Merry Christmas

I wish you and your family the very merriest of Christmases and the happiest of new years filled with God's love, peace, and joy.

I will continue blogging when I return on January 4th from the island of Palau.

Little Lambs

My friend, Joyce, who is also wife of president of PIBC, Dave Owen, teaches pre-school at a local church. Since the semester was over Thursday, I was privileged to be able to go to the Christmas program at the Little Lambs preschool on Friday. Here they sing a song about 7 little snowmen in funny hats.
Then they performed a nativity play. Joyce and her mom made all the costumes. They were adoreable. Here is one of the angels sneaking out of hiding.
Mary and Joseph are praising the Lord at the birth of Jesus. (The stable and the manger were also made by Joyce).
The Shephards are here watching their flocks by night.

BBall in Yap

This Christmas break, PIBC is sending a basketball team to the island of Yap. The team will play and share God's love with the people there over the Christmas break. Here is a portion of the team and Mac, who is from Yap. I had the privilege of taking them to the airport on Thursday afternoon. Some of the men had their own transportation and so I did not get their pictures. There were also three young ladies who will be doing internships in the local churches in Yap. Please keep these ministries in your prayers.

Good Bye Macarooni!

Mac is the student seated in the picture with our Dean of men, Hiob. Mac finished all his class work at the end of this semester and is returning to his island of Yap. Mac is very outgoing and funny. He is always laughing and teasing everyone. Last summer I got to spend quite a bit of time with Mac as he worked on campus during the summer when he was not in Thailand. I will really miss him and all his sillyness.

Saipan Ministry

This group of Chuukese students decided to go to Saipan to help the Chuukese church there over Christmas break. Saipan is another island like Guam in the Northen Mariana Islands Chain. It is also part of the US somehow.
One of the student's relatives work in the church at Saipan and requested a group of students come help. They organized their own trip, prepared their own ministries, and raised their own funds. They will be in Saipan from the 20th - 30th of December. They will be leading times of worship, visiting the sick, working with the youth and anything else that needs to be done. I am looking forward to hearing about their experiences. Please keep them in your prayers.

Students Celebrate Christmas

Every year, the student counsel throughs their own Christmas party. During this party, they have a time of fellowship, worship, food, and a gift exchange among themselves. The faculty and staff are invited as guests. Here are two of our students, Elilai and Sonny, in the Christmas spirit.
Everyone listens as Eric Sorenson, one of the faculty and student counsel advisor, gives a short talk about Christmas.
Christmas decorations with an island flare adorn the podium.
A gift exchange is a big part of the night.
Some of the first year women lead us in song. Music is a big part of whatever we do at school.

We need a home!

Sophia
and her brother Lorens are very sweet and cuddley puppies. If we don't find them a home soon, they will end up at the local animal shelter. Hopefully because they are so cute and cuddley - they will find a home anyway. I will miss them but learned my lesson that it is hard for me to have a dog and do my job since many micronesians don't like dogs and the students were often afraid to walk past the dog to my apartment even though my dog was friendly.

Christmas Traditions

Those who really know me well, know that baking Christmas cookies is a tradition with my family. Although over time the place and the methods have varied. I usually get together with family members and bake 8 - 10 types of cookies. My sisters, niece, nephew, mom and others baked cookies in the states and sent me some. However, this year I baked 4 types of our traditional cookies, and gave them to my friends at PIBC as a treat. Although Stella, our assistant librarian, helped with the cutouts (pictured here - taken by Stella) and the mixed the Sandtarts. I also baked Cherry Drop and Chocolate Chip cookies. The students often ask me to get them when I bake so they can learn but often I can't find them at the right times. Maybe next year I will have more of them involved. Any way... those who ate the cookies seemed to enjoy them.

Welcome to the Farnsworths

On Saturday afternoon the Farnsworths invited all the staff and students for an open house so we could all see their new home. Here are Marisol and Joel showing off the tasty treats they offered their guests.
Here is Ned being skinny, happy to pose for a picture.
Since it was a beautiful day, some prefered to hangout outside.
Joyce and Melody relax inside as Joyce shows off her snowman finger puppet door prize she one.
Joel and Amelia like to show me their tree. Amelia especially like the Dorothy ornament from the wizard of oz. Joel is proud to know my favorite, which is Tinkerbell.

Can U Believe it?

Here I am at Men's night posing with some of the students who will be graduating this year. Most of the them will be completely finished as of the end of the semester. I am going to miss this great group of young men, all of whom worked in the Study center for me at some point in the last 1.5 years. They are always making me laugh.

One of the hardest part of my jobs is having to continually say goodbye to many amazing people that come and go through PIBC and the island of Guam. Yet I feel blessed to have had the privilege to meet and get to know them.

Men's Night

On Friday night, the men on campus students decided to have a party. They set up a tent and decorated. They put together a program, and bar-b-qued some food. One of the purposes of the party was to honor those who are seniors, especially those who will be finishing this semester.
Although it was "Men's night", they did have some special guests who were not Men. Marisol, Amelia, Mae, Stella, Karyn Sorenson, Katie, Noelle, Leah, Olivia, baby Hannah and myself.
They did some games. This one each contestant had to tell the group a little more about themselves by singing it to the given tune. It was very funny.
They also sang some songs. These are the Chuukese men singing a Chuukese song. Mac, who is Yapese, joined them since in his 5 years here at PIBC he has learned some Chuukese including this song.
Here are some of the guesting watching the program.

