What's New at Pacific Islands University on Guam?

Baccalaureate & Graduation 2011: PIU

2011-05-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 8, PIU held it "Graduates' Worship Service" at Onnuri Korean Church in Mangilao, Guam. Here at the left are the ladies that graduated . . .

. . . and at the right are the men.

The salutatorian for the graduating class of 2011 was Joyce Owen. She provided a message of inspiration as she challenged her fellow graduates to follow and serve God with their gifts.

There were also a couple of musical presentations . . .

. . . and I had the privilege of presenting the "Teacher of the Year" award to Steve Bradley.

The next day, in spite of heavy rains and some complications (including an island-wide power outage only minutes before graduation was to begin on campus) we held graduation, beginning almost right on time. At the right you see some of our graduates with our president, Dave Owen, and some local visiting dignitaries: a local judge, the President of Guam Community College, and the Mayor of Talofofo.

Many of the faculty members wore their college regalia in honor of the occasion. Left to right, Hardy Sunderwald; Nino Pate; me; Eric Sorenson.

This year, the Lt. Governor of Guam provided a speech and we took a "Kodak moment" to get his picture with our seminary dean, our "tied" valedictorians, and our president.

It was a great celebration, followed by a lovely reception that the PIU faculty and staff worked on together, providing snacks and beverages so that families could linger with their graduates, chat with friends and PIU staff members, and just enjoy the celebration.

Please continue to pray for these young men and women who have had the privilege of obtaining their college degrees. Many of our AA graduates will return in fall to continue on and get their BAs. I also know of one BA graduate who is considering taking classes to get his MA degree. Pray for these future leaders of Micronesia, that God would use them to help their communities and be a blessing, honoring Him with their lives.

End of Spring Semester at PIU

2011-05-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

Well, another semester has ended at PIU! We have been busy with a lot of "odds and ends" types of activities, so I thought I'd post just a few photos and some captions to bring you all up to date.

At the end of spring break, our dive class put on a lovely barbecue and beach day at Family Beach! They had dive equipment on hand and some folks got to try it out to see if they might like it!

On a Friday night, some of us ladies (staff and students) took a trip to Leo Palace Resort and got a private karaoke room. We sang, had snacks, goofed off - you know - just generally had a great time together!

Afterward, we hung out in the lobby area for a short time and took some fun pictures - it is a really beautiful place!

Another semester's end event was a gathering of PIU faculty and staff for fellowship and appreciation of one another before many left island for the summer.

The gathering was held in the home of our librarian, Lisa. Each person was honored with a certificate of appreciation naming a character quality that was appreciated in that person by all the others. It was a fun night!

For those of you who have followed our blog for four years, this may be a familiar sight! Every year (sometimes more than once), a bunch of the students come to our house for a BIG cooky making night! Here you see three of the girls with our HUGE batches of cookie dough. This time, we were baking for graduation.

After we got the dough done, a couple of staff members and their families arrived as well as a carload of more students. Tim had barbecued ten pounds of ribs and about the same amount of chicken - with rice, cole slaw, and fruit added, we had a nice "last day of school" celebration! Our tiny little boonie cottage was really packed with 24 of us for dinner! But it was so much fun!

And with students more than happy to gather in little corners and on the floor, seating was NOT a problem!

By the time the evening was over, we had all eaten our fill . . . including the helpful participation of all present in conducting a "quality control check" of the cookies as they came out of the oven!

(Don't worry - we made plenty for taste testing AND graduation!)

By the time I baked more of the dough Saturday, I had plenty of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles to share for graduation the next Monday, May 9!! I also got two large cakes baked and in the freezer for Sunday decorating!

Sunday evening, after baccalaureate, I came home to frost and decorate a large cake for the next day's graduation ceremony. The graduates chose "Forever Faithful" as their theme for graduation, as you can see on the cake at the left. I found my cake decorating skills had gotten quite rusty since the days of having little kids around the house and annual birthday parties, but it turned out just fine!

Check back in a few days - I hope to have baccalaureate and graduation photos up by then! :-)

Hello April! What Happened to March?

2011-04-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

This is just a random set of photos of what has been keeping us from blogging lately! I didn't realize it had been 6 weeks! So - some random thoughts and shots:

Tim recently celebrated a birthday - and although I won't tell you which one, I will tell you it was one of the most memorable ones he's had here on Guam. Our librarian and her three children cooked up a yummy birthday cake, the kids made a banner, and they all blew up balloons to give Tim a "birthday surprise" here at PIU during our lunch break on his special day. He was smiling all afternoon! (And I think I caught him sneaking back for extra cake at least once or twice later that day!) Thanks to all who shared in this special event! (Special thanks to Lisa, Zac, Eli and Miriam.)

You probably can't see the close-up detail in this shot, but this is me - Melody - after starting on water blasting our house to prep for painting. I thought it always looked like "so much fun" when I saw Tim doing it on the roof, school walkways, etc. before - so I begged to try it. HARD WORK! That power washer has a kick! DIRTY WORK! I was instantly peppered with dirt, leaves, anything that washed off the wall AND the ground at the bottom of the wall. WET WORK! I was soaking wet in 3 minutes flat! COLD WORK! YIPEE!! :-) It was a breezy late afternoon - even 86 degrees with 75% humidity can feel cool when you're soaking wet and there's a bit of a breeze!!

Incidentally, we got the whole house painted and the trim and edge brushing are nearly done. Tim also put up new porch lights and it looks terrific!

What do Tim and Melody do on a day off? (Besides working on the house!) Hmm - well, one thing we did recently was to enjoy some toasted March-mallows (hee-hee . . . yeah, it's a BAD pun!). Did we go camping? No! Did the local Girl Scouts come and talk us into making S'mores? No! Did we randomly find a bag of marshmallows on the discount rack for 99 cents and take them home on impulse to toast over our gas stove's burner? Yep! Why not? Why save the good stuff for once-a-year camping trips?

At the start of spring break, all the faculty, staff and students of PIU took a couple of days for fun, food, and friendship - there were games by day (friendly competition) . . .

. . . and also some great skits, songs and speakers by night.

Tim and I had the joy and blessing of celebrating our anniversary over PIU's spring break! We got to stay at a local hotel and play "tourist," visiting a few places we hadn't, took in a movie, ate out, and . . . (scroll down)

. . . I (Melody) got to kayak for about an hour as well! (Tim watched from shore and had coffee. What do you mean you aren't surprised?) :-)

What's that? Lovely centipede!! Yeah, we get some nasty critters here on Guam! (Not the cat - she's not nasty - just feisty!!) We measured the centipede - nearly 6" long. YUCKY! I for one was thankful it was on the OUTSIDE of our slider! Our cat, Iggy, might have gotten more than she wanted if the centipede had dared to enter the house!

Well, I think this is a GREAT place to end this entry! Thanks for checking in to see what life is like here on Guam. We only have a few months left to enjoy Guam's beauty and the great staff and students of PIU as we'll be moving home to California this summer. We hope to see many of you soon.
Till then, have a great spring! Looking forward to sharing with more of you in person!
Melody and Tim

Saying "Good Bye" to Sarah

2011-02-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

In January, Sarah Cain came from our home church in California to spend some time working short term at PIU. Sarah is in the support-raising phase as a Liebenzell missionary and will be working in our advancement department as head of media/promotions. It's hard to believe that her weeks here have flown - and as of just about an hour ago, she has now flown too! Having her here was such a blessing - much like having one of our daughters for a visit. So this short blog is just to let those of you in CA know that she's on her way - and below are a couple photos of her farewell.

When we asked her yesterday "What do you want to do for dinner your last night?" her response was, "Hey, I hear that place, Hoa Mai, has the best lumpia on island. Can we go there?" It didn't take any arm-twisting to convince us! Note our lovely "feast" from last night - and for those of you who don't know what lumpia is, it's a Filipino style eggroll. They are in the foreground on the plate. You take a large lettuce leaf, line it with some thin rice noodles, top it with bean sprouts and then the lumpia - roll it up in the lettuce leaf and dip it in fish sauce or sweet & sour! Mmmmm!

When we got Sarah's bags checked in, we made our way upstairs where Mary Lou and some of our staff and students were waiting to send Sarah off. It was so sweet for them to do that - mind you, we got up at 4:20 a.m. to get her to the airport on time, and these folks were already at the airport when we arrived!!

Oh dear! It's already time to say goodbye??? Here I give Sarah a last hug and then she had to get in line to clear security. (Note the lovely hair do - on Sarah, not me - a creation that two of our students made last night on campus when Sarah went to say good bye there.)

We waited as long as we could while Sarah went through the long line to the security check point. Here Mary Lou poses with her.

"Hmmm - so, which one is my boarding pass? And which one is my ticket? Where am I going? Do I really have to leave?" :-) Sarah, you're a ham!!
(. . . and we're sure going to miss you!)

One last photo before she disappeared into the crowd!

A little over an hour later here at home, I heard her plane pass overhead - Glen, Linda - she's on her way!! :-)

Pray for Sarah as she works to raise support to come out to join the staff at PIU on Guam.

Concrete Operations

2011-02-15T02:36:00.001-08:00

Concrete pouring day dawned clear and bright! When we got up before 6 a.m. on February 5th, we were concerned since the week before had been so wet! We were so thankful that the weather station reported that this day would be the only clear oasis in a week of rain! Friday - partly rainy - Sunday - more of the same - but Saturday: beautiful! As you can see by this photo, only half the forms, moisture barrier, and rebar tied up to adobes were prepared. But a great number of student and staff volunteers soon took care of all the needs!

While waiting for Hawaiian Rock's trucks to begin to arrive to pump the concrete mix, the students and others were not idle. We'd had a lot of rain all week, so much of the prep work had been delayed off and on. Here, Eseuk pounds in a piece of rebar to hold some forms in place while Everly holds it steady. Grateful, Mondale, and Soram look on.

By about 11:00 a.m. the preparation was done and the pumper truck equipped with a HUGE pumper arm arrived and got ready for the exciting moment that the first of the concrete mix would begin to get pumped into the forms over the rebar. A few minutes later, it was hooked up to a cement mixer that arrived and the driveway began to appear! YAY! No more potholes!!!!

Tim enjoyed being a part of this project very much. It made for a few very long days before and during the pour for him, Robin Sukrow (Santa Cruz) and several of our PIU students, plus the backhoe operator that did the grading, but I know they all agree that it was well worth it!

Probably the busiest time of this job was the "middle section" when half the concrete had been poured, more was on the way, and we still had rebar to lay! Our students were amazing - they worked tirelessly all day on this project from about 8:00 a.m. when some of them came out to help with the middle section of rebar, until about 4:30 p.m. when the last truck left. (Here, Mr. Kwan, volunteer from the Korean church, guides the gooseneck from the pumper to make sure we get a nice, even fill.)

While we were waiting for another load of mix to arrive, some of the guys finished laying the last of the rebar, setting adobes up under each place where the rebar crossed and tying them to the rebar with wires.

The last truck of mix arrived and was poured near the edge of the road. All totaled, we used three and a little-more-than-a-half trucks of mixed concrete. BIG project!

Students worked hard on making sure the concrete was smoothly finished. Robin helps here with "floating" the surface while Grateful and Ikol do some trowel work.

After it was all done, Tim, Mo, and a couple other students (and maybe a few additional staff members) made sure the concrete was kept moist for a couple days. Voila! A new entrance!!

Special Projects Bless PIU's Campus

2011-02-05T15:31:00.001-08:00

Termites, rain, sun - they take their toll here on Guam. When our volunteer team came from Santa Cruz (Kerry, Ryan, and Jim), this is how the steps to our Study Center (computer lab) looked (see right).

(Left)
This is how the area looked after stripping off all the old, rotten boards. The guys put a nice moisture barrier down beneath the stair risers to prevent evaporating moisture from rotting the wood as fast from underneath.

(Right)
Lastly, they replaced the old, rotten boards with nice, new lumber. Tim and Mo will seal the wood off and we'll have great steps that do double duty as "bleachers" for watching basketball games. Thank you, Kerry, Ryan and Jim!

(Left)
Another project was one for which a local woman donated funds for materials: Pouring a nice concrete entrance, driveway to the classroom building, and parking pad for handicapped students and/or visitors. This is what it looked like before the project began.

(Right)
After a few delays (rain; sick backhoe operator; broken hydraulic line on the backhoe had to be repaired), we were finally able to get the project going. With the help of Robin, a contractor also visiting from Santa Cruz, Rob, Tim, and many of our male students worked relentlessly for 3 days to get this project going and done. Grading was a HUGE part of that. Then setting forms, moisture barrier, rebar and adobe "floats" to suspend the rebar.

(Left)
Here you see the rest of the area getting prepped for pouring - and God's blessing of a rainbow in the sky over the project! :-)

Yesterday (Saturday here), after a long day (6:30 a.m. to about 5:30 p.m.), the preparation was completed and the concrete poured. We must have had at least 12 of our young men from PIU out helping all day! I'll have photos of the pour up in one to two days! We are so thankful for all those who made this project happen! But mostly to God, who provides us with good things always!

Photo Journal "Island Tour" of Guam

2011-01-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

Hello again to those who follow this blog! Surprise! It's only been about a week and here I am posting the promised photos of our island tour with our visitor, Sarah, from our home church in California, and Mary Lou, PIU missionary (also from our home church) who is our IT person. I will use larger than usual photos and minimal comments so you can enjoy the tour with us! So read on and join us on a pictorial journal of Guam!

(Photo at right)
Our tour began on Sunday, January 23 as we drove southwest from church and stopped at Asan Beach. This is the beach where the American troops landed on July 21, 1944 to rout the Japanese troops who had invaded Guam and enslaved the citizens. This date (July 21) is now celebrated here annually as Liberation Day - Guam's "4th of July!"

(Photo at left)
Since we'd just gotten out of church and it was past 2:00 pm at this point, the next stop was Jan Zs, a great little restaurant on a harbor near the south end of Guam. We all enjoyed what we ordered. Sarah and Tim had fish and chips - Mary Lou and I each ordered one of Jan Zs' famous burgers!

(Photo at right)
Satisfied with a great meal, we piled back in the car and continued south and then rounded the turn at the tip of the island to begin going north. Most roads on Guam (other than in the business districts) are similar to what you see here: 2 lanes through the jungle.

(Photo at left)
Our next stop was Magellan's Bay in the village of Umatac. The village was in "fiesta" mode with island music blaring at the village center near the beach and families were scattered around the area enjoying the beautiful weather. Sarah posed by a roadside cross on the sea-side of the road across from the village's Catholic Church.

(Photo at right)
We then ALL wanted to pose in front of the cross with the bay in the background. Left to right: Mary Lou; Melody; Tim; Sarah.

(By the way, that peninsula in the background is where our next stop will be - Spanish Fort, which is at the top of the ridge.)

(Photo at left)
Fort Soledad, the Spanish fort above Umatac Bay has been around since the early 1800s. It was damaged by some of the war activity in 1944 and was used by the Japanese during the war.

(Photo at right)
Sarah made friends with a pregnant caribao while we were at Fort Soledad's ruins. Lest you think that was a typo, no, it's not a caribou - those are more like deer. A caribao is what the southeast Asians would call a water buffalo.

(Photo at left)

At the same park, some local Chamorros have built a little palm house with local fruits for visitors to sample. here are some bananas and
coconuts.

(Photo at right)
The volunteer who was working at the little house was slicing star fruit for us all to sample. It was delicious! We liked it so well, he generously gave us some to take home to enjoy. We sliced it up at work on Monday and shared it at lunch time.

(Photo at left)
As we continued on the road, we stopped at a favorite place - a little bay (Agfayan Bay) just south of Inarajan Pools where there is an outcropping called "Bear Rock." Here Sarah poses with the bear seeming to be in the palm of her hand! :-)

(Photo at right)
It being a warm day, we stopped at a local market in Inarajan to get a cold drink. This is a typical little store - most villages have at least one, and some as many as 4, 5 or even more little markets, depending on the size and population of the village.

(Photo at left)

As we left Inarajan, we drove past the oldest known Protestant Church on Guam. All that remains of this little Baptist church, constructed in the early 1900s, is the front wall, but it's very picturesque.

