Happy 80th Birthday Dad!

This week on February 27th, my Dad celebrated his 80th birthday. Here he is as a boy with his mule.
Me and my Dad on a previous brithday.
Here is my dad as a teen....Isn't he cute?

Jens and Karin Return

On Wednesday 2/27 Jens and Karin returned from Germany with new visas which last until 2011 I am told. We were so happy to have them back that a bunch of us went to the airport to pick them up even though we had to leave our places by 5:30am. We praise the Lord for answered prayers.

Is Your Home in the Wide Micronesia?

The following video is the men students from PIBC singing "Is your home in the wide Micronesia?" This is a song that is often sung when we are greeting someone or saying goodbye. This time it was sung for a farewell to Dale Cundall who spoke in chapel on Thursday February 28th. Dale and his wife Marian have been here since before Thanksgiving. They are Joyce Owen's parents. We hate to seem them go. It has been fun having them be part of the PIBC family.

Rub A Dub Dub

Here are Marisol and Gloria admiring the new washer in the Women's wash area.

For months now I have been complaining about the state of our washing machines in the woman's dorm area. They have a plethera of problems. The replaced some with some used machines but finally two of them broke. One was dead beyond repair. I pleaded with the maintenance man to have mercy on us and finally he agreed to get us one new washer. He was able to fix the other one so we were back up and running.

FYI - This is right next to my apartment on campus.

Fun Night

The Student Council Organization hosted a "Fun Night for the students and invited the faculty and staff. There were songs, skits, games, and snacks. Here Molly does the actions to "Deepo".
In this skit, the guy had to choose between women with inner or outer beauty. This man (who is Keiny, the student council president) chose wisely. The two girls come out and sit next to each other and keep looking at each other. As the beautiful on the outside girl, Sandra, goes through her glamour routine, the beautiful on the inside girl, Lydia, copies her but never gets it quite right. She used a marker instead of lipstick, a machete to clean up her eyebrows, dish soap for a moisturizer and pinesol for perfume.... A very silly skit.
The "Von Trappe" Farnsworths sing a song in spanish.
Everyone watches in awe of the activities
which included a game where they blind folded the presidet of PIBC, Dave Owen, and the president of student counsel, Keiny, and had them find four empty tin cans and put them on the legs of the chair in their own end zone.

The also called up about 6 of the faculty and staff men and me.... The only woman representing... We were assigned a scripture passage and we had to sing it. Singing by myself in front of everyone is not one of my favorite things..... I think it goes back to Kindergarten when I had to sing Doe A Deer in front of all the parents. Anyway the students were very encouraging and many said they liked my song.

Guam hits to the News with more History

Over the past weekend one of the famous B-2 Stealth Bombers crashed in Guam at Andersen Airforce Base. This is the first B-2 that has crashed since they started flying them some time in the 80's. Both pilots survived although one is still in the hospital. Each one of these babies cost the government a cool $1.2 billion.

They are impressive to see in the sky. Guam is one of the few places in the world they stop.

So Brad, do you think we will have our first Boonie Stealth? And if so will we be able to see it?

Emergency Room Extravagana

On Saturday night I had my first emergency room trips with one of the students. Smileen dislocated her shoulder playing volleyball. She was in extreme pain. Fortunately we have "accident insurance" for the students. When they called me out some of the students were trying to work on her arm. This is usually how Micronesians handle such things. Many of them have limited or no medical care on their islands.

As soon as we could find her ID, my assistant Dean, Ethel, her brother,another student and I got in my car and headed to the hospital. She asked me politely not to hit any bumps...I tried my best but this IS Guam.

We checked her in and she was taken back relatively quickly. Although I am sure it didn't feel quick for her. She had to wait awhile after she first went back. I think this was more that they were waiting for the results of some tests and the pain medication to take effect. Xray's and some type of blood test.

Apparently they "made her go to sleep" to reposition the bone. I was surprised when I went to see her in recovery witht he oxygen tubes. But within four hours we were there and back. She seems to be doing fine today. She even performed with our traveling team twice today.

Third times the Charm.... Or is it?

Last week I started to think that I probably should back up my computer. I thought about postponing it or doing it later but because I was having the problem with the power system not recognizing the plug, I didn't. I backed up all my personal files before I took the computer to the Technician to fix. The computer seemed to be running ok when I took it in. Unfortunately when it was returned, I received the "Blue Screen of Death." This is a mostly fatal error from which no recovery should be made. In fact it was the same error I had last time my hard drive died. It seems that my computer may have just crossed over into another life where there is no pain or tears.... except for those it departed.

In other words, right now I am without a personal computer. Fortunately there are plenty around the campus which I can borrow for now. I am still debating if I want to attempt to take it to the repair specialist but it seems that this particular computer does not have a will to live. It is only slightly over 2 years old. What a shame to have such a short life.

The GOOD NEWS is for the first time I actually had my Data backed up. Wahoo.

News and Updates

Today it was confirmed that Jens and Karin will be returning to Guam on February 27th. We are excited about the news. It is only a little over a week away. It just happened to be the birthday of a bunch of my favorite people including my Dad who will be 80 and my friend, Mac Alfonso.


