Hafa Adai #6

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HAFA ADAI
from Brad and Cheryl Boydston
serving the church in the Western Pacific
and along the Asian Rim

"In His teaching the islands
will put their hope." Isaiah 42:4

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Thursday, 07 September 2006


Greetings from Guam "where America's day begins." And let me tell you it's going to be another hot and humid one. No complaints, though. We're adjusting well and enjoying the people and island life.

Since our last update:

• School has started. There are about 90 students on the Guam campus and about another 60 or 70 at the Pacific Island Bible College sites on Chuuk and Palau. The Guam campus is bursting at the seams. And they are bringing in some heavy duty portable buildings to help with student housing. Six years ago when this campus opened there were five students. Now we've gone from being a tiny college to a small college.

Almost all of our students are from Micronesian islands -- about 80% from Chuuk.

• We've met more students than we can possibly remember the names of. It doesn't help that talking softly seems to be a sign of respect in Micronesian cultures. Sometimes you give up asking names after they tell you five times and it's still not loud enough to hear them or catch the subtleties in the pronunciation. But that will come with time.

• Brad is into his second week of teaching. He has 24 students in his spiritual formation class and 28 in preaching (way too big -- but what can you do?). In addition he is helping with the development of the distance education program.

• This morning Brad posted one of the preaching
class hand-outs online. It's geared toward
college students from a mixture of cultures
trying to prepare their first sermon. If you want
to see what they're up to, visit:
bradboydston.com/pdf/Simple%20Sermon.pdf

• Cheryl has settled into two jobs. As part of
her ministry assignment, she is the business
manager for the PIBC central office. That's a
position that mostly involves the management of
the student financial aid money, and will require
approximately 15 hours per week. She is also the
15-hour per week secretary at a nearby Methodist
Church. The income from the church job (along
with some Internet design projects that Brad has
contracted to do and the expected proceeds from
the sale of our house in California) will help us
self-fund 30% of this mission project.

• Financial aid is key to the function of PIBC.
Almost every student is eligible for a Pell
grant. The fact that PIBC is mostly staffed by
missionaries (from the US, Germany, and the
Netherlands) keeps operating costs down so that
tuition and housing are within reach of these students.

• Cheryl has been training to be a mentor in the
student-led discipleship program.

• Brad has had a couple of good conversations
with students who are dealing with some grief
issues. The very fact that they are away from
home and in a foreign place really brings some of these things to the surface.

Please keep our students in your prayers. Many of
them are not only away from family for the first
time but for them Guam is a very foreign place
with lots of people from exotic places such as
America, Europe, Japan, China, Korea, Philippines
-- and of course, people from the other Islands
with their distinct cultures and languages.

• We have cell phones. The numbers are within the
US system so dial as you would a US or Canadian
number. Brad -- 671-988-4252. Cheryl --
671-988-4243. If you call, remember though, that
we are GMT +10 here. That means if it is 8 a.m.,
Thursday morning in California it is 1 a.m., Friday morning on Guam.

We're hoping to get by without a landline. But
we'll see it that works. One of the problems with
cell phones here is that the houses are all made
of concrete with lots of rebar to hold it all
together during super typhoons. It requires a
really strong cell signal to get through all of that.

• Our cargo container arrived two days ago. We've
unloaded about 2/3 of it into some storage areas
on campus. Joe Bonander, Anthony Salafia, Chris Lascano, and
Kurt Palmberg are our favorite people these days.
They helped Brad load the container in Turlock
and they did such a great job that so far there
is absolutely no indication of damage.

• Our house in Turlock is still on the market.
Few serious lookers and no offers yet. But that
hasn't stopped us from looking around on the
island. We can't really do anything here, though,
until the money is freed up there. For the first
couple of weeks we stayed with Dave and Joyce
Owen and now we are house-sitting elsewhere for
most of September. We're not sure where we'll be
next. We suspect that this might be a test of our
ability to live with long term chaos. :-)

Please keep the whole housing issue in your prayers.

• Support (gifts and commitments) is now at 97%
of our minimum budget. We suspect, though, with a
month here under our belts, that the actual cost
of living is going to be higher than the
estimated budget. We know, too, that it is going
to be really important to pick up some supporting
churches that will have a vision for including us
and our work in this out of the way place in their regular missions budgets.

When we tell people that we started raising money
in March of 2006 they are amazed at how much has
come together is such a short time. The Lord has
blessed us with a lot of very responsive friends
and family. Thank you very much!

Please pray for God's continued provision.

• With the help of Dale and Amy Phillips we were
able to sell one of our Dodge Caravans in
Turlock. (That helped cover some of the costs of
relocation.) Then we gave the other Caravan and
our Escort to a missionary family on home assignment in California this year.

• With the help of a missionary vehicle fund that
the Covenant has, we bought a 1999 Toyota Corolla for use on Guam.

• We now have Guam driver's licenses! It required
a $5 application fee and no test of any sort.
We've observed that stop signs are equivalent to
yield signs on the mainland. If the light has
just turned red it means you still have just
enough time to get through the intersection.

• Our children all seem to be doing well in their
respective places this fall -- Kirk in his new
job at H5 Technologies in San Francisco, Kent
studying abroad this term in Chile, and Betsy at
UC Berkeley. We're hoping to be able to get them
to Guam for Christmas. Please pray for the logistics and finances on that one.

• Brad has been updating our ministry blog on a
regular basis. There are even a few pictures up
there -- Guam.Boydston.us. A couple of the
other staff missionaries are also blogging.
Melissa Heck, the dean of women, posts at:
missionarygirl-guam.blogspot.com. And our
esteemed president, Dr Dave Owen, is posting at:
guamdaveo.blogspot.com.

Both Dave and Melissa have some really good posts
on their blogs -- and yes, more pictures.

• We greatly enjoy hearing from you! It it so
important to us to stay connected with each of
you and we are truly blessed when you take the time to keep us up-to-date.

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SUPPORT INFORMATION

If you would like to support the ministry you can send a check or commitment response to:

PM Support for Boydstons
Department of World Mission
Evangelical Covenant Church
5101 N Francisco Ave
Chicago IL 60625-3676 USA

Checks should be made out to the "Evangelical Covenant Church" with the clear designation "for the support of Brad & Cheryl Boydston." If possible print and include this .pdf form.

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COMMUNICATION

• Call us! Brad -- 671-988-4252. Cheryl -- 671-988-4243.

• Skype us -- BradBoydston or seespleez

• Guam address & phone:
Pacific Islands Bible College
PO Box 22619
GMF, GU 96921-2619
Office phone -- 671-734-1812

• Email us -- Brad@Boydston.us or Cheryl@Boydston.us

• Covenant World Mission -- www.covchurch.org/cov/mission/index.html

• Pacific Islands Bible College -- pibc.edu

• Liebenzell USA -- www.liebenzellusa.org

• Liebenzell International -- www.liebenzell.org

• Our ministry website -- Guam.Boydston.us or HafaAdai.info -- updated at least weekly.

• We've started adding links to other missionary blogs and websites -- bottom right-hand column of our blog -- Guam.Boydston.us

• Cheryl's music -- CaminoMercedMusic.com

• Brad's website/blog -- www.Brad.Boydston.us -- updated almost daily

• Guam Visitor's Bureau -- www.visitguam.org