(Photo at right)
As we continued north, we came through an area where there were a couple of helicopters, Coast Guard boats, and emergency vehicles. We did not know what was going on until the next day when the news and papers announced that a fisherman was washed over the reef and lost at sea. Sadly, he was never found. This was an all to solemn reminder of the risks of the rough seas that surround Guam at many times of the year and the dangers local fishermen face.

Thanks for checking out our blog! The tour was over all too soon, but here on Guam and at PIU, the adventures never end. Check back in a week or two for more on what's going on here this spring!

Melody and Tim

January Reflections

2011-01-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that a month has come and gone since our last blog posting! Right after the last posting, we both became very sick with bad colds - and mine (Melody's) is still lingering. Still, we have been able to get the semester off to a good start here at PIU! Here at the left you see what we spend quite a bit of time doing: planning in meetings prior to and during the semester to make sure that PIU continues to offer the best it has for our students. (Photo at left: PIU's Administrative Council)

. . . and lest you think of us that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," one of our staff organized a ladies night for some much needed ladies' fellowship and fun. We gathered together to eat, laugh, and play some games. It was a great night! (My apologies for not being in the picture - I forgot that I could have used my timer!!) :-0

Before we knew it, we were blessed with the long awaited arrival of Sarah Cain from our home church in California. Sarah is a Liebenzell missionary in the process of raising support to come provide us with media support. She's here for about 5 weeks to take lots of photos, videos, work on our website, and work on brochures. She's also spending time getting to know the faculty, staff, and students here. Once her support is raised, she'll return to be a part of our staff! Pray for Sarah; she's faced a lot of obstacles in getting here, but we're hoping she'll be on staff by fall.

Part of the preparation for each semester involves getting the campus cleaned up and dorms ready. Everything grows so fast here on Guam with the tropical rains and heat that "yard work" is an ongoing reality at PIU. We were blessed just a couple of days before classes began by a large group of students who showed up to help do all this work! The students worked hard all day that day, only taking a good break at noon to share in a "pizza and pop" meal. Mo and Vince (at right) take a short break after working hard on weeding, pruning, and sweeping in one of the areas in front of the main classroom building.

On Tuesday, January 18 we started classes - early in the morning - and although the students don't like early morning classes, they faithfully showed up, even for the 8:00 a.m. classes! By the way, this photo was not taken on campus, but I love it so much! It's the sun shining low on the horizon behind a flame tree in Mangilao. :-)

(On a random note, flame trees are one of the loveliest trees here on Guam - their bright orange/red blossoms literally make it look like they're ablaze when in full bloom . . . hence, the name!)

Last weekend we took Sarah to lunch and then on an "island tour" of many of the notable historic and cultural sites on the island as well as to see some downright, drop-dead beautiful scenery. Sarah, being a photographer, would lean out the window shooting photos, and then would occasionally say, "Hey, can we stop right here?" So we pulled over and let her take her fill of pictures of the sights of Guam. Check out our blog in about a week for some more photos from that trip. (I promise to try and make it in less than a month this time!)

Blessings on you all,
Melody and Tim

Almost Happy New Year's Day

2010-12-28T21:41:00.000-08:00

So it is nearly "Happy New Year'" time! Tim and I are trying to enjoy the week off, but he's managed to get a doozy of a cold/flu. Needless to say he is resting a lot - and I am relaxing too! Here are a few things we've been up to lately!

To the right is our lovely Christmas tree, waiting for Christmas morning with special gifts beneath it from our children, grandchildren, and from each other!

On Christmas Eve we celebrated "Christmas at the Cave" and then attended a worship and communion service afterward at church. I had the blessing of getting to play my 12 string to accompany the Christmas Carols sung at the 2 services at the limestone caves in Guam's capital, Hagatna. This "nativity" service sets the tone for remembering that first Christmas and what it was like.

The limestone caves on Guam are thought to be very similar to the ones near Bethlehem where Jesus was born. To the right, Scott (visiting student from Biola University in California this last fall at PIU) poses with Mandi, Josh, and baby William who played the parts of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Behind them are a caribao (water buffalo) and some chickens as well as bales of hay, all of which made for a very realistic setting.

Christmas morning we slept in! :-) We got up at our leisure and enjoyed opening our surprises and having coffee together while a ham baked in the oven.

We were thankful for the love and thoughtfulness in the gifts from our family!

After we opened our gifts, we loaded up a plate of "goodies" to share, packed up the ham that baked all morning, along with some veggies for steaming, and joined a few other missionaries for Christmas dinner at Bill and Christel Wood's house. A great surprise awaited us! Our dear friend, Ethel, who had to return to the Philippines two years ago, has returned to Guam and was there for dinner too! It was SO good to see her again and visit. To the right are, Mo (Tim's assistant at PIU on the maintenance team), me, and Ethel.

Below, Tim and Bill relax after a wonderful dinner and enjoy chatting.

The next day, Sunday, after church, several of us from our church went on a dolphin-watching and snorkeling trip out of Cabras Harbor.

Half of the fun of this trip is visiting with people on the long ride south to the area where the dolphins are. There is never a guarantee that you will actually get to see dolphins, but we were blessed by getting to see a lively little pod of dolphins that merrily chased another boat as it circled ours. Kate, a friend from church who is also a marine biologist, told us that the dolphins were actually "surfing" in the wake of the boat! The best shots I could get are: a photo of the dolphins as they swam near the surface, and below -this close up of a zoomed shot gives a bit of a feel of their joy as they "surfed" behind the other dolphin watching boat. Their leaping in the air was such a delight to witness, but a difficulty to catch on film!

After the dolphin watching, we returned to the harbor and enjoyed 40 minutes of snorkeling to cool off before we called it a day. (Sadly, Tim missed the trip due to his cold!) :-(

So what have I (Melody) been doing since Sunday? Well, since the rain and the sun here cause things to grow in a BIG way, I have begun the annual task of cleaning up the boundaries of our property; in other words, hacking and taming the encroaching jungle! Three hours on two days (it's too hot to do too much on one day) of cutting and dragging limbs have paid off. The trees no longer threaten to knock our power wires down, and in about 3 weeks or so, the ensuing brush pile will perhaps be dry enough to burn!

The brush pile below that I am so proud of is bigger than it looks in this photo - it's about 30 feet wide, 25 feet deep and over 6 feet high. I hope we don't torch the jungle when we light this one off!!!

So this is our New Year's entry, though we are yet a few days from the New Year. We are thankful for all this past year has brought us and taught us, and most of all, we are thankful for God's goodness to us daily though family, friends, supporters, fellow missionaries, and the students of PIU! We look forward to the coming year knowing that He has more joy and labor in store for us - in THAT order, or simultaneously! We pray that God would bless you and grant you joy in your labor, patience in any trials, comfort in sorrow, and hope in the face of any difficult circumstances you face. We maintain our stand on the ministry verse God gave us several years ago: "For from Him and to Him and through Him are all things; to Him be the glory forever and ever. AMEN!" (Romans 11:36)

Back on Guam and Celebrating the Holidays

2010-12-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

Hi all! Well, we hope many of you are checking out our blog in response to the ministry update we sent out today! We are back on Guam and ready to get back into the routine! It's been awhile since I (Melody) last posted. It is my goal to make a posting once a week, even if it's short! So please check back here often! The photo to the left, by the way, was taken at our church's progressive dinner about a week ago. This little one, Hope, is the daughter of our friends Edward and Ciska from Indonesia. Last year, she was "baby Jesus" in the island's "Living Nativity" on Christmas Eve.

And lest you think we don't celebrate enough over here, I am including a photo of us at PIU's Staff Christmas party (right) that was held this past Sunday night! We had a great time of fellowship, games, food, gifts, and prizes. It was a blessing to just relax and enjoy one another. Our table, by the way, won the "Christmas Carol Pictionary" game that was played. :-) Our thanks to the team of staff folks that put a wonderful evening together for us all.

(The group photo below was taken at the end of the evening.)

Do you see anyone you recognize in this photo (left) ?? :-) Tim is in the back row; I am in the second row along with Mary Lou and Joyce (for those at our home church) and Dave is in the front row. If you recognize anyone else, you either are or have been on staff, or you're local!!!! :-)

Don't we make a terrific team??

Backing up in time, a week after our return to Guam we celebrated Thanksgiving Day with students and staff on campus. I think it was about our largest Thanksgiving Feast yet with well over 100 in attendance! (This picture cannot show all those who were in attendance!) It was a worship service as well, with Eric (Seminary Dean) providing the historic background of Thanksgiving, Iotaka (Bible/theology instructor) giving us a message of encouragement from the scriptures, Lisa (librarian) reading a Thanksgiving story to the children (the young as well as the old children!) and some great singing led by Joyce and Anne (fellow missionaries on staff).

As you can see, there was no shortage of sharing at this feast! Everyone who attended brought something to share, and most took some food home with them as well!

It wasn't the intention of this blog to focus on all the great food we've been blessed with recently! But feasting and fellowship do go hand in hand! We look forward to a great feast one day in Heaven where the "food and fellowship" will be beyond anything we can imagine here at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!

We pray you have a wonderful holy-day season, centered around Jesus, the "reason for this season." And do check back weekly for new photos and updates on what is going on on campus and over the Christmas vacation time.

God bless you well in all things and may He draw you ever nearer to Himself this Christmas time!
Melody and Tim

What have we been up to?

2010-10-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

The few of you who have checked our blog these past couple of months might wonder what we've been up to! Well, a couple of family weddings now are over in California - and with that statement, you know a lot! We are rejoicing in God's goodness in allowing and providing for us to be here for our nephew, Jamie's wedding in August (seen here at the left) . . .

. . . and the fun that meant of being with family, seeing little "grand-nephews and grand-nieces" as well as Tim's brothers, sisters in law, and his Mom.
Aren't they cute???
(the babies)

It was so nice for Mom to have all four of her boys together - so we took advantage of the moment to get a rare photograph of them all together. (see below left)

We also enjoyed strolling around Solvang the next day and indulging in some abelskivers (round Swedish pancakes covered in raspberry jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar).

A few weeks later we spent some time with Mom and celebrated her 86th birthday a bit early with her (below left), after which we returned to northern California to begin preparations for our daughter, Erin's wedding.

Before the wedding, of course, there is all of the preparation . . . and the bridal showers. Erin was blessed with two wonderful bridal showers and was also showered with lots of great gift items to help her and her sweetie, Rob, set up housekeeping.

Here (right) she models an apron from her Aunt Robyn, with our dear friend, Jeanne at the left (who hostessed the shower) and me at the right.

A couple weeks later, we had a shower given by our dear friend, Becky. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family to support and encourage us - and these showers provided lots of support and encouragement! So THANK YOU, Jeanne, Becky, and all those who attended! You were all a huge blessing to us.

(This photo at the left is from the shower at Becky's. That is Neva, Erin's new "mom-in-law" at the left and me at the right, with Erin in between.)

The weeks have flown - with all of the baking and preparation done, last Sunday, Erin and Rob were married.

Many of you have already seen photos on Facebook - here is a great shot of their first kiss - and then another of them doing a waltz at the reception. We are blessed to have a new "son" and blessed to consider his family as a part of our family too! Thanks to all who made it such a special day!!!

That's all from California for now! We are taking about 6 days to relax with my sister, brother, cousin and all their spouses and then will return to spend a bit more time with our daughters and their families before we return to Guam. I'll hope to post more news as our time in the States comes to a close. (Photo below: Melody and Tim at Rob and Erin's reception with granddaughter/flower girl, Kylie.)

Summer's Ending/Wrapping Things Up

2010-08-17T18:29:00.000-07:00

Do you know what this is (to the right)? It is the response report and all of the supporting documentation that I had the blessing of sending off to TRACS (our university's accrediting agency) this past Monday!!

See my smiling face? This is me with the box full of the stuff above, sealed and ready for the post office! One big project completed! We had a lot of folks working together to make this happen, so don't think I did this all alone! I think just about our entire staff was involved! GREAT teamwork and what a relief to be DONE!

Another "ending" event was a relaxing trip to the beach for a barbecue with all the staff and students we could round up that were on island as our classes for summer ended. The night before the barbecue, several girls and our accountant, Celia (and her family) came out to our house to enjoy dinner
and then baking a massive amount of very large cookies for the next night's event. Jayleen helped get all the "stuff" out (in the red shirt to the right) while Teisy, Lynn, Esme, and Lucy mixed up the batter. The girls got the dough on the cooky sheets and I did the in-and-out-of-the-oven work.

I had to take this photo (below) of the 2 boxes of cookies at the beach before they all disappeared! They went VERY fast!!

After the barbecue and some games, we gathered on a grassy area in a large circle for worship time. At first we were all spread out in this large circle, but one of Guam's random-but-predictable rain showers hit and we were soon gathered under a pavilion area to sing, pray, have a devotional, welcome a few new faces and say farewell to some of our summer visitors. It was a great evening!

The last major project that Tim and his work crew have been wrapping up has been to construct an awning all the way around the men's dorm annex (lovingly dubbed the "cannex") to prevent rain from blowing in through windows and doors, to protect the small raised deck entry, and to protect a washer, dryer, and water heater at the back of the building.

As I am writing this today, the guys are finishing the installation of the corrugated tin AND Tim is getting the new vinyl flooring triple-sealed so it's ready to wax! This job is one that should last. Thanks, summer work crew, for ALL your hard work on the campus. You could have been doing a lot of other things, but you gave yourselves to working here at PIU! Your DAILY labor to not only work on the reconstruction of the Cannex floor and addition of the awning, but to also keep the campus clean and well-maintained outside AND inside is greatly appreciated by all.

Our next blog will be from California as we head out this Friday to attend a nephew's wedding, help plan and participate in our daughter's wedding, and help Tim's mother in various capacities. We appreciate your prayers for safety and for God to bless these events.
Melody and Tim

Friday is Fun Day With PIU Students

2010-08-05T22:02:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I promised some photos from our "Friday Fun Day" field trips with our summer program students and teachers and some of our work crew. While I don't have a picture of our trip to the University of Guam planetarium, I do have others . . . like these shots taken from our hike to Tarzan Falls. (Tim is at the left, carrying a bag.) This was Tim's first "boonie stomp" since we moved here 3 years ago and he enjoyed it!

There was a lot of standing water due to recent rainstorms, but the trail was dry enough that we didn't slip and slide too much!

After a nice, hot hike (it was over 90 degrees that day!), we arrived at the top of the falls, which was quite nice - very small and quiet. We had to continue down a trail to the left and hike more through the jungle to reach the base of the waterfall.

I was really happy to get to the bottom of the hill. This photo does not do this lovely fall justice! It goes up about 45-50 feet or more to the top!

We got a well-deserved cooling off in the water - and a nice back massage too! (I am at the far left showing off my great hairline!!!)

The scenery on the hike was beautiful. In many places, you could see over halfway down the island and then over east to the ocean.

An "end of the hike" shot was a great idea! :-) What a great group!

The following Sunday, we had our PIU Prayer and Potluck. During this time we also said "hello" to Michael, Samantha, Titus and Courage Owen (featured in the previous blog) and said farewell to Libby and Mike Stroh. Libby taught in our English literacy (CBE) program and Mike taught the General Epistles class. They were a real blessing to have this summer at PIU.

Our next "field trip" was the Guam Liberation Day Parade on July 21. Even though this was a "Fun Wednesday" rather than Friday, it was one of our outings, taking the place of our Friday trip that week. Here you see many of our students waiting for the parade to begin so they can run out and join their fellow students when the PIU group passes by.

Lin (right) helped keep us entertained with her crazy eyeball trick!

Appropriately (since Tim spends a lot of time and $ at Home Depot - his "repair supply store" for PIU), the Home Depot float and mascot were right before our PIU students. Here you see our friend, Siska, with her little boy, Christian, and then our bookkeeper's little boy, Michael, enjoying their moment with the HD Bear!

(My deepest apologies to David Mayer for this photo - hey, Dave, if you get LOWE'S to build a store here, we'll shop there!!)