I had been suffering from a "pain in the neck" recently. I suspect that was due to several falls I experienced over break. Fortunately I found a chiropractor who was willing to work with me at a price I could afford since he is a Christian and I am a missionary. After 3 weeks things are going pretty well. I am still going so things remain in place.

Apparently things going smoothly is dull, so I got another pain. This time in my ear. After four days I broke down and went to the doctor. Hopefully this pain will be gone soon too.

It is hard to believe but we are currently in the middle of the 5th week of the semester. So we are one third through the semester at the end of this week. Time flies when you are having fun,especially when you work 12 hour days during the week.

I was happy to find Zyrtec (allergy medicine) over the counter finally. It was only $26. Cheap compared to some allergy medications which are perscription strength. It is not as cheap as Benedryl but Benedryl is only effective for 4 - 6 hours - all of which it knocks me out.

I updated my prayer list on my website

I had lunch with the Farnsworths the other day. I really miss my neighbors. Now that they live off campus I don't see Marisol and the kids nearly as much. I used to love to stop in for 5 - 10 minutes just to take a break and enjoy their company but not it takes 5 - 10 minutes in walking time so it is hard to get over there for breaks.

It has been interesting now that the office renovation is almost complete. I open the "secret door" and I am now in the office. In many ways, it is very convenient. It is not always a positive thing to always be so convenient but most of the time it is good.

My melissa@missionarygirl.net email is having problems. The web hoster who provides my email did a platform switch and I have not received any email for almost a week. Very frustrating but that's life.

My computer DC port is failing. That is it doesn't recognize that it is plugged in much of the time. My computer is once again in the shop....

Some Interesting Videos

This first video is from our counseling class taught by teacher, Karyn Sorenson. She used a puppet (run by her husband Eric) to illustrate how NOT to do couseling. A very cute idea. Karyn is doing a great job and her students love her.


This second video is our student, Timothy Ruda. He is Chuukese but he grew up in Yap where his father is a missionary. He wrote this song which is in Chuukese and created the video with the help of some students here in campus. I always joke around with Tim and tell him that he reminds me of the Micronesian Will Smith......

Most of the video is shot on campus. There are a few images of our traveling team which sings and shares testimonies on churches in Guam throughout the semester.

Brad shares on his blog that Tim gave him a rough translation of the Lyric which is "God created everything and all things work together to glorify him... Let us be the light of the world and share about the goodness of his name from here to the end of the world..."

Valentine's Party

Although most of the island cultures don't typically celebrate Valentine's day, those who are around Americans for any length of time pick up the tradition quickly. I decided to have a special Valentines party for the female students. Jayvina one of my RA's and Sharon (not pictured) helped me set up. They also made cards for all the girls with little treats in them.
We lit the room with candles. We sang songs and had a bible reading and time of devotion.
I put Ethel, my assistant Dean in charge of a few games. In the middle of our time together, the men students came to serenade us.
At the end we watched Charlie Brown's Valentine cartoon. I think we had a good night.

Sweet Success

One of the things that I did on my day off this week was to bake sugar cookies for a valentines day treat for the students. It was supposed to be a secret but as you can see Ginny and Paulyne just happened to stop by. One for medicine and the other to chat. I do like it when the students stop by.... so much for the surprise.

I've now got class!

Actually I have two classes I am teaching now. One is a course called Ministry Development. It focuses on Relationship and Character Development. This is only a one credit class so I only have it once a week. These are my students from that class. It is so nice to only have seven students in this class. In my first class I taught I had 24 and it was a 3 credit class so I had a lot more grading to do.

My other class this semester is Research and Study skills. There are 21 students in this class but I team teach it with Melody Plaxton. Hopefully I will have a pictures of that class soon.

Singing Praises to Our God

When I first got here over a year and a half ago, I believed that the students sang like angels or at least what I would imagine angels would sound like. Islanders seem to have an amazing gift for music. They can harmonize and sing without any formal training.

Brad Boydston captured this video while in chapel on Friday which was led by our Chuukese students. The funny thing is though when the Chuukese students stand up as a group to sing there is barely anyone left in the room to just listen. What a shame.

Please check out the school website www.pibc.edu if you would like to hear more. There is another of our fine young men.

A Giant Monday

Although in the States the Super Bowl is on Sunday night, here in Guam it happens on Monday morning about 9AM. Most people have off on Sunday. Superbowl Monday is almost like a holiday here. Many people don't go in to work or to school. Some of the schools close or have parent teacher conferences because they know many of the students would call out. Fortunately we don't have classes on Monday mornings. So a number of the staff and faculty went to the Owen's house to watch the game.

One difference here is that they remove all the commericals that play in the States and replace them with local commercials. These are mostly low-tech boring commercials except for the beer commercials which mostly stay the same. So it does take some fun out of the game.

We also celebrated Dave's birthday which happens to be on the 5th. It is a little weird having wings, chips and salsa, and cake in the morning but it is a tradition I am beginning to enjoy.

Thanks again to Brad for taking pictures.