Immigration Issues

Jens, our new campus director and CFO, and Karin, his wife who does much of our accounting among other things, are German. Jens applied for a Religious Worker Green card. His
Religious Worker Status was approved originally and was in process for
the green card. Now they received a letter saying that his Religious
Worker status has been revoked.... meaning that his job is not
specifically religious enough even though he works at a Christian
college, he has no seminary training. They had two weeks to
protest. After a week of talking to immigration lawyers and local politicians, it does not look like anything can be done to have the decision revoked.... besides a complete miracle from God.

Originally I thought they were told they had to be out of the country by November 6th. This information was incorrect. However, they will have to leave and will plan on leaving after this semester. They will go back to Germany. They must wait at least 6 months and they can apply for the appropriate VISA. I have to point out - this is the minimum time but it could potentially take years until the VISA is granted...... It is just something no one knows.

So now we are again in a position that we are looking around for a new campus director AND now an accounting type person too.

Dave Owen, our president, left Guam last Friday for the States. He is hoping to recruit teachers for PIBC especially for our Chuuk campus. Now he is also looking for someone who would like to come and serve as Campus director, Financial person, and Accounting type person. Since these are missionary positions, it would have to be someone who could raise support quickly.

Beach Picnic

Here are some images from our Beach party last week at Ypao Beach (pronounced "E - Pow"). Even though it rained a bit of the time, it did not stop us from enjoying our time at the beach.
We enjoyed hamburgers and hotdogs along with various side dishes, volleyball, swimming, and snorkeling.
The one difficult thing is now transporting our whole student body since it takes multiple trips. Overall it would seem that most everyone had a good time.

Student Led Chapels

Here at PIBC we have Chapel Tuesdays thru Fridays. Friday's chapels are student led. They plan the whole thing which usually includes some type of sharing or preaching, special numbers, music, and sometimes skits or action songs. The student council group picks a group of students on campus to lead. A couple of weeks ago, it was the men from the Cannex dorm. Happiness preached the message that day.
Then a group of the men shared a special number with Merong, one of our Palauan students, playing Guitar.

"Mini Car Wash"

Here are some pictures from the student's "Mini Car Wash" In this picture they are washing my car. As you can see from the picture, my car is not all that small. The goal was just to wash a few cars to make enough money to get enough supplies to do a bigger car wash later this Fall.
Car washes are often the main form of fund raising at PIBC and Guam in general actually. There are often people standing on the streets trying to lure you into their car wash raising funds for something or other.
The students of course could never be accused of "All work and no play".... they also love having their picture taken.... well most of the time any way.

Meet Doug

Doug is one of our new students this semester. Although our school caters mostly to Micronesian students, we do have a few students who come from other parts of the world. He is part of a military family so he has moved around a lot in his life time. He spent his freshman year at Clarion University in PA and moved to Guam to be near his older brother who is a fire fighter here on Guam. It has been fun to see him really make himself at home here. He often comes to campus even when he doesn't have classes to hang out with the other students and he even comes at 8AM on Mondays when we work on cleaning the campus. Last week he played in his first basketball game..... which by the way was the team's first win.

Visitors from Germany

In the middle of the month, we had a group of Germans come and visit us. They has come to Micronesia to celebrate with the Chuukese church, the 100th anniversary of the Gospel (and Liebenzell Mission) in Chuuk. They also stopped in Guam to visit Pacific Islands Bible College. We had a fun time even though we had a bit of difficulty communicating. We had a bar-b-que and time of fellowship with singing and skits.
It is almost impossible to have a party in Micronesia without Bar-B-Que.
Here are students each from a different nationality giving greetings in their native language until eventually it was translated in German.
This is from the famous "Chicken Soup" skit.
Micronesians love to laugh at westerners as they attempt to open coconuts. They all eventually got them open with their tools.... but then one one the students demonstarted how it was to be done. He just used a small rock and it took only a few seconds.

Rain Rain Go Away

In Guam the rainy season is roughly from June to November. Although sometimes it starts in May, like this year, and sometimes it does not end until January.

So often this year we find our selves in the pouring rain - like the Farnsworths above at the party with the Lutheran or here with Mac at the Beach party this last weekend.