At last the moment we'd all been waiting for! Our students arrived with the PIU banner! They were so excited to represent the school! I ran out (in pink) to grab this photo-op . . . but ran back to the canopy to watch the rest of the parade in the shade. I can't do a lot of midday sun here on Guam - I get sun poisoning! But it was such a blessing to see our students putting a "face" on the name of PIU!

Our last "official" Fun Day was a trip to swim and hang out for a couple hours at Ipao Beach.

Here at the left are some students posing in the water.

At the right, Meluat shows us all how to eat kimchee with orange Kool-Aid powder.

Erica, one of our English program students, and Karin, a volunteer English tutor, try to warm up after the swim.

And on the way back to campus, Leeman played the ukelele while we all sang worship songs. It was a great, relaxing day of fellowship together AND worship as we sang.

We all made it safe back to campus! This was a great way to wind up our Friday outings! Can you tell by this picture how God has blessed our summer friendships? Though we come from many places (Taiwan, Chuuk, Guam, Palau, Bangladesh, the U.S.A), God brings us together as one in Him.

We pray that your summer is full of blessings!
Melody and Tim

PIU Welcomes Mike & Samantha & Family

2010-07-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

They're here! :-) Last night, PIU staff and students welcomed Michael, Samantha, Titus, and Courage Owen to Guam! For Michael, it was "Welcome Home!" His comment to me was that he didn't realize until they were approaching the island and preparing to land that he really was "coming home." When they first emerged from the luggage pickup/immigration area, this is all we could see: a huge stack of rolling baggage and baby gear! Titus actually was in the lead with his trolley of luggage, taking his responsibility very seriously.

But when we moved to one side, we were able to see Courage and her mom following the train of gear! Courage had just wakened up upon landing, so she wanted to stay pretty close to mom at first. Everyone looked great, and pretty well-rested for a long flight. The overnight layover in Hawaii must have really helped! (They even got to sneak a bit of a run to the beach in Honolulu after checking in their bags!)

Lucy, one of our PIU students, coaxed Courage into her arms at last! I think the kids are going to really enjoy having all our students' pay so much attention to them!

I had several other photos of the crowd greeting the Owens, but my camera must have been on a slow setting because most of my photos from last night were too blurry to even post! I had to delete a lot of them! But this last one, below and to the right, was pretty good - a shot of Michael, Samantha, and Titus as we exited the airport.

Please keep the Owen family in your prayers as they adjust to the time difference and climate of Guam as well as their new home and work here. Pray also for the safe delivery of baby #3, due on August 2, if I remember correctly! And thank God with us for the Owens' safe arrival.

(Check back in a week for a photo update of summer classes and Friday Field Trips with our summer students!)

PIU Work Crew Doing a Great Job!

2010-07-08T16:33:00.001-07:00

This summer, our student work crew has been working hard on a major project: reconstructing the men's dorm annex, also known by most of us at PIU as the "Cannex." Here is a photo journal of just a few of the steps in the process they've been going through.
(Photo at the right: crew taking a water break on the Cannex steps on one of our very hot days recently.)

I missed getting photos of the crew tearing out the layers of vinyl tile, the plywood under that, and some of the sub-flooring, but once that messy, arduous task was done, new sub-flooring was patched in, tar paper was installed as a moisture barrier, and then the guys brought in plywood to lay down. Here, Mo (left) and Gary (middle) move in a sheet of plywood while Tim (background) directs them.

After all of the plywood sheeting was cut to fit in both sides of the Cannex as well as the entry area, Joses went around and screwed it down with wood screws. This was a challenging task because underneath this plywood and the wood sub-floor is a metal support structure (metal floor joists). If he hit one of these, he had to back the screw out and try again in a new spot. This happened more times than you can imagine. You can tell in a later photo how many times - in the photo a few pictures below, the white spots are where the guys had to putty the holes left by the screws that had to be removed!

One reason the floor had to be rebuilt was water damage from the bathroom in between the two dorm rooms. Besides doing floor replacement, sheet rock had to be pulled off, repairs made, and then the sheet rock replaced. Tim said they installed a weep screed (a metal flashing used to allow moisture drainage in porous walls and is required for all framed walls at the framed wall and foundation joint) to help prevent future damage as the original wall didn't have this. After the sheet rock was replaced, they caulked the other side of the wall (in the bathroom) very thoroughly.

Before the vinyl flooring can be installed, the rooms all needed painting - here you see our crew hard at work taking care of painting the dorm rooms and the bathroom.

Once all of the painting was done, the holes on the plywood were plugged in with putty. There is just a little trim painting left to do and then Monday, the work crew will seal the plywood in preparation for laying the vinyl tiles! At the right, you'll see a photo of our librarian's kids and two of their friends having fun posing for this photo of the new interior paint job in the Cannex. (Note all the white spots from the puttying of the holes on the floor!)

But this isn't all our work crew has been doing! In between all these tasks (as described in our July ministry update), we experienced no fewer that three water mains blowing! Two on the main campus, and one at the Bannex (girls' dorm annex) as well as two showers in the Bannex needing major leaks repaired. (Sorry - no pictures of these!)

In addition to all this construction, there is the usual summer maintenance work - power washing all the walkways on campus as well as the basketball court (see photo at left) , power washing the Bannex roof (see photo to right), and the roofs on a couple of other buildings as well.

Besides power washing, students have a lot of yard cleanup: trimming bushes and trees, bush-cutting, mowing, pulling weeds out of flower beds, keeping our three classrooms and adjacent restrooms, and the offices and restrooms all cleaned - as well as taking care of their own dorm space. Add to this that several of them are also taking classes and you can see that these men and women are very busy this summer! Pray for them that God would bless them with the ability to balance all of these many responsibilities - they are doing a wonderful job!

Also, keep the next "phases" of the Cannex project in your prayers. Once the vinyl flooring is installed inside, the construction of a back deck (for a water heater, washer, and dryer) and awnings for the doors and windows (to keep rain from blowing in) will begin outside. Here you see Gary using the jackhammer to dig holes for the support posts for the awning structure. "Why a jackhammer?" you might ask. "Why not a post-hole digger?" Well, we only have about 1.5" of dirt in most places on Guam - below that is solid coral, volcanic rock, or limestone, depending on where you are on island! :-)

I hope you've enjoyed our update on PIU's summer work crew! Pray for them all:
Ladies: Teisy, Doralynn, Tyleen, and Lucy
Men: Mo, Gary, Joses, and Vince
Supervisor: Tim
Thanks for stopping by our blog! We'll have an update on summer activities in a few days!

An Exciting Week

2010-06-19T22:26:00.001-07:00

Our exciting week started with last Sunday, June 13, and a trip to Taco Bell with several PIU students after church to celebrate Lynn's return to Guam from Taiwan. Left to right, Tracy, Lynn, Tim, Esme, and Doug. It was great to visit and catch up with everyone's plans for summer and fall.

Monday, the summer CBE (Certificate in Basic English) program started. This is a 12 unit, 8 week intensive in English, designed to provide learning English in as close to an "immersion" environment as possible. We have three students taking the course for credit (a heavier commitment) and two community students taking it as Adult ESL (English as a Second Language). There are four classes that meet daily for 80 minutes, Monday through Thursday: Writing (right),

Academic and Workplace Expectations (left),

Reading- (below right),

and Basic Bible Knowledge & Western Culture.
(above left)

Two days a week we meet in the late afternoon to play games in the library - this week, it was Pictionary, using words from the students' class vocabulary for the week. Here I observe as Lynn tries to draw an illustration for "prayer."

At the end of the week on Fridays, we will have field trips. This past Friday we visited a War Memorial that is near our home in Yigo. The bamboo groves are so beautiful! Imagine standing amidst the swaying bamboo trees wider than the palm of a man's hand near the base, towering over fifty feet above you! They make a most unusual hollow, squeaking/thumping sound as they rub together in the wind.

After leaving Yigo, we drove south on Marine Corps Drive to Two Lovers Point. This point celebrates a local folk tale about a young Chamorro couple who were not allowed to marry - the girl's father had betrothed her to a Spanish Captain. As the story goes, they were not allowed to be together in life, so they tied their long hair together and leaped off of this high point above the ocean on the western side of the island. Very much a local version of "Romeo and Juliet!"

We wrapped up our afternoon with a one hour dip in the ocean about 1/4 mile south of this point at Gun Beach. There were war artifacts and a beach to explore for those who didn't want to swim, and some good snorkeling farther out for those who wanted to see the beauty under the surface. We returned to campus relaxed and happy! What fun! Next week, we have a "scavenger hunt" at the mall!!

Saturday morning we got up and Tim and I decided that we'd celebrate my birthday by taking a lazy day! Earlier in the week, I had gotten a package from my sister. Among the items in it was this cute apron - my sis knows how I love to cook but that I also like to use an apron! It even has my initial on the pocket!

Anyway, later in the morning, we went to Barrista Blends on the beach and had iced tea (well, I had iced tea - Tim, as you all might guess, had coffee!) Then we lazily ran our necessary errands. We journeyed home, thinking we'd drop off our groceries and other items and take off to celebrate my birthday at Jeff's Pirates Cove across the island - but as we pulled into the pathway that led to our house,
we had a bit of a surprise awaiting us: what we'd thought was smoke from a neighbor's brush pile turned out to be a jungle fire burning right up to the edge of our house!

It wasn't a roaring blaze like you'd see in the dry foothills of California. Thankfully, although it's been very dry here, the fire was moving slowly and seemed to smolder more than roar in the kind of foliage we have around our home - still, we called the fire department. Amazingly, they arrived at our house about 10 minutes after we placed the call. They worked quickly from our property line back into the jungle to extinguish all the hot spots. The captain of the crew said the fire was probably started by the intense sunlight shining through some broken glass in the jungle. They did a great job and we and our neighbors really appreciated their quick response and good work!

Needless to say, this took up quite a chunk of our time!!! Rather than drive across the island for 45 minutes, we opted for dinner a little closer at "Chile's Too" at the mall (only about 6 1/2 miles away). We then returned home to relax and watch a movie. We hope your week was at least as much fun as ours and that you are being blessed by God in your corner of the world! Have a Happy Summer! Check back in about a week or so for pictures and news on our summer work crew at PIU and what they have been doing!

Dolphin Watching and Snorkeling

2010-06-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, June 5th, we went out on a dolphin boat with about 40+ other folks from our church here on Guam. It was a GREAT day!! Here at the right, you see Tim at the front of the boat as we ride out the channel into the Philippine Sea. And I am below to the left, also at the prow of the boat. The water was an absolutely amazing blue - check it out in these photos that are totally un-enhanced, except for the one of the fish, which I enhanced a bit so you could see them even better!

It took about 40+ minutes to get out to to the cove where the dolphins like to rest and play - on the way, we saw lots of interesting sights - like the equipment at the port that plucks containers off of the cargo ships and swings them over ashore. This is how we got all our stuff over here (in a 20 foot container) about 3 years ago.

The water was a bit choppy as we went out - but as I said above, it was incredibly blue! I think perhaps the bluest I have ever seen it here! The weather was hot - I had to get in under cover for part of the ride since the sun was so intense, but once we all got to where the dolphins were nobody wanted to be under cover! We all wanted to see these beautiful mammals!

Looking, looking, looking - wow! Where are they? At first, they were a bit shy - and frankly, all I could see was the deep, blue seawater (which really wasn't all that bad of a sight!). But then I heard someone shout, "Look! There they are!"

It was so cool - they started off far away but soon got bolder and wandered closer and closer to the boat in little groups. All told, there were about 25 dolphins in the group that visited us. They seemed to cluster in groups of two to six or seven. As they came closer to the boat, some would actually swim underneath us and come out the other side! (Okay - this picture I actually touched up with a little bit of contrast so you could see the outlines of the dolphins a little more clearly.)

I have never seen so many dolphins so close - so clearly before! It was really a blessing to see how graceful they were as they swam through the water, and how unafraid they were of being near a boat full of people!

After we got our fill (well almost got our fill) of gazing at the dolphins and snapping pictures, our boat headed back toward the head of the bay from which we had come so we could cool off in the water and do a little snorkeling. (The water was a bit too rough in the open sea for snorkeling yesterday, especially when we had several young children with us.) The minute I climbed down into the water, I was surprised to see such a great number of fish clustered around me near the boat! Tim said he could even see them from above on the deck, so he snapped a picture from there. (We don't have a waterproof camera or I would have a lot more great pictures to show you!)

We returned from our trip a bit tired, but also a bit refreshed at having had the privilege of seeing the beauty of God's underwater creation, and at having had such a great time of fellowship on our boat ride! Hope you who visit our blog have a great "blessed by God" summer. Rest, relax, and really take time to appreciate the beauty God put into our world - and take time to "be still" with God and enjoy His presence.

Summer's nearly here!

2010-05-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Graduation at PIU

2010-05-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Monday, May 10 of 2010, a large crowd of nearly 300 gathered in Mangilao, Guam at Faith Presbyterian Church to celebrate the first commencement activities of Pacific Islands University! (Up to this past year, we have been Pacific Islands Bible College.)

It was a great celebration of the hard work of our recipients of bachelors and associates of arts degrees in biblical studies! The students did a great job of entering on cue! They also sang a song written by one of our AA graduates in honor of the day.

Faculty members sat facing the crowd to the left of the pulpit while students were seated on the right, also facing the crowd. What a great photo op! On the far right of this photo you will see Dave Owen, president of PIU, and me (Melody) - this was the first year we had any of the faculty dressed in regalia. Those speaking wore regalia, but in the future, we'd like to see more faculty also thus dressed.

As the students' names were announced, each one walked down the center aisle to the front while I read a passage of scripture each had chosen for this purpose and then Dave presented them with their diplomas. It was a wonderful opportunity for students to share a passage that had special meaning for them at this point in their lives!

After the ceremony, the crowds gathered outdoors for a reception to celebrate! One of the ladies at the church Tim and I attend created a beautiful cake for the occasion, complete with plumeria blossoms!

At the end of the evening, students and their families left for their own celebrations. Here are two of our young graduates covered with traditional leis, celebrating and honoring their accomplishment. Please keep our graduates in your prayers, that they would be able to serve and honor God with their gifts, talents, and educations. Pray that God would use them in a mighty way to bless their communities.

Finally from the silence . . . a word!

2010-04-21T23:35:00.001-07:00

Well, at last a word from us! Sorry to have been "silent" for so long - perhaps mute testimony to the level of work that's been going on here since February when I logged our last post. So once again, I find myself prepared to "catch up" any who might log on to see what we have been doing! This first photo from early March is Tim and our stove. Nothing being "easy" over here, we thought we had the right part to fix our oven (out since late November) and it was the wrong part! Now the entire stove has been incapacitated, awaiting arrival of the right part . . . which is back ordered - until MAY! Okay - so I have a microwave, electric skilled, barbecue and a rice cooker! We're not exactly roughing it! But pray our part comes in!

In March, we also went to the University of Guam where our students help with UOG ministry outreach to college students. Our church's worship team came, brought food for the starving students, and led singing. This was a great evening of fun, food, fellowship, worship, and we were blessed by a great message too, presented by Austin Evers, the missionary who leads the UOG ministry.

UOG ministry also held a retreat over Easter break where many of our students were involved in taking time apart with God as well as serving doing ministry and outreach into nearby communities on Guam. The next photo shows Sophie Jonie, and Esme sharing in chapel recently about how God worked in their lives through this retreat experience. We are blessed to be able to see students grow and change (and testify to that growth and change) as God pours more of Himself into them. Pray for our students to continue to be drawn closer and closer to God and to desire to do His will.

Just before Easter break, we celebrated PIU days. The school, staff and students, were divided into three teams where we play games and each group takes a turn leading devotions. We all had team t-shirts too! Tim and I enjoyed watching the games (too much running for us!) and participating in chapel. The chapel times were amazing! They were student led, with students sharing, doing the devotional lesson and choosing and leading the music as well. We were very impressed with how well the students took charge of things this year! (Here we are in our team t-shirts at the first night of chapel.)

