Summer's nearly here!

Q: What are Dave and Joyce Owen doing on Tim and Melody Plaxton's blog?
A: Wearing their very wild, islandy "Voices of Micronesia" shirts. This summer, Dave and Joyce, along with four other PIU staffers, are traveling in Northern and Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas sharing about PIU at churches and other places in those states. Please pray for them that God would use them to let people know about our school and students, and that God would raise up many who would be interested in supporting PIU, attending PIU, or maybe even coming out to teach.



Speaking of the "Voices of Micronesia" (affectionately called the Traveling Team by us here at PIU), here is a picture taken of them sharing a musical number at a luncheon held shortly after graduation here on Guam at one of the local hotels. This luncheon was to raise local awareness of PIU and to raise up local prayer partners and people interested in helping PIU in a number of ways.



So what else do Tim and Melody do when the demands at PIU are a little lower? Well, our summer schedule has us on campus from 6:40 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. as Tim is directing our summer work crew of 7 students from 7:00 a.m. to noon. These students volunteered to stay on campus for summer and help clean, paint, bushcut, and fix up the campus so it is ready for fall semester. Because of our earlier hours AND the relative dryness of the weather, we have finally gotten to a much needed home project.



What is that project? Well, the picture above and the one to the right will give you that information: painting our roof!! Most of the homes on Guam have relatively flat roofs; if they are sloped, they are not very steep. AND the stronger (typhoon proof) roofs are made of poured concrete. This means they have a tendency to grow icky, black mold. Picture this roof as solid black and guess what that does to the temperature level in the house . . . and the electric bill!


Because of this, we invested in a special type of "reflective" roof-coating with elastic properties. The "paint" is more like the consistency of very thick Elmer's glue. Weather conditions need to be fairly dry during, and for a few days after the painting. Our recent spate of very dry weather has been perfect for accomplishing this task. Though very hot and sunny up on the roof, we found that doing it after 4:00 p.m. was bearable - especially when the breezes would come up! We actually enjoyed the project quite a bit; it took us about 5 afternoons to complete it between 4 pm and sunset - and the result is a sparkling white, mold resistant finish! Now let's see if it helps the electric bill go down!! (It has definitely made the "feel" of the ceiling inside the house much cooler - we checked!)



One of the fringe benefits of painting the roof was the great views! We live near the north end of the island near the top of a broad hilly area - and the views from the roof were lovely (in addition to the previously mentioned breezes). This is a shot of the sun behind some clouds just before sunset one of the days!



We were very thankful for the dry weather that allowed us enough time to finish the painting of our roof - but it's been really pretty dry for quite awhile here; consequently, the jungle and grasses are getting pretty dry too. These two photos were taken on the back road near the campus of PIU. We are praying for the rainy season to come soon (it's almost due!) and alleviate all the dryness so we don't have fire danger.


My last photographic offering will perhaps make some of you very hungry . . . if you love mangoes!!! Roland Raucholtz, former president of PIBC/PIU lives out in a little village called Yona, and he has mango trees that are very prolific! He blesses us here on campus about every 3 days with one or two very large, full sacks of mangoes. Tim doesn't care for them, so that leaves them all for me (Melody) - and I have really been thanking the LORD and Roland, too, for these wonderful treats! If you have never had a tree-ripened mango, you are missing a wonderful treat!!

Stop back by in a week or so to hear about what will be going on here at PIU this summer in the way of classes and activities.