First Year Students Lead Chapel

On Fridays, the Chapel service is run by a group of students. This past Friday it was run by the first year students. They performed a skit that illustrated how money, alcohol, knowledge, and looks really don't relieve the emptiness we all feel at times but only God satisfies.
They then sang several special numbers including Feliz Navidad.
Then Doug gave a short talk. Overall they did a really nice job. We certainly have a great group of first year students.

December Birthdays

Here are some students hanging out enjoying cake and ice cream. Part of the money I raise for support goes to "ministry" expenses. One of the things that I do for the students since I got here is to celebrate the birthdays of the month with cake and ice cream. I buy cake mixes and bake the cakes myself or with the help of some students. So thank you for those who support me and make these birthday treats possible.
Ethel, my assistant dean who is found on the far right of this picture celebrated her birthday this December. In fact, it was her birthday on the day that we did cake and ice cream.
Jonathan Sam, who will be finished this semester, also had a December birthday.

Christmas Party #2

Last Saturday, our staff had the offical Pacific Islands Bible College christmas party. For this party we were on Andersen Airforce Base at Tarague Beach. Fortunately it was a gorgeous day since it had been raining a lot on Guam until then.
There was time to go swimming or walking on the beach. Here Eric Sorenson, one of our faculty, has a nice moment with his daughters, Katie and Noelle.
We enjoyed dinner across the street from the Beach at Bamboo Willies.
We played a game of "dirty Santa" where we exchanged gifts. It was very fun. I ended up getting a good number and got a jar of Nonni Biscotti. Yum!
Some people played some volley ball, while others snorkled, and some just enjoyed time chatting together. Over all it was a very fun time.

Since I forgot my camera - I "borrowed" all these pictures from Brad.

Stick Dancing

Many of the islanders from Micronesia have traditional dances from their islands. Last year when I was in Yap I was able to see a group of people do a traditional stick dance during the governor's inaguration ceremony.

This weekend a group of Chuukese students on campus at a "Men's night" performed their own stick dance. (They invited some of the female staff, including me, as guests)

Mail Call

One of the things I do three times a week is to pick up the mail at the post office. As you can see in the background the grounds crew at the post office has gotten into the holiday spirit by carving a smiley (happy face) holiday guam FR USPS (United States Post Office).... This smiley face even has a nose. The other day I noticed that weeds started to grow in. Now I am wondering who is going to pick his nose????? Ewwww!!!!

Breadfruit

As we hiked to Marbo cave through a short patch of jungle. The students noticed a breadfruit tree with fruit ready for the picking. So Sonny, one of our students climbed the tree and retrieved the two bread fruit.
Here is Ginny proudly showing me one of the breadfruit. It is one of the staples in the Micronesian diet but so far I have not aquired a taste for the stuff. Peter once told me that it took 10 years to aquire taste for it - however since he had only been here 5 years, I am that was more of a guess.
Here is CeCe showing the leaf from the breadfruit tree. You don't eat it but I was impressed by the size. I don't think I ever saw a leaf so big.

Marbo Caves

Since basketball season was over I decided to run a small hike swim at a cave that is close by campus. I had seven students with me. If I would have not left at 9am on a Saturday we would have had more. Students like to sleep in on Saturdays.... (Me too!.
The water is very clear but the rocks on the bottom are blue.
There are many higher rocks to jump off of in the cave making it a really fun time.

Liebenzell Lunch

Last week on December 6th. Harald and Hanalore Gorges invited the staff and faculty to their house for lunch.
Since Harald is the director of Liebenzell Micronesia, he decided to through a lunch of appreciation during the holiday season. There was lots of delicious food because Hanalore is a terrific cook.
And of course there is always tons of good fellowship. You would think we would get sick of each other but we really genuinely care for each other and enjoy spending time together..... and eating of course.
Here is Hanalore and I after lunch. I have really enjoyed getting to know the Gorges better this year.

Children's Ministry

This was a busy weekend for the students. On Friday night, one group of students from Ned's Youth and Children class did a youth ministry night at John Jim's church in Agat. Then on Saturday morning Chrystal Wood's Principals of Teaching class went to Agat to do a Children's Day. At almost the same time, a second group of Ned's students did Children's ministry at the Palauan church.

From all I heard all 3 events went well.

Sunday was a quiet day on campus. Of course, it rained which detained many from hanging out on campus and playing sports. Maybe everyone was tired. I know I am. :o)

Basketball Playoffs

Although we only won 2 games all semester, we doubled our record from last year. We also made the playoffs (This is possible when there are only 8 teams in a league). This weekend was the play offs. We ended up playing the hardest team in the league. When we played them during the season, they more than doubled our score. This time, they only beat us by 13 points and for the first couple minutes of the game we were ahead or tied. I was really proud of how hard they tried.