During spring break, we had the opportunity to get a few projects done at the house. We thought painting the office would be an easy, maybe two day task at best . . . we were wrong! First of all, though we picked a vivid color, we found out the room would need two coats of the "Home Depot Orange" we selected for the walls. (The closet and ceiling were to stay white.) Painting the walls went very well, as you can see here!

As I (Melody) began to treat the ceiling with primer, the paint began to peel away. And upon closer inspection, we noted that the plastered surface was pulling away from the solid concrete roof! What a mess! What should we do? Well, I started scraping while Tim headed out to get patching plaster. Hmmmm - okay - so maybe it'll be a THREE day project! So Tim mixed the plaster and got to work - ah! PROGRESS! That looks better - I wonder how it will look after painting? After considering this question, we trekked back to Home Depot the next morning in search for a "heavy-textured" paint that might hide the patching, which was rather noticeable. Perhaps FOUR days?

However, this plan was destined to backfire! As Tim carefully followed the directions on the can, it didn't take too long that afternoon to discover that this was NOT going to work! (We later learned that this sort of finish is really tough to apply in humid environments - so why would they sell it on GUAM?) Yeah - you can see how well it worked here to the left! Can you say FIVE days on this room? Hmmmm - it's kinda looking that way!

Well, to shorten things a bit, we just painted the ceiling white without texturing it - and you know what? It really doesn't look bad at all! Tim loves his orange office; he says it's "very cheerful!"

Lest you think that is all we got done over break, you should know Tim got a lovely new light installed in our master bathroom (one that we can see through so the light is brighter) AND a new service sink in our laundry room to replace the other one that had a corner broken off of it. (It was snagging my clothes whenever I moved between it and the washer to do laundry.) We also got the laundry room painted the same soft green that's in our kitchen AND I painted the small cabinet in our master bath and put new knobs on it. All in all, it was a productive week and all of this work really, truly refreshed us! It was great to do something that was not just sitting (Melody) and for Tim, it was great to get a handle on fixing some things that he's not had time to fix.

To finish up our week off campus, we took some of our favorite bbq to the beach at Tumon Bay and ate at the edge of the Philippine Sea. After stowing our chairs and leftovers in the car, we took a nice, long walk up the beach and back, snapping pictures of the setting sun as we walked.

"Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind,
therefore I have hope. The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness. 'The LORD is my portion,' says my soul,
'Therefore I have hope in Him.'
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
to the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the LORD."
Lamentations 3:19-25

Happy New Year - and blessings abound!

2010-02-11T21:55:00.001-08:00

Our last post was before Christmas - and as many of you know, while we were home for Christmas, our daughter, Erin, got engaged to Rob. They are still in the planning stages for their wedding (no date as yet!) but we are blessed to welcome Rob into our family. I think that this and being "home" for Christmas for the first time in three years with our kids and grandkids were our greatest Christmas blessings!!

The semester here at PIU has gotten off to a good start. Pictured at the right are Jo, Joyce, Me, Marci, and Anne, out celebrating Joyce's birthday in January. Not too long before this, Jo and Marci arrived on island as visiting instructors. Jo is teaching a counseling course at the graduate level (concentrated, as she is only here for 6 weeks), and Marci will stay all semester long teaching personality development. The two of them have worked hard to get a counseling center up and running here on campus where our students can sign up for biblical counseling free of charge. What a blessing!

Another great addition to our faculty this semester is JC, who is teaching our math courses. He is a very gentle, sweet man, and it is such a blessing to have a math teacher on campus! He is researching math courses and working on developing our math department so that our students will have a few different options for completing their math requirement. I will also be training him as our new Academic Dean over the next few months, a blessing for our students . . . and for me!!

Another visitor we have had here (short term for 4 weeks) was Perry. He came here from Oregon and was a big help to Tim and Mo with several maintenance and grounds projects, including building two wall-mounted cupboards into one of our classrooms for storage. Besides being very hand, Perry is also a pastor and he did a great job sharing with the students during chapel this past week. Perry has come and gone, but we hope to see him back for another visit some time!

This last entry is just for interest - those of you who have never lived in a VERY humid environment may not know what these two photos indicate:
Okay, I'll give you a clue: They are both "before" images of the pictures below. (This means that the photos below are the "after" shots.) Give up?

Okay - I'll tell you: the images are of our umbrella stand (left) and the edge of a leaf for the dining room table (right). The "before" images are what these items and many others in our house looked like when "the attack of the mold" came on! Due to lower temps and higher rainfall and humidity than usual in December and January, our house became a breeding ground for mold in all SORTS of places and on all SORTS of items! We have spent every weekend (and many week nights) since our return cleaning things with bleach, only to find more mold and/or new mold growing in new places. Wooden bead necklaces, books, any leather items, and anything made of wood (including knife handles in drawers and wooden spoons) were the main culprits. Last weekend I had to dry all the clothes in our closet as they were all damp. Dropping the temp on our air con and doing LOTS of bleaching has proven successful! What an adventure! Now THAT'S something you won't find in California!

Okay - enough drivel for this week! Now that things are settling into a routine here, I hope to make this a weekly (or at least twice monthly) event! Come on back in a week or two and we'll have a report on this semester's classes and PIU activities!
God bless!
Melody & Tim

Semester Break is Coming!

2009-12-09T15:15:00.000-08:00

I just checked my previous post - has it really been over a month since I have had a chance to post a new entry? My apologies to any who check regularly. I guess this is truly a "mute" testimony to how busy things have been! It's all good! In this photo, you'll see how "blessed" our PIU group of workers has grown to! This photo was taken last month at a monthly prayer and potluck at the home of Jeff and Mary Johnson. These times of worship, prayer, and fellowship are a wonderful time of refreshing for all involved!

One activity from this past month that we had was a hike and swim at nearby Pagat Caves. The caves' hiking trail is located within 3 miles of campus. The trek through the jungle and down some rugged terrain, into a cavern about 100' through a passageway that is tight in a couple places is well worth the work! We lit candles and the students and staff in our group enjoyed a cooling swim before climbing back out of the cave and hiking back to the cars. We returned to campus for ice cream cones! What a great day!

A regular service Melody provides at least twice a semester is administering the TOEFL (English proficiency) test to students. It was a joy to give this test to 17 students and applicants in November; some of them who have been enrolled in an English language learning course make significant improvements in their scores! What a blessing it was to inform them that their hard work and studies are paying off!

We ladies (staff and students) had a fun get-together this fall: the Ladies' Mystery dinner! There were several "stations" located in different rooms on campus and the students spent about 20 minutes at each station. The "mystery" was that they didn't know what they would have to eat in each place! At the end, we all gathered in the main classroom for some games and prayer. It was a very fun evening!

Some Beauty from our Days of Rest

2009-11-04T21:36:00.001-08:00

We work hard through the week, so on Saturdays, Tim and I like to take a few hours to just stroll aimlessly on a beach or sit beside one and sip iced tea (or coffee, if you are Tim).

This first photo is taken at Agana Bay - it is the view from Barrista Blends Coffee House's back deck. We sit and watch the tourists go para-sailing, or as they zig and zag back and forth across the bay on wave-runners. Usually, it's not terribly hot (though this particular day it was!) and we can just relax and unwind from our work week.

A couple Saturdays ago, we took an "island tour," a drive around this tiny island, to see many of the local and historical sites. There are so many! We hadn't done this in a long time! We started out at Barrista Blends, stopping only for iced tea (and coffee!) and then going on to some of the beaches and other sites. Here are some trees that "walk." Their root systems are shallow, and if they are in a crowded jungle area, they will send out new shoots toward a sunnier spot and literally move toward the light, roots and all!

This is a set of overpasses that span the road in the village of Umatac (rhymes with "pneumatic") - they look almost out of place! Here, we stopped at a bench near the shore and had a picnic lunch (bugs and all). Afterward, we found ourselves beachcombing the short little shoreline where there were dozens of pieces of "sea glass," lots of teeny tiny seashells, and even a couple larger shells. It was very relaxing!

After our picnic, we drove under the gray and orange overpasses and up the hill to an overlook where the entire bay and village of Umatac were visible.

Also at this overlook is a park area where a local man has a caribao (water buffalo) and you can, for a small fee, ride the beast! (below left) The man also constructed a model of an old-fashioned grass house - the kind the local people used to live in many years ago. (below right)

Tim and I continued our island tour and were treated to sights of the many beautiful island flowers in different locations: Ginger, hibiscus, and orchids . . .

. . . exoria, plumeria, and "love chains." Aren't they beautiful?

As we continued around the island, we stopped briefly at Inarahan Pools; these are tide pools that are quite deep in some places, and more shallow in others. The water heats up in these pools under the tropical sun. Thus, instead of the water being about 85 degrees, like the surrounding sea surface, the pools have a temperature of closer to 90 degrees. This makes them very popular with young families. We enjoyed watching the brave young men who competed for who could do the most daring dive off of the diving block! This guy is the one we deemed the winner!

Guam has lots of beautiful buildings as well as natural attractions. After leaving Inarahan pools and right before we stopped in the village of Inarahan for a snack, I asked Tim to pull off the road so that I could snap a picture of the front of this beautiful church (left) . Just around a bend in the road, only a few hundred feet north, is the village proper of Inarahan. We stopped in a little market for a cold drink and snack and then walked back up the road to take this second photo (right): the remaining front wall of the oldest protestant church on Guam. These two pictures provide quite a bit of contrast, don't they? :-)

Check back in a few days - I'll finish the Island Tour for you and include snapshots of our favorite beach at Ritidian Point.

More on Spiritual Emphasis Days

2009-10-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

Once the weather cleared (see "Plan B" in the last entry from 2 weeks ago), our campus moved to Bayview Church to continue our Spiritual Emphasis Days retreat. Guest Speaker, Matt Augee, soon had the students mingling in an interactive activity. Matt had a lot of great activities and messages to emphasize the unity, cooperation, and oneness that the body of Christ should have.

There were lots of smiles and just as much fun and laughter . . .

. . . and some serious moments as well as students thought about the analogy of the tennis balls: they come in many sizes and colors and shapes, but they are all tennis balls.

Dan's point was that Christians all come in many sizes, colors, and shapes - we don't all look the same or speak the same language, but God loves us all, and we should love and accept one another as brothers and sisters. It was a good lesson for all.

Spiritual Emphasis Days were effective for so many of our students. Some of them testified in chapel last Friday that God had convicted them to reach outside of their "comfort zones" and connect with our newer, non-islander students from China, Taiwan, and Korea.

Another young man testified of how he had known about God all his life, but had never had strong relationships with his family members or with God. His speaking touched us all as he haltingly shared that he wanted to have a strong relationship with God and draw closer to Him.

Please continue to pray for the staff and students at Pacific Islands University: that all of us would glorify God in our daily lives and that our students would continue to learn more and more how to walk with God daily, trusting Him for all of their needs in all things at all times - that they would truly learn to "live Jesus" in all they think and say and do.

"Plan B" Works for Me!!

2009-10-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

They say that it's always good to have a "plan B" - whoever, "they" are! Anyway, PIU's Spiritual Emphasis Days planners definitely had a "plan B!" Today, we were supposed to kick off with lunch at an outdoor venue (Bayview Church), but due to a tropical storm skirting our area, we started with lunch on campus - lots of laughing, smiles, and fun. No one seemed to mind the change too much! Later today, we'll be off to Bayview as the weather clears to hear Matt Augee speak. But earlier today, we were still on campus for food, fun, and fellowship!

We had some great activities! A group relay race
was first - here's a true action shot! It involved fishing for Lifesavers in flour (with mouths!), shuffling across the room in paper bag slippers, tagging a teammate who then had to carry a raw egg back across the room to two other teammates. These next two had to walk sideways, back to back, to the last two teammates back across the room, who then "danced" to the finish line! There were LOTS of laughs!

Following the relay race was a good "old fashioned" watermelon eating contest. Meluat definitely won, but everyone gave him some good competition, including Justin, from our community group. (I think the fact that we did this contest after lunch slowed things down a bit!!)

Regardless, everyone had a great time!

No shortage of smiles here!
Scroll down to see
more of our students!

Pray for us all, students
and staff alike, to hear
from God over the next
two days - that we would be sensitive to His speaking
to us through the scriptures and the speaker at the retreat.

Check back here early next week for more photos of Spiritual Emphasis Days at PIU! :-)

New "look," but still Good News!! :-)

2009-10-08T16:47:00.000-07:00

This is just a note to those of you who think you may have gotten the wrong blog. YES! We've changed our look! We hope you enjoy this format which will allow us to post bigger photos! Scroll down to see today's (October 9) posting!

From Typhoons to Tsunamis

2009-10-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, it was a typhoon watch - this week, a tsunami watch! We sure live in an exciting corner of the world.
The typhoon slid harmlessly past us . . . and the tsunami watch has been lifted - no waves! But I thought some of you might be interested to see where the epicenter of the (reportedly) 8.1 earthquake was, near Vanuatu. Vanuatu is within the white circle, located about 2300 miles southeast of us. I also am including a photo of Vanuatu. Evidently, they have a lot more to worry about there than earthquakes from the looks of this photo! :-)

Spiritual Emphasis Days are just around the corner - October 15 and 16 of next week. This picture is of me (Melody), Joyce, Melissa, and Jen at a recent fellowship between staff and students on campus. We are all looking forward to spending time with students over two days and one night as we take a bit of a break from academics and focus on God's word and worshiping together. Please pray for us all to, together, draw near to God, learn ways He wants us to grow, and to draw closer together as a Christian community.

Speaking of "community," during Spiritual Emphasis Days, we'll have our first "community group" meeting of the school year. Pacific Islands University has community groups that combine staff, faculty, and students into fellowship groups that meet a couple of times each month throughout the school year. (This photo is of our community group from last year.) We enjoy meeting together to pray, play, fellowship, and feast! This year there are 7 groups with between 4-7 staff/faculty members and 14-17 students. We're really looking forward to our first get-together!

Thanks for checking in with us - now that we are back on island and the semester is off to a good start, check our blog for updates on what's up at PIU and in our lives. We try to update it at least once a week, so keep checking! Have a great fall!
Melody and Tim

Weather Woes and the Sports Challenge

2009-09-29T17:39:00.001-07:00

If you have checked Dave and Joyce Owen's blog, you have already seen the weather maps that show what we have coming our way in the next few days: a LOT of weather!! This photo shows how the campus was already starting to experience flooding before the major front has hit! We are due to have about 4" of rain in the next 24 hours (the edge of a tropical storm south of us) - but there is another system developing out by Ponepei that may reach typhoon proportions by the time it hits the Marianas in about 2+ days. We have a lot to do to get the campus ready and keep the students safe and well-provided for. Pray for this to all go well!

Backing up a couple of days, this past Saturday afternoon, September 26, PIU met with the Lutheran Church of Guam for the third annual Sports Challenge (photos below):

LCG really did a great job of beating PIU at basketball this year . . . but our student, Doug, is also the youth pastor at LCG . . . and he played on their team . So how do we figure that one out????

The volleyball game started well! PIU was well ahead of LCG when a downpour hit, so the game was called and LCG forfeited to PIU . . . so the teams were "one and one" even!

One spectator was not put off by the rain in the least! (After all, it was about 83 degrees!) Little Amelia, daughter of Liebenzell missionaries Ned and Marisol, decided to independently enter the swimming competition . . . on the ball court! I would say by the look on her face that she won!!

While Amelia swam, the tug-o-war teams of LCG and PIU tugged and slid, tugged and slid, and by the third tie-breaking round of tug-o-war, PIU defeated LCG!

Wet and tired but happy, all the participants came together to enjoy a barbecue, followed by music and devotions in the chapel. During this time, LCG Pastor Jeff awarded the trophy to T'nel, PIU's student representative. The trophy will be returned to the PIU office for another year. SO, LCG-ers . . . NEXT year, you'll have another chance!!

I hope you enjoyed our update - stay tuned for a report next week on how we weathered the storms . . . IF we have power! :-) God bless you well!