More than ever our campus has been flooding. That huge pile of rocks in the center of the picture was added last year to avoid flooding in this area. Unfortunately it has not been capable of holding off the level of rains we have been having this year.

Yet life goes on and we don't let it stop us from doing what needs to be done and of course having fun as well. Although I can't say that I am not looking forward to the dry season for a change.

Lutheran Church of Guam - Not just for Lutherans any more...

Or so that is what their motto says. We here at PIBC have a special place in our hearts for the Lutheran Church here on Guam since the pastor, Jeff, is married to Mary Johnson, our VP of Academics (outgoing) and head of our English department. Also several members of our faculty and staff are regular attenders or members there. During the last week of September, they challenged the student body to game of volley ball, basket ball, balloon tosses, and elbow tag. They also came bearing delicious food. It really was a nice time even despite a rain squall which interrupted play momentarily.

Dualing Bloggers

Often time when we have events on campus, Brad and I are roaming around with our cameras hoping to get some pictures which are "blog worthy" to share with our friends and family back home so that you all can get a good idea of what it is like over here.

Occassionally we run into each other in our search for blog greatness. Here is Brad taking a picture of me taking a picture of him.

Back in Blog

Sorry for the lag in posting times.... without my own machine, I had difficulty getting pictures off my camera. Last week I got the hard drive, and originally it looked like the wrong one. Then as I was trying to find out what I did wrong when I ordered, I noticed that the old hard drive had some type of adapter on it to make it fit in the computer. So once I figured that out, I was able to get up and running pretty quickly. There is still a bunch of software that I need to re-load but that will come in time. Today I was able to down load some pictures from my camera - finally....So hopefully in the next couple of days I will be catching you up with pictures and tales of the last couple of weeks.

Random Update

• I have been sick for over a week with sinus problems. Since Joyce who started this all is still sick after 3 weeks.... I don't feel very encouraged that this will go away any time soon.

• I am still waiting for my new hard drive to come in the mail. It has been a little over a week. This to Guam take awhile. In the mean time, I check my mail in the student Study center or in the office when Cheryl is out of the office. I have been spending a bit more time reading.
  

• This Weekend we have a group of Germans who have traveled to Micronesia to see work done by Liebenzell Missionaries in Chuuk and in Guam. Last night we had a dinner and time of fellowship with the students. On Sunday, the group will join the staff for Potluck and Prayers. Only part of the group speaks English but we have enough German missionaries who speak English to translate.

• Today some of the students had a "Mini Car Wash". It was a bit confusing because they were not able to tell how small the cars had to be for them to wash them.
  

Whoops! I did it again.....

Some people wonder can you really be that stupid??? Well YES apparently I CAN. You would think after a night mare last Spring where I almost lost all my data when at the last minute it was all miraculously spared..... I might have been more likely to back up my data on a regular schedule. At the end of last week, I seriously considered it. However I thought I had a more pressing need for my memory stick when I gave it to a friend to copy some files for me. I thought WHAT are the chances something will happen this particular week. I had been absolutely fine with no signs of problems since the computer was last restored. However APPARENTLY the chances were EXTREMELY high because several days later while I was still waiting for my memory stick to return, my computer died again. Only this time when I took it to the shop, they told me there was no hope.... it was DOA (Dead on arrival) with no chance of breathing life into it.

My friend suggested that I try to start it with Linux in the disk drive.... but it still could not access the hard drive.

Another friend, who is a major geek for fun type of person (please don't think this is meant to be negative), suggested last time that I put the hard drive in a plastic bag in the freezer. That did not work either.... but it was a fun experiment.

The Computer repair place was going to charge me approximately $250 for parts and service. That seemed like way too big of investment for a 2 year old laptop. So I ordered a $60 part off the internet.... and on first appearances - it even looks like they may even mail it to Guam. (For some reason many companies will not mail electronic products to Guam.) I still have the software I need to load on the computer and I have done that more than once before even though it is a pain....my labor is free. In the mean time I have computers available through the school that I can send email and access things that I need to access.

If you hear a loud banging....just know it is me....banging my head on the wall..... Sheesh.

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(