What's New at Pacific Islands University on Guam?: Saturdays are for resting! :-)

So what's so great about Saturdays?? You tell ME! :-) Saturdays we don't have to be on a schedule to "be" anywhere at a specific time - so one thing we really enjoy is having a more lengthy quiet time that on other days.

It's really pretty quiet up where we live - Tim likes to joke about our little "boonie cottage in the woods of Guam," but seriously, we are out "in the country" . . . ah, jungle - a bit! It's great to sit out front with a mug of tea or coffee and enjoy the cool of the morning! (74 to 82 degrees, depending on the time of year- and anywhere from 65 to 100% humidity)

By the time we are beginning to think about things like errands or chores, the sun is nearly clearing the tops of the trees to the east - up till about 8:30-9 a.m. we have a nice, shady front yard - as you can see! (If you look closely, you can see our crazy little cat, Iggy, curled up on the small patio table and tending to her favorite task: napping!) On this particular Saturday (2/21) we were getting ready to head to our church where the PIBC students were holding a car wash to raise funds for student body projects.

We drove the

(approximate) 14 miles down to church and turned our car over to an eager group of students who washed our little black car; then I drove it over to the canopy-covered area (in the distance, slightly to the right of center of the photo) where another large group was drying and vacuuming cars. They had a great crowd of cars while we were there, so we think the car wash was probably very successful! With all the rain here on Guam and the many schools and organization that need to raise funds, car washes are a common sight on Saturdays and Sundays.

Another favorite feature about

Saturdays is that we do try to actually have a little "leisure" time. Sometimes we head for "Barrista Blends," a little coffe/tea place on the beach, and just relax and read while we sip. Today our site was Ipau Beach. Neither one of us had anything for breakfast before we left our house, and by the time the students got our car clean, it was 11:30 a.m. and we were pretty hungry!

We hit Wendy's and got 2 cups

of chili and 2 small salads and drove another couple miles over to one of our favorite beaches. Ipau is the beach we spent a couple of different days enjoying with Erin and some PIBC students over Christmas break. We keep our folding chairs in the trunk of our car so we're always ready to tote them and a snack, cold drink, or picnic to a spot not far from the water's edge and just enjoy the beauty of the water and chat a bit. Very relaxing! After about an hour, we are ready to head home.

Quite often, later on Saturday afternoons, we do a little yard work. The trade winds

have been great lately, so by 3:00 or so we can get out and work, cool off with the wind, and the mosquitos aren't much for the wind, so we can work relatively bite-free! Tim was busy digging out a mound of rocky soil that has been interfering with mowing; I re-potted some small plants tha

t had gotten too big for their pots (which can happen really fast here!) The plants you see here are not ones that I re-potted, but some that Tim actually salvaged from a weeding and trimming day on campus. These are "little" Bird of Paradise plants that were just little chunks of dried plant - no green- just a couple weeks ago. Tim took the cuttings and dropped them in these 5 gallon buckets with some potting soil, added water, and PRESTO! In just a few weeks, beautiful plants! Pretty cool!

Things really do take off and grow here! Take the plants below as an example. First of all, that lovely coconut palm in the foreground: it stands a little over six feet tall at present. A year ago, it was a sprouted coconut I picked up on one of my walks! Yeah - about five feet in one year!! And the two "ti" plants by the air con unit in front of the house were, one year ago, were only 2" high - they were sprouts I pulled up from the jungle behind our house. I just stuck them in the ground, and now they are nearly four feet tall! It does make landscaping easy and fun.

Okay, just one last photo - no, Erin didn't visit - but one of our PIBC board members, Bill Schuitt (director of Liebenzell USA) took a short trip to Palau right after he and the other board members finished their meetings here on Guam. Bill emailed me this photo from Hawaii just the other day on his way back to the States. Erin (left) and Jenny (right) enjoyed hosting a luncheon with other Bethania teachers/staff for Bill while he was visiting the school last week.