Tim and Melody

Summer's Gone & Fall has Fallen Upon Us

2009-09-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to describe how fast the summer flew by . . . but it did! Before we knew it, we were saying goodbye to our (sometimes silly) kids and grandkids and flying back to our home on Guam. Summer had its ups and downs - the ups were the great times we had with family and friends; so thanks to all of you who made the summer good for us. We miss you all, but back here on Guam, things are really hopping!

We arrived back on a Tuesday night - and by Wednesday morning, in spite of a bit of jet lag, we found ourselves back on campus to evaluate what needed to be done before students started to arrive and classes began. The first week we had three meetings; the second week, there was a one-week intensive "pre-semester" learning skills class that Melody and new arrival, Jen, taught. (Jen stayed with us the first 2 1/2 weeks while she got acclimated and got a car.) Here we welcome her to Guam at 2 a.m. at the airport!

School rapidly changed appearance as students returned and classes began. We have about 112 students in our undergrad program this fall. This means that Tim was kept really, REALLY busy the first weekend as students began arriving and enrolling and settling into dorms. More beds and matresses needed to be purchased and set up, more trashcans, more cleaning supplies to start out the semester . . . more more more! And though tiring, it was a joy to see so many students joining the ranks to study! Our annual "orientation" and bbq went very well!

Chapel is a joy to be a part of twice each week - especially this year with the room packed full as we can get it. The singing, devotional message, and even the announcements are enjoyable as we all gather together to take a "break" in academic studies to worship.

Students also are making good use of the relocated computer lab which, thanks to Tim and Mary Lou, is back up and running better than ever! The students were happy to see this completed, as complications with getting it relocated and re-established kept them from being able to use it last spring! So HOORAY for this task being all done!

Another lovely surprise awaited us back at our house. Last spring, Tim found some cuttings near the dumpster on campus and thought to himself, "Hmm . . . those look like 'Bird of Paradise' cuttings!" So he threw a few in two buckets, dumped some dirt on them, and brought them home. All spring and summer, they have been watered . . . and guess what welcomed us when we came home? Yep! Fully blooming Bird of Paradise plants!!! Things really grow easily and well here in the islands!!

I'll close this post with a sunset over the "new" pavilion that was a summer project here. This has become a wonderful blessing for our students on a daily basis. It's also been wonderful for outdoor campus events like our Third Annual Sports Challenge between PIU and our church! The sound system can be plugged, set up, and used without any concern for getting soaking wet in a tropical shower! And that's a good thing in Guam where we get an average of about 100" of rain a year!! :-)

Check back later this week for photos of the above-mentioned sports challenge! Blessings!
Melody an dt

Summer Projects on Campus

2009-06-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

Before we left Guam a few weeks ago, two summer projects had already gotten underway.
Project #1 involved eight volunteers from Messiah Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The picture at the right shows us, Pastor Jeff (from our church on Guam), the visiting team from New Mexico, and a few of the dancers from a cultural presentation and dinner we attended shortly after the team's arrival. This crew worked tirelessly in the heat and humidity, replacing over 100 feet of chain link fencing along the campus' front boundary, helping with cleaning up some of the grounds, and painting the interior of the women's dorm. (more photos below)

(Left)
Making sure everything is in order before stretching the fencing is pretty important.

(Right)
PIBC's Thailand Mission Team helped with the projects as well.

(Left)
The women who worked in the dorms had quite a job! Old paint on doors had to be peeled or sanded off. Next came the primer and last, the paint . . . and of course, in Guam's humid climate, the paint takes a long time to dry! Thanks, Messiah Mission Team, for all your hard work! PIBC appreciates your labor of love!

The other summer project is one that has been in the making for several months. Our students love to spend time outdoors. They fellowship, practice music on guitars and electric keyboards, and eat outside much of the time. However, the intense sun during some times of the year, and the heavy rain at others, both can interfere with these activities. In May, grading began for the construction of a concrete pavilion area.

Next, the workers dug the footing for the pillars that would support the heavy concrete roof/ceiling to cover the pavilion area.

The men who were hired for this project were amazing - they worked all day long, even on the clear days when the hot, tropical sun beat down during this hottest time of the year. In spite of having to dig up a lot of coral with some dirt, it seemed like the digging was done in no time at all!

The next step was to level the area where the slab would be poured and get rebar in place for pouring the four vertical pillars that would support the heavy roof.

Once all of the base work was done, the crew had to set forms and jacks for pouring the concrete roof. This was done shortly after we left island for the summer and the concrete now has to "cure" for about 3-4 weeks. Once it has cured, the forms and jacks will be removed and the job will be nearly done. The pavilion will include electrical outlets so that students can not only practice music outdoors, but we can have campus events using the pavilion and be able to use microphones and speakers. What a blessing!

Finally . . . the promised update!

2009-06-20T16:28:00.001-07:00

Our blog has been a bit silent for several weeks - shortly after our last entry the end of the spring semester loomed large. I (Melody) found myself engulfed in finishing out teaching my own classes as well as visiting and completing observation reports on 12 others! Then came finals and our accreditation review for the school. In the midst of this, we received news of the death of our middle daughter, Traci . . . so I would like to start this blog just repeating the gratitude that our entire family feels for all of you who prayed, called, emailed, wrote to share in our grief. In spite of this loss, we rest in the firm knowledge that God is good all the time, and that even in sorrow and loss, God's peace and love are present in our lives. We rest in knowing we will see Traci (above at left) again someday in Heaven because of God's faithfulness.

Backing up to April, I (Melody) was blessed with a "free" trip to Palau to visit with daughter Erin before she finished up her second and final year of teaching at Bethania Girls High School. The sunset view from the airplane on the way down was amazing! Erin met me at the airport and we had a light dinner, sat up and caught up with each other till nearly midnight, and spent the next day seeing the capital of Koror. I got to see a couple places where "Survivor" was filmed and where the crew stayed; then we headed up to the campus where I spent the next three days with Erin and meeting her co-workers and students.

I had the blessing of teaching a session of English and of science (see left) for Erin, giving her a break and giving the students a "guest teacher!" I also had the blessing of leading her 11th grade Bible class (see below right) where I shared my testimony and challenged the girls to always keep in mind the fact that God's grace and love for us is so much more great than we could ever imagine. I reminded them that when life seems to throw us flat on our backs, we are in the best position to "look up" and look to God for all things. I really loved getting to know a few of the girls at Bethania as well as some of the staff there. I am praying that many of these girls may some day be in one of my classes at Pacific Islands Bible College - to be called Pacific Islands University from July 1 of this year on. (Yes, our university status has been approved!)

My trip wasn't all work; Erin and I took a couple of lovely hikes near the high school in the northern area of Palau - the island she was teaching on is called Babeldaup - along an ancient stone path (see left), and then down to a lovely beach (below right). It was a blessing to have some good "mom/daughter" time with her and to see where she's been ministering for two years. Palau is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. There are so many very tall, "old growth" trees there, pristine beaches, and (as we have found all over the islands of the Pacific) very lovely, friendly, and hospitable people.

My favorite outing with Erin was a lengthy hike down into a little valley, down a stream bed and across another, and up a short rise to a HUGE waterfall near the village of Ngaardmau. It was a breathtaking hike! Believe it or not, if you click on the photo at the left and look closely a bit up and to the left of center, you can see the TOP of the waterfall to which we hiked; at this point here, we were about halfway into the hike.

Now at the bottom of the hill above, Erin is hiking ahead of me, down the streambed (see right). I had to stop and take a picture of one of the "potholes" in the stream. This photo below to the left showed such a beautiful reflection of the blue sky and a tree that was overhanging the water-filled hole that I had to include it. By the way, the streambed was solid rock all the way down to the bottom of the ravine!

At last, we reached the waterfall! I have hiked to a couple of falls on Guam, but have not seen anything to rival this fall! The rock in the left foreground that the water is pouring over is a LOT larger than it appears. Compare it to me (I am 5'3") in the later photo below where I am in front of the same rock. I would estimate the rock to be about 7-8' tall, and the height of the fall to be about 65' - but that's just a guess! The wind generated by the waterfall in the photo to the left was so strong, I had a difficult time standing up! In fact, I believe I fell over or slipped quite a few times!! Regardless, it was one of the most amazing sights I have seen in my life.

The next day, we headed back down to Koror for my last day. We stayed at Bethania House, an apartment kept ready for Bethania guests and teachers who need a place to sleep while visiting or shopping in the capital. The guest house is located on the campus of Emmaus, the boys' high school in Koror. We had a lovely visit with Ate Luz, the secretary for Emmaus and hostess for Bethania House, and a friend of hers who teaches at Emmaus. It seemed like only minutes and I was at the airport saying good-bye to Erin. I am so glad I had the chance to visit Palau and to get to know other missionary teachers at Bethania and Emmaus. Tim and I both hope to visit together in Palau someday.

After Easter break (which is when I traveled to Palau), it seemed like the rest of the school year just flew! First came finals! Then, before we knew it, came bacchelaureate, and then graduation, pictured in the photos below.

The weekend following graduation, Tim and I were privileged to attend the wedding of two of our students. Sonny, the groom, graduated as valedictorian this year (photo below with Melody); his bride, Elilai, will finish her coursework this coming December. They made a lovely couple and the wedding was as joyful and beautiful as the two of them. Many others from the college were there to celebrate and participate in the reception with special songs, games, and skits. It was a lovely afternoon and evening! Pray for this young couple as they prayerfully seek God's will for their lives.

We left Guam at the end of May to travel to California where we will spend the next several weeks. On Sunday, July 19, at 6:00 pm, we will be sharing at Gold Country Baptist Church and we would welcome any of you who are in the area to come and visit us at that time. If any of you would like us to share about the ministry of Liebenzell, USA in the Pacific Islands, feel free to contact us at our email address. We will be in the San Jose area the last week of June, southern California the first 2 weeks of July, and northern California the last 2 1/2 weeks of July. God bless!Melody and Tim Plaxton, serving as Liebenzell Missionaries on the Island of Guam

(currently on furlough in California)

Spring . . . summer? Random thoughts from Guam

2009-04-07T22:51:00.001-07:00

Ah, the weather is always fine here on Guam! Car Wash, anyone? Recently our students had a car wash to help raise funds for this summer's mission trip to Thailand. This will be the third year we have sent a team of students to work alongside Campus Crusade there. Students spend time at local universities teaching conversational English and witnessing to students. Email me if you might be interested in contributing to this trip - donations are tax deductible!

Another recent activity for our students was a trip to the National Prayer luncheon held on Andersen Air Force Base a couple weeks ago. The students shared some vocal numbers while there. According to fellow missionary, Ned Farnsworth, one of the songs they performed was "God is so Good" in English, Palauan, Chuukese, Yapese and Marshallese. Ned reports, "We had students from each island group represented." They also were blessed to hear Guam's Lieutenant Governor speak.

We are REALLY happy to announce the repairs are complete on our second van! After nearly five months of waiting, the replacement part (a gas tank) finally arrived on island! The dealer got it installed and returned to campus . . . and our deans are so happy! No more trying to make one fifteen passenger van do for transporting students places, such as their many ministry responsibilities throughout the community, church, shopping, and other activities!

One "on site" ministry that several of our students perform is leading worship at chapel on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Meluat and Leeman are seen here playing guitars - and Hedrick(not pictured) often officiates and takes turn playing bass or lead guitar with Meluat and Leeman. Sonny plays the piano, and different students fill in helping lead singing at the mic. This day, it happened to be Doug. Daisy (foreground) often runs the projector that displays the lyrics. We are blessed to have so many talented and willing servants to plan and conduct worship time here on campus.

We also have small groups of students who periodically volunteer to sing special songs in chapel. This is one of my and Tim's favorite events: when students sing for chapel. This group of men and women sang a really beautiful song recently. Sometimes it is a small group that performs while other times the group is so large there are not many students left seated! :-D It is always a joy to hear the students perform a song that has blessed them . . . and it, in turn, blesses us!

Recently we had a lunch on campus to bid farewell to Hollie (center of couch in the purple shirt), a young woman who has volunteered here at PIBC for the past two years. Hollie and her husband, Aaron (Air Force), have been a large part of life at PIBC. Hollie has worked with our students in ministry development, campus life, has planned numerous activities along with other staff members, including Spiritual Emphasis weekends and staff retreats, and has just been a HUGE all around blessing to us all. She and Aaron returned to the States last month! We miss them both!

Okay: Time for our most recent "O.O.G." ("Only On Guam") report. Tim was in the library a couple of weeks ago as a student was walking out . . . and as the student came out, the library door literally fell off the hinges!! It turns out that the entire hinge assembly had corroded from the inside out and the door chose this particular moment to completely give way! The quick-thinking student grabbed the door and another student came and tried to help him put the door back - Tim came over and told them it was beyond "putting back" - and he then had to repair the door. There were no more hinge assemblies like these on island (naturally), so he had to rob another nearby door for a temporary repair. (Yes, Tim has "job security" here!)

One last photo I'd like to share is a picture of the little ones at our church. This is not the best quality photograph, but it's a picture of our pastor, Jeff Johnson, sharing the "children's sermon" from a couple of Sundays ago. For the past several weeks, Jeff has used plastic eggs and their contents (miniature symbols of the events of the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ) to teach the children about these events. He's done it at Sunday morning and mid-week services, and it has been amazing to see the children remember what each egg has had in it and what that "symbol" represents. What a wonderful way to teach them about the gospel!

Wherever you are as you read this, before or after April 12, may God bless you with renewed hope and joy in Him as you celebrate our Risen Lord! May you rejoice as you declare in your life that "He is risen!!!" Yes, He is risen, indeed!

(Check back in a few days for an update on Melody's trip to Palau!)

35 Years - what a place to celebrate!

2009-03-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

Tim and I recently enjoyed celebrating our 35th anniversary by taking a day off and enjoying relaxation and reminiscing about the years behind us. But our thoughts about our 35 years of marriage started with the Friday before our special day when Tim came back from running errands and brought me a "flower" - or more accurately, flour!! ;-) Seriously, I fee that this is the kind of thoughtfulness that marks a strong marriage - he was out at a local store and found flour on sale for an EXCELLENT price and grabbed some for me! He knows how I love to bake! What a thoughtful guy!

On our anniversary, after a leisurely morning at home, we went to lunch at a local hotel (we had "free buffet lunch" coupons!). Afterward, feeling quite full and satisfied, we ditched plans to go swimming (it was cloudy, rainy, and too "cold" to us for swimming).

Instead, we went to one of our favorite beaches at Tumon Bay for a walk. In the park at Ipao Beach, there are some models of what "local" housing was like long ago. Tim posed for a shot in front. There is a ladder that goes up into the house, and the various bamboo supports at the edges are used for hanging strings of coconuts. These "model homes" were small, but well made and gave us a good idea of what housing the island was probably dotted with about a century ago.

I think the best part of our day was our lengthy walk along the edge of Tumon Bay. We spent over two hours just walking at a slow pace, taking in the beauty of the view, picking up shells, and chatting with local fishermen. Tim learned a few pointers (mentioned in our previous blog) about local fishing this time of year. I am hoping he'll put his new found information into practice soon!

Our day of "R&R" was well spent! We were rested and ready to face the rest of the week. We both feel so blessed to be serving God here at PIBC, living in an area that has so many beautiful places where we can spend our "off time."

Speaking of "off time," I am taking off later today for Palau, a set of islands about 1,000 miles south and slightly west of here. I will visit PIBC's teaching facility there, administer our English proficiency test (TOEFL) to several potential students, and visit Bethania girls' high school where Erin has been teaching the past 2 years. While at Bethania, I will be sharing my testimony in the 11th grade Bible class, teaching 9th grade English and science for one day, and talking to seniors about the possibility of them coming to PIBC (soon to be called PIU - as of July 1) next year. Please pray for me to share what God wants me to, and continue to pray for Erin as she finishes her 2 year commitment to teaching there. I'll have photos of the trip up on our blog before Easter.

Blessings! Melody and Tim
Serving as Liebenzell Missionaries at Pacific Islands Bible College, Guam

Blog Casserole

2009-03-28T23:09:00.000-07:00

You know what a casserole is . . . a little bit of this and a little bit of that and "PRESTO!" you have something new and - well, maybe delicious! It is Sunday afternoon and the lazy part of the day - and I just realized I have a bit of time to put a bit of info on our blog: a "blog casserole." I hope you all enjoy it!

