Family News and Home Photos

It is a Merry Christmas for us: our Christmas present arrived last Thursday in the form of our daughter, Erin, who has been teaching all fall semester at Bethania Christian High School in Palau as a missionary. After picking her up at 5:30 a.m. at Won Pat Airport here on Guam, we headed for McD's for an all American breakfast! A few nights later, we joined friends Dave and Joyce and Pastor Dale and Marion going to the mall for a music/light show and dinner at Taco Bell (Erin, as you may have guessed, has missed fast food!). Here is Erin posing by the train and Christmas lights. Having successfully survived her first semester of teaching English and science, she is thankful to be here for a three week respite before returning to Palau to teach the same classes for spring. Pray for her to be revived and renewed and for God to continue to bless her with wisdom and love as a missionary teacher.

We have been living in our little "boonie home in the jungle," located about ten miles from campus. We would have preferred a home closer to the college, but housing prices were much higher here than even just this past spring. We originally considered a condo, but they were more costly due to their monthly association fees, so we searched for and found a little home in the north of the island near Yigo (pronounced "gee-go," with the first "g" like the "g" in the word, "mirage.") Included here are some shots of our dining area, hallway, kitchen, living room (we have to get a sofa!), guest room, bath, and (wonder of wonders, a miracle, a miracle!) a laundry room! Melody's request was outdoor laundry OR a room with a door that shuts and a window that opens (no explanation needed when you consider the heat a dryer puts out and the fact that we live in a perpetual summer-like climate!).

God is good, and we feel ourselves to be very blessed to have a home to share. Last Friday, we had several students up to the house for dinner, cookie baking, and a rousing word game called "Apples to Apples." It was such fun to work together in the kitchen; Happiness even got into the cooking game, becoming the head mixer for the Snickerdoodles. Jayleen, Ginny, Jaynee and Molly helped Erin with chocolate chip cookies while Ethel worked on Chocolate Crinkles. At the end of the evening, Erin and I reflected on the poem, "Thank God for dirty dishes for they have a tale to tell!" Well, if these dishes could speak, they would tell of how this evening made our "house" feel like "home!" We had such a fun time baking, laughing, even "painting" each other with flour! The rest of the students in Melody's English writing and public speaking classes reaped the benefit of the baking efforts - they all had cookies along with the return of their final exams. We are so proud of the students; they worked hard this semester and are looking forward to their Christmas break as much as any of us!


In addition, we have acquired a little boonie cat (stray), found by a former (2004) English student, Merong, who would have liked to have kept her, but he couldn't figure out how to get her back to Palau when he graduated this month, so he was seeking a home for her. She is mostly Siamese and very noisy: hence, the Chuukese word for "noisy" (Akurang) has become her name! She does her best to live up to it!
We close with a short video clip from us to you!
We thank God for each of you: your support, encouragement, and communication mean so much to us! Many thanks to those of you who make comments on our blog! We love getting the feedback and hope our blog continues to help you know who we are and what God is doing here at PIBC, Guam. We'll be posting more "last week of the semester" photos and activities in the next few days. God bless and keep you in the palm of His all-capable, all-loving and almighty hands,
Melody, Tim, and Erin
Email us at: meltim3@gmail.com
Write us at: PO Box 22619 GMF Barrigada, Guam 96921