for service. Although the wait can be as long as 45 minutes. It all depends on how many people in front of you have how many things to mail, money orders to get, or stamps to buy. Some days when I get the mail, I think "I hope there are no packages today because I really don't want to stand in line". Today I got to the post office and there was not one person in line. No one was even being waited on. It was a modern day miracle. I hoped and prayed for packages. We are waiting for several, including chocolate from Holland. However, none arrived today. I didn't even need stamps. How sad. What a waste of a miracle.

Drowning Thoughts

This week Harald Gorges is away. He was at a Pastor's conference in Palau and then went to visit the church in Yap. While he was gone I promised to proctor an exam for him. Basically I just handed out the test and collected it. Brad's class is in the Library before it opens. When I taught last year, there was no other class at the same time. As I was sitting there trying to read, it was very hard to concentrate.... because I could hear very clearly the lecture of the professor in the next class room. It must be hard focusing while trying to take a test on a completely different subject.

Although after awhile I could no longer hear the teacher next door. It started to rain. The rain was so loud that it actually drown out the voice of the other teacher..... it is so loud at times - it sometimes makes it even difficult to think. If you watch the very short video - all the noise that sounds like static is rain on our tin roof. Although we are hoping to add insulation in the roof to provide some sound proofing from the noise of the rain, this video is more to display a prayer need for PIBC. We are in desperate need of more and better class space. We are hoping to raise funds to start a building which would have better class rooms and office space for our increasing staff.

They've Moved....

My neighbors, the Farnsworths, including Amelia pictured here, have now moved. In the evening, I walked over to visit them. I played a little with Joel and Amelia and talked with Marisol. Amelia now has her own big girl bed. She was exicted to show it to me. However when I left she did not understand. She thought I should just have a "door" in her new house like I had in her old place. Fortunately they are not too far away but I will still miss them ALOT.

Almost Back

Brad Boydston (VP of Academics, Professor, et al.) and Dave Owen (President, Professor) have been traveling in the US. They have been working on recruiting teachers and other positions which we need both in Guam but mostly on our Chuuk campus. They also attended the TRACS conference which is the organization who gives us our accreditation. I am excited to report that Brad is coming back on Thursday morning. I have been "teaching" (more facilitating) his class while he was gone for 2.5 weeks. Although in some respects I enjoy it - I am glad to be giving back the reigns to him.

Dave will not be back for another week as he is currently in Schooley's Mountain at the Liebenzell USA headquarters for the board meeting.

What's Up?

The Sky, the Ceiling and a Preposition.... :o) This type of humor seems to be well appreciated by Micronesians.

Some Highlights of the Last week....

The church I am attending had their annual mission's conference. They highlighted some local ministries including Pacific Islands Bible College. We took a group of students to the Wednesday night program who sang and gave some testimonies. I really was proud of them.... (of course I am most times). Even on Sunday some came up to me and thanked us for the music. It is not too often that they get an opportunity to use their gifts of music in that church because it is a very structured service.

The Campus Ministry team invited people from University of Guam for a time of games (basket ball, volley ball) on Saturday night..... unforunately it got rained out.

One of the local choral groups brought in a Gospel musician. They worked really hard for a week and then put on a concert at a local church. One of the teachers involved in this group decided that it would be fun to give the students a taste of this different type of music. So I drove the van and took a group of 14 students along. They really were very good.

There was some news this week from Dave in the states. He found a lawyer who works with immigration issues who believes that Jens and Karin could be back as quickly as six weeks. So it is a possibility that they may be able to return by the beginning of the Spring Semester. (Please continue to pray about this.)

I only have one more class to run for Brad. This week I will also proctor an exam for Harald Gorges.

I along with many on campus now are struggling with the same illness.

Joyce Owen's parents arrive tonight. They will be here for a visit. We are hoping Joyce's Dad will also help with installing solar power on campus.

Bowling for Fun

For a change on a Friday night I offered a trip to the bowling alley. Only about 10 of us went but we had fun.
Bowling alleys are not common on the Islands so some of them had never been bowling.

New Doo

Here I am with my buddy Joel.... I finally broke down and got my hair cut.... so far I really like it although the layers make it harder to pull back in a pony tail.

What is God's Will for my Life?

On Tuesday I shared with the students in chapel on the topic of God's will.
For the most part everyone seemed to listen intently. Ned is even taking notes. Although at times it was hard to hear with the helicopter buzzing over campus..... (Aaron looking for his wife.)

A bunch of the students and faculty and staff assisted me by reading scriptures that I assigned to them. I was relieved when it was over but this time I really felt the peace of the Lord while I was speaking. It almost made me nervous that I didn't feel nervous. I was blessed in the end by everyone's encouragement.

Aaron Shares In Chapel

Aaron shares about his experiences in the desert of Kuwait and Iraq. Hollie assists him with the technical piece of his presentation as he shows pictures of his experiences.

One More Year

This year I enjoyed celebrating my birthday with the students and faculty and staff on Tuesday as we also celebrated getting half way through the semester. My friend Hannalore baked me a cake. It was delicious.
The Farnsworth children with my birthday gift from the family which is bigger than them. I actually picked up this box from the post office but didn't know at the time it was my birthday gift. Isn't Ned tricky?

Brief Updates

Life in the last week has been extremely busy.... I will give some pictures and other updates in a couple of days hopefully.

• Last week on Tuesday night we celebrated my birthday (early) and midterms being over with Pizza for dinner and Ice cream sundaes for an evening snack (Thanks to my parents). We also played Volleyball and basketball under the lights. Typically we don't turn the lights on the court during the week. My friend, Hanalore, also made me a birthday cake..... what a nice surprise.
• On Wednesday I had lunch with the Gorgeses and Dinner on Anderson Air Force Base at the Schaubs.... (Not the Scubas, Mac)
• Also on Wednesday I had 2 very exciting things.... I felt my first earth quake. Normally I don't notice.... but we were all in a staff meetings and some else said.... Hey it's an earthquake.... and then I said oh yeah I DO feel the building shaking. I found out that was 7.2 on the Rictor scale but approximately 300 miles away so there was no damage here on Guam and if you sneezed you might have missed it - as many did.
• My big excitement Wednesday night was while I was at Anderson Airforce Base I witnessed a B-52 Stealth Bomber taking off. Apparently they only land and take off from about 4 bases - Andersen being one of them. Pretty cool looking plane but of course at 2 billion a pop - it should be cool.
• Last week I started to teach Brad's class while he will be away for 2.5 weeks. 1 week is finished. Brad left me a lesson plan and several classes are mostly watching videos. So far things have gone fine. This week I will also proctor an exam for Harald Gorges while he is in Palau. I am hoping he gets to make a guest appearance on the show survivor which is filming it's next season there.
• The School Vans are both having issues. They must have sympathy pains because the one got a flat tire and then the other blew a radiator hose in the same day. I am thankful that it did not happen Saturday when both Ned and I did a lot of driving transporting students to their Car Wash, Basketball, and ministry.