A "semi-recent" blessing was some great fellowship with John and Jeannie, who minister to expatriates living and working in Kathmandu, Nepal. John is pastor of an evangelical church there and the two of them help expatriate Christians get adjusted to the culture and climate of the area. They were on a two month sabbatical here on Guam (John spent some time at PIBC doing research and studying) and we had a great time getting to know them. They recently returned to Nepal, refreshed (we hope) and ready to serve. They are missed!

Plumeria! No fragrance marketeer has quite been able (in my opinion) to capture its fresh, sweet fragrance! In January and February, some of the plants tend to get a bit barren here (compared to other times of the year) - but in March, they burst back into full bloom! This cluster appeared on a plant just outside our office. No other blossom, except maybe the orchid, outdoes a plumeria for it's delicate beauty AND fragrance.

How do you like this hat???? You can't buy it anywhere! This is actually a hairdo that Jayleen came to class wearing one day recently! Our girls love to do each others' hair, and they are VERY GOOD at it! From beautiful, waterfall-like lifts to tiny braids in a wide variety of patterns, our girls are creative and talented at fixing up their long, beautiful hair! Of course, it take a lot of patience, too . . . and a lot of hair!! :-)

One rainy day out at Agana Bay, Tim and I watched this local fisherman cast his net into the shallow water and retrieve some fish. There are several ways local fishermen fish - and these are limited by the government to protect different types of fish in various locations. If you look closely, you will see his net fills the center of the picture! Net fishing is only allowed in a few locations from the shore; many local beaches are preserves that only allow cast fishing (hook and line). Outside the reef, net fishing is openly allowed. Hook and line fishermen are currently catching convict tang and rabbit fish. They run a set of 5-6 tiny hooks in a row on the line, drag it through some sea grass in the surf, and cast out. The fish nibble at the grass and the fisherman sinks the hook! (Tim needs to try this soon!!)

Okay - I'll close with an image of Tim's most recent project: this past week, he finished installing all of the tabletops in the "dinex" (they are on top of this framework you see him screwing together) and it's all ready for Mary Lou to get the computers set up! The students will be so happy to see it done! They have been patiently waiting for this as we moved the computers from the old study center to a new location. The "old" study center has become "classroom #2" - a huge blessing because it is a separate classroom from our main classroom building, which means no more distractions with the "class next door" being heard through a sliding wooden panel! Yay on BOTH counts: classroom #2 ANd the new study center.

I hope to have a few other photos up in a day or two - I say that, and then the week takes off and leaves my blog plans in the dust! :-) But we'll see . . .

Many blessings! Melody and Tim

What PIBC Students Are Doing This Weekend

2009-03-05T21:16:00.001-08:00

It's Friday before midterms here at PIBC - and this afternoon, I took a walk around campus and interviewed several students, asking them this question: "What are you doing this weekend?" Here are the answers I got from a few:

Meluat will be practicing for music ministry at the Palauan Church, studying for his Micronesian Church History midterm, and completing his final draft of a persuasive essay for English writing.

When I caught Molly, she was chatting away on the phone with her mom. Later, I asked her my survey question, and she told me she was looking forward to "Friday Night Lights" here on campus (volleyball, basketball and fellowship), doing her devotions, and studying for midterms on Monday.

T'nel is working this weekend (he's a lifeguard at Tarza Water Park in Tamuning) - but he's also looking forward to basketball, working on his Christian Literature and math homework, and studying for a midterm in Old Testament History.

When I went to the Bannex (girls dorm annex), Kita and Jayleen were enjoying their Friday afternoon listening to music, and Jayleen was eating a bowl of spicy noodles with Kool-aid powder mixed in (no sugar) - a favorite seasoning of the students. Kita (left) is looking forward to her cousin's wedding this weekend, spending time with her family, and studying for BIG midterms in Old Testament history and Doctrine 2. Jayleen (right) will enjoy "Friday Night Lights," going to help shop for food for the girls' dorm, helping coordinate plans for the "PIBC Days" teams (coming right before Easter), and practicing music for church.

I caught these two men as they came out of their math class this afternoon! TK (left) has homework to do in Youth and Children, Personality Development, and he is also preparing to do ministry at the Palauan Church. Fred (right) has to finish his homework for Christian Literature and study for his Personality Development midterm, but he is definitely going to take time to enjoy "Friday Night Lights" with his brothers and sisters in Christ!

Shelby (left) is also a part of the Youth and Children ministry team this weekend, so she'll be joining the many others who are organizing this event, as well as practicing a special song, "He Will Carry You," that she will be singing in her church this Sunday morning. In between, she plans to work on her essay for Micronesian Church History. Hadson (right) is going to be studying for Micronesian Church History, working on his final draft of a persuasive essay for English writing.

Sonny says that "it's just going to be a regular weekend." When I asked him to explain, he said that he's going to work at his church's "Kids' Club," spend a good deal of time studying, and then spend some time with his fiance', Ellilai. (see below)

Esther (left) has a busy weekend of running her boys to basketball games and participating in church activities. In addition, she'll be working on her paper for Micronesian Church History and studying for the midterm in Doctrine 2. Ellilai (right), engaged to Sonny (above) will be studying for her Micronesian Church History midterm, preparing a lesson to teach to the youth Bible study at her church, and of course, spending time with Sonny.

TJ (left) will attend "Friday Night Lights," and he also has a couple of shifts to work at the local "Wendy's" restaurant. In addition, he'll be working on a project for his math class. Marcus (right) has homework in his Church History class - a paper he needs to work on - but first, tonight, he'll attend "Friday Night Lights" (Can you tell this is a poplular weekly event with our students?). He will also be attending his niece's wedding - the same wedding mentioned by Kita.

Dave is working on his Youth and Children project with his classmates. Many of them are going to the Palauan Church to work with youth there, presenting Bible lessons and skits, and leading the children in songs and games. Dave is also looking forward to a visit with his mom who is on island this weekend!

T'nel, Marcus, and Molly have shared, but May-May (center front, in blue) dashed in to join this last picture and summed up what she'll be spending a LOT of time doing this weekend before midterms: "STUDYING!"

Pray for our students as they prepare for midterm exams and projects. They are a great group of men and women, and they really do appreciate your prayers!

Thanks for checking in! Next week, I hope to finally get some clips up of what I (Melody) have been doing! Blessings!
Melody and Tim

Saturdays are for resting! :-)

2009-02-21T21:11:00.001-08:00

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 that 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.

That's it for this weekend! Hafa Adai, and hope all of you in California are enjoying the rain! :-)

Blessings, Melody and Tim

Whacha Doin', Tim?

2009-02-11T20:38:00.000-08:00

When we lived in Chino (southern California), our next door neighbor's son, Tommy, was so friendly and curious! Tim used to love to see him wander into our garage on a Saturday morning saying, "Whatcha doin', Tim?" And Tim would show and tell Tommy what he was up to. Tommy is about 30 years old now, but Tim occasionally still gets the same question: "Whatcha doin?" So here are a few answers to " Whatcha' Doin', Tim??"

"Well, I fix an alarm so bad guys can't enter,

and direct repairs on the Study Center.

Maintain the A/C so rooms aren't hot,

and find and fix the boards that rot.

Create work orders, check emails,

and use duct tape when all else fails!

Discover what the termites eat,

and make floors safe for people's feet!

Repair the showers,

go on a 'parts run',

And once in awhile, enjoy the sun - and a cup of coffee makes it even more fun; especially if I'm with my 'hon'! " :-)

Tim and Melody Plaxton serve as Liebenzell Missionaries at Pacific Islands Bible College on the island of Guam. For more information on this ministry, see the contact information above at the right.

Jordan's birthday and other generic news!

2009-02-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

This is a very "eclectic" entry, and not at all in chronological order! Just a collection of "what's new" here on Guam!

Starting a week out with a rainbow like this is similar to getting a big hug from God! What a blessing to be so often reminded of His goodness to us and that He keeps His promises! We took this picture Sunday morning as we were leaving the house for church.

Twice a month, we at PIBC all get together to pray for each other and for all our students, whether they are on Guam, in Chuuk, Yap, or Palau. Weekend before last we had the meeting at our home in the north part of Guam. Fellowship afterward is always sweet too!

Last week we had a nice surprise - Yosta dropped in on campus on the way home to Chuuk from the Philipines - and many of his former students were so happy to see him! It was good to see him looking well, though tired from his trip. Yosta directs operations at our Tol campus in Chuuk.

Mondays from 3-5 pm our students work hard on cleaning up around campus and inside buildings - here is a shot I just took 15 minutes ago today, Monday, February 9th. It was sunny and bright and the girls were making great progress . . . until a very "Guamish" downpour hit! Right now as I look out my window, the rain is gushing down . . . and our faithful ladies, unabashed, continue to rake and make the place tidy and more beautiful! You ladies are amazing!!!! And we do have a lovely campus!

Chapels are quite packed out nowadays! Here we are crammed into the chapel room, getting ready to hear our guest speaker. On this particular day, it was a missionary pastor from Nepal who is visiting, vacationing, and doing some research and reading on our campus. He gave a great message about being "in the world, but not of the world," about getting "wet" for God, but making sure that though our "boat" should be out in the water, serving the Lord, we should guard against the water getting into our boat!
Thanks, John!

Oh, we do have quite a crowd when we welcome PIBC'ers home! Steve and Anne Stinnette recently returned and we greeted them with songs and hugs! . . . and people at the airport kept saying, "Who are those people?? They must be important!" They are! And we're happy to have them home!

Check the blog out again in a few days for what's going on this spring with Tim and me! Melody

A VIDEO CLIP ESPECIALLY FOR OUR GRANDSON - BUT OTHERS CAN VIEW FOR FUN!

Hey, Jordan! This is just for you! We celebrated your 11th birthday with one BIG candle (since we didn't have any little cake candles) and had brownies and homemade ice cream in honor of your 11th birthday! Hope you had a great day! Love, Oma and Opa (ps - Opa's little "ending" on this was inspired by Kylie, who we know would ask for a rousing rendition of "Chucko the birthday clown!")

Catching up . . . AGAIN!

2009-01-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

This blog entry will get me all caught up on apprising all those who are interested in what we have been up to lately! To start with, we got to enjoy a Christmas tree (fake) this year.
Here is the final shot of our tree before we took it down! We all decided that our favorite "decorations" were the photos that many of our family and friends sent of themselves! If you did this, you graced our tree this year! :-) Our cat, Iggy (see previous blog entry) loved the tree! She didn't bother the decorations . . . well, at least not too often . . . and she loved curling up in the corner behind it.

Before heading back to our jobs in earnest, Tim and Erin and I took one last day to visit some historical sites on the island. Erin struck a pose by a sculpture of a mermaid in a now abandoned waterfall and pool area, below a historic bridge in Agana, the island's capital. (You may have to look closely to see the mermaid.)

In Agana, we also walked over a bridge that dates back over 400 years - in the photo at the right, we are standing in an area below the bridge.

Here (left), Tim and Erin are walking a path at Asan Beach, site of the American invasion that liberated Guam from Japanese occupation in 1944. (Tim is chatting on the cell phone with his friend, Bill, describing the sight; as a fellow vet, he thought Bill would enjoy this . . . and he was right!)

The event that signaled the "end" of break was taking Erin back to the airport and sending her off to Bethania in Palau to teach one more semester. We are so thankful to God for allowing us to have her here for the Christmas and New Year's holidays at a total cost of $10 for her plane ticket! Please pray for Erin to have a good semester of teaching and mentoring high school girls. Pray that God would continue to lead and guide her in the path He has chosen for her.

Sunday night (1/24) was our monthly potluck and prayer meeting on campus. We meet twice a month to pray for the students, for each other, and for the needs of the college. One of those meetings we have a shared meal before our prayer time; the other meeting we have prayer without the meal. These times of prayer are the "heart" of PIBC. They remind us of who is in control and the importance of letting our "requests be made known to God" so that "the peace that passes all understanding will rule [our] hearts and minds in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6-7).

Registration day (Monday, January 19) went very well. It was a very busy but fruitful day. The students had to exercise the most patience as they waited to get their registration forms completed, purchase their books, and get financial aid confirmed, but they seemed to really enjoy just being back and spending time with each other as they waited.

Last night, (Sunday, January 25)we had our PIBC "Welcome Back" barbecue with staff and students. It was so nice to have time to visit with fellow staff members and our students. So often the week gets away from us and we have had no time to just "be" with the students and get to talk about non-school related things! It was a great evening. We are heading into our second week of the semester now. Please continue to pray that God would bless our students as they seek His will for their lives. Pray for our staff to have wisdom in teaching and fellowshipping with the students and each other, that we might encourage one another in all ways.

Thanks for checking in with us! May God bless you well in this New Year as you trust in Him!
Melody and Tim

Iggy, our Crazy Cat (a video)

2009-01-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Click on the arrow below to see a video Brad Boydston recently shot of Melody playing with our crazy cat, Iggy! :-0

Ring, Christmas Bells!

2009-01-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

One addendum I would put on the blog entry below is an activity that Tim, Erin, and I have all enjoyed at Christmas the past two years: a visit to Micronesia Mall to see the lights and music display. It begins at 6:00 p.m. each evening and plays hourly through the Christmas season. The last display was on New Year's Day. I hope you enjoy the video clip below. It is about 2 minutes long, just a portion of one song out of four from the "show." Enjoy! ~ Melody ~

Christmas Break

2009-01-11T20:06:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas Break is nearly over! We had a really fun, relaxing time while Erin was here! Here are just a few highlights of events we participated in: Here is one photo among many of a fun and fellowship-filled progressive dinner with our church.

Erin and Melody enjoyed a fun afternoon on a dolphin boat with other PIBC folks and their families. (Sadly, Tim was sick and couldn't go.) The weather was picture-perfect and there was so much to see along the way, like these caves.

We also saw flying fish for the first time in our lives! They were so amazing! They do seem to literally "fly" as they flip up out of the water and skim along the surface!

Christmas Eve we attended worship at our church, reading scriptures and then following each segment of scripture with a verse to a Christmas carol! It was beautiful, and I think we got to sing almost all of our favorites! (Below is a photo of our Christmas tree; our favorite "decorations" this year were photos of some of our families and friends that you all sent us!) Christmas morning was simple and quiet! We had Mary Lou and some of our students over in the afternoon and evening to feast and celebrate with us.

Shortly after Christmas, we went with some friends to view a "Christmas Village" layout that two local families put together. I don't think any photo could do this incredible little sight justice. There were whole villages put together from ceramic shops and houses, a carnival area, a ski and snowboard area, and a couple of train layouts! The families who did this asked no admission fee; they simply wanted to share their "collections" with others!

Of course, no "vacation" time on Guam is complete without several trips to the beach! We went three different times, two of them enjoying fun and fellowship with some PIBC students. (See previous blog for a couple more photos.)

One lovely discovery we recently made was a coffee and tea place right on the beach at Agana Bay. While it is no "Starbucks," it is reasonably priced, very clean, and offers a relaxing covered deck where we can sit and sip coffee or iced tea. It will be a great place to take students as well!

New Year's Eve found us trekking to the parking lot on the roof of Kmart (adjacent to the beach) to join a bunch of our students in watching the fireworks shot off at one of the beaches at midnight. The fireworks continued for at least 15 minutes and were really quite nice!

Check back in a few days for our New Year's activities! We have been so blessed to be able to be together these couple of weeks and are feeling rested and ready to welcome students back soon!
God bless you in this New Year! Tim, Melody, and (for this post, anyway), Erin
Tim and Melody serving as Liebenzell USA Missionaries at PIBC, Guam
Erin serving as a missionary teacher in Palau from Gold Country Baptist Church, California

Guam can be such a fun place!

2008-12-31T17:46:00.000-08:00

One thing we have grown to appreciate here is that in spite of the "busy-ness" of ministry, there are so many great places to go and things to see and do here that cost nothing but a short drive and a bit of energy output! Here are a few of Melody's favorite outings from recent weeks!

Hiking up the beach from Tanguisson about a mile is a great outing - over the sand, climbing up, over, and around lava flows that meet the sea, and seeing the beauty all along the way was a fun outing that we went on with our PIBC community group! About 16 of us hiked a little over a mile to an area called Shark's Hole and then about a quarter mile into the jungle for a swim in Lost Pond. Unfortunately, my camera failed halfwa1y though the hike so I only have a couple of shots taken along the way . . . but they are beautiful!

Another fun and rather arduous hike is to Pagat Caves near the campus. It is about a mile+ hike through the jungle and down steep terrain at the same time.

Joyce, Melissa, Mary Lou, Daisy and I decided to go past the cave when Joyce told us there was a path that would take us on to the cliffs on the east shore of the island. Along the way, Joyce pointed out some ruins from an ancient Chamorro village: deteriorating latte stones (foundation pillars), and even a few old grinding rocks. Here I am using the grinding stone.

A bit farther on, we emerged into tall floral vines that nearly obliterated the path, but we forged on through. We were rewarded with a broad view of the ocean, and soon came to the edge of the cliffs where there were beautiful lava rock formations and cliffs.

Part of them formed a lovely natural "bridge," and Joyce, Melissa, and I went on ahead while Daisy and Mary Lou waited on safer ground. Here is a shot of us all - Daisy is a bit hard to spot - that yellow hat in the back may be about all you can see, but we were trying to use my camera on timer, and this was the best shot we got! :-)

It is really difficult to capture the amazing beauty and splendor of this spot on film, as well as the height and angle of the cliffs, but the three of us had fun climbing around and taking pictures of each other, the rocks, and the beautiful coastline. Following are some of my best photos.
This one is looking north, up the coast:

And this one to the right is looking south, down the coast. It's amazing how the angle of the late afternoon sun affects the color of the sea and sky in each direction!

This last one was taken by Joyce (standing on the rocks a bit above me) as I sat near the edge of the cliff - the wind was blowing wonderfully cool, and we even got hit by a bit of sea spray as the incoming waves crashed against the rocks not so far below us.

After our rock climbing, we hiked back through the jungle to the original goal of our "boonie stomp": Pagat Caves. This area is a deep cave with an underground pool to swim in. It's a bit slippery getting down into the mouth of the cave!

We had to light candles right after entering the mouth of the cave and wade through water that eventually came up to our chests. Holding our gear (packs with water, cameras, Ziploc bags with matches and candles) high overhead, we waded the approximate 1/10 mile underground to where the cave opened up higher and wider.

We put our gear up on the rock formations and enjoyed a very nice swim, "cooling off" from our hike. Below is a picture of Joyce at the more shallow end of the pool in the cave; in the middle, it is about 8-10 feet deep or more.

Returning to the cars parked up on the road is the toughest part of this hike! First you have to hike up and out of the cave (very slippery and soaking wet, I might add - but cool!), and then you have to hike/climb up the mile to the cars! Though taxing, we all felt it had been worth it! The beauty and diversity of God's creation never ceases to amaze me!

One last 'favorite' place that Erin, Tim, some students and I all got to enjoy recently is Ipau Beach in Tamuning, a beach that is in the midst of the tourist district. It is a lovely, natural setting, neatly placed between two major hotels.

The park represents a bit of what Guam "used to" be like before the resorts developed. Many of us on staff at PIBC have named this our favorite snorkeling beach because of the number and variety of fish we can see.

We had fun snorkeling, snacking, and just relaxing with the students. A few of them posed in the water for this shot below to the right, just before they played a bit of water-volleyball! :-)
These are all students helping PIBC out over their Christmas break in a variety of ways . . . but they have been "off" (as have we) since Christmas Eve. We all get back to "work" on January 5th in official capacity.

It was such fun to be able to have some "down time" this past week - and we've had several chances since the semester ended to have fun like this with the students that are here on island for the Christmas break.

In a few days I'll add a post with some more of our "R&R" with staff and students, as well as Christmas and New Year's pictures.

Hafa Adai, and Happy New Year from Guam, where (as I post this) it is January 1, 2009, even though it's still New Year's Eve in the 50 States! May God bless us all with a renewed vision of His plan and purpose for all of our lives as we trust in Him!
Melody and Tim Plaxton
Liebenzell Missionaries serving at
Pacific Islands Bible College, Guam

Mary Lou's "new digs"

2008-12-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

Hi all! As a brief update, I thought I'd post a few photos of our friend and fellow missionary Mary Lou's new apartment! We helped her move in over the past weekend, and she's finally starting to get unpacked and settled in after getting her air conditioner and refrigerator working!

Her apartment is in the corner on the second floor.

She'll greet you at the front door and welcome you in!
It has a nice cozy little kitchen . . .

. . . a hall cupboard and clean, tiled bathroom . . .

. . . and each bedroom has a lovely lanai with a private view of the jungle. The jungle has vines of fragrant little pink flowers growing over the trees - the bedrooms are filled with their fragrance when you leave the slider open!
The living room, which the front door enters into, is just the right size for having a few friends over for fun. Best of all, she's only about 3 miles from campus! Convenient!
We hope you enjoyed seeing Mary Lou's new place! And we know she's having fun getting settled in! Thanks for your prayers for her as she has moved over and adjusted to the new setting and her work here at PIBC. We are all so thankful to have her here!

Check back in a few days for updates from the end of the school year at PIBC.

Winding up . . . or winding down?

2008-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

English is a funny language: as we are winding up the semester, we are starting to wind down. Go figure! And I (Melody) get to be the one to try and explain idiomatic confusions such as these to my students! :-) All teasing aside, we do enjoy what we are doing here on Guam. Shortly after Spiritual Emphasis Weekend (which I reported on last time), we had a PIBC prayer meeting at our house - and packed about 20 people into our tiny living room! Nobody seems Here you see our living room from left to right, filled with people!

The following weekend our PIBC community group went on a Boonie stomp to Shark's Hole and Lost Pond. At the right you will see some students helping Mary Lou over some of the lava-rock outcroppings along the way. This hike is fairly rigorous because of these rock climbs along the way, but the hike (over 1 mile each way) was lovely. After arriving at Shark's Hole, we hiked about 1/4 mile into the jungle to Lost Pond before a twilight hike back down the beach to our cars. It was really beautiful! (The little rock islands you see in the left hand photo, by the way, are quite similar to the rock islands in Palau where Erin has been teaching, though quite a bit smaller.)

We have been busy winding down at the campus, but we have also been having fun decorating our house for Christmas for the first time. This time last year, we were painting and moving in, just in time for Erin to join us for the holidays. This year we purchased an inexpensive "fake" tree to decorate for the holiday. It was fun getting it all set up, and our friend and fellow missionary, Mary Lou, was with us to help! We'll have more on decking the halls in a few days on a later entry. For now, I will just say that we are looking forward to finishing up with finals and closing the campus for a few days to enjoy a break . . . and the students are too! Look for our next blog in a day or two with semester end activities and photos of a hike some of us missionaries took to an underground pool and the rocky eastern coast of Guam. Blessings! Melody and Tim

Spiritual Emphasis Weekend

2008-12-02T20:28:00.001-08:00

Spiritual Emphasis weekend was a great time of drawing close to God and to each other as well as a time of relaxation and refreshment! One of the first things Ginny, Lydia, and Ceci did was run to the beach and jump up on a rock to watch the incoming tide as it splashed over them - yes, they got wet!!
Joyce originally thought she'd sleep here . . . but her spot became very popular with many of the students! They took turns lying in the hammock off and on over the weekend, and Joyce, Melissa, Daisy, MaryLou and I spent most of the night outside our tent looking at the moon and stars! The evening was balmy and gorgeous! But that's getting ahead of things.

First we had to set up the tents - that took awhile, especially when we discovered that a few of the poles for our tent were broken! But thanks to Tim, Mo, and Joyce's ingenuity, we soon had our tent up!

After a late barbecued meal, we sat around and sang some songs. Then Hedrick Kual, a BA graduate of PIBC and current seminary student, gave us a great message on why we should pray, and why we sometimes don't pray. Hedrick's message was taken to heart by all.

After his message, Hedrick asked us to break up into our community groups and discuss the topic for the evening. Our group opened by each person sharing a short prayer of one thing they were thankful for to the Lord. Then we shared about different aspects of prayer in our lives; when it is hard to pray; why we should do it anyway; what happens when we obey God and pray; answers to prayer. It was a good time of sharing. We closed with another prayer of thanksgiving.

During all this time, there was a fantastic moonrise that took place - I was not kidding when I said above that the night sky was gorgeous! There was a brilliant moon, as you can see, and it illuminated the night sky's clouds so well that as we lay out on our matts, we were able to "name" the different shapes we saw in the clouds, laughing at each others' imaginations. We saw at least 3 shooting stars, and talked until 3:00 a.m. What a blessing to have shared good fellowship with each other!

. . . and by the way, the sunrise the next morning wasn't half bad either. (And yes, we were up to see it: who do you think took the picture?) :-)

The next day was the day we saw the great piggy event, listed below, during our breakfast time. Afterward, we had an extended time of Bible study, and meditation on scripture, each of us going to our own "spot" alone and focusing on the scriptures and thoughts in our study guide. It was a blessing to see how seriously most of our students took this time! (This photo is the view I had while I was doing my scripture meditation and journaling.)

We had two other general group meetings; one before our lunch and one after. Faculty members Ned and Hollie shared with us in the areas of commitment and openess in our lives with God. Hollie had a group of students perform a skit that demonstrated what happens to us when we allow sinful "strongholds" to get a "strong hold" on us and trip us up, entangling us in ways that render us useless in ministry. Hollie encouraged the students to give these to God and be strengthened by His grace and love in our lives.

All too soon, our weekend was over; but the impact still lingers. Please pray for our students and staff members at PIBC, that we would cling to the Lord in trials, surrender all strongholds to Him so that He can lift us up and make us useful to Him in service. Until my next entry, God bless you and strengthen you in YOUR service to Him, and know that He upholds you in His mighty hand.
Love in Him who loved us first,
Melody and Tim (seen here at the beach on Guam where we had our retreat) (. . . and yes, that is Tim's Starbuck's coffee mug in his left hand! Honestly, would you have recognized him without it?) :-)

This Little Piggy . . . went to PIBC!

2008-11-20T20:19:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was our Spiritual Emphasis Retreat . . . and I will have more on that after today - say, perhaps on Monday? Today (Friday, November 21) has been one of those crazy days when staff and students were in and out of my office all morning (which is all good, by the way!), but it leaves me a bit short of time to get a good posting out. So I'll give you a little "story" from our retreat.
It all started Saturday morning at the beach where we were having our retreat. We were simply eating breakfast when five little boonie piggies wandered onto the beach area . . .

. . . and Joyce, being the animal lover that she is, baited one in with a bit of her breakfast.
Soon, a student also began to draw a little piggy in, but more than one of the little porkers got interested in the process.

As one particular piggy got really nice and close . . .
. . . the student leaped forward, grabbing the little guy by his forelegs. Very swiftly, a fellow student (out of the frame of the photo below) grabbed the piggy by his hind legs . . .

. . . and the two of them ran off toward the end of the beach. A staff person, insightfully understanding that these two young men had more in mind than a prank (can you say, "Barbecue?") convinced them that they should be godly young men and show the little porker mercy and grace.

So "Porky" was released to the jungle to await another day and another hunter. (And rather than bbq pork for lunch, we had burgers and hot dogs!)
Thanks to all of you who prayed for this weekend. Yes, the retreat was fun! Yes, it was a good time of reflection and drawing close to God! And yes, our students are merciful . . . to "this little piggy" who lived to see another day!
Tune in next week for beautiful photos and a photo-journal of our Spiritual Emphasis Retreat! :-)

Never a Boring Place to be!

2008-11-09T21:58:00.001-08:00

We are so blessed, so very blessed to get to do what we are doing! Sometimes it seems we are terribly busy, but you know what? We are never bored! And there is always something going on here at PIBC, Guam! This past week or so is a good example. Take a cruise through the following photos and captions for a tour of major events of the past 12 days!

Tim and I have been a part of an "Alpha Course" along with two local churches: the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Guam and Faith Presbyterian Church. Our PIBC evangelism class has also been a part of this course that provides good, practical ways of sharing your faith, as well as solid apologetics information. We had our mini-retreat just weekend before last, a blessing to all in attendance.
Our students are frequently involved in ministry in the community. Here some students are boarding the van to help with an "alternative to Halloween" event called "Blessed House" at the local Palauan Evangelical Church of Guam.

The same day, Mary Lou's crates arrived on campus! Three of them - all about this size! (BIG!)

Fortunately, there were plenty of students left on campus after the van left for the Palauan Church event to help Tim disassemble the crates and unpack them. Joyce and I were the "inside crew," and we had Mary Lou's stuff uncrated and neatly organized in a storeroom and all of the wood cleaned up and stored in less than 2 hours!

The following Saturday, we gathered to celebrate the wedding of fomer faculty volunteer Cristel Churchill and fellow church member, Ben Bodecker. (Evidently the mission field is great for match-making!) They were married in October in the States, but we had a 're-run' of the wedding and a lovely potluck dinner reception for them. What a joy!And the wedding 're-run' was well represented by PIBC faculty and staff! :-) Recognize anyone?

Another momentous occasion was the 'adoption' of PIBC's little red typhoon-surviving boonie car by Mary Lou! She was so happy to adopt it, spending a few bucks getting the air con resurrected, and saving quite a bit on the purchase price. She now has "wheels" and is in the process of getting oriented to the island.

On campus, we also stay very busy. I am really proud of my Sociolinguistics class! We just finished all of the background study/lecture in the field and also a brief look at statistics and interpretation of data. Here are some of them hard at work on a 'practice' project doing statistical analysis. This week they begin conducting their own field research and compiling data for their semester projects. They have been a great group to teach and to learn from!

Tim and his two guys, Mo and Kenny, have been working on various projects all over campus - and meanwhile, the workshop had gotten a bit "over the top" with accumulated tools and materials. Besides all that, the shop (basically two 40' shipping 'containers' connected by a roof under which they work) had gotten pretty dusty from the owner of the neighboring property ordering a clearing of the jungle next door to sell half of the parcel . . . so Tim and Mo (above) and Kenny (not pictured) cleaned up!

Yeah - here it is! See all of that clear, open space on the other side of the fence? And see the backhoe, busily piling up boulders? Well, up until a bit ago, that was all blocked from view by the jungle, and there were vines covering the fence. Now we look through all the way to the back road. Somehow we've lost a bit of our "jungle feel" here! Sad day!

Just a couple of nights ago, we had our "second annual dinner, cookie bake, and game night at our house. We had hoped to do more of this last spring, but I (Melody) was gone a lot to Chuuk, and temporarily busier than I wanted to be! We had a GREAT time with some of the girls from our small fellowship group from here at PIBC, and thanks to some of you who have recently joined our support team, we will be able to do more of this sort of thing this year!

We all had a great time relaxing, eating some great "old dead chicken" that Tim bbq'd, and after dinner, we baked up a mess of cookies and played "Apples to Apples" for a couple hours. Mary Lou and I had a great time with the girls - we all got to laugh so much! (And Tim didn't mind us spoiling him with fresh-baked cookies either!)

Interspersed in the fun and laughter were some great opportunities to share godly principles with the girls and on the way back to the campus, we enjoyed listening to some great music. God is good to give us fun, fellowship, and family wherever we go . . . because wherever we go, not only is He there, but His people, our brothers and sisters are there. And we are family to each other!

Blessings to all of you dear ones on the "other side of the world." We are blessed to count you as family as well. We are thankful for your blog comments, emails, notes, prayers, and support; and the many pictures of you that come up on the "slide show" on our computer are a great reminder to pray for you. God keep you well and joyful in your service to Him.
Love, Melody and Tim

You say "good-bye" and I say "hello"

2008-11-02T15:30:00.000-08:00

Guam is a place of "goodbyes" and "hellos." The past week or so, we've had our share . . . as usual!

Our beloved, long time secretary and assistant dean of women, Ethel, returned to the Philippines to join her siblings following the death of their mother. Many of our students were on hand to help load her suitcases into the van and see her off at the airport.

Once at the airport, Ethel checked in and then a large crowd of us gathered to sing and pray together and get in one last hug. It was an amazing group that gathered there, and it reminded me distinctly of what heaven will be like. There we were, Chuukese, Pohnepeian, Americans, Koreans, Yapese, Fillipinos, and Palauans, all gathered together, singing and praying as one for our sister.

After this time, one of our ladies put a lei around Ethel's neck and crowned her head gently with two maramar. Then we all accompanied Ethel up to the security gate to say good-bye. Sadly, she is at the point where her visa requires renewing, so she is unsure of when, if ever, she will be able to return. Pray that God would bless her and show her the work He has for her in her homeland, and if it is His will, that she would be able to return to Guam in His time. Ethel, if you are reading this, we love you, we miss you and we pray for you faithfully! God bless and keep you in His care!

Well, we said "good-bye" to Ethel on Wednesday night, October the 22nd. Then, on Thursday night, October 23rd, we were saying "hello" to Mary Lou. She has come to PIBC, Guam from our home-church in California to be our I.T. specialist! Mary Lou is fitting in so well here already! After arriving at 5:45 p.m., she and Tim and I piled into our car, heavily weighed down with her traveling gear, and headed for worship team practice at church! She sang with us Sunday, and is staying busy through the week here at PIBC helping to mend some sick computers one of our teaching facilities (Chuuk) sent up, and getting ready to move our computer lab. It's great to have her here! (L to R: Me, Joyce, Mary Lou, Sharon, Tim)

Incidentally, we have a new "gadget" at our house - it's our Christmas gift to each other! We got a little counter-top ice cream maker that doesn't require ice or salt and it makes just about 1 1/2 pints of ice cream in 20 minutes of freezing time. To celebrate Mary Lou's arrival, we made a fresh batch of chocolate chip ice cream her first weekend here. (Ice cream here is very expensive and often has thawed and frozen several times before you buy it and take it home. I can make a batch for less than half the cost of store bought and it's much tastier and healthier!)

One other unusual "hello" we had recently was a "hello" from Liebenzell USA headquarters in Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey, where fellow Liebenzell missionary Steve Stinnette, and his wife, Anne, have been staying while Steve has gotten some help for a vision problem. Steve visited us via "skype" in a Friday chapel, opening our time in prayer, joining us with singing songs, and listened while one of our seniors presented the chapel message. Steve and Anne will say "hello" in person some time this coming January and we can hardly wait to have them back!

Well, I suppose I had better say "good-bye" myself at this time. I hope you have enjoyed viewing some small bits of a week in the life of PIBC staff members! Next time I'll have a bit of an update on the arrival of Mary Lou's crates (they're here, but my photos are still on my camera) and a little bit of the "body life" here among staff and students.

(Farewell from us, aboard a visiting Venezuelan ship - photo taken in late August when some of us went to the Navy Base to tour the ship!)

"Our citizenship, however, is in heaven, and it is from there that we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus, the Messiah." Phil. 3:20

Fall is Falling and so is the Rain

2008-10-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been exceptionally busy! The first weeks of classes are always hectic, but for some reason this year, they were relatively peaceful! Tim has been kept busy getting office space set up for a few here on staff as well as getting vehicles safety inspected and registered for the year as well as developing a campus vehicle use policy. (Yes, it's as boring as it sounds, but necessary!) Here you see him and one of his "right hand" guys, Mo, working on finishing up the installation of a smoke detector in the office's hallway.

I have gotten settled into a good routine with teaching. I have my usual large crew (22) in English writing, and a great smaller group in sociolinguistics. I have really hard-working and thinking students from three island groups which leads to very well-developed discussions. Sociolinguistics is the study of how language and culture are intertwined and I am learning as much from the students about their cultures as they are learning about each others' cultures and other groups throughout the world!

However, our year's start was missing one very important person: our dean of women! Melissa could not return to campus until partway through September, and we were all so happy to see her return! The day before she came, one of our office staff made sure many students and staffers blew up balloons and wrote her some welcoming messages.

The next part of the story is the best: A bunch of us (some students included) got up and went to greet Melissa at the airport at 2:00 on a Wednesday morning . . . yes, that is 2:00 a.m.! Here we are at the right - Melissa is the one with dark hair and a light shirt standing in the center of a very happy group!

Shortly after this, we had a baby shower to celebrate the addition of a beautiful young one-year-old, Jirehlynn, to Pastor Hiob and Leah's family (staff members here at PIBC). Jirehlynn loved the cake and all of her pretty new gifts and Leah was most appreciative of the celebration. It was a great opportunity for us ladies on staff and a few students as well to get together and laugh and celebrate a wonderful occasion!

Another huge blessed gathering this past weekend was one of our twice-monthly PIBC prayer meetings. One of those two meetings is always a shared meal - but this month we had another reason to add to the celebration: Bill Wood, PIBC's former president (semi-retired) turned 70. His wife, Christel, insisted on having us all come have the PIBC prayer meeting at their house and she provided dinner and dessert for us all. As you can see, there was a huge crowd! Over 40 of us crammed into the Wood's home after dinner (some ate inside and some outside) for an evening of song and then prayer for PIBC. We are thankful for Bill and Christel and their commitment, even in retirement, to continuing to teach at PIBC!

Tim and I have also been involved in PIBC's Evangelism class, operating in conjunction with the "Alpha" course, a ten week class on different aspects of the Christian faith. Our students are learning how to use practical discussion and relationship-building to share their faith in Jesus Christ and how to explain complex biblical doctrine in simple ways. Each week we meet with several other people in the community at a church about 4 miles from PIBC; we start with a shared meal, followed by a 45 minute video presentation. From there, the crowd of about 80 people breaks up into its designated discussion groups and discusses the topic for the evening for about another 45 minutes to an hour, followed by prayer in our small groups. Pray for our students to learn much from this course that they can put to use.

Each week a different small group prepares the meal for the others . . . yes, that means we feed about 80! But it's so fun and well worth it!

I started prepping on the weekend by baking 150 cookies; then I made a huge pan of spaghetti sauce on Monday, and 14 pounds of cole slaw and two large pans of bar cookes on Tuesday evening. Wednesday after work, I headed over to Faith Church to cook 2 big pots of noodles . . . and the other folks in our group were equally industrious!!!

We had a great time getting the food ready and put out for the group! Here is our group in the kitchen at the end of the evening.

Another oportunity we had recently for fun, food, and fellowship was having fellow missionaries Karyn and Eric Sorenson and kids over for a barbecue and some home-made ice cream. We also invited Austin Evers, a new missionary here from the Southern Baptist denomination, working at developing a Christian "campus fellowship" group at the University of Guam. He has been involving some of our PIBC students in this as well. Austin also frequently attends chapel at PIBC and happens to be our group leader at Alpha (the evangelism course). Here you see him helping Tim with gathering up the barbecued meat for dinner. Pray for Austin to adjust well to this new cultural environment and that God would bless him as he ministers here.

Life on the mission field still has its "homeowner" moments. Since we do not have a carport or garage here, we find we must work hard to make the most of any and all available space. Fortunately, we have high ceilings in our home, so Tim has been working on installing shelving in our laundry room for extra storage. You can't see Tim very well in this photo, but you get a great view of the "wrap around" shelves he has put on three of the four walls up high in the laundry room. He put another shelf on the wall to the left at about eye-level (mine, not his!) for more storage. I can hardly wait till they're painted and I can put things away on them!

While Tim was working on this project, I put a primer coat of Kilz on the bathroom walls and ceilings in both bathrooms and then rolled a coat of light blue semi-gloss on the walls. I am almost done! I only have a little "edging" to brush on! Mary Lou Carruthers, our friend from our home church (Gold Country Baptist) will be arriving in a little over a week - she'll have a nice, clean, freshly painted bathroom to enjoy! Mary Lou was here this past February and March, and God has called her to come and serve here part time at PIBC doing our IT support work. She'll be a great addition to the staff! Pray that God would raise up a strong financial and prayer support team for her, meeting all her needs, and that she would have safe travel and a good transition to life here on Guam.

Well, here we are, all cleaned up! Actually, this is our new church directory photo taken outside the church just a week ago. As fall has fallen here (and in spite of the sunny photo here from 10/5), the rainy season has picked up the pace and has turned more toward monsoon season. We pray that God blesses you and keeps you all with your eyes, minds, and lives focused on what He would approve of: that which is good, and right, and noble, and pure, and lovely . . . and if you want more, see Philippians 4:8 - but also it is our prayer that our students here could see Jesus at work in us so that we can honestly ask them what Paul asks of the Philippians in the next verse: "The things that you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." Pray for us, that our students could see Jesus' love at work in us as we serve Him by serving them. God bless and keep you in His all-sufficient care. Melody and Tim

PIBC vs ELCG

2008-09-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

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

First weeks at PIBC this fall

2008-09-15T15:39:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in our last blog entry, it is always such a joy to see the campus come alive again as students return in the fall. One returning student is Joel, from Palau. He was in my freshman English writing class when I first taught here in fall of '04, and here he is now, returning for his last year of study. Joel was part of our Thailand mission team this past summer and he was overflowing with good reports from that trip.

Indeed, the entire Thai team was energized from seeing God at work on this trip. They gave reports on their personal "insider" views of the trip, sang a couple of songs, and then showed a slide-and-video presentation in chapel last week. One student, Sonny, recently received word that a young man he had shared Christ with who had not made a decision while the team was in Thailand, has recently made that commitment and is involved in a Bible study to help him grow in his walk with the Lord. We were so happy to get such a good report. Pray for our students as they prayerfully seek God's will for future trips and possible life ministries on the mission field.

As part of the ministry here at PIBC, all staff members and several local folks gather two Sundays a month to pray for the students and staff at PIBC. Here you see us gathered at the parsonage for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Guam, a local church that has very actively partnered with PIBC and has supported the work here in a wide variety of ways. These prayer meetings are wonderful opportunities for fellowship and worship as we gather together, sing to the Lord, share God's answers to our prayers, and share the current needs and concerns of the college with each other, and then pray together.

Another area where Tim and I are ministering this fall is in being involved in a program called the Alpha course. Alpha is an outreach program that presents the gospel to those who accept the invitation to come and discuss spiritual matters and learn more about Christ and the Word of God. Several of our students are involved as a part of their PIBC evangelism course. Alpha meets once a week for 10 weeks, studying the history of man's inability to save himself, the Biblical claims of Christ as our only means of hope to reconnect with God and be forgiven of our sins, and begins new believers on a road to becoming disciples. Our PIBC "community group" is comprised of these evangelism class students as well. Check back for updates next week on our first meeting and an explanation of what a "community group" is!

Another blessing we've had in being back is returning to worship with a local body of believers we grew close to back in '04 and again in our first year of ministry at PIBC. Here you see our pastor, Jeff Johnson, leading the pre-Sunday school singing time with some of the church kids; behind Jeff is Brad Boydston, a fellow teacher at PIBC, and in the foreground, Dave Owen, who will be teaching adult Sunday school for four weeks.

Here you see some of the participants to the singing time. We love this time of music between the early service and Sunday school. Pastor Jeff is great at choosing songs that both the young and young at heart can enjoy together - many are songs that are the type we use in VBS or other kids programs - and all the congregation enjoys singing them together. After singing, the kids head off for their various classes with theier teachers, and the adults gather in 2 areas for their classes.

As mentioned above, Dave Owen is one of our adult Sunday school teachers for the next four weeks at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Guam. Dave is teaching a class on cults, and he started the series off by giving us the opportunity to determine just what a "cult" is. We found out that the definition is not an easy one to simply "nail down," since different false teachings have different ways in which their teachings are not biblically sound. It is always a blessing to have Dave as a teacher; he is clear in his teaching, intersting and engaging (the class flies by!), and we see why our students love to take his classes!

Blessings to you all! Please remember to pray for the staff and students at PIBC this fall!
Melody and Tim

Back in the Saddle Again!

2008-09-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

"Meanwhile, back on Guam, a hard-working, committed group of men and women braved the accumulated summer-dirt and clutter in the dorms to prepare a clean environment for students returning to PIBC." Yep - We came back and hit the ground running! Left to right, Joyce, Tim, Mo, Kenny, and Ethel worked non-stop for three weeks cleaning, repairing, and setting up the dorms in anticipation of the students' return to campus. What a great crew!

. . . and while they were all laboring in the dorms, I (Melody) spent two weeks with a small group of students "new-to-the-Guam-campus." We met in the computer lab 4 days a week, 4 hours a day - and those of you who teach know that there was at least the equivalent amount of time spent daily about 5 days a week on prep and grading! It was a hectic 2 weeks, but fun, and I think it was really beneficial for the "new" students to get oriented to campus before the others arrived. By the time we had registration Monday, September 1, they felt quite at home!

The weekend before the "great influx" of students began, many of us came to campus on a Saturday at 7:00 a.m. for a morning of taming the jungle! We raked, and pruned, and mowed, and weeded all morning long in the heat and the humidity! What a great crew! You will notice evidence of our hard work at the far left - we not only cleaned up the campus, but cleaned out the donut box in the process. And thanks to the local Palauan church who came by when we finished about 1:00 pm and graciously offered to take all of the piles of prunings and trimmings, load them in the truck, and put them off in the jungle on the other side of the fence. (That's the accepted way of disposing of yard trimmings here - you'd be surprised at how quickly they decompose!)

The following Monday we had a "time-out" at Tarague beach on Anderson AFB. It was enjoyable to have such a lovely place to meet and brainstorm on the upcoming year. We took time to reflect on the past year, what went well, what our "Christian community" at PIBC was like and how it should change and grow to more adequately reflect what God wants it to be. The time was well spent - we prayed together for each other and for all of the students, and we prayed that God would grow us into the community He wants us to be.

And then, before we knew it, the campus was coming alive with laughter and greetings as our students returned! What a joy it was to see old, familiar faces of students returning to school and to meet the new students God has added to our student body! We spent Saturday, August 30 having campus "orientation," which included gathering for fellowship and meeting each other.

Sunday evening we all gathered on campus for more fellowship, food, and games. Here you see a sample of our feast: bbq chicken at the top left, and going around clockwise: green papaya salad; cucumber, carrot, and lettuce salad; "potato" salad made from breadfruit, and steamed rice with finideni sauce (soy sauce mixed with vinegar, hot peppers, and green onions). Yum!

At this time, we also had a visitor from Okalahoma, via his home country of Taiwan: Michael. We enjoyed meeting him Sunday night and getting to know him a little better. Michael lives in Oklahoma working with a church there, but is praying about the possibility of missions work. He visited PIBC with this in mind. Pray that God would guide him and bless him, his wife, and young son as they seek His will.

With the campus so crowded and noisy, we were very thankful that we had representatives from the local police department there to help keep the peace! Here you see our little "Officers," Joel, Micah, and little Jireh-lynn who patrolled the grounds all evening and made sure we all stayed within the limits of the law! Thanks, kids! I hope we weren't too much trouble!

As the evening went on, the students, who had been divided into four "Olympic theme" teams, provided us with entertainment. We saw skits and heard several good songs - and a few very funny ones too. One team even provided us with a "fashion show" using members of their team to show us how very "stylish" they were. (In a humorous way!)

A panel of four "judges" evaluated the presentations (along the lines of the reality-show competitions like "American Idol") - you may recognize one of those judges! At the end of the evening the scores were so close that we had to give all four teams "two thumbs up" and give our MCs, Hollie and Ned, the title of "winning team!" They worked so hard to make the evening a hit - and I think we'd all agree that it was truly a great evening!

And yes, we were all back on campus by 8:00 a.m. Monday to register our students and get the semester started! Thanks for checking in! Keep us all in your prayers as we labor together for the glory of God and the building up of His people and His kingdom. (And drop us a note if you have any suggestions for our blog, or things you would like to see more of.) Blessings! Melody and Tim
(Serving at PIBC, Guam as Liebenzell Missionaries)