Mini update

In the Picture
During the student-led chapel yesterday several of the students sang Christmas songs in their own languages. In the picture (click on the pic to enlarge) one of our Yapese students sang in her language. I'm told that this is significant in that the people of Yap apparently don't sing a lot. They are great dancers and they chant.

PIBC Challenges
Our PIBC president, and good friend, Dave Owen has summarized some of the challenges that the school is facing these days.

While in the States last month Dave met with the leadership of several of the Liebenzell mission leaders from the US and Germany and they are positively disposed to the expansion of the PIBC program. We are seeing the critical need to add a stronger liberal arts component to the school. We now realize that providing a Bible college education alone does not go far enough in helping students deal with their cultures and with the tsunami of global culture that is headed this way. They need to understand the context in which we apply the Bible as well as the Bible itself. The next step is to have the PIBC Board (which has a strong Liebenzell presence) grapple with the expansion concept and to begin to flesh it out.

Micronesian Culture 101
One of our students, Happiness Lodge, has a series of posts on Micronesian culture -- specifically Chuukese culture -- on his blog. It's a really fine introduction to the local challenges and issues -- an insider's perspective.

Covenant World Mission
Dave Husby, the Asia region coordinator of Covenant World Mission flew back to Tokyo early this morning. He's been here on Guam hanging out with us for four days. We really appreciate the care and support that the Covenant continues to provide for their missionaries. The other Covenant couple working with us at PIBC are Eric and Karyn Sorenson.

Visa Issues
Jens and Karin Schulz, are returning to Germany tomorrow so that they can apply for a new visa. It's been a bit of a pain working with the US immigration system to get their status straightened out. They are missionaries with Liebenzell Germany.

Jens is PIBC's CFO and the Guam campus director. Karin is our registrar and she oversees bookkeeping in several areas. Her departure, which will hopefully be for less than a month (no guarantee when working with the immigration system), will temporarily add a few responsibilities to Cheryl's plate.