It is Christmas Eve here in the islands - and Christmas Eve-Eve on the mainland. I thought I'd plug in just a few random photos, glancing back at the many activities and blessings leading up to 
our Christmas holiday and semester break.For starters, we had a lovely beach dinner with faculty and staff, including a gift exchange. It was a lot of fun to just relax and fellowship, laugh, and give
and take (and steal) small gifts. 
For those of you familiar with this type of gift exchange, you know that you can choose a gift from the "pile" or take an unwrapped gift away from someone; hence, when I unwrapped a container of chocolate-dipped biscotti, I knew I would probably not get to keep it! Dave Owen stole it from me, and then Melissa Heck stole it from him . . . but Melissa, you didn't get it all, did you? Dave and I each snagged a single biscotti from the jar before losing it, so it wasn't all bad!
In addition to celebrating with colleagues from campus, we also had times of worship, fellowship and feasting with our students.The students led the last chapel of the semester and did a great job
with a moving skit portraying the truth that Jesus is the only lasting solution to our sorrows and the only One who can fill our emptiness.
The students also invited staff to their end of the semester/Christmas celebration; they barbecued (oh, the bbq was incredible!) and made rice and noodle dishes while the staf
f brought other side dishes and desserts.The students recognized the mid-year graduating seniors and Happiness Lodge gave the devotional message.
It was a fun evening, ending with the students engaging in a gift exchange with their "secret angel." The last few weeks of the semester, every member of the student body was given a "secret" person to pray for.
At the end of dinner, they all revealed who they had been praying for and gave them a gift. It was as fun and full of surprises as the staff exchange had been!
We also spent an afternoon having a late birthday celebration with Erin at Jeff's Pirates Cove, a little restaurant in Ipan on the beach that is reputed to have the best burgers on the island.
Before going to the covered patio area to order and eat, we had a little fun with some of the signs they have put out front for their patrons!
We had a wonderful, relaxing time sitting
outdoors in the air with a good, stiff, and quite cool (to us) 82 degree afternoon onshore breeze.While we ate and
caught up on the "news" with one another, we also watched some local windsurfers fly back and forth, taking full advantage of the trade winds that have lowered our temps and humidity. It was hard to believe that the last time we had eaten here was three years earlier, celebrating Erin's birthday in 2004!We are so happy to be back here on Guam ministering among the students at PIBC and simply making ourselves available for whatever God wants us to do. Christmas blessings to all of you in cooler climes from the balmy shores of
Guam. Erin and Tim and Melody, and the students at PIBC, all send their greetings to you, our family and friends, and any others who might have stumbled across our blog. May you be blessed by God as you worship Him, the one who sent His only Son to Earth, solely because of His compassion and grace, and moved by His great love. How good it is to know that even though we didn't deserve to be forgiven and brought near to God, Jesus came anyway to model the life of a Servant Leader, and to lay down His life willingly to pay the penalty for our sin. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that sin came into the world and "infected" us all through Adam, but Jesus Christ's death brought us the cure for sin and bought us eternal life if we will but believe and trust completely in Him by faith. 
We pray that this Christmas season brings you much joy in God's best gift of love, and if you have not
yet put your faith in Him, that you will seek Him as the Wise Men also did so long ago. Merry Christmas and God bless!Email us at: meltim3@gmail.com
Write us at: PO Box 22619 GMF Barrigada, Guam 96921
1 comment:
Hi from cloudy, cold, and windy California! We had lots of rain and up to 65mph wind gusts last week, tons of power outages (some still without)… although you probably already know all this (it was kinda fun minus any damage and injuries of course). Melody, I sure missed you last night at choir. For the first time (I guess it is because I have been in choir about a year now) we are singing some repeats; it is so strange to pull out a new piece of music and already know it! Anyway, we sang “For God So Loved the World, Close Your Eyes and See, Down in the Valley to Pray, and The Voice of the Lord”, all of which I could hear your voice in my right ear the hole time, it was so awesome! Love the recent pics and commentary… keep them coming!
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