PIBC vs ELCG

A week ago, Pacific Islands Bible College (PIBC) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Guam (ELCG) met for their second Annual Sports Challenge. The categories? Basketball, volleyball, and tug-of-war! Tim and I were both on hand for the first event last year . . . when I managed to fall (quite unceremoniously) twice during the events . . . hence it was my goal this year to simply stay on my feet! Here you see the scoreboard, along with the trophy we were competing for. The trophy is a "traveling" trophy that will move back and forth each year, going to the winning team each time.


The first event, basketball, was very exciting! I do have to say that our PIBC guys have some very coordinated and "trick-loving" basketball players! But ELCG had their share of strong athletes and tricky players as well! Even our college president, Dave Owen (red jersey), got involved, making a few shots of his own. After four quarters of hard play in the high temperatures and humidity of the afternoon, the PIBC guys won the game by a very narrow margin, as you can see on the scoreboard below. ELCG gave our guys quite a challenge!



At this point in the day, I was asked where Tim was and why he wasn't a part of the basketball game . . . with his great height and all! Well, I haven't got the photo support to show this, but being head of maintenance has its disadvantages. When we arrived on campus for this event, Tim was greeted with some news about our two 15 passenger vans. One had gotten a flat tire, so one person caught a ride back to campus to get the other van, picked up our stranded students, and on the way back to campus, that van blew a hose and overheated! Tim spent the duration of the basketball game fixing up and then limping both vans back to campus with Mo's and Brad's help. So he missed the game . . . but he had no plans to play in it anyway! :-) Unfortunately, I had the camera on campus, so we have no photos to document this - Tim says he's glad for that!


Next came volleyball - I actually got to play (and I didn't fall down this year)! The girls on PIBC's ladies' team were very gracious to allow me to play - I was the oldest woman on either team, though ELCG had a couple of women who were in their 30s and maybe 40s. The PIBC men won their set, but the PIBC ladies lost ours by a very narrow margin (honestly)! In the short playoff game, PIBC won the match and thus also won the volleyball competition.



Meanwhile, the children were having some fun of their own with an egg race and a three-legged race. Here you see some kids carefully ushering their eggs-on-a-spoon across the egg race course.





The three-legged race proved to be quite a challenge for many of the kids! There were lots of smiles and giggles, many spills, but no skinned knees or bruised heads that we know of! Here you see a pair of young ladies practicing before the "big event!"


Next on the schedule for the adults was the tug-of-war, which was very quickly and decisively won by ELCG - and it's not hard to guess why: Many of the men are from either the Air Force or the Navy - and guess what they have had a lot of experience doing? Tug-of-war! This event was almost over before it began, with ELCG toppling PIBC in mere seconds from the blast of the whistle. However, by winning both basketball and volleyball, PIBC took the trophy. Acting student body president, Keiny Aisek accepted the trophy and promised that PIBC would take good care of it till next year's challenge!



As the evening wore on, we enjoyed a meal together and sang a few songs. Then PIBC graduate and now seminary student, Hedrick Kual, presented a devotional for everyone. God put His hand of benediction on the evening by giving us a lovely moonrise. We had closing prayer together, and the over 100 participants went their separate ways. The staff and students and PIBC and the members of ELCG have enjoyed the blessing of good fellowship for a number of years; we are mutually blessed by this friendship and hope it continues on. We hope your September has been as full of blessings from God as ours has been! God's peace to you all! Melody and Tim