Graduation at PIU

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.

Some Beauty from our Days of Rest

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.

"Plan B" Works for Me!!

